Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Round 7: Portland International Raceway ROAD RACE · . .W S ERA unocolPerfcinnance Machine National Endurance • • • ~ ,It':': - "I=~/' PRO $£R/£$ OMRRA (Left) Team Suzuki Endurance raced to Its 98th career victory, with this win coming at Portland Internati onal Raceway . (Abo ve) Team Suzuki Endu rance (center) celebrates with th lrd-place fin ishers R.A. Racing (left) and runners-up Team Pearls (rl ght) In the P.I.R. winner's circle. By Henny Ray Abrams PORTI.AND, OR, AUG. '1J T hey are the racing equivalent of the Energizer bunny. While th eir co m pe ti tion finds ways to slow down and stop, they ju st keep go in g and going and going. Team Suzuki Endurance won the red-flag-shortened Four-Hour Sunoco/Performance Machine Nationa l Endurance race at the Dunlop Portland Nationals by four laps to further solidify their claim as the best endurance team ever. For the Valvoline-backed team it was their 98th car eer victory and sixth in seven tries this year. The only team tha t has beaten them this year - Virginia Breeze Racing - was quicker while they were out on the 1.922-mile Portland International Raceway, but they weren't around much past the one-hour mark, let alone the four-ho ur mark, and no one else could come close to the pace set by Team Suzuki's veterans Michael Martin an d Tray Batey. "We really fell into a stro ke of good lu ck today. Virgin ia Breeze had th eir bike running really well, Batey said in the winner's circle. "I'd really like to dedicate this race to John Ulri ch tod ay, Martin said , referring to the team captain and editor of Roadracing World. "He's reall y put his heart and soul into the team . You realize how truly profession ally run the tea m is." Batey and Martin rode their Keith Perry- tu ned Suzuki GSXRllOO for 170 tours of Portl and Interna tional Racewa y d uring th e th ree hou rs, 28 minutes of racing. Th e race was stopped for 32 minutes just after the one-ho ur, 30-minute mark wh en an accident in turns five an d six coated the track in oil. Batey was in • the lead at the time of the red flag an d, on the re start, Martin went str aigh t to the fron t an d just kept stretching their advantage. Seco n d overall, a nd first Heavyweight Supersport, was the Team Pearls Su z u ki GSXR 750 of Da r r yl Sa y lo r, H H Reuben Frankenfield, and Frank Wilson. R.A. Racing carded th eir firs t pod iu m finish with a third (second Heavyweight Superbike) tw o laps beh ind th e Pearls Suzuki with Ian McKins tr ay and Tim Ruhl doing the riding. Filling out the top five were Competit ive Edge Racing (Su zu ki GSXR750) a nd Bellevue Suzuki Ducati, with Eric Disch and Mi chael Benson aboard a Suzuki GSXRllOO. Portland International Raceway runs for 1.922 miles with nine turns , bu t most of those turns are clustered together and the half-mile-long front straight and half as long back straight give an ed ge to sheer horsepower. From the drop of the green, on a slightly cloudy, warm northwest afternoon, the power belonged to two teams; Virginia Breeze Racing and Team Suzuki Endurance. By the fifth lap they were in tra ffic and pulling away, Glenn Szarek abo ard the Virginia Breeze Yamaha FZRl000 and Michael Martin first up on the Suzuki GSXRllOO. The only rider tha t could give them a run was Team laBelle MVR ' s Da ve Sadowski, a n d he w as using the race for tire testing. Third place for the first ha lf hour was Prud ential Securities' catch rider Brad H a zen ri ding in place of the inj ured David Deveau. His ride would come to a premature end on the 28th lap when an electrical short blew three fuses on the tea m's Honda CBR900. The bike was b rough t in on a crash truck, the fuses were repl aced, and the team would finish 21st. On the 32nd lap, Szar ek lapped the fo u r th- pl ace bike, the Pearls Suzuki, then put the number 7 Red Ho t Racing bi ke a lap down on the following lap . Running lap times in the I -minute, 11second range, about four seconds off the lap record, Szarek pulled out about a s ix-secon d lea d , a lead that would stretch consi derably when Martin pitted jus t after the one-hour mark to get Batey into the saddle. The pit stop was lengthened slight! y to ma ke a rear suspension adjustmen t so tha t when Batey rejoined the race Szarek had close to a 49-second edge. "It di d n't go as good as it usuall y does. We had a little problem and 1 was fighting that, " Martin said. "We added a little rebound and hopefully Tray can keep going. Traffic is pretty bad. It's a p retty short track with lots of kinks." "Th ose guys are going really good, Martin said of Virginia Breeze. "Their bike is quick. They took off and p ulled a couple of bike lengths by the first corner. Speed isn't everything in endurance racing." Szarek's tu rn to pit came in at the 1:09 mark with Chris Taylor taking off with a 10-second lead, bu t running slow ly down the front straight. At the end of the lap Batey was in the lead and Tay lor was into the pits briefly before heading out, only to stop in turn one with a dead engine, the victim of an electrical failure . The problem w as traced to a kill switch which is tethered to the rider's arm. The system was devised to kill the en gine in case it caught on fire aft er a crash. "I started pushing the bike and finally the crash truck came," Taylor said. "I pushed it for about three comers." "I was rid ing smooth and comfortable as possible. I was just trying to sa ve fuel an d tires. We had the race won. You know the rest ," Szarek said. After los ing a number of laps, the team decided to let Paul Youngman and Jeff Atwell finish the race, the pair ending up 18th. At that point Batey was in the lead a nd cru ising until the ' race was redflagg ed at th e 1:31 m ark when the 1 Ca n't Drive 155 Suzuki 600 cras he d in tu m five. . Wh en the ra ce wa s rest arted abou t half an hou r later, Martin had a thr eelap lea d and w ould add an oth er one before the end. He noticed the suspension adjus tment he'd made earlier had he lped , b ut found anot her obstacle in his path. "There was oil on the back straight H and it made it spooky going aro und that turn;" Ma rtin said, ad ding that he hadn' t done t he fo u r-lap morning warm-up w h ich would . ha ve hel ped w ith the setup. There would be an equally non -cornpelling fight for second, Team Pearls Suzuki hold ing it from the two-hour mark to the finish. "The first stint went real good," Darryl Saylor said after handing off. "I got a holeshot and ran a real good pace. The superbikes didn't get away from us." "The tires stuck all day and we had loads of brakes," Frank Wils on said. (The team uses DOT tires.) "The track is really wide and smooth. The traffic would only hold you up for a comer or so." Third place was decided at the very end of the third hour when R.A. Racing mo ved up from fourth place to pass Bellevue Suzuki Ducati. They would "gradually pull away until they were 21 seconds clear at the finish. "We' re happy to fina lly get one (a podium finish) in a four-hour race," Ian McKinstray said, adding that the team ran the entire race on one set of tires due to financial constraints. Bellevue Suzuki Du ca ti was also passed by Competitive Edge Racing, though not until the fourth hour. Arclight Racing, ne ver worse than sixth for much of the race, and as high as third, fell back to sixth at the end in their first race after replacing their Suzuki with a Honda CBR900. They finished on the same lap as Bellevue Suzuki Ducati , though about 36 seconds back. £N Portland International Raceway Portland, Orego n Results: August 27. '994 OVERALL: 1. Team Suzuki Endura nce (5uz); 2. Team Pearls (Suz); 3. R.A. Racing (Suz) ; 4. Co mpeti tive Edge Racing (Suz); 5. Bellevue Suzu ki Duca ri (Suz) ; 6. Atclight Racing (Hon); 7. TKO Racing (Kaw): 8. AiIport Raci n g (Hon); 9. Fu lle r Racin g (lion) ; 10. Taco ma Yama ha Racing (Yam ); 11. Amore Racin g (Ho n); 12. Th ree Men and a Bike (yam); 13. Tacoma Yamaha II (Yam); 14. Royale Racing (Hon); 15. Team Mct c vated (Hon); 16. Salem Honda Racing (Hon); 17. Nicholson'. Ann Arbor (5uz); 18. Virginia Breeze Racing (Yam); 19. Team Ha wa ii (Han); 20. The Reyce Tea m (Hon). OJ CJ) 23

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