Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

I,INTHE'WINQ" 'I Jimmy Gaddis (Kaw) was the big winner in rounds nine and 10 of the AMA PJl Super Arenacros s Series, held on Febru ary 9-10 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Gaddis won both the 125 and 250cc Pro classes on February 10, a da y after winning the 125cc Pro class and finish ing second in the 250cc class. Gaddis topped Doug Stone (Kaw) and Todd DeHoop (Suz) in Friday's 125cc race before finishing second to Jeromy Buehl (Kaw) in the 250cc final. On Saturday night, Gaddis beat Buehl and Brad Woolsey (Kaw) to win the 125cc class and then topped Buehl and Gray son Goodman (Suz) to win the 250cc cla ss. Gaddis leads th e overall point standings with 557 points to Buehl's 536. Frenchman Arnaud Demeester (Yam) won the Le Touquet Enduro, held on the beach in Le Touquet, France, on February 11. Demeester topped Jerome Belval (Hon) and David Hauquier (Hon) in winning the three-hour race. Motocrosser Kurt Nicoll (KTM) finished eighth in his enduro debut. Craig Smith (Kaw) claimed first overall at the King of the Desert Race XVI at the Lake Superstition off-road area east of San Diego, California. Greg Bringle (Hon) overcame a poor start to finish second overall and win the Four Stroke class. Jason Codman (Kaw) won the 250cc A class and finished third overall . Tro pical storms forced th e Grand Prix teams attending the IRTA test session in Sentul, Indonesia, to cut the test short by a day. When the lap times were tallied it was two-time World Champion Michael Doohan who emerged from the test with the fastest lap time. - a 1:26.3, two seconds faster than th e lap record set by Carl Fogarty on hi s Ducati in the 1994 World Superbike round. Doohan's teammate Alex Criville was second-fastest at 1:27.4, followed by three riders at 1:27.6 Marlboro Rainey's Loris Capiross i, Tadayuki Okada and Doriano Romborri. Honda Pons' Alberto Puig clocked a 1:27.9 in his first serious ride since breaking his leg during the 1995 season. The fastest 250cc time wa s se t by Honda's Tohru Uk awa a t 1:29.5, jus t a tenth qui cker than Ma x Biaggi' s best . IRTA has scheduled furth er preseason tests at Jerez in Spain on February 16-18. According to a pr ess release from Yama h a, ne ither d efen d in g AM A 75 0cc Supersport Champion Tom Kipp nor h is Vance & Hines Yam aha teammate Jamie James wi ll co n test the 750c c Supersport Championship in 1996. The release says th at th e tw o will concentrate their efforts on the AMA Superbike Na tio nal Ch am pi onship . Th e Supersport- tri m Yama ha YZF750 was ou tpaced by Suzuki's new GSXR750 du ring the .Dunlop tire tests, he ld at Dayton a Interna tional Spee dway in December . Swe dish 250cc GP Champion Jan Hansson will ma ke his U.S. road racin g debut a t Dayton a Inte rn at ion al Speed way wh en he rides a Mot o Libe rty Honda \,C) CBR600 in th e AMA 600cc Su pe rsport 0\ race d uring Cam el Mo torcycle Week. 0\ Hansson's Swed ish sponsors, Spectro ..... Oil and MC-Nytt Magazine, have leased the bike from Moto Liberty , with forme r AMA Nation al Champ ion Mike Baldw in , who n ow w or ks for Sp ectro, arrangin g the lease. "I know it will be very hard at Da yt ona, but I ha ve th e p ac e after rid ing b oth the Swed ish Championships and th e Spanish Ducado s Series in 1995," Han sson said. The Swede won every race in Sweden and finished in th e top 10 on sev eral occa- 2 sions in the Spanish series wh ile ridin g his own Honda RS250. Former Grand Nat ion al Cha m pio n Gene Romero has been reta ined to handle sales for the Manufacturers' Midway fo r th e upcoming Sh oei Helmets 125/250cc National Motocross Championship round scheduled for Glen Helen Raceway in San Bernardino, Californ ia, on Ma y 10-12. For more information, call 714/529-6054. AMA 883 National dirt tracker Joe Winston III has landed a ride ab oard a Mitchell's Modesto Harley-D avidson built and tuned 883 Sportster dirt tracker for the 1996 dirt track season. Bobby White will handle th e tuning chores. Wintson III will kick of the season at the Pomona half mile and joins Matt Wait as a Mitchell's Modesto Ha rley-Davidson - . sponso red rider. The fledgling Form ula RD road racing class will kick of its second seaso n with the first of three events at the Streets of Willow Springs in Rosamond, California, on February 17-18. Run in conjuncti on w i th the California Motorc ycl e Road Racing Association ' s usual 50- . ' 125cc classes, FcRD competitors will have a full da y of practice on Saturday, followed by two races on Sunday. For more information, call th e CMRRA at 909/674-5357. Ad vanc e tickets are now available for th e upcoming L.A. Motorcycle Weekend, featuring the second round of both the AMA Superbike National Champions hip and the AMA Grand National Championship at the Pom ona Fairplex in Pom ona, California, on Apr il 19-21. Advance tickets are ava ilable through Race West Productions at P.O. Box 6170, Anah eim, CA 92816-6170 an d at TicketMaster. For more in fo rmatio n, ca ll 714 / 632-7070, or in Californ ia call 800/ 364-6060. AHRMA w ill host an American Racer Roundup in the central pit area of Daytona International Speedway during the lunch b reak on Monday, Mar ch 4, as part o f the Classics D ays act ivit ies. Sponsored by GMA All American Racing, th e roundup w ill be ope n to all Am eri can-m ade racin g m ot o rcycles, with awards give n in prewar and post-: war age grou ps. At th e sa me time on Tu esday, six- time World Cham p io n Geoff Duke will jud ge a special show for Norto n Manx and internation al race and road machines. There is no entry fee for eithe r of the shows . For more information, call AHRMA at 715/842-9699. Sil verstate Motocross in Carson City, Nevada, will host the fourth round of the Golden State MX Nationals on February 18 and will also host a pra ctice day on Febru ary 17 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Overnigh t ca mping is ava ilabl e. For more inform ation, call 702/ 267-4392. Acco r di ng to Cycl e N ews contributor Daryl Flack, Troy Corser lapped under th e o fficia l m ot o rcycle lap record at Phillip Island in Australia when he tested his Promotor Ducati there in January. Corse r lap ped at 1:34.37, two-t en ths u nd er Wayne Gardner's lap record, set in 1990 on a Honda NSR500, and 1.2 seconds faster than Carl Fogarty's superbike lap record . Cor ser lapped consistentl y in the 1:34s with Texan Mike Hale in th e 35s in h is seco nd vis it to th e island circuit near Melbourne. Michael Doohan holds the un official lap record at Phillip Island at 1:33.9 during preseason testing in 1994. Finally, a dirt track schedule T he AMA has released an updated schedule for the Grand National Series, putting an end to a rather lengthy period of negotiation between the sanctioning body and the recently formed Grand National Unified Promoter's Association (GNUPA). At issue was a proposed $4000 purse incre ase for the 1996 racing season, which would boos t the minimum purse for half miles, ITs and short tracks to $35,000, and the minimum mile purse to $40,000. Members of the GNUPA withheld several dates during the negotiation process to prompt the AMA to d iscu ss th e issue of rising event costs. It ap pea red as though neither party would conced e, and as of February 5, th ere wer e only thr ee sanction applications on the desk of AMA Dirt Track Manager Bruce Bober. Realizing the need to act quickly, Bober made what he calls "concessions in other areas" and then sent the remaining non-sanctioned promoters a letter stating that the absolute deadline for application was February 8. Any promoters failing to respond by that time would lose their event date. . "We made concessions, but as far as I was concerned, there was never any threat of the riders losing that $4000 purse increase," Bober said. "Fortunately, we came to a sat isfa cto ry agreement. We wer e making five or six phone calls a day to them (the GNUP A)." , " It wasn't so much the purse increase that bothered us," said Chri s Agajanian, the spo kesperson for,the GNUP A and the promoter of four events on the GNC sched ule. "We received a $4000 expenses increase two years ago, and now we were facing another $4500 expenses increase . We always wanted to keep the purses as high as possible for the riders, but when you 're already at the ceiling on your expenses, you've got to ad dress that. But we were able to work with the AMA and keep our exp enses in check, and the purse increase is still $4000. We worked together and we're all very happy. The AMA was very cordial in the matter. We all bent some ." Gone from the new schedule are the Dallas, Texas; Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvani a; and Goshen, Indiana, half miles, but the series will head to a new venue in '96 as reigning champion Scott Parker and company visit the Nebraska State Fair Park for the Lincoln Half Mile in August. There are currently 22 races on the schedule plus two ope n dates, and Bober said that one or two d ates may yet be adde d. Mar . 9 Apr. 20 May 4 May 26 Jun e 1 Jun e 15 Jun e 22 Jun e 29 July 6 July 14 July 20 July 27 Aug . 4 Aug . 7 Aug. 10 Aug. 17 Au g. 24 Sept. 1 Sept. 8 Sept. 14 Sept. 21 Sept. 28 Oct. 5 Oct. 13 Memorial Stadium Pomona Fairplex Delaware State Fairgrounds Illinois State Fairgrounds La Salle Speedway TBA State Fair Speedway Allen County Fairgrounds 1-96 Speedway Lake Od essa Du Quoin State Fairgrounds TBA ,State Fair Speedway Peoria Clubgrounds Black Hills Speedway Nebraska State Fair Park Indiana State Fairgrounds Hagerstown Speedway Illinois State Fairgrounds New York State Fairgrounds Eldo ra Speedway Marion County Fairgrounds Cal-Expo State Fairgrounds Pomona Fairpl ex Del Mar Fairgrounds The first John Britten Memorial Sound of Thunder Race wi ll be he ld at th e Ruapuna track in New Zealand on February 17-18. BEARS and Sound of Singles racing will be featured on the track where the late John Britten began his racing career. An drew Stroud recen tly captured the New Zealand roa d racing tit le with a w in in the final rou nd on January 7. Accordi ng to a press release from Mark Miller Racing, Mark Miller recently bettered the lap record at Las Vegas International Speedway in Las Vegas, Nevada, ridi ng his new 1996 Suzuki GSXR750 to wins in the Formula One and Solo 50 Miler. Miller lap ped at a best of 1:14.86. New Zealande r Stephen Vlasblom will rid e a H arl e y-D av id son ba ck ed b y Am er ic an Asph al t and Grading and Sou th ern Nevad a Harley-Dav idson in 1996. Vlasblom will rid e an 883 and a VRI 000. "We are still working on getting more su pport for the superbike so that we ha ve A-grade equipment. With- Daytona Beach, Florida Pomona, Califorrria Harrington, Delaware Springfield, Illinois La Salle, Illinois Sedalia, Illinois Lima, Ohio Michigan Du Quoin, Illinois Short Track Half Mile Half Mile Mile Short Track Half Mile Half Mile Half Mile Half Mile Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Half Mile Peoria, Illinois IT Rapid City, South Dakota Half Mile Lincoln, Nebra ska Half Mile Indiana State Fairgrounds Mile Half Mile H agerstown, Maryland Sp ringfield, Illinois Mile Syracuse, New York Mile Rossburg, Ohio Half Mile Knoxville, Iowa Half Mile Sacramento, Californi a Mile Pomona, California Half Mile Del Mar, Californ ia Mile ou t the good kit parts, there is no point ru n n ing a superbike to fin is h 20th," Vlasblom said. WERA has announced over $1 million in con tingency postings for 1996. Of this, over $663,000 has been posted for the WERA Na tio na l Challenge Series, wh ich in cl u des th e W ERA Nation a l Endu rance Series. Sportsman Series rid ers will by vying for more than $447,000 in ma nufactu rer s' continge ncy awards . For m o re information, ca ll WERA a t 770/924-8404. Fans of Ed Hertfelder' s Duct Tapes can now find his w ritings in Paul Clipper' s Trail Rider Magazine. "Ed pr omised to sup ply us w ith a column every other month, " Clipper said . "Bu t if we can get it out of him we'll soon have a monthly Hertfeld er column in the book. " Anyone interested in contacting Hertfelder can do so by w ritin g to him at 111 North Summit Drive, RR 5, Cabot, AR 72023. After an eight-year absence, the Vintage

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