Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

(Opposite page) Fastest qualifier Miguel DuHamel (17) roda to his fourth consecutive superblke victory In the series. (Right) Mike Smith (68) leads DuHamel (17) and Mike Hale. Smith rode to second and Hale tlnlshed fifth after having tire trouble. himself much of the day with engine and tire woes. "Ifwasn't all there for me today," Crevier said. His teammate Picotte was hooked up with Quarterley from early on, getting by on lap 15, then dropping back on the 18th lap to finish a close ninth with an overheating engine and a rear tire that didn't feel right. ' "Right after the start it went really, really loose on the front straight. It was locking up the rear wheel and getting. sideways," Picotte saiq, adding that the engine was so hot that he had to take his right foot off the footpeg on the front straight. "It felt like it was seizing as soon as I let off the throttle. It felt like it would come around." Quarterley was happy to get through the day and record his best dry finish after a problem-filled weekend. "We showed up and did three laps, then had a problem," the New Englander said. :'The next session we did two more laps and had to change the gearing. The next session was three more laps. Saturday morning the brake pads came off the backing and l. crashed in turn three. We rolled out this morning and the battery was down and the regulator was dead. 'We went back out and did three more laps." The result of that was that he didn't know where the limit was and was tentative for the first five laps. "By the sixth lap I settled into the 425. By then Crevier had a straightaway lead on us. At the end he had the same straightaway lead." , Stevens had been in front of his teammate Merkel until the ninth lap. That's when he said he "knicked the outside of the curb a little bit. I don't know what it did to the (front) tire, but it started vibrating." Stevens said. "On the front straight 1 thought the thing was going to come apart. I stood up to take a look at it. It's not the kind of track you can race on if you have no confidence in the front tire." Harley-Davidson's Doug Chandler was 11 th, all by himself for almost the entire race. He'd taken over the spot on the 10th lap when Tiger Sohwa ran off the track. Sohwa had been running in fourth, just behind Hale, when he ran off th~ track with a stuck throttle. Larry FerracCl was trying to find a solution from looking at the data recorded on the computer and said that they thought it might have been caused by dirt in the throttle, the residue from a crash in Sunday mornmg's practice. "He downshifted and laid it over and the bike was surging forward. He had to stand the bike up. He went from doing 1:41s to a 2:03," Ferracci said. Sohwa ended up 12th with . Harley-Davidson's Chris Carr 13th. tN . Brainerd I.mematlonal Raceway Brainerd, Minnesota Results: July 16, 1995 SUl'ERBIKE QUALIFYING, 1. Miguel DuHamel 0,39.162); 2. Tom Kipp 0:39.S02); 3. Mike Hale 0:39.896); 4. Michael Smith 0:40.Q49); S. Takahiro Sohwa (1:40.230); 6. Fred Merkel (1:40.318); 7. Freddie Spencer (1:40.477); 8. Thomas Ste~ens 0:40.S2]); 9. Steve Crevier (1,40.726); 10. Pascal PIcotte (1:40.831); 11. Doug Chandler (]:41.942); 12. Chris Carr (1:42.619); 13. Dale Quarterley (]:42.904); 14. Eric Moe (1:44.154); 1S. . AI Salavenia (1:44.478); 16. Andy Deatherage (1:45.S17); 17. Scott Zampach (1:4S.S17); 18. Lome Banks (1:45.987); 19. Jeff Reeves (1:46.528); 20. Andy Fenwick (]:46.612); 21. Rick Kirk (1:46.67S); 22 Steve JohnsOn (H7.732); 23. Jim Dickenson (]:48.BoS); 24. John Jacob (1:48.883); 25. Mark Miller (]:49.206); 26. Anthony Lupo (1:49.439); 27. Roger Hendricks (1:50.379); 28. Ben Welch (]:S2.961); 29. Mike Walah (],S3.036); 30. Stephen Vlasblom (1:55.573); 3J. David Porter H:56.4S7). Pole and lap record to DuHamel R ain began falling lightly about an hour before Saturday's cool, dark and windy final qualifying session at Brainerd international Raceway, and as the start of the session grew closer, the rain increased. Then, once the riders hit the track, it slowed, then stopped, and as the session progressed so did the riders, and the times quickly began to drop. Just past the halfway point in the session Smokin' Joe's Racing Mike Hale . jumped to the top of the leaderboard with a time of one-minute, 38.896-seconds, a time that neared the track record of 1:39.858 . set by Doug Polen in 1992. Then Hale's teammate Mig~el DuHamel (pictured) caught fire, setting a 'new track record With about 10 minutes to go and lowering it in the final ~ges. He was the Only rider consistently in the low 1:408 and high 1:395 and he did the times, including his new lap record of 1:39.162/108.913 mph, on a race tire. Further,m0re, he did~'t fee1like it was a perfect lap and that there mJ.ght be a 1:38 m him somewhere. Even more surprising than his time was his admission that this was his first-ever pole position in AMA Superbike racing. "Last night the crew worked until midnight, changing the gearbox, the overall gearing, and the triple clamps," DuHamel said. "We were trying to make it steer better. We changed the oil1evel in the forks and the rear spring. AI (Luddington) and Kay Plumb are really getting the setup right. We know the b.ike much. better than we did at Daytona. It's more stable in tum one, not that stable in tum two." As for the race, he said "I think 1can do 40s an day, no pr0bIem." And if that was true, the rest of the field had l'I!lIlIOI\ for _n. Vance 6:: Hines YlIJI1IIIba'. Tom ICipp was - . d fastest, the Ohioan getting the full attention of the team in the abseace of . injured teamI!Ilale Jamie James. His time was just 034 second sIowI!l' than DuHamel's, but be did it on a rear qualifying tire. "'Our race comb.iDalion Is prettr straightforward: ICipp said. "I was pleased after qualifying because that fast lap was a smooth lap. 1 wasn't hanging it out as much as 1 could have. If 1 was able to get two more laps in, 1 would've hung it out a little . more. . "Usually there are key comers on any track. They could be fast or slow. The key Is to find out which ~ are and get the bike working well there, before worrying about the others," Ki,pp added. What he wanted to do in Sunday morning's warmup was get the Yamaha working a little better in the highspeed comers, one and two. And, in the race, he wanted to reverse his misfortune here: He's crashed in his last two races at Brainerd. Smokin' Joe's Honda's Hale also crashed, though his fan came late in the first qualifying session on Friday and did little more than deny him track time. He was ready when the second session rolled around on Saturday and, because of the threat of rain, was quickly up to speed and under the lap recor~. That time was set on a qualifying tire, but he nearly equaled It later in the session when the threat of rain lessened and he was on his race setup. The difference, he found, was in his riding. "I'm stillieaming the track," said Hale, who finished third in the 600cc Supersport race here last year. "It's a pretty simple track. Turns one and two are really fast and that separates a good from a bad lap." Hale would liked to have earned the one point that comes with taking the pole position, but what was more important was winning the race. "Yesterday 1felt comfortable doing those times. We'll see how the tires hold up," he said. Mike Smith was fourth fastest, the Fast by Ferracci Ducati rider just over the 1:40 mark at 1:40.049. The ~ wasn't ~d considerntg he was playing catch-up after breaking an engme on Friday. He might have been in. the 395, but he said tha! he nearly overshot tum nine. And domg one 39 would be of little use, except for grid position. "I don't think the race will be 39s," Smith said. "If it Is, Miguel (DuHamel) will run off and leave us." Two teams filled out the second row grid spots, Fast by Ferracd's Takahiro Sohwa and Freddie Spencer, filth and seventh fastest, and Yoshimura Suzuki's Fred Merkel and Tbom.as Stevens, sixth and eighth. You had to look to the third row to see the first of the Kawasalds, Steve Crevier and Pascal Picotte next to each other . and joined by the H.adey-DaVidson team of Doug Chandler and O\rIsCarr. There were 31 quaJifien ltorSullday's 21.Jap race. 7

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