Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

····R Grand A E · O DR C · Round 7: Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course .•AMA 250ccA Prix Series.. By Henny Ray Abrams LEXINGTON, OH,]ULY17 " l 1eY' ve been nipping at my heels the last couple of races, so I thoug ht I'd p ut the hammer down this week and show them what the bike's got," Performance South Racing's Rich Oliver said after yet another dominating victory in an AMA 250cc Grand Prix final, his sixth win in a row . The race, which was interrupted by a red flag when Oliver's teammate Chuck Sorensen crashed on the third lap of race, was Oliver's en ti re ly. He and Motoworld/Lassak Racing/ Spectro' s Chris D'Aluisio got the jump on the field at the start, then Oliver was on his own wh en D' Aluisio crash ed on the second lap. The race was grid de d from the race order of the third lap and re-started with 17 laps to run. On the second go Oliver split, holdin g a 2.5-second edge on the second lap of the re-start (the fifth lap overall), a cu shi on that he was able to stretch at better than a second a lap. He won the 2D-lap, 43.S-mile race by 21.578 se con ds, lea ving th e d r a ma to th ose behind him. There wasn't a lot. Second place went to Zero Gravity 's Nick Ienatsch, the Sport Rider ed itor riding with sore ankles from a practice crash, but able to separate himself from the field ab out halfway throug h the re-s tart. He wou ld finish a secure second, even though third-placed Dann y Walker made a run at him at the end when Ienatsch got held up by backmark ers. "If it came d own to the last lap, I was going to beat them, whoeve r it was," Ienatsch said. "I knew 1could beat them." Walker cam e out the best of a threerider battle for third w ith Enough Said Productions' AI Salaverrla and Chris Taylor. Walker, riding with an injured elbow, had trouble under braking but managed to pass Salaverri a and ease away after Salaverria mad e a "major mistak e" at the _end of the backstraight. "I was going to ride as hard as I could , not do anythin g stupid, and see where I finis hed ," said Wa lker, w ho crashed again in the morning warm-up. Salaverria led the trio until the 15th lap when he nearly crashed. "At the end of the back straight 1 got in wide and got into a heavy tankslapper. Walker went by. 1thought 1 was going to lose it. It was enough distance that 1 couldn't reel him back in," Salaverria said after finishing fourth, his best result of the year. Taylor dropped ou t of the fray with about five laps to go when his Yamaha began to run on one cylinder. He woul d finish 15th. Mike Sullivan finished fifth after run- , ning alone for much of the second half of the race. "I got a fe w b rea ks w ith Ch uck (Sorensen) an d Ch ris Taylor d rop pi ng _ t. 1 was at th e end of the pack with ou these guys, me and Chris Taylor. Taylor got away a little bit. I got by him and rode a smart race," said Sullivan, whose 1993 , TZ250 Yamaha is backed by Dick Wall, Brian Swart, and Centralia Knitting Mills. The three-way figh t for si xth w as decided on the final lap when Bill Himmelsbach took sixth from Southwest Motorsports' Christopher Ranking, with Cine Camera's Jason Paden ending up eighth. Oliver's sixth win gives him a substantial championship lead of 68 points over Walker, 242-174, with three races to go. Sorensen is third, 10 points behind Walker, and a point up on Ienatsch. The 3Q-riderfield didn't complete one lap before the first of many crashes. Moto Liberty's Takahito Mori crashed going into the Keyhole, nearly taking out Ien- Oliver gets sixth fn arow Rich Oliverwon his sixth straight AMA 250cc Grand Prix final, with an easy victory at MldOhio. (Below) Nick lenatsch (3) and Danny Walker lead the chase group behind Oliver. lenatsch . finished third with Walker fourth. (Left) a tsc h an d Sulliva n . "We bo th had to stra ighten up," Sullivan said . "Too mu ch throttle," Ienatsch said, describing Mori' s s pill. "I s top ped and put it into first . Luckily Walker didn't asspack me." The incident allowed Oliver and D'Aluisio to get away from the pack, for a lap, anyhow, then it was D' Aluisio's tum to hit the deck, his crash coming in the right-hander at th e end of the backstraight , an uncharacteristic front-end washout that may have been caused by an unfarnilia r front tire . "I never used it before. I was sure it was going to help my front-end chatter. I did a fast warm-up lap to get the tires hot. They were up to temperature, but proba bly not scru bbed in," D'Aluisio said . . On the fourt h la p Sorensen went down, hitting the air fence at the exit of the carousel tum and bringing out the red flag . Sorensen was u nhu rt and would eventually re-join the race, though several laps down. After a brief red-flag delay, it was time for th e 17-lap ra ce and it was time for Oliver to say good bye. Only a mistake, a mechanical error, or a backmarker could derail him and none did. Tu rning lap times in the high 1:31s and low 1:32s, Oliver pulled awa y at better than a second a lap an d cruised to another victory. "I knew I could do good times and I wanted to get into the 31s. I wanted to do low 31s, but I didn't have to," Oliver said. "I wan ted to do consistent times. It's easy to make a mistake on the bumps aro und here." Ienatsch moved into second off the restart at the head of a five-rider pack and tried to break awa y as soon as possible. "1 needed to get out awa y from Walker . I was really banging into him," lena tsch said. Ienatsch' s departure was slightly delayed by the trouble his ankles were givirig him. "I was having trouble getting from side to side. Downshifts were tough." Ten laps into the re-start and Ienatsch had close to four seconds on Walker, and , the knowledge that Sorensen and D'Aluisio, two riders he's battling in the championship, were effectively out of the race. He would finish second, his best of the year and first trip to the podium. ' The battle for the fina l podium spot was mostly waged between Salaverria and Walker. At the halfway point Walker moved into third for the first time with Salaverria taking it back on the 12th lap at the end of the backstraight. He ma in tained the spot for three .more laps before nearly coming off and giving Walker the opening to third. " I passed h im here:' Walker said pointing to the front straight. "And he got by me on the back straight. I'm glad to go a~ay from here in one piece." Salaverria was having trouble with his suspension having gone the wrong way on a rebound adjustmen t. "I wasn't too confident in the front end toward the end of the race:' he said. Salaverria, who is pretty much a one-man team and had driven to Mid-Ohio from San Francisco, California, was getting help from Brian Swart, one of Mike Sullivan's mechanics. "If we could take 20 pounds off that bike 1 could run with the leaders." Sullivan also aclcnowledged that he's at an equipment d isadvantage to the newer Yamahas. "Those guys have real fast bikes. We do okay with what we have to work with:' Sullivan said after finishingMh ~ ~ rl . r:--:C'l >. "5 -. m9

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