Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

· 'r : : : ' " Round 1: TalladegaG ranPrix Team Suzuki soon opened up a comfortable lead with Martin turning conservative one-minute plus lap times, while Virginia Breeze began to fall further off the pace and lose p ositions to Light Speed, Cycle Motio n an d Arclight. Virginia Breeze got a break when the red flag was brought out after ASA Racing's Ho nda crashe d w hile brak in g for th e "Esses", and wound up too close to the racing line for the competition to safely continue. Though the red flag would allow Virginia Breeze to cure whatever was ailing their machine, it was bad news for Cycle Motion because the restart would be from the original grid positions, evapo(Left) Team Suzuki Endura nce started Its season off with a victory at Talladega. (Below left) Cycle Motion Racing ended up second, six laps behind . (Below) Mike Reed won the 600cc Super Stoc k clas s during sprint race action. By Clair and Tiny Franks TAllADEGA, AL, MAR 26 fter its solid WERA National Endurance season opening w in at the Talladega Gr an Prix, th ere was n o ~~~~l mention of multi-time defending champion Team Suzuki Endurance going to Disney World. Team owner /manager John Ulri ch d id say: "No, I'm not tired of winning." With the retirement of Team Suzuki's enduran ce ace Kurt Hall last year, all the other tearns saw a glimmer of hope for a possible championship in 1994. But Team Suzuki appears to have secured a very capable replacement in Tray Batey, who is no newcomer to road racing. Batey teamed up with Michael Martin makes Team Suzuki Endurance ap pear as formidable as ever. Team Suzuki's major competition last year, Virginia Breeze Racing, was back and runnin g 0\ well w ith pilots Glenn Szarek and Jeff ,....; Atwe ll. Cycle Mot ion Racing had c.-) rejoined the series, after picking up the ,....; sponsorship they needed, stepping up to =;:: challenge the perennial champs aboa rd a ~ Honda CBR900R ridden b y Joe Brett 7 ' Williams and Dave DeVeau. ....... In the e nd , it w as Te am Su z u ki Endurance taking the victory for a n imp ressive beginning to its title defense . G e ct. 28 Cycle Motion ended u p second, w ith Northwest Racing H ond a third. Team Suzuki Endurance completed 261 laps of the 1.1-mile ro ad course to Cycle Motion ' s 2S5 laps in the six-hou r end urance race. Under sunny skies with a light breeze and temperatures in the mid-70s, th e grid w as set. As th e flag flew, Tea m Pearls Suzuki pulled a gian t wheelie off th e line while en ga ged in a three-bike d rag race in to tum one. Team Suzuki inched ahead of Virginia Breeze for the lead with Team Pearls in tow. The second and third waves also poured cleanly through turn on e, w ith Cycle Mo tion charging through traffic from their third wave start. Surprisingly, Light Speed Racing was an early front-runner, having go tten a great s ta r t and push in g their Mid dleweight class leading Ho nda 600 up among the Unlimited machines. Riding the wheels off the machine, Light Speed circulated in third as Team Suzuki started to pull away from the field. From the start, Virginia Bree ze appeared unable to answer Team Suzuki's top-end power down the back straight as Martin began to steadily pull away. Arclight Racing, on a Honda CBR900R, moved into fourth ove rall while Cycle Motion had moved up to fifth from the third wave in less than 15 minutes. rating the team 's charge from the third wave to fourth place. Several teams used the down time to refuel an d make a rider change. Wh en the second g reen fla g fe ll, Vi r gi ni a Breez e appeared healthy ag ain, flying into the lead wi th Team Suzuki in hot pursuit. Team Pearls was running in the third spot w hile Cycle Motion was on the d r iv e aga in, passing severa l machines per lap. Three laps into the restart, Ba tey pushed the potent Team Suzuki entry past Virginia Breeze on the exit of the sweeper tum. Virginia Breeze tried to answer th e cha llenge by latebraking into the "Esses", but lost the line as Team Suzuki pulled to a five-b ikeleng th lead down the front straight. Tallad ega Gr an Prix regular Batey then began putting together a string of sub 59-secon d lap times to further increase Team Suzuki's lead . Virginia Breeze now ran a distant second w ith Arclight Racing third, Light Speed fourth and Cycle Motion again moving into fifth from wa y down in the field. Jus t past the one-hour mark, Light Speed got by Arclight to take over third place, and Cycle Motion also moved up to challenge Arclight for fourth and take the spot. With an hour and a half gone, Batey continued to tum sub-minute lap times, lapping the field up to sixth place, with Virginia Breeze settling into one-minute plus lap s for second. Hour two saw a shuffling of so me spots as Virgin ia Breeze, suffering from mechanical woes, agai n fell off the pace. Cycle Motion ass um ed second pla ce, two laps down, followed by Arclight Racing in third and Light Speed just 19 seconds back. At the next se ries of pi t s to ps, Arclight wa s able to mo ve past Cycle Motion for second with H&H racing cracking the top five in fourth place. Light Speed racing had dropped back to fifth. Team Suzuki, with Martin back in the saddle, continued to circulate in the lead, easily picking through traffic. At the four-hour mark, Cycle Motion regained second place, now four laps down, with A rclight in th ird . Earl y leader Virginia Breeze had fallen off the pace with an electrical problem, but was back on the charge, running 10th overall. Royale Racing had taken over the Middleweight lead after Light Speed ran into trouble and dropped to 17th overall. In hour fi ve the top two spots remained the same, with Team Suzuki now six la ps ahead of second-p lace Cycle Motion. Northwest Honda Racing had moved into third with Red Hot Racing taking the fourth spot. There was yet another change in the Middleweight ranks with TKO Racing and Nicholson's Ann Arbor moving into the first and second spots, re spectively, while Royale Racing had dropped to ninth overall. With les s th an an hour remaining, another red flag flew due to oil on the track. Team Suzuki again grabbed the lead on the restart, bu t Virginia Breeze 13 laps down on the field - stepped back up to challenge for bragging righ ts. The late-race battle charged up the crowd and provided some hot action as the two rivals tried to out-brake each other in every turn. But afte r five laps, Team Suzuki opted to take no chances and allow ed Virginia Breeze to pass. None of that mattered as Team Suzuki rolled to the checkered flag for its first win of the season and 93rd overall victory. Cycle Motion crossed the line second ahead of Northwest Honda Racing. Heavyweight Production winner Red Hot Racing finished fourth overall, and H&H Racing brought its production FZRl000 home in fifth. "We changed the tires (from Dunlop to Michelin) we're riding on this year," Batey said. "Keith (Perry, Team Suzuki's crew chief) wanted to try some different tire compounds. The y all worked well, with the final tire my personal favorite ." SPRINTS The red-flag-m arred Mich elin 600cc Super Stock race was another bambumer, with Kawasaki-mounted Mike Reed out to continue his winning wa ys. At the start, Reed charged in to the lead with Grant Lopez tucked in behind him. Reed and Lopez battled in eve ry comer for three laps until Lopez pushed ahead of Reed. Reed regained the lead on lap four after Darryl Saylor joined in the batlle for the point, but the race was r edflagged du e to a crash. Reed would jump into the lead on the res tart and resume battling with Lop ez until another crash halted the actio n. On the next restart it was Saylor' s tum to challenge Reed for the lead, but Reed was in front when anothe r cras h brou gh t ou t yet ano the r

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