Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

yesterday," Harrington said. "So I decided that I'd take off and let him deal with those guys and see if they could hold each other up, and I think they did a little bit, but Pablo got by them and started snaking on me." Real was almost immediately camped out on his back fender, drafting him up the straights and hanging with him in the comers, all the while biding his time. It was the 10th lap before he took the lead, hard on the brakes in to turn five. With less than three to run he suddenly disappeared as if he'd' been sandbagging, but he was more worried about getting repassed. "If any of these guys had been in my draft they would have been able to pass me, so I tried to avoid that," he said. His sudden ascent had been something of a surprise since he hadn't been very fast in the heat races, but he said that he'd been "breaking in the engine and I was working the suspension and tires, but I was sure tha t I could be there, maybe not winning, but there. So I didn't worry about making any lap time to impress anybody." Harrington said that he made a "couple of stupid mistakes and he came by me. It broke my concentration." But not so much that he would lose second place. The bigger problem turned out to be the backmarkers and the waving yellows. "I almost hit one of them right away because I couldn't get stopped and I didn't want to get penalized, so I got stuck behind them," Harrington said. . "He got away and Pittman got by me on the second to the last lap. Then I got by him and my last lap was my fastest, I think I ran an 18." Pinkstaff, Pittman, Moe, and Deatherage were just behind Harrington and swapping at will. In the final stages Moe dropped off and it came down to Pinkstaff and Pittman with Pinkstaff getting the nod. He said they'd been able to stay close because the front-runners were slowing each other down, then it was just a matter of outracing an old friend. "It wore me out. I'm an old man for this kind of stuff," he said in the winner's circle. ''Joe and I have had a lot of battles over the years. We don't mind nmning close to each other." Behind Pittman came Moe, and Deatherage, just off the pace, then the recovered Nobles, who had missed the warmup lap before having to pit. Rick Shaw was Nobles last victim, with Jeff Sneyd ninth, and Michael Fitzpatrick 10th. Sneyd would later be penalized for using carbon-fiber brakes. RACE TWO The sun was out for the second race, as Pittman and Moe ran out front at the start with Deatherage, Harrington, and Nobles in hot pursuit. Nobles moved up to the front on the second lap, the same lap in which Real, while running in sixth, overshot turn five when his front brakes failed. It was a one-time freak occurrence, and he was able to continue. Ending the third lap, Nobles had a four-second lead and looked to be on cruise control. But Real had different plans, though they would take some time to shape up. Halfway in, it was plain that this would be a race, not a walkover and on lap eight Real was in Nobles shadow. On the next lap Real was out front, Nobles taking it back on lap 10 on the brakes in tum five, and holding it until the final lap when Real took over using the draft into turn five. But they would encounter backmarkers on the way out and Nobles saw the advantage and pounced. Real came back at him through the back section, but Nobles had the better line and made the lead stick for the win. "I was able to gel up under him going up the hill (out of turn five)," Nobles said. "Then we went through seven and eight with him right on me. Then, coming out of the carousel, he was right on me heading to the kink, and he went way out to the edge of the track and I was able to square it off, slow down a little bit and get a better drive going down the back straight. His bike was a little faster up through the gears, I think my bike was geared a little high. Once we got running I could draft with him so I was just trying to get away from him." "By the time I got him it was too much for the tires," Real said. Like the lead battle, the one for third came down to the last lap, though it had formed up several laps earlier. It was about five laps from the end that third through fifth lost sixth place, leaving Harrington to fend off Moe. Pittman, Pinkstaff, and Deatherage were the three fighting for the last podium spot, Deatherage looking like he'd get away with about three laps to go, only to get reeled in, then passed with less than two laps to go. Pittman had been at the front before scaring himself when he lost the front wheel in the middle of the carousel early in the going. "I barely saved it and one guy got under me and after that I was tentative for a couple of laps," Pittman said. "By then I was done fighting for the lead or doing anything about that. So I stayed where I was, watched it, made sure I was in the right place and close enough that what happened, happened." What happened was that they, too, came up on traffic at the end and Pittman made the best of it, getting the third-place spot. "I was in the right place, I kept myself right there, because I knew Keith was coming and they were trying to mix it up with two slower riders in the middle of the carousel," Pittman said. The trio finished closely together about 14 seconds behind the leaders, with another 4.5 seconds on Harrington, who was struggling with brake problems. "The big problem was that I couldn't get the bike to stop. The lever was right back to the bar right from the start," he said. "There are so many high-speed, hard-braking places here. Every time one of those guys would make time on me." Moe was a close seventh, then a gap to Shaw, followed by Fitzpatrick and Darrell Oingerman. R08d AmerlC8 Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin Results: August 8, 1995 RACE ONE: 1. Pablo Real (Due); 2. Todd Harrington (Kaw); 3. Keith Pinksta.ff (Xaw); 4. Joe Pittman (!

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