Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

• .ROAD RACE . Round 1:Daytona International Speedway ..A 250Cc Grand P MA rixSeries ' (Left) Team Olive rlYama ha's Rich Oli ver picked up wher e he left off, winn ing.the 250cc GP with ease. It was Oliver's 15th career victory. (Below) Chuc k Sorenson (2) and Rand y Renfro w (96) batt led heavily over seco nd place . Sorenson chased Renfro w for mos t of the race until pass ing him on . the last lap throug h the chicane. By Henny Ray Abrams DAYTONA BEACH, FL, MAR 10 ea Olive r / Yamaha's Rich Oliv.m er ga ve a d ish ea rtening performance in th e 250cc Gra nd Prix final a t Da y to na Int ern ation al Speedway, dishearte n ing for anyon e who 'd hoped to wres t away his first National Cha mp ionship . . . The 1995 Yamaha TZ 250-mounted d efendin g 250cc G ran d Prix National Cha m p io n di spat ch ed an ea rly cha llen ge fro m Moto Lib erty ' s Takahi to Mor i, then solid ly trounced the rest of the 35-ride r field to take his 15th career victory, five sho rt of the all-time 250cc GP win record held by Jimm y Filice. " It see me d like it took me forever to win that (the 250 GP title), and finall y wi nni ng it last year, I th ou ght maybe we'd be th rou gh a littl e bit of a lull here co m ing into the new se ason," O liver sa id after b e at in g tea m mate Chuck Sore nse n b y 32 .247 secon ds to give Team Oliver / Yamaha a 1-2 swee p of the top two places. "It 's gre a t th at we've been able to jus t pick up righ t whe re we left off . But th at 21st w in is d efin itely one of my goals." Given his rid in g clinic her e, Oliv er s houl d ha v e n o trou b le sett ing th e reco rd lat er th is year. As h appy as he was with the win, he was equally ecstatic tha t his protege Sorensen go t the better of a ra cel ong b attle w it h ve tera n Randy Renfrow. The p a ir h ooked up early in the 1B-lap race and we re alm ost never more than a second apa rt. It carne down to a last -lap p ass, an d Renfrow knew that he wa s cook ed . "In theory, the (con tribution of my) 7 experience w ou ld 've b e en that I wou ld've tried to stay right where I was about five, fo u r laps before the end , which wa s behind Chuckie (Sorensen), and tr y to a t le a s t get h im a t th e s ta rt/ fin ish lin e. " Renfrow, wh o wa s sponsored by Sakurai Honda in his onerace lease with Moto Liberty, said. "Bu t the honest tru th is 1 tried darn near the whole race toget him ' at the star t /fin ish line and I think I ma de it by twice. And one of th ose tim es he wa s bac k by me before we actu ally got there: So I di dn 't think there was much chance of, number one, ge tti ng him to pa ss me, and num b er t w o, ge tti ng b y b ef ore the start / finish line eve n if he d id pass me." The Hon da RS250 Ren frow rode "was hast ily ar ra nged th rou gh Mot o Liber ty a ft e r a d e a l h e h ad to ca m p a ig n a n A pr ilia 250 this year fell throu gh the wee k prior to Spee d Week . So re ns en followed Renfrow for the final laps, waiting un til they exited the chicane on th e fin al go- arou nd before m ak in g hi s move a nd ta kin g secon d place by abo ut two bike len gths. "I cou ld draft him the last five laps," sa id Sorense n, wh o rod e Oliver's championship-winn ing 1994 TZ250, sa id. "He w as riding up n ear th e wall, th en he wou ld drop d own . I w as just s itting ba ck there in the draft, backing off the throttle." Zero Gra vity's N ick len atsch finished fou rth , the Sport Rider edi to r spend ing the first hal f of the race makin g up for a bad start and the second half try in g to run d own Sorensen and Renfrow. He wo uld finish about 12.7 seconds behind Renfrow. Takahito Mori, who led the race early and was a threat to Olive r, cras hed on the eig h th lap in the West End Horseshoe, remo u n te d, an d fin ishe d fifth, closing to wit hin 2.8 second s of lenatsch. His ga p to a fearsome battle for sixth was abo ut 17.7 second s, That three-way b attle was won by fellow Japanese Moto Liberty ride r Tatsu ro Ara ta, who' d retired from racing at the end of 1993 and was do ing this as a one-race deal. He used a slingsho t pass . of bo th Fabweld 's Greg Esser and Venerno tos' Luis Lavad o to take sixth place a t the fin ish line . Esser, who 'd mov ed from eigh th to sixth on th e fina l la p, ended up seventh, wit h Lavad o eigh th. Akihiro Yamada, a custom er of Moto Liberty Japan wh o was also racin g Daytona in a one-sho t deal, finished eigh th a t the front of a sev en-ride r pa ck. German Jurgen Oelsch lage r was 10th on a Motorradzubehar Bauer Honda RS250. O liver completed th e 18-l ap, 64.1mile race in 35 minu tes, 21.298 seconds at an aver age spee d of 108.749 mph. Th e win g ives h im the lead in the 250cc GP Championship tab le with 35, , thre e better than Sorensen and five more than Renfrow . Olive r took home $6000 fro m th e $30,000 purse with Sorens en earn ing $3700 and Renf row $275D. Hea traces have rep laced timed qua lifying for 250s this yea r, and Oliver ga ve a previ ew of what wa s to come in his Thu rsday heat race. He won the five-lap ' heat by close to 20 second s with Canad ian Jonatha n Cornwell a d istant second. Tak ah ito Mori won the second heat wit h a narro w victory oV Chuck Sore nsen, ,er but that heat was almos t seven seconds slower than the first. In winning his heat Oliver averaged 107 .920 m ph ; Mori's winning ave rage was 106.719 m ph . The 18-lap race got underway late on a cold an d gusty Friday afternoon wit h Oliver and Mori ju m p ing to the fro nt w it h Co rnwell and Sorensen just beh ind . ' . Mori crossed the line in the lead at the end of the firs t lap w ith Oliver in fron t on the second and Mori try ing to forge his way past more than once . O n the first lap, Mori tried to stuff his way und er in the Wes t End Horseshoe, and he di d it ag ain on the second lap, this time successfully. "My com pe tition was Mori, an d h is (Sorensen) co mpeti tio n look ed like it wo uld be Randy or both of the H onda riders," Oliver said. "A nd it was great the way it wor ked ou t because Chuck kind of led me into the lead a nd that a lways h elp s. Then Mori came rig ht back by , and so then the strategy was com ple tely blown and I was into second place and struggling with horsep ower to pass Mori again. But then I was able to jus t pull away a little bit in tim e, an d I guess Mori mad e a little bit of a mistake. Th at' s h ow it goes so me times arou nd her e. "He (Mo ri ) did a terrific job on th e first lap ," Oliver con tinue d : "He stuck it up und erneath the re an d mad eme lift up . Wh en Mori runs u nd erneath yo u, you kind of always lift up jus t automatically. I thou ght, 'Well, I'll see wh at he's got,' and he had a lot of mot or . I was able to be dead even, or just dr op righ t by, I was a little bit bette r on the brakes going in to the infield and stu ff. I cou ld always lead into th e infield , so I felt pret ty confide nt about leadin g into the corn ers . I had to rid e pretty hard to pull away . A lot of guys don 't like the way he rid es. I raced in Jap an and that's their style, and I like their sty le." But he didn' t like it eno u gh to stick around and watch it firsthand. On the fourth lap, Ol iver had closed to three seconds, near ly do uble tha t on the sixth, and by then Oli ver was on his way to

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