Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

fined $1000 and suspended for one race for endangering an officia l." Quarte rley said he would ap peal the decision and he received unanimous support from his peers. Corser's second-place finish fu rthe r increased his lead in the championship; he now leads James by 23 points, 135112, after four rounds. Crevi er holds on to third with 104 points, just five clear of Sohwa's 99. Smith sits in fifth with 91 points, only one ahead of Quarterley and Picotte. Merkel (80), Stevens (70) and Edwards (66) roun d out the top 10 point-getters. Sunny skies and warm temperatures greeted the start of the Superbike National, and it was James and the Yamaha who gated the start perfectly. The bright purple and yellow combination streaked into the first comer with the lead with Stevens and the Yoshimura Suzuki giving chase. They completed the first lap with James leading Stevens, Picotte, Edwards, Sadowski, Merkel, Corser and Sohwa. Picotte wasn't in a patient mood, and he quickly moved past Stevens and started his attack on James. The French Canadian took the lead for the first time in tum 10 at the end of the lap and he led across the line to complete lap two. It didn't take long for Picotte to open up a gap over James, and by the fif t h lap - after clicking off a oneminute, 28.8-second lap - the Ducati pilot had a 3.5-second cushion over second place. By this time, Sadowski had moved in to th ird place with Stevens desperately trying to hold off Corser. N Pascal Picotte gives team owne r Eraldo Ferraccl a ride after winning his first-il ver AMA Superblke National. The Aussie soon moved by the floridian and s tarted to cha llen ge Sadowski for third .ta kin g ov er the spot on the seven th lap . Nothing changed un til the 12th lap. As he headed in to tum four, Stevens' Suzuki blew up, causinghim to crash in the righ t-hander. Edward s and Gray w ho wa s running in 11th place crashed in Stevens' oil, with Hale and Ashmead following suit thr ee laps late r. At that point, the red flag was sh own and the race was stopped. " I ju st hit my head; I' m all right," Edwards said after suffering his second successive oil-induced race crash. " I drifted it out of three... I saw the smoke. There was no leaning it in. I picked it up and went on the grass. I thought I was going to make it, but there' was no wa y. I hit the front brake and tucked i t under." Picotte's lead came in handy' as he was able to slow considerabl y on the following lap , taking to the inside in ord er to miss the spilled oil. "I saw the black line and I went to the right side," Picotte explained. "I had a nine-second lead. I didn't mind was ting two seconds to sa ve m y ass , you know ." Fortunatel y, no one w as se rio usly injured, though all five were obviously eliminated from the race. Du ring the b reak, most opted for new rubber, One-eyed Picotte sn oleposition a9i-p A s if the competition didn't have their hands full enough, Fast By Fer racci Ducati's Pascal Picotte (right) showed that he didn't even need to be able to see out of both eyes to not only qualify on pole position for the Toyota Grand Prix of Laguna Seca, but also to break the superbike lap record. The likeable French Canadian went out and did all of the above on Saturday afternoon - and he did it despite having to close his left eye numerous times around th e 2.214mile race track that lies in the hills east of Monterey. "Before [ went out [ knew something was wrong," Picotte said after clicking off his one-minute, 28.691second lap in the final of two qualifying sessions. "I had something in my eye - a little hair or something. My eye started to cry every time with the air. In every comer I would close my eye . It was all wet, you know." After taking .043-of-a-second off Doug Polen's lap record which was set in April of last year during qualifying, the man who is perhaps the fastest of the superbike men to never have won an AMA National was hoping to change that at Laguna Seea. "So far every time I'm doing good, something happens," Picotte said. "I'm not thinking about the championship - Troy (Corser) can think about that - I have to think about winning races. Three years I've been trying to win. Troy will be hard to pass because he 's rea lly fast, especially at the end of the races - like Polen was. I will try and go hard at the start, but I have to save the We've tried four tires here, but the (Dunlop) 656 is the best for me. It's a medium (compound), but there's still some concern." As far as the Ducati 955 goes, Picotte said it was ready: "So far everything is perfect. Maybe we'll put in a fresh engine for tomorrow - that one is starting to be a little tired." Picotte's teammate Troy Corser would start the race . me. though Dunlop tire teChnician Jim Allen said a shortage of the pre ferred medium 656-co mpou nd tire s forced many in to using the similar 619s - Picotte being one of those wh o would go with the latter. Although Picotte's tires were new , they were scu ffed in. Corser, however, wen t with brand new tires and that would ul timately cost him as his initial laps in the res ta r t w ere slo wer than Picotte's. Jam es also changed tires, again using the medium -comp o und Dunlops. He la ter confes sed tha t he should ha ve gambled with softer rubber. The resta rt was a mirror image of the first attem pt - with the ex ce p tion of Corser, who went into t u rn o ne in fou rth rather than eighth. It was again from the second spot on the grid, the two-time winner and cha mpionship leader just .376-0f-a-second behind Picotte. The Australian said that doing 1:29s would be ea sy in th e race an d th at he wasn't overly concerned about no t being on the pole. "It's only wo rth one po int," he said. After the first session, it appeared that the Vance & Hines Yamaha s were in big trouble. Not so after the final session, however, as Jam ie James put the team 's YZF750 on the front row with his 1:29.225. "I kne w we' d get better," James said . "There were a few things yesterday that I knew wer e costing us time. I ju st didn't want to throw it away. We mad e some changes and got it d ialed in it was a little bit of bo th, the engine and the chassis. We were d own , but as usual ou r gu ys got to the bottom of the prob- lem." Jaines was confident that the race would be run in the 295 - and not at the pace Picotte ran in qualifying: "Nobody's going to want to stick it out that far; the tires will be off a bit. You won't see any thing faster than today." Could the Ducatis be beaten at Laguna Seca? "I'd like to think so - yeah," James said. "We're as close as we 've been." Muzzy Kawasaki's Fred Merkel filled the front row with his 1:29.275coming in the first of the two timed sessions - before the two- time World Champion crashed his 750cc Super'spo rt bike in p ractice, breaking some toes and injuring his ankle. "I couldn't ride it right in the last session," Merkel said. "It feels good today (Sunday). Dr. Kieffer wrapped it real tigh t and I got some sleep. We'll be okay." The secon d row was led by yet another Ducati, this one the DESMO-backed 955 ridden by Dave Sadow ski. The Georgian was the fourth of eight riders to run in the 1:29s, with his best being a 1:29.698. "Things are working," Sadowski said. "We're pushing the service limits on th e bike right no w. It rea lly needs a case replacement. I've just been biding my time to see how long I could stay on the front row . My good friend Jamie James bumped me (off the front row) on his last lap . I think [ can go a second faster in the race - when it's time to go, I'll go. "I need to get on one of those bikes (the newer 955s ridden by Picotte and Corser). [ think we'll end up selling this one and getting another . Th is one is half this James with Picotte second, Sohwa third and Corser fourth. And aga in, Picotte didn 't waste any time in getting by James - this time he did it on the entrance to the famed Corkscrew. "After the red flag , [ saw Troy getting tw o brand new tires," Picotte said later. "The y weren 't scuffed in . I thought I could pull away in th e first two laps so I pushed as hard as I could." Again, Picotte quickly opened up an ad vantage over James and after two laps he led the Yamaha rid er by over a second. Sohwa wa s third w ith Corser fourth and Sadowski fifth . Mike Smith had the Honda RC45 up to sixth ahead of Merkel, Crevier, Magee and Quarterley. At this point, Migu el DuHamel d rop ped out of the race, the fac tory Harley-Da vidson VR1000 coas ting to a years and half ne xt years . They have a few extra pieces that give them a littl e more flexibili ty wi th the setup. Eraldo (Ferracci) wan ts me to get one. We' ll know after this weekend wha t we're going to d o. The 955 is definitely the way to go. "They 're (Picotte and Corser) not that far off. I should be okay. I hav e a di fferen t approach to the race than they do because the y've got spares waiting for them in the pits. I can't afford to wipe out and wreck the bike. The setup is so easy on these. It's just click, click and squeeze, pick a gearing and go. I told Eraldo it had a delay spot at 4500 rpm. He said it was lean. I gave him the chip (fuelinjection chip) and he gav e it back and the d elay was gone. It took 10 minutes." Vance & Hines Yamaha's Colin Edwards [J (1:29.815), Muzz y Kawasak i's Takahiro Sohwa (1:29.922) and Yoshi mu ra Suzuki's Thomas Stevens (1:29.929) filled the second row of the 10-row grid. Stevens had done his quick lap in the first session, before the Suzu ki ran into some problems when the wind picked up ' for the afternoo n session. "We we re really fast in the morning," Stevens said. "Then the wind came up and slowed us down. They're making a lot of changes to try and make it better. A new motor will hopefully make it better in the wind. We just went backwards with the wind." Row three wo ul d consist of Ducati-mounted Scott Gra y, Team Mirage's Dale Qu arterley, Yoshimura Suz uki's Tom Kipp and Smokin' Joe's Ho nda 's Mike Hale . Honda's woes with the new Ho nda RC45 con tinued d uring qualifying as Mike Smith and Kevin Magee could manage nothing be tter th an 14th an d 15th on the grid. Magee's second session was ruined by an electrical problem that the team d idn't cure until the final lap in the warm-up sessio n on Sun d ay morn ing. "It's electrical gremlins," crew chief Ray Plumb said. "Somet hing with the fuel injection. It's really our learning cu rve - it's goin g straigh t up. We've got a little bit of help w ith the sus pension (from the World Superbike team), but we don't run the same stuff as them . I'm not complaining - they're the A team and we 're the B team . The first time we got that bike on th e dyno was last week. The suspension has gotten better and the engine will get better too. It's just a ma tter of time ." To better illustrate the problems the tea m is having with the RC45, superbike first-timer Hale out-qualified his two Smok in' Joe's Racing teammates on the team 's dated, yet well-developed, RC30. Hale qualified 12th, an !mpressive performance in his first superbike outing. . 7

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