Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

~ ROAD RACE WERA Pro Series: Round 1 points. I'll go home and get in good shape for the rest of the season after this ~ race." Joe Brett Williams (4) got the jump on the field in the first F-USA leg; here he leads Rich Oliver (97), John Ashmead (37). Ashmead surprises at Road Atlanta By Larry Lawrence BRASELTON, GA, MAY 16 t's been a long time since John Ashmead has won a National Championship road race - four years to be exact - but with his WERA Formula USA win at Road Atlanta, Ashmead has to be considered the comeback story of the season so far. Ashmead rode his N2 Racing/Peter Brady/Gold's Gym/Fox/Shoei/Kauffs Signs-backed Kawasaki ZX-7 Superbike to a third-place finish in the first F-USA leg, then came back to win the second leg to take the overall win. Chris D'Aluisio and Rich Oliver, both riding Yamaha TZ250 Grand Prix machines, finished second and third, respectively. The big-bore Formula USA musclebikes that normally dominate the only open class iII professional road raciIig were very quiet at Road Atlanta. The almighty (in WERA Pacing) Valvoline Suzuki team left Road Atlanta humbled and hobbling. The team that took the top three places in the F-USA championship last year could only manage 21st and 22nd place finishes in the first race of the season. Valvoline Suzuki's Michael Martin crashed and broke his collarbone in practice. The injuries will cause Martin to miss the Moroso make-up round on May 31 and likely the June 6 Seattle FUSA race as well. Subbing for Martin was Stevie Patterson. Patterson, though, missed out on his big chance to have a breakthrough race. The Detroit rider crashed in the very first race on Sunday (750cc Superstock), injuring a wrist in the process. Patterson giIlgerly rode to a 15th-place finish in the first F-USA leg, then dropped out five laps into the second leg when the pain in his wrist became unbearable. One of the favorites to assume the FUSA crown vacated by Donald Jacks is Patterson's teammate Chuck Graves. Graves has been racing the series since its iIlception and seemingly has the experience needed to win the title. But Road Atlanta has not been good to Graves over the years. This weekend only added fire to the notion that he is jinxed at Road Atlanta. In the F-USA heat race Grave. pulled off the track with a pinched fuel line on his Suzuki. He made track-side repairs and got I 10 back underway only to have the problem again leading to a DNF. Graves would have to start from the back of the field. Dave Sa'dowski was another rider hoping to have a good weekend at his horne track. Sadowski was riding a Suzuki GSXRllOO he'd built himself, and after his stellar performance in the endurance race the day before, Sadowski had to be considered one of the favorites at Atlanta. His F-USA bike was not quite ready for Saturday's heat race so Sadowski rode another bike to qualify. Th.at bike had the throttle cable break and Sadowski would join Graves in the back of the F-USA starling grid. Up and !=oming F-USA rider Torn Wilson had a terrible crash at over 150 mph on the back straightaway. Wilson, riding a Hall 'N Still Yamaha FZR1000, had a rear tire shred causing him to lose control and go straight into the guardrail at the bottom of the "gravity cavity". Wilson later said he felt lucky to be alive after escaping with a broken left arm. Greg Abbott also got caught up in the Wilson crash, hit the Armco and had a compression fracture in his back. Abbott is expected to return to action soon; Wilson will be out for six weeks or more. With all of the rotten luck the F-USA riders were having, the 250cc GP riders who were running in F-USA were having equal amounts of good fortune. Namely D' Aluisio, Oliver, Danny Walker and Takahito Mori. All of those riders qualified well for Formula USA on 2505. D'Aluisio set a new track record in the heat race, turning a one-minute, 24.45-seconds (a lime he would better in the final) on his Southwest Motorsports Yamaha TZ250 en route to winning the heat race. Oliver was just a blink of the eye behind, running a lap of 1:24.56 on his Performance South Yamaha. More than a few riders would lap the freshly repaved 2.52-mile circuit under Scott Russell's old record of 1:25.18. The front row for the first F-USA leg was set. D'Aluisio was on the pole, and next to him was Oliver and on the outside was Ashmead, A large crowd was on hand under beautiful conditions to . watch the first WERA Pro race of the year. At the start of leg one, Joe Brett Williams on his Mike Velasco-tuned Honda shot up the inside from row two and led the pack going into turn one. Suddenly Oliver swept around the outside of Williams, utilizing the higher cornering speed of the 250, and took the lead. Jeff Hagan and Brett Johnston tangled in the first tum. Johnston continued, but F-USA veteran Hagan retired from the race. Oliver said the 250s had gained more of an advantage with the new smooth track surface. "With the new surface a 250 can utilize its cornering speed better," Oliver said. "On the old bumpy surface it was more of a point and shoot track. Oliver was showing the field the hot way around Road Atlanta. Williams, riding the best F-USA race of his career, was using the power of his big-bore Honda to stay with the Californian. A second after Williams came a three-way battle for third between Ashmead, D'Aluisio and Walker. Sadowski was working his way up through the field and was already battling with Graves, Jay Bartlow and Lee Shierts inside the top 10 when his motor let go on the front straightaway. Sadowski pulled off at the end of pit row and pushed his bike back to the paddock. A lap later, Graves dropped out with mechanical problems. Two of the top contenders were out three laps into the race. Oliver was able to open up a 1.5-second gap over the second-place battle between Williams and Ashmead by the halfway point. D'Aluisio and Walker were just another two clicks behind, then there was a big gap back to the biggest battle in the race. Sixth-placed Shierts was holding off a six-bike freight train that included Mori, Bartlow, Kevin Rentzell, Tray Batey, Chuck Sorensen and Chris Taylor. Shierts was jus(out of a cast from his Daytona crash and he suffered a tUmble in Saturday's endurance race. "I was laboring just to finish," Shierts explained. "I just wanted to get some U The halfway flags seemed to trigger something in D' Aluisio. The Connecticut rider promptly overtook Williams, then with a lap to go got by Ashmead to take over second. Even thoiJgh D'Aluisio was the fastest man on the track at the end of the race, he came up 1.7 seconds short on first leg winner Oliver. Ashmead finished just behind D'Aluisio for third with Williams all alone in fourth. Then there was a big gap back to fifth-placed Mori, who just held off Walker. The pack of Shierts, Batey, Sorensen, Bartlow and Taylor all finished within a second of each other in seventh through 11th place. In the second leg it was Oliver again who led early. But this lime the Fresno, California rider' couldn't shake Ashmead, Williams and D'Aluisio. On lap three Ashmead and Williams drafted past Oliver. Once in the lead Ashmead began to ride an inspired race. The 13-year pro racing veteran was pushing his former Scott Russell Muzzy Kawasaki Superbike to the limit, sliding both ends in the turns and running consistent mid-l:24 lap limes. D'Aluisio, as he had in the first leg, caught fire halfway through the race and began a charge towards the front. First he passed Williams, then Oliver, setting the fastest lap of the weekend in the process - a 1:23.87. Once D'Aluisio got to Ashmead his progress stopped. "He (Ashmead) was really'riding well," said D'Aluisio. "He was going just fast enough in the turns to hold me off and there was no way r could catch him on the straights." So that's how the second leg ended. Ashmead, riding his best race in years, captured the win by 1.35 seconds - giving him the overall victory and the points lead heading to his home track at Moroso. Ashmead's off-season training with former pro football player Ray Coons seemed to be paying off as he stayed strong throughout both races. D' Aluisio was a close second with Williams, in his best ever F-USA run, holding off Oliver for third. Further back came Walker, a lonely fifth, then Shierts again holding off Ba tey and Sorensen for sixth. Bartlow and Taylor rounded out the top 10 finishers in leg two. Graves was assessed a stop-and-go penalty for jumping the start of the second leg. After the penalty, Graves fought a slipping clutch to finish 11th. Sadowski's F-USA bike was shot after the first leg. He decided to run a 750cc Superstock bike in the final leg, hoping to at least get a few points. The former Daytona 200 winner could only manage 13th in the second leg, giving him 23rd overall and no points leaving Road Atlanta. Combining the two legs, the finishing order read: Ashmead, D'Aluisio, Oliver, Williams, Walker, Shierts, Batey, Sorensen, Bartlow and Taylor. After a victory lap, Ashmead credited several people for helping him to this victory. "I want to thank Peter Brady for sticking with me through all this," said a jubilant Ashmead. "I also want to thank Mike Harth and his brothers for working on the bikes for me this weekend." Air-Tech Formula II The way Chris D'Aluisio and Rich Oliver were running in practice, most people thought this race would be a two-bike runaway. So people were pleasantly surprised when this race turned into a six rider dog-fight for the lead. D'Aluisio and Oliver were running first and second early in the race. They

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