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O AC Round5: Road Americ · ·R ADR Series.·" " a AMA 250cc Grand PriX E ~. By Dean Adams Photos by George Roberts ELKHART LAKE, WI, JUNE 12 E ven before the checkered flag fell , Rich Oliver had won the 250cc Grand Prix class at Road A merica. O liv er had won befo re the green flag was thrown. It seemed to be a fo regone conclusi on. Th e d isg ru n tle d looks, the comm en ts regarding the ou tcome of the race - they all pointed to one thin g: Rich Oliver. Therefore, there were no raised eyebrows or surp rised looks from his rivals when Oliver and his Perform ance Sou th Ya maha motored away from the sta rt and never looked bac k, st re tching h is lead to over four seconds at one po int to ma ke sure that an y thou gh ts the other podium fini shers had of challengi n g h im were sufficiently snuffed out. Oliver had slowed his pace so much in the final laps that Aprilia-m ounted Ch ris D' Aluisio ended up crossing the line only 1.661 seconds behind the Northern Californ ian . Moto Liberty Hon d amounted Takahito Mori was just a tick of the watch behind D' Alui sio in th ird place. Oliver's win gives him a commanding 41-point lead over h is teammate Chuck Sorensen at the halfway mark of the season, 172-131 D' Aluisio is th ird with 120 points. The muscle flexing shown by the Performance South machines in qualifying not withstanding (se e sidebar), there were two riders who said they could beat Oliver if give n the correct circumst ances: D' Alu isio and Danny Walker. Walker felt that an y chance of winning w oul d have to come from Oliver making a mistake. "It's going to tak e Rich screwing up so mew here, which might happen . Hi s jetting could be off and p ow er would s uffer o r m a yb e h e' ll ma ke a mistake in traffic," Walker said. "If he ge ts to th e front and ge ts so me clear, fast laps, he w ill be gone." D ' Al uisio fel t th at any ch ance of beating Oliver wo uld come from hi s tearn sorting ou t the jett ing an d suspension woes of the Ap rilia. D' Aluisio and crew we re with out John Lassak for t he weekend as the Ca lifornian was absen t due to the ill ness o f a fam ily member. " We h ave the power to run with him," D' Aluisio said. "We jus t ha ve to find the right combination ." . The prob lems co nti n ued fo r the Motowo rld/Lassak team right up until the morning practice and beyond, with the Ap rilia soun ding off-song at times. It was D'Alu isio, though , who nailed a good start while Oliver looked as if he di dn't feel the need to launch hard, slipping the clutch and following everyone into tum one. Sorensen wasn 't as patien t a nd he chased D' Alu isio down, with Mori, Wa lker, Ni ck Iena tsch and Jon Cornwell in tow. Entering tum five for the first time, the first right-hand com er of the circu it, Ienatsch tried to take a wide late-braking line around the outside to mak e up a few positions. Ienatsch's tuner Steve Biganski had in stalled new p istons in the Zer o Gra vity Yamaha in the mornin g and Ienatsch had d ecent pow er. Ju s t a s len atsch w ent w ide, Oli ver moved o ver to th e ou ts id e as well, p ushing Chris Ta ylor d irectly into the path of Ienatsch. The two former team - m a tes collided and crashed together. Ienatsch ba nged his wris t, bu t a part from that, neither w a s hurt. Both would ob vio usly not finish, with lenatsch slipping from third to sixth in the point stan d ings. With one full lap in the books, Walke r mo ved the Southwest Motorsports machine into the lead, hop ing for Oliver to move up and tow him along. Then Walker's Yam ah a seized, ending his day ea rly. O liver th ought this was as good a tim e as a ny to win the race, a nd he sc reamed in to the lead, blowing by Mo r i, A l Sal a ve rr ia , So rensen a nd D' Alui s io . Mil es Ba ld w in ke pt the d r eam ali ve, m o vin g the Dutchman Yamaha 250 in to the top 10, with Colorado na tive Don Hough doing a great jo b in th e six t h s po t . Houg h and Salaverria wo uld battle for the remainder of the race, with Salaverria d eftly out- br ak ing Hou gh only to be passed an y tim e th e bikes we re n o t lea ned over. The Performance South Yamaha rid den by Oliver sounded rough from the track side and according to other riders, the bike lacked the speed it ha d held all weekend. "1 screwed up the start an d my bike was off a little; we went too lean," Oliver said. "I tried to make it up in the corners. It was running okay, but normally There has been live AMA 250cc Grand Prix races In 1994 - Rich Oliver has won four of the m. Parts is arts ich Oliver and his teammate Chuck Sorenson qua lified the Performance South Yamahas 1-2 at Road America, and the start ling speed from the two was the talk of the Road Am erica paddock as far as the 250cc riders were concerned. "They ha ve some stuff over there that we don't have access to," said Danny Walker. "I'm not going to say what they are becau se I do not know for sure, bu t I have a good idea." The qualifying perform ance went a long wa y in proving W al ke r correct. Incredibly, Sorenson nearly pipped his veteran teamm ate Oliver from the pole. It wasn 't un til the end of the last session when Oliver put his head way down and turned a qu ick lap, taking the pole with a 2:21.625vers us Sorenson's 2:22.305. Oliver was obviously elated. "It didn't come easy, my teammat e Chuck Sorenson led most of that last sessio n. We've ha d our share of problems with the engine's cutting out on top end and that turned out to be jus t a problem wi th the bike being too rich. The bike has been getting faster litt le by little here an d I think tomorrow if we can get a few little problems solved, we can do 21s. Chuck and I are going to have a good race an d I don't know if the other guys will be able to keep up." That was de fin itely possible as Oliver and Sorenson were both radared at 148 mph, at least a couple of miles per hour over th e rest of the class. The advantage is said to be Bud Aksland engines, albeit older-style engines that su p posedly will go back to Aksland soon, w ith Bart ol cylin der heads a nd Aksland pipes and d et ail work be ing just two of the major ad vantages inside those two cases. O liver said for the record that there are no Aksland parts or work in his engine cases . "1 wish people would give me the credit I' m d ue. I've rid den for Kenny Roberts, Rand y Mam ola, Kawasak i and a host of oth ers. I know what to do where; I ha ve a three-angle grinder and a lot of knowledge. That's it." Canadian journeyman rider Jon Cornwell pu t his very tired Yamaha in the point position of the second row . His tuner Dave Ray commented: "We're just doing the best we can with the parts we have. Alex would be proud." Ray was ma king reference to Cornwell's late tuner, Alex Mayes. Zero Gra vity pilot Nick Ienatsch qualified his Yamaha on the R second row, 2:23.960, just behind Japanese ace Mori and about two seconds from Oliver's po le time. "I turned my best lap ever at Road America in that last session, so I'm pretty happy with that. This place is huge and fast. If you screw up here in any corner, the lap is dust, kind of like a big Willow Springs. I'm comfortable, and Bigansk i is going to put new pistons in for the race." AI Salaveria, continuing to be plagued with the " poor luck that has intermittently followed him since the day when he rode for the Randy Mam ola Yamaha team , qualified at the end of the second row. Salaveria's crew quit the Salaveria effort at Laguna and he was unable to replace them before Elkhart Lake. "I came here with my friend Scott, no crew and no real help . Scott can take the tires down to the Dunlop guys, but he's never worked on a motorcycle before. We're lacking some horsepower which can mean death at this place, but I'll just try and grab the draft and run with them." The only rider able to hang with Oliver and Sorenson was Danny Walker, at 2:22.997. "Tha t's the fastest bike I've ever ridden while under the Southwest Motorsports umbrella. We had a small atmospheric change just before the session that put us out for a few minutes." Motoworld /Lassak Aprilia rider Chris D'Alu isio unfor tunately lost the services of tuner John Lassak for the weekend when his wife became ill. Fighting some engine and jetti ng problems, D' AIuisio qualified on the front row, although at the other end of the row on which he normally sits at Road America. D'Aluisio has won the 250cc race at Road America three times in the past, 1990-'92, finishing second last year to Oliver. "We had a misfire on the last lap in the race at Laguna and it d id something to the engine. It had plenty of gas in the tank, but it just popped. We changed some things before coming here, thinking that we'd cured it. Sadly, not to be, we came here and seized in the first session, made some more changes and seized in the second session. We discovered that the foam in the Aprilia pick-up area is a bit thick, so we re-routed the fuel line and that cured that problem." D' Aluisio leaned the bike a bit rich for the last qualifying sessio n and met with ev en more problems. "We went the wrong way in jetting it and the thing gained about 20 horsepowerin the middle of the powerband; it came on just like a ligh t switch. I compensated for it and rode the best I could. Jim Lindeman is workin g with us on the suspension and - we're gonna win this race." 9