Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127602
GROAD RACE WERA G randNationalFinal ! Bte,Rothman andWilso ay nshine at Road Atlanta 0\ Gerald Rothman Jr. (3) left Road Atlanta with the mo st money after winning two races and placi ng well in th e ot h ers. (Below) Steve Patterson usi blitzed the pa ck in the 600cc Suzuki Cup final. w in in th e botched-up B Prod uct ion Novice ra ce wa s no fluk e. Wil son, despite running off the ed ge of the track on th e last lap, made it tw o nation al tit les with h is vict ory over Lee Acree a n d C Produ ction N ov ice w in ner Charles Otis in the A Production Novice Final. Ironi cally, the top th ree finishe rs were on 600s in the A Production class, a class that all ows 75 0cc- an d -o\'er machines. Earlier in th e day, Tommy Hayd en had lost Formula Clubman in a close finish. Hayden was also involved in the second closest race of the day, but this lime he ca me out on top. Hayden and WERA North Cen tral riva l Andrew ยท Perkins battl ed it out up front in the Formula II final. Perkins led the early laps, but Hayd en took over by the halfway flags an d held on to win by just over a second. t h e trend o f un iqu e ro ad r acin g machines. St ev enson, riding a Rot ax, held off Yamaha-moun ted Sean Dw yer by two secon ds in Form u la Clubman No vice. In his fi rs t r a ce o f the w e e ke n d, Canadian Frank Wilson DNF'd due to a loose battery cable, but he ca me back to win the red flag-pla gued B Production Nov ice Fina l. In a controversial deci sion, WERA officials decided to call the race complete after only three laps of racing. Norma lly the race would have had to make it to the halfway point (four lap s) to officially be called a race. But after the race was s top p ed three times due to cras hes, WERA said - no more. H e to o k his tim e doing it, but Atlanta 's Step hen Mathews eventually ma de it up to the front in the Unlimited Tw ins Fmal. "I knew I had motor on everyone out th ere," the Ducati-mounted Mathews said. "I just took it easy in the turns and blitzed everyone on the straights." Mathews won the tw in s race over Ray Hixon by nine seconds. It was the first WERA Cha mpionshi p for Mathews, a nice bir thday present for the rider who'd turned 29 three days earlier. Scott Martin and his Honda smoked the rest of the Unlimited Twins Novice ' field . Martin, of Hurst, Illinois, held a . l 6-second advantage over second placed Nancy Dewar at the finish. Wilson soon proved that his ea rly The vin tage racers took to the tra ck on ce more and it was Ronnie Lundsford on a late-70s Honda CB900R taking the win over Micha el Tiberio's Moto-Guzzi in the fastest of all vin tag e classes, Vintage 5. Todd Henning rode his Yamaha to victory in Vintage 2. Son of WERA Presid en t Ev e lyne Pritz, Brian Lantz shot out to an earl y lead in the B Superbike final. Unfortunately, Lantz couldn't make his mom p ro ud because his Suzuki quit on him. Taking over was fellow Ill in ois rid er Eric Smith. Sm it h, r id in g a Suzuki GSXR750, opened up a seven-second lead over Mark Black by the end of the race. In the fading autumn light, Hoosier racer Richard Breeding won the last race of the da y, D Production Novice. Friday's schedule was dominated by the WERA National Endurance race, but before the start of the endurance a coupl e of sprint races got thi ngs w a rmed up. Tray Bat ey opened th e day with a come-from-behind wi n in the Formula . One final. Da v id McGrath led in the ea rly going on a whe ezin g Suzuki GSXR1100 that's worn out to the poi nt that it only makes 116 horse power. Nevertheless, McGrath was making the most of what he had. Meanwhile, Batey, who started in the se cond wave, was charging through the field. Halfway through the race, Batey moved into sec- rl By Larry Lawrence Photos by Lawrence and George Roberts BRASELTON, GA. OCT 28-31 a tey , Roth m a n and Wilson may sound like a high-dollar New York law firm to some, but to WERA mo torcy cl e ro a d ra cin g fa ns th os e nam es together can mean only one thing - the WERA Grand ational Final. Echoing throu gh the 'north Georgia hills are the sounds of p ast G r a n d Nati on al Finals w he re ri ders b y th e n ame of Schwantz, Kocinski, Polen and Russell m ade th e ir first s te p into the raci ng spotligh t. Once again , the '93 edition of the seas on-en ding classic was one of high drama and high speed , played out on the serpentine 2.52 mil es of bla ck asphalt known sim ply as Road Atlanta. Tray Batey, 33, of Gallatin, Tennessee, has attended a number of GNF s ov er the past few racing seasons. Batey even etched hi s n ame in the WERA record books by winning titles here in 1990 and '91. But the 1993 GNF is on e that Batey will rem ember for the rest of his days. The likable sou th ern gentleman do nned h is race face during the four-day gathering and ended the weekend with three more WERA Championships to add to his already impressive resume. While racing veteran Batey rode high in the saddle in the Expert ranks, a new gunslinger rode into Braselton from north of the border. His competitors called him Wilson, bu t his friends call h im "Full-tilt Frank." Frank Wilson became the w inningest WERA No vice rider since Colin Edwards II. The Canadian rode his old-but-trusty Yamaha FZR600 to four national Novice titles . As far as money is concerned, the one sure place you'll find it at the GNF is in th e Su zu ki National Cup Fina ls . This year the wealth was spread ou t among riders from across the na tion , bu t it was Ne w Engla nder Gerald Rothman Jr . wh o took home the biggest s tockpile. Rothman went ho me $15,000 richer after his stellar performances in the Suzuki finals. As always, the weather at the GNF was unpredictable. This GNF will go down as the second coldest in history. After a nice start on Thursday, a co ld B 12 ra in h it on Friday and Saturd a y. On Sunday a record col d hit the so u th. It even s nowed lightly, so me thi ng that ha sn't happened at th e G N F since the colde st one on reco rd , held at Ind ianapolis Raceway Park in 1980. Michael Tiberio opened the '93 GNF with a win on his Moto-Gu z zi over Todd Henning and Dou glas Ped rick in the combined Vintage 4 and Vintage 2 race. Mic helin Tire rep Walt Schaefer showed h e s till had th e racing fi res b u rnin g by finishing se cond to Brad Morrison in the Vintage 2 class. Riders from the WERA Mid-Atlantic region did very well in the early races on Thursday. Maryland's Charles Otis took a wire-to-wire w in o ve r David Davis and Lee Acree in the C Production Novice final. Then it was Darryl Saylor of Pennsylvania who sailed to an easy eight-second win over Grant Lopez and [eb Brid gem an in the C Superbike Expert final. Thornto n McPheeters' Aprilia 125cc GP b ik e is some thi ng you don't see everyday on the race tracks of America, es p eciall y o ne pain ted in camouflage co lors. McPheeters used th e strangelooking Italian machine to win the Formula Clubman Expert race over Tommy Hayden in the closest race of the day. It was the second year in a row that Hayden was second in this class. Texan Micah Stevenson continued