Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127745
'I . ROAD ·RACE. J ., "::'. Round 4: Portland International Raceway . S'unoco Race Fuels Fomiula USA Series, , I swl place to take the win going away and move within one point of current series leader Michael Martin, 105-104. Martin suffered a disappointing crash in the first race that left him with a non-finish, no points, and a badly injured knee that plagued him into the second race, where he would soldier on to fourth and score a very valuable 13 points. Local racers had good showings, with Kawasaki-mounted Joe Pittman of Oak Harbor, Washington, scoring a pair of thirds, while Portland's Shawn Roberti on a Team LaBelle CBR900 rebounded from a first-race sixth place to a race-two second. And Keith Pinkstaff, also of Portland, finished with a fifth and seventh place for his day's work. Team Oliver Yamaha's Rich Oliver, currently third in points, was unable to race at Portland because of a schedule conflict with the AMA round at Sears Point. RACE ONE Kling, not present to post a qualifying time in Saturday practice, started from the last row in Sunday's first race. But the Michigan resident was not about to be hindered by petty details. Kling immediately began picking off riders and was in sixth place by the second lap of the 12-lap (Left) Fritz Kling (77) and Chris Taylor (28) celebate their 1-2 flnish In the first leg of the Formula USA series 8t Portland International Raceway. (Below) Kling and Taylor launch off the start line In th!' second leg, a race which was won by Taylor with Kling failing to finish. By Russ Cozier Photos by Mike Doran PORTLAND, OR, AUG. 27 utchman Racing's Fritz Kling traveled a long way to win the first race at round four of the Sunoco Race Fuels Formula USA Dunlop Portland Nationals. First, he had to make it from his Saturday appointment with his SuperTeams teammate Nick Ienatsch at Sears Point Raceway in Sonoma, California, where they were defending their lead in the AMA's endurance series. Then, as a result of missing Saturday's quaIifying, Kling was forced to start the race from the very last row and travel through the pack of 25 riders to take his hard-earned victory. Unfortunately, that's where his journey would end. Kling should have had it easy in the second race, seeing as how he would begin from pole position by virtue of the race-one win, but he became the victim of a pair of bad breaks. The first was a red flag that stopped the race after a single lap, a lap that already saw him move into a strong position. The second bad break came on the restart, where inconsistent starting procedures caused the Yamaha rider to destroy his clutch on the starting line and put him out of the race. D 12 That's where Team LaBelle Honda rider Chris Taylor took over. Riding for Team LaBelle for the first time ever, Taylor finished second in race one after battling back and forth with Kling, and would start on the front row for race two. On the restart, Taylor took the point position from Team Valvoline Suzuki's Chuck Graves on the second lap and simply ended the race for first race. Lap three found him still in sixth, but on the fourth lap he passed Roberti, Pittman and Graves to move into third behind F-USA points leader Martin and fastest qualifier Taylor.