Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

eRDAD RACE WERA Pro Series:Final round ! Kling wins again, Gra escrowned v •• 0\ ~ (Above) Fritz Kling (421) leads Dave Sadowski (25) and Chuck Graves (24) into tum one in the F- USA fi nal. (Left) Kling ended up taking the overall win by virtu e of his 2-1 tally in the two-leg event. Graves, though, turn ed in 3-2 fin ishes to take the F- USA class championship. F-USA title were abou t as likely as w inning the lott ery. By Larry Lawrence Photos by Lawrence and Geo rge Roberts BRASLE1DN, GA, ocr.31 or th e sec ond ye ar in a row, Fritz Kling w on the fina l round of th e WERA Fo rmula Se ri es a t Ro ad Atlanta. In almost a car bon copy of last year, Kling, riding a Barely Human Racing Yamaha YZF/ FZRlOOO hybrid, beat out local favorite David Sadowski for the win. Kling was second to Sadowski in the first leg, then went on to win the second leg to take the overall win . Sadowski's 1-3 finishes on a Mike Velasco-tuned Honda CBR90 0 in th e two-l eg format wa s good en ough for secon d o ve r a ll. Va lvoline Suz u k i ' s Chuck Graves finished th ird o verall F 10 w ith a 3-2 combo, earning h im the WERA F-USA Championship. It was the culm ination o f yea rs of effort fo r Graves, wh o has been trying to w in the serie s since its inception. Coming into the final round, Michael Martin was only nine points do wn to his teammate Graves. With a good pe rformance and a littl e lu ck, somethin g Gra ves hasn't had much of a t this circuit, Martin feIt so mew h a t o ptimi s tic about his chances. Rich Oliver was the only other rid er with a ma the ma tica l chance to win the series, but the possible scenarios that would lead to his second F-USA Martin started his F-USA weekend off very well, th an k you. The Dallas, Texas rider won impressively in the F-USA heat race, winning by nine seconds in only a sixlap race. Pocono F-USA winner Kling was seco nd followed by Fastline/MCM Suzuki rid er Michael Barnes, who won the Moroso round of the series. Things didn't start out well in the final. Dave Deveau crashed his TPM Suz uki (th e former Donald Jacks machine that won F-USA last year) on the firs t lap of leg one, the Suzuki catching fire and the race being stopped. On the res tart, Marti n took the lead heading up the hill out of tum one and h e led th e sc rea m ing pack down th e back straig h t. Suddenly, though, the bike died as he flicked it down towards the famous "gravity cavity". Fortunately, the riders who we re drafting Martin do wn the hill d id a good job of not rear end ing the early leader. "We h ad so me sor t of fue l s up ply probl e m ," Marti n late r ex pla ined. "Every time I wo uld lean the bike over it w ou ld d ie. All I kn ow is that I saw any slim chance of me w inning the title go down the tub es." Martin soldiered on, hoping tha t the probl em would clear up . It never did, an d he fell to 12th place by the end of the race. Two 1993 F-US A w inners dropped ou t in th e next few la ps . Barnes was do ne for the weekend when the Fastline Suzuki lost a motor on the third lap , and things went no better for John Ashmead, who wo n here in May. Ashmead was using a borrowed motor, after his blew up in the heat race, bu t at the halfway mark the transmission started to go, so Ashmead pulled in. Up fro n t, th e race w as a three-way battle between Kli ng, Sad o w sk i and Graves. Tray Batey was a solid four th on the Team Kink o's Yamaha. Lee Shierts led a grou p d icin g for fifth place that included Mike Har th, Jam es Eric White and Oliver. On the final lap, Sad owski mad e his m ove und er th e Goodyear brid ge. "I prayed with my pastor and he told me prior to the race that he saw me as the head, not the tail, which is scriptural," said Sad owski. " I w as th inking tha t I wa s loo kin g a lot like the ta il behind Gra v es a n d Kling and I kn e w it was time to make my move." With divine au tho rity, Sadowski took a leap of faith an d waited mu ch too late to brake for the treacherou s brid ge tum. He to ok th e lea d , but w as s o o u t o f sha pe coming out of th e turn th at he head ed d o w n th e h ill w ith h is bi ke doing tank slap pers. Somehow, he managed to hold on to take the win . Klin g, shaking his head a t Sad owski's m ov e, took the checkered flag in seco nd with Graves a ver y close third . Ba tey was all alone in fourth. Ray Yod er, Shierts, Ha rth, Oliver, Joe Brett Williams and Tom Wilson rounded out the top 10 leg-one finishers. In be tween the firs t and second FUSA r a ce s, Sa dows ki a nd G ra ves crashed togeth er in the Suzu ki Can-Am Challenge. Sadowski hur t his leg, while Graves was knocked unconscious in the accid en t. As soon as Graves came to, his first thoughts were to get to 'the sta rting grid where the second F-USA leg was getting ready to fire up. First he had to get the track doc tor to give him the goahead. " I w as a littl e w o rrie d a t fi rst, " Gra ves said . "I had a hard time rem embering my own ph one number." Graves convin ced the d octors that he was okay, an d he jus t mad e it to his bike in time to go ou t for the warm-u p lap. -Martin's fuel starvation problem was solved, but he would no t con tend for the win. He would say later that he lost all his enthusiasm after the problems in the first leg that cost him at le as t a chance at the title. The second F-USA leg went very much like the first. The trio of Sadowski, Kling and Graves pulled progr essively away from fourth-placed Batey and the rest of the field. This time, thou gh, problems w ere d eveloping on Sadowski's Honda. At first, a steering dampner bolt snapped, causing the bike to go into violent shakes. Sadowski managed to deal with that problem only to lose four th gea r about mid-race. "From the point wh ere the bike lost fourth, it just got harder to ride and I couldn ' t keep pace with Klin g," Sadowski sa id later. On the last two laps, Klin g pulled away to a 2.42-second margin of victory over Graves, who got p ast th e ailing Sadowski machine. Batey was closer to

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