Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Round-S: Road America Tripp Nobles ~ the finish line to give Team Muzzy KawuskJ the win In the Unlimited Team Challenge race lit Road America. Nobles teamed with Tskahlro Sohws. r the apex and apparently he got off line and went off. I feel really bad for him his bike was really fast; he deserved to be up there." Naturally, Wait's version differed: "Me and Shawn had it in the bag." the Mod esto , California, resident said. "He was trying to outbrake me in corners you don't do tha t in. I had the line and he came do wn in front of me. He hit me and it broke my shift shaft. It was stuck in ne utral. I spo ke to Speedy (Kell, the AMA referee), bu t I don' t think they'll do any thing. They want Shawn to have th e points because the y' re probably afraid tha t Zampach will win the championship again. " Tha t wo u ld have be en m y bes t result. The bike was running good. I figured we had a nice one-two finish. He (Higbee) said he thought we had room ." Fenwick wa s pleased with the outco me : "W e were passing a co u ple of times per lap, " Fenwick sa id . "Ron (McGill) was in over his head and slowing us up . We had a big dog fight and I was in the best seat." For Graef it was his first-ever Twin Sp ort pod ium finish: "I was hanging back to see what was happening in the turns. In the end, it was just enough about a wheel I think." * Road America a new game was introduced during the Harley-Davidson 883 Twi n Sport final: hogs and slammers. The victor in this one was Bartel's Harley-Davidson's Sha wn H igbee as he used his Hog to ou t-s lam the Mitchell's Modesto H- D of Matt Wai t in the first corner on the final lap. The pair came together in the fast turn one, with Wait coming ou t the loser as the gear shift lever was torn off his 883 Sportster, sending him off the track and unable to conti nue with the bike stuck in ne utral. Th at allowed Higbee to run unmolested to the checkered flag for his third win of the series and his third win in a row. Wait, meanwhile, was credited with finishing 17th. But wa it. In Ha rley-Davidson Twin Sport racing it is no longer a question of "Did anyone get disqualified?" It is more of a question of "Who got disqualified?" and "Is that all?" This time it was Wait who got nailed for what is known as "cylinder modifications." The answer to the qu estion, "Is that all?" was again, no. The second man to ge t disqualified was lOth-place finsher Jeff Harding. The New Yorker threw caution to the wind and went ahead an d used a 1200cc engine in the 883cc-spec class - an d to top things off, he was also caught without an alternator. According to the AMA's Merrill Vanderslice, the AMA was tipped off about the two by unusually high speeds on the radar gun. "You might say they were microwaved," Vanderslice said. When all was said and do ne, it was a pair of Wisconsinites finishin g second a nd t hird wi th Bill y Graef a nd his Hansen Motorcycles-backed 883 hold ing off the advances of Hal's H-D's Andy Fenwick as they raced to the flag. Fourth place went to Brian's Harley-Davidson's Ronald McGill, who crossed the line just behind the two locaIs. Those three were also in volved in a little game of hogs and slammers during the seven-lap, 28mile race. Defending class champion and 21- time AMA /CCS Harley-Davidson 883 Twin Sport class winner Scott Zampach did not finish the race after his "backup " 883 ran into "detonation problems" during the final. This came after his "number one" bike hit a simil ar snag during Sunday morning's final practice session. • Zampach's non-finish boosted Higbee's lead in the championsh ip to 23 points as the series reached its halfway point, 169-146, Fenwick moved to within three points of Zampach with 143 points, and Graef jumped up to fourth in the standings wi th 116. It was Fenwick lead ing the wa y from the start, but it was Higbee taking over as they headed up the hill towards turn six. Four riders were locked togethe r at the end of the first lap : Fenwick leading. Zampach, Higbee and Aaron Yates. Then there was a gap back to Graef, with another break to McGill and then Wait. Yates took the lead for the first time in turn five, coming from fourth to first in rather heroic fashion. Yates continued to lead as th ey completed lap two ; it was at this point that Zampach started to drop off the pace. A lap later he would call it a day, coasting to a stop at the end of the pit wall . Wait became a factor at the end of the third lap as he moved up to third, following Yates and H igbee. Those three were clear of the pack behind them, a battle that would go to the finish between Graef, Fenwick and McGill. Wait took the lead for the first time on the fourt h lap at almost th e same time Yates pulled off with a mechanical failure. Now the race would be decided bet w een Wai t and H ig be e and it all ca me d ow n to the final lap - and the turn-one d rama. "It was the white-flag lap:' explained Higbee, who had his hand wrapped due to an injury he suffered in Sa turday's Middleweight Team Challenge. "We went into one and I was on the outside and he (Wait) was on the inside. I had to hold my ground and we went through the corner side by side . We collided at Road America Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin Results : Ju ne 12, 1994 (Round 5 0110) H·D TWIN SPO RTS ANAt. 1. Shawn Higbee; 2. Billy Graef; 3. And y Fenwi ck; ~ . Rona ld M<:Cill; 5. Eric Bostrom; 6. Chuck Blackmon; 7. Brian Kohl; 8. Shawn McNary ; 9. Mkha.1 Golden; 10. Robert Bulflngton; 11. Chris Foske tt; 12. Dick Koehler: 13. John FIsher; I ~ . Jerry Casciero; 15. David Klos tennan; 16. Aaron Yates; 11. Sco tt Za mpac h; 18. Matthew Guid er a: 19. Mich ae l Fribe rg; 20. James Rand olph; 21. Jefl Joh nson; 22. Jim Whitaker. T ime: 19 min.•3.059sec. Distance: 7 laps. 28 miles. Average Sperd: 88.164 mph. M.rgin of Victory: 4.645sec. H·D TWIN SP O RT C' SHIP POINT STANDINGS CAfter5 of 11 rounds) : 1. Shawn Higbee (169/3 wins ); 2. Scott Zampach (146/2 wi ns); 3. Andy Fenwick (143); 4. Bill Graef (129); 5. Shawn McNary (106); 6. Matt Wait (102); 7. Chuck Blackmon (95); B. Ronald McGill (86); 9. Don Greene (78); 10. Brian Kohl (76); II . Jim Whitaker (72); 12. Robert Cunnington (70); 13. Aaron Yates (65); 14. Ben Bostrum (59); 15. Rick H utchins (57). Upcom ing rounds Round 6 • Loudon, New Hampshire. June 19 Round 7 - Lexington, Ohio, July 17 AMAlCCS EBC Brakes Unlimned Team Challenge Nobles, Sohwa power isn't everything By Dean Adams ELKHART LAKE, WI, JUNE 12 K evin Erion and his Erion Racing crew brought the one ingredient they thou ght was n ee d ed fo r victory at Elkhart Lake's Road America: power. Erion's CBR900RR was definitely the fastes t motorcycle at Road America, but it was a fully sorted and superior-handling Muzzy Kawasaki ZX9 that beat the class champion Honda - putting an end to the assumption that power u ltimately rules in Wisconsin. In the end, Tripp Nobles and Tiger Sohwa won the Unlimited Challenge race, with forme r champion Fastline/MCM Suzuki domi nating th e pod iu m, ta ki ng bo th seco nd and third placings. Kawasaki's m arg in of victory was 4.308 seconds, an d th eir win vaulted th em to a tw opoint lead in the championship points sta ndings over Fastline/MCM. "It's good to be back; it feels really good," Nobles said afterwards. "I'd like to thank Rob Muzzy and my crew for all the support they've given me. We did real well at Daytona, but then we ran into some problems with the bike, just small little probl ems that bugged us for two races, but now we're back." Nobles an d his Japanese teammate Sohwa averaged 100.205 mph. The Fastline machin e of To m my Lynch and Jacques Guenette Jr. was a click behind at 100.085 mph. As mentioned, Erion Racing had big power at Road America. Several radar guns ca ug ht the sv elte Ho nda at over 170 mph while cr es ti ng th e hill that leads to the front straight; once as high ' as 177 mph at another section. For comparison, the factory s u perbikes were caught at 168 mph at the sa me area. After the Unlimited Team Challenge at Laguna Seca , Erion Racing fabricator Danny Kyle le n g t he n ed the 900's swingarm in hopes of keeping the front end plan ted , but the big Honda would still loft the fron t wheel at will, even at triple digi t speeds! Lynch started off for the Fastline/ MCM team, Sohwa for the Muzzy Kawasaki tea m, and Barnes for the Erion Honda duo. Before the race, most of the competitors thought that just staying with the big Honda would be a difficult proposition as many of the Suzuki and Yamaha teams cou ld draft the Erion racing machine, but passing wo uld be difficult - if not impossible. Although three brands of mo torcycles dominated the front row, the entire second row of the grid was filled by Yamaha FZR1000/750 machines .After being held up by the sta rter for a few m om en ts longer than normal, Michael Barnes blew the start, the bike almost dying on t he li ne w hen the Ho nda coughed . Luckily, he was not nailed by Blackhawk Racing's Shawn Higbee w ho wheelied pas t him to chase the pack into turn one . Higbee was not alone in the chase as Barnes recovered nicely, simply twisting the throttle to the stops to catapul t into the lead. By the end of the first lap, Barnes ha d a sixbike-length lead and was pulling awa y at about a half-second a lap. "I could do .21s (1:21 lap times) all day long and could certainly go faster if provoked," Barnes said. Sohwa and Road America specialist Scott Zampach, who nailed the start on the other Fastline Machine, struggled to stay with him . Barnes clicked back to a I 2:22 pace, allowing the Kawasaki and . Suzuki to close. Zampach passed Sohwa as he and ex-teammate Barnes screamed \ to a small advantage, with Lynch right on Sohwa's heels. Barnes and ·Zampach, not wishing to race with each other, settled into a comfortable pace. Soh wa would continue to rid e to keep them honest. Soh w a said afterwa rds, "This .. . ah ...very fast race track!" By th e one- thi rd ma rk, Barnes and Zampach led intermittentl y, with Sohwa and Du tchm an r id er Miles Baldwin chasi ng . Team Dom in at o r' s Stephen Vlasb lo m b ro ke in to the top 10, as would Higbee, nursing a sw ollen hand from the p revious day's Middleweight crash. Two local teams - the Eau Oaire Cycle entry of Cory Ruppert, and Fox Valley Racing (Billy Joe Fehrman and

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