Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

:' R ' R C , AMAlCCS Race of Champions oAO A E' A pair of Amateur SO-mile m in i end urance races saw with Brank moving in to the spotlight with th e GTU wi n. Grabbing the early lead, Brank faced an a ll-ou t assa ult fr om fellow Honda CBR6OOF2 pilot James Bronson, who led much of the last lap only to lose out in the draft. At one point Branson straightlined the chicane and jus t missed clobbering Bronson, lettin g Martin Eden into a brief lead . "This is really fru strating," complained Bronson in pit lane. "He gets all the glory and I get nothing for ridin g so hard. He's got a bunch of bikes and they 're all first class; I've got one beat up bike and it's stock. I know that if he was on the sam e equipment that I was, I'd win." Back on track for Solo GTO, Bran k s w itche d to Suzuki a n d quic kl y grabbed first from Timrnothy Hammitt, th is pa ir dicing until Bran don Welton moved up from the outside of row six to join the party. Piloting a one-off Honda, Wel to n p ushed until Brank d rop ped back with a mistake on lap 10 of 14. Welton was eigh t seconds ahead of Brank and Hammitt when a red flag ended the p rogra m on lap 12. " We p ut a 900 e ngine in o u r 600 fra me," elabora ted 21-yea r-old winner We lton, from Colorad o. " It was just a wild idea, but I love it, it's a great bike. I normally ride an F2 and this is a lot like tha t." Satu rd ay 's busy sch edule started at n o on w it h Amateur Middleweigh t Grand Prix as Bronson earned a welldeserved win over Leslie Home's Honda ' while Brank finished down in I Sth du e to engine problems. Bronson thanked experts Brian Gibb and Jami e Bowman for their advice regarding the track. Expe r t Heavyweight SuperTwin s looked like a Real runaway, with the Miami -based superbike rider 18 seconds ahead of Jeff Reeves' Glafer Ducati 9SS after just three laps. But Real suffered a min or electr ical p roblem, and Reeves held off the best efforts of underpowered Ducati 916 pilot DOuglas Gross to take a narrow (.464 sec.) triumph. Ducati 888mounted Stanton Simrnerson styled flag to flag for the Amateur w in. Martin Eden and Sean Goff fough t for first for much of Amateur Middleweight Supersport, but a loose fairing dropped Goff to fifth. Town & Country Honda ri d er Eden won by a safe 2.S-second margin over Brank. Yamaha-mounted Glenn Szarek and reigning Champ David Estok (Honda ) pulled out a small lead early in Expert Middleweight Supersport, but by lap three Kawasaki-mounted Jim Lesli e, Harrington and Jamie Bowman - both on Hondas - had joined the party. Leslie an d Harrington got clear of the others to settle the fight for the lead on the final lap , w ith a confident Leslie passing on the way to the Chican e then running low on the Tri-Oval to hold off Harrington. "I was m ea surin' up Todd to see where he was gonna lead," exp laine d Leslie, who was officially .0I S-of-a-second clear of his rival for the win. "We were lookin g at each other, trying to figure out if we were racing or just playing cat an d mouse. I think the ram air on my Ka w as aki giv es m e a little top-en d adv an tage, and I used that at the finish." Peter Hupperich pu t his Yamaha 7S0 into first at the start of Amateur Heavyweight SuperSport, with Brank crashing out of the lead group heading toward In terna tiona l Horseshoe on lap two. When the field sorted itself ou t, Shane Prieto pulled out a small lead over Hupperich to score the win. AMA 2S0 GP veterans Esser and France were in a class of their own in the a By Colin Fraser Photos by John Aory and Daytona International Speedway DA¥rONA B EACH, FL, OCT 21-23 he 11 th a n n u al running of th e . , AMA Championsh ip Cup Series winner-take-all affair on Daytona Internationa l Spee dway'S famous highba nked, 3.S6-mile road course offer ed virtu ally perfect conditio ns: sunny skies, close racing and a selectio n of winners. While no one rid er d om inat ed in the style of record holder Todd Harrington (six wins in 1993) or Colin Edw ards II, ba d luck enc ountered by several tw orace victors helped to sp read the wins aro und. , Althou gh the exact number of entries could n' t be confirmed, registration staff in di cated that th e tota l wa s w e ll ' in excess of 1600, or "enough to make the entry system on the computer crash." A packed paddock confirmed the turnout, while a cha nge in Sunda y' s p ro gram away from end urance racing seemed to help spectator attenda nce. Unlike previous yea rs, weathe r d idn' t pl ay havoc with the schedule. , Two of the most impressive double winners of th e weekend were Experts Todd Harrin gton and Pabl o Rea l. The star of the show last year with some fast (I :SS) lap times, Real nabbed two successes with his recently rebuilt Ducati 888. For Harrington, the event marked a successful sta rt to his su perbike career with a clear Solo GTO win aboard an exSteve Crev ier Mu zzy Kawasaki, while his Honda CBR600F2 Challe nge runaway win was icing on the cake. However, both riders retired from contentio n in other events. Harrington 's American Flyer's teammate Mike Murphy ran off track whi le up front in Honda 's 600 Challenge (see separate story), but he had already pocke te d wi ns in Sol o GT U and Mid dlewe ight Superbike. Fabweld-Yamaha TZ250 rider Greg Esser missed Sunday's GTO round du e to .an ignition fault, but still earned a pair of victories (Expert Lightweight and Middleweight Grand Prix) while dueling with arch-rival John If " o Z 10 France's H ond a RS250 as well as Mu rphy's CBR6OOF2. ' Although he m issed all of Sun day's races d ue to an appointment at the hospital to have hi s broken femur fixed, Shane Turpin blasted to two impressive successes on Saturday in Expe rt Heavyweight Supersport on his Kawasaki 7S0, and Unlimited Supersp ort aboard the CBR900RR he planned to run in the bigger Hond a Challenge. But Turpin struck the dirt bank at the chicane with a Yamaha 1000 during Satu rday's oft-interrupted Expert Unlimi ted GP final, ending his impressive 1994 season p rematurely. . With a strong selection of bikes at his d isp osa l, Amateur Charles Brank seemed to have a shot at a once-in-a-lifetime, career-building string of victories. Th e 28-year-old ' s efforts sta rted well with victory aboard a Honda in the Solo GTU SD-miler followed by a second on a Suzuki behind Brandon Welton's unique Ho nda in Solo GTO. Sou th Carolina-based Brank's Saturd ay program for th e Fast Boyz To yz Team began on the Honda 600, with him earnin g second in Ama teur Mid dl ew eight SuperSport beh in d Ma rtin Eden 's similar CBR Still looking for win number tw o, Brank bailed out of the battle for the lead in Heav yw eight ~uper spo rt, barrel-rolling behind his low-siding Suzu ki. H is leathers wrecked and his helme t thrown, Brank kicked the GSXR in frus tration before noticing the severe road rash on his right hand . But a battered Brank bounced back in Heavyweig h t Su perbike, putting his Yoshimura-Suzuki in to an early lead, and s taying the re to bec ome th e only A mateur r e peat victor . Then Bra n k ended his Amateur career with his third second-place finish of the program, loosing b y just .D'l-o f-u-seco nd to Mark Whitehurs t in a Honda shootout in Middleweight Supe rbike. , The 27-r ace progra m, including 19 Expert and 14 Ama teur class finals held over three da ys, opened at 2:30 p.m. on Friday with the ,combined Amateur and Expert Lightweight Su pe rTw ins rac e. Reign ing Champ Kiyo Watanabe jumped out front from the first row on Pablo Real (129) passes Marc Smith (60) en route to winning HeavyweIght Superbike Expert; Real also won the Unlimited Grand Prix class. h is hea vil y m od if ied 7S0cc Honda Hawk, but soon veteran John Long was cha llenging for the lead. ' . Starting from the outside of the fifth row with his we ll-used '87 Ducati 750cc IT-F2, 43-year-old Long received a stopand-go penal ty for starting on the wrong spot, then ove rshot the "pena lty box." But an accident produced a red flag. and officia ls decided sim ply to move Lon g back on the res tart grid. When the race relaunched, Watanabe regained the lead , but Long was soon on h is tail. On the las t lap Long passed Watanabe heading onto the banking and Watanabe tried for the repass, com ing up abou t half a wheel short. Following the finish , Watan abe protested th e d ispla cement of Long's air-cooled Ducati, a nd ins pec tion revealed no su rp rises . Alan Robbins earned th e Amateur win with his Chafong Honda. Amateur Brian Conley was in a race of his own during Expert Lightwe ight Su pe rs port, taking hi s Valley Racing Yamaha to a big (roughly four seconds) win over the sim i la r FZRs o f Paul Scarpa, Tod d Keesee, Fran cis Reed and Shawn McCormich. But both Keesee and Scarpa refused to allow their machines to be ins p ecte d, moving Reed a n d McCormick in to th e top three. Adam Popp led all the way to win the Amateur division aboard the Hi-Per Sports Yamaha. Rob e rt Ault led ea rly in Exper t Sportsman, bu t Kawasaki EXSOD-mounted Patrick Ryder eventually demoted the Honda SOO Intercep tor rid er to second, with Ryder winning eve n th ough Ault tried a brave outside move through tum one at the start of the last lap . One of the most in teresting bikes in the paddock, Loudon champ Larry Hanlon's Yamaha TZ cha ssis fitted with a Honda CRSOO engine, netted third, troubled by overheating. Amateur Derek King lead from the start to win that class with a Yamaha RZ35O.

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