Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

AMA 250(( Grand Prix Series: Round 9 $17,000 250 GP purse, Filice added five points to his championship lead over third-place finisher , Southwes t Motorsports Chris D'Aluisio, With only the final race to be run at the end of the month at Sears Po int, Fil ic e lea ds D'Aluisio 285 to 271. Filice's fellow northern Ca lifornian Rich O li ver wa s secon d o n th e Pe rf ormance South Ra cin g Ya m a h a . Oliver tried to stick wi th Filice early, but soon fou nd th at a s us p ens ion ad jus tment he 'd made to th e fro n t en d w as wrong and the re was no way he could keep pace. "I re si gned my s elf to running m y ow n race," Oliver said. " It wa s either' a top thr ee finish or eighth ." For the third race in a row Southwest Mot or sport s ' D'Al uis io was third, the Connecticu t rid er hav in g to shake off Mo to Liberty /Nankai's Ta ka hiro Mori befo re se tt li n g in to a mostl y u nch al len ged positi on . Mo ri was fourth amid accusations by D' Al u is io a n d others ab out aggressive rid in g, wi th Extre me ' Lean Motorsports /Zero Gravit y's Nick Ienatsc h fifth . So u thwes t Mo torsports Danny Walker was sixth after ma king a bad choice on setup. Ien a ts ch ho ld s third in th e p o in t sta nd ings, tw o better than Walker and three better than McBride's Cycle Rider Cl ub's Jonathan Cornw e ll. Cornwell failed to score at Mid-Ohio, cra shing on the fifteenth lap while runnin g in fifth place. A red flag in the first comer caused a delay and re-start, but the se co n d try was clean with O liver ju mping to the front, Filice in close pursuit. It wasn ' t long before Filice took h is customary spo t a t the front, Oliver holding onto second while the field sorted itself out beh ind them. By the end of the first lap the top two were set, though the intervals would change. Five laps in Filice had better than two . seconds on Oliver who, in turn, had close to three on Chris D' Alu isio . D' Aluisio had passed Venezuelan Jose Barresi on the second lap, but was in a four -way tussle with Mori, Walker, and Cornwell. By the halfway mark Filice was able to b e g in u s in g tra ffi c and his le a d swe lled to close to five seco n ds . It would expand a li ttle m ore b efore h e backed off at the end. Though it looked like a day at the beach, Filice had a few problems which he discovered early. . "I tried a little stiffer front fork and it was still bo ttoming in a few spots," he said. "I was just careful in those places. I chose a wrong back ti re and it went away too soon. I eased off, I was eas y on accelerating a little past the halfway point. I dropped a second in traffic; but it was easy to get it back. I did a 31.1 on the 13th lap . "At the beginning of the race I wasn't pulling that much distance. I started relaxing, going through the comers better, and I started pulling away," Filice said. Oliver knew he wasn't being pressed, mostly because he felt he was rid ing better tha n he ever had at Mid-Ohio , And he might have gone even bette r if his suspension w as wo rking better. " We ma de some last minute changes," Oliver said . "The rear worked bett er and the front worked worse . We m ad e both en ds softer a n d w ent th e w ron g way on the fro nt. The tires saved me today. I had a bad front end chatter and the tire was barely on the ground, but they stuck," Oliver sai d . "I go t so me high 31s and, lookin g at my qua lifying times, I never even ran 31s." Wi th the top two sprinting in to the distance, third p lace drew everyone 's attention and those in a few of the corners saw a show they'll not soo n forget. Neither will the riders. ROAD RACE e ~ Jimmy Filice romped home the winner in the Mid-Ohio 250cc GP race. It was the likeable Californian's eighth win of the season. On the sixth lap Mori and D'Alu isio ca me together a t th e end of the ba ck s tra ig h t a n d D' Aluisio went s traigh t a llowin g Mori in to th ir d and Walke r in to fourth. D'Alu isio regain ed the position on th e n inth lap and quickly got away from the pack. " It was fun, but he was holding me up," D' Aluisi o said of Mo ri. "I know his reputation, but I was givin g hi m roo m. Somebody's got to tell him he can't ride like that. He came up under me in the carousel. I just got slammed. In tum one he lea ned on me. I got up "and it stood him up. He outbraked me at the end of the straight and we touched and tha t's when I ran off the straight and Danny came back aro und." D' Aluisio would finish about 9.5 seconds beh in d Oliver in third. From the time that D' Aluis io passed him, Mori was ab le to hold on to fourth finishing just over a second and a half behi nd D'Aluisio. For his part, Mori di dn't feel he was being over-aggressive. "Someti me he hit me, sometime I hit h im , " Mori, who learned to race in Japan, where contact is more than incidental, sa id in fractured English.rNo hard h its. Just racing. I think lines are difficult," he said explaining his riding technique. Moto LibertyINankai's Doug Carm ichae l, Mori ' s teammate , explained. "Mori goes in so deep, so hot, then he slides both ends, gathers it up on h is knee and goes to the outside," Carmi chael said. " It ' s a lot different from what a lot of guys do, going wide into the corner, then cutting in: ' One rider, who's followed Mori, sa id he gets it so close to the inside that he 's in dange r of grounding the fairing on the curbsto nes . "If two riders hit and say it is a p roblem, tha t is no good," Mori said. Jona than Cornwell had a good view of the action. "I was watching Mori clear everybody out. I thought he was going to take four guys out," Cornwell said. Sport Rider edi to r len atsch finished fifth , passin g Danny Walker on the fifte enth lap after wa tc hing Cornwell cras h in tum ten. "I got in there an d came down on the fro nt end and it loa ded up ," Cornwell said . "I screwed up on th e setup and tried to override. The fro n t forks were too soft at the bottom of the stroke. The guys wer e doing rea lly well pulling me off the comers . I did what I could on the brakes:' Rich Oliver (97) trailed Filice home in second, Chris D 'Al uisio (2) was third. "I was jus t screaming in my helmet I was hav ing such a good time ," Ienatsch said. "I was barely ca tching them , then catching them in the kin k and the keyhole and closing on the brakes. I followed Walker one lap an d he was braking at the four marker. I w as braking to the three with no problem. I got hi m at the end of the back straightaway. "I went 32.20 in the race and my best in qualifying was 33.70. I have to thank Zero Gravity because they've been getting Steve (Biganski, lenatsch's tuner) to the race track," he added. Walker said he was never comfortable with the bike after missing on the setup. "I knew on the first lap it wasn't right. I went into turn one and I thought, ' O h man! ' It was all me, though," Wa lker said. Barresi finished seventh, well in fron t of th e b a ttle for eighth th a t Red line Racing's Mik e Su llivan w on when h e passed Doug Carmichael tw o laps from the end. Carmichael was bothered by a sore left wrist that began to .bother him wit h eigh t laps to go and w as helpl ess to answer whe n Sullivan out braked him at the end of the backstraight. Southwest Motorsports' third rider, Chris Taylor, was tenth, like many of the ot hers, not happy wi th his front en d setup and settling for maximum po ints in his .first full year of racing. c:N Results 250cc QU ALIFYING: 1.limmy Filice (1:31.588 / 94.355 mph ); 2. Chris O'A luisio (1:32.086); 3. Richard Olive r (1032.646); 4. Talcahito Man (1:32836); 5. Danny Walk. r (1:33.563); 6. Nick le natsch (1:33.777); 7. Jonathan Cornwel l (1,;)3 .866); 8. Jose Barresi (1,;)3 .%2) ; 9 . Chris Taylor (1:34.054); 10. Doug Carmichael (1034.447); 11. Wllliam HimmesIbach (1:35.2ll5); 12. Tray Batey (1:35.297); 13. Mike Himmelsbach (1:35.335); 14. jaso n Paden (1:35.366); 15. john France (1:35.387); 16. Mike Sullivan (1:35.407); 17. Andrew Trevi tt (1:35.457); 18. Greg Esser (1 :35.461 ); -19. Todd Ha rrin gt on (1036.126); 20. Willi am I. Q uinn (1036 .168); 21. Chu ck Sorensen (1036.188); 22. Keith Cod. (1036.2n); 23. Bruce Un

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