Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

waS still on the brakes when 1 layed it in. As soon as I looked right 1 was looking at tar. The brake lever was bent and alii could do was 29s and 30s (1 minute, 29 second/1 minute, 30 second lap times) instead of the 26s 1was doing." To illustrate just how heavy the rain was falling, the lap times had ballooned some 12-15 seconds per lap from the dry qualifying times. Quarterley's was the final serious Weat to Smith's second place: "It seemed like a day and a half before the halfway flag came out," Smith said later. "1 can't thank the crew enough. They had the bike working well. I was wondering who it was (catching), but I knew it must have been Dale (Quarterley) because he goes good in the rain. Then he crashed right in front of me. We've had some problems we'll make it like a second season and go from here." DuHamel held third early on, before giving way to first Quarterleyand then James. Late in the race he was also passed by his teammate Sohwa. But he would gain two spots with Quarterley's crash and James' oil leak misfortune. "1 got a great start," DuHamel explained later. "But we had a carburetion problem right away. It would bog and then do a jerking deal. It was really bad going up the hill and on to the front straight. 1 was losing a lot of time in those two areas. It was an on-going battle the whole race. And then my left hand grip came off and 1 had to push it back on. But the main problem was the carburetion - it got worse as the race progressed. I think 1 could have run up the hill quicker. But I managed to gain some points on Doug (polen) and those points could be gold at the end - you never know." By the end of the race, Sohwa was perhaps the second quickest rider on the race track. Consequently he disposed of both DuHamel and James to finish third, making the Japanese rider a very happy rider. "It was very, v~ry difficult," 50hwa said in the winner's circle. "It was very slippery." James seemed to have third locked up, but then oil started leaking on his rear tire. This allowed first Sohwa and then DuHamel to race past. "1 could smell the oil," DuHamel said. "1 thought, what the hell is going on? 1 was a little worried at first, but I figured if I hadn't crashed (in James' oil) now, 1guess 1 won't crash. 1just tried to stay inside or outside of him. When 1 passed him 1 pointed in case he didn't know what was going on. 1 figured it might make him more cautious." "It was a good race," James said. '1 got a slow start. I haven't ridden in the rain in ages and I'd never ridden on those tires. They worked good - a big improvement over what they (Dunlop) had at Texas last year (the last AMA National road race run in rain). I got into a pretty good rhythm before the oil got on the tire. Then it was like ice racing a 750cc superbike. It really got bad. and I was just trying to get home safe." Others may have had lonely races, but none were lonelier than Polen's. "The Ducati was pushing the front end in the dry," Polen explained. "50 in the wet 1 had no chance at all. 1nearly fell off several times early in the race so 1 was forced to slow down. 1 rode the bike as hard as I could under the conditions. I'm just happy to make it through this race. I kept a solid points lead in the AMA series and everything is looking good for me for the rest of the season." The race for eighth ended up providing some much needed excitement as the race up front tended to' be somewhat dull. LaCroix MotorspoI;,ts' Andrew Stroud, Burnett/Cruz Racing's Steve Crevier, Yoshimura Suzuki's Thomas Doug Polen (23) finished seventh while Takahiro Sohwa (60) ended up third, his first time in ;r Superbike winner's circle. Stevens, D.L.G.L Software's Jacques Guenette Jr. and Dave Sadowski went at it for a while before attrition set' in. Stevens faded when the Suzuki dropped a couple of cylinders; Crevier dropped out when the electronic shifter on his Ducati shorted out; and Sadowski was forced to take on fuel- something he did on the race track, forcing the AMA to dock him a lap, dropping him from 13th to 15th. . In the end it was Stroud taking the eighth spot from Guenette, with Stevens holding on to round out the top 10. But the weekend belonged to Russell: "This is the best weekend I've had this year," Russell said. "It was hard work out there. I was concentrating hard and I got in a groove. I couldn't put a wheel wrong. 1 kept pushing to the end because sometimes when you slow down you start making mistakes. It was just one of those days." c. Mike Smith had his best finish of the season, ending up second behind Scott Russell. Results S8 QUALIFYING,!. Scott Russell (1:14.806); 2. Jamie James (1:15.295); 3. Doug Polen (1,15.311); 4. Mil

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