Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

ROAD RACE Sunoco Race Fuels Formula U SA Rou ds1& Willow Springs InternationalR ay n 2: acew (Left) Soon aiter th e start of both Formu la USA races th is Is what it loo ked like: Rich Oliver (97) leadi ng the way . It was the same at the end - on ly everyone else was much further behind. (Below) Tray Batey (3) and Chuck Graves (34) both had strong showings at Willow Springs, Batey making the podium In both outings wh ile Graves finished fou rt h and second. By Mark Hoyer Photos by Tom Hnatiw z;) 1:""1 " ':g c:3 GI ~ ~ ~ 0\ ,...... 00 N >-. ~ ;:j 15 III ~ 4 ROSAMOND, o; FEB. 18 hi s is ge tting to be old ha t for Tea m Ol iv er Yamaha's Ri ch Ol iver. H e comes to Willow Springs, run s flawless practice sessions, races at or sets lap-record speeds and sprints away to a pair of unchallen ged victories. No wonder th ey wan te d to ban 2505. Maybe the y just wanted to ban Oliver. In an y case, the high-speed comers of Willow Springs Raceway were well su ited to Oli ver' s TZ250, and afte r ge lli ng predictably swamped at the start of both races by all the big-bor e equ ipme n t as the pa ck entered the first tum, he simply turned it on - it was but half a lap before he moved to the lead he would keep for nea rly the enti re length of both races. Don ' t th ink things were boring for the estima ted crowd of 7600, though, because des pite the pair of commanding wins, there was plenty going on behind Oliver. The fi rst race saw Su z uki GSXR1100-mount ed local racer Curtis Ada ms o f Whittier, Californ ia, get a solid start th at a llowed h im, however bri efl y, to cha llenge th e TZ rider. But right beh ind Adams was Team Valvoline Suzuki's Tray Batey, pu tting on a very strong showing in on ly his th ird outing a t the familiar-friend ly Willow Spri ngs . Batey was as low as fourth in th e' first race, but man aged to m ake a move on Ada ms in the last tum of the final lap tha t put him int o the ru nner-up spo t by half a wh eel length. The second time ou t, Batey would be relegated to third by a charging Ch uck Gra ves, w ho had earlier finished fou rth 'in the first race just beh ind Adams. While things might ha ve been old hat Oliver, for Team LaBelle/ MVR's David Sadowski, things were just gelling old . After qu alifying th ird-fastest and looking to rebound from his pair of non-finis hes here las t yea r, he s uffered ye t again w ith frea k mech an ical gremlins ending both his rides earl y. The likable Georgian w as forced to ride h is 1995 bike after having hi s ' 96 H ond a CBR900RR break beyond repair during Frid ay' s practice, but it served him no better. Sad owski' s teammate and reigni ng F-USA champion Chris Taylor had luck that w as only margin ally better. Taylor wrestled with b ike setup on h is n ew CBR900RR all weekend, qua lified on the third row and managed a sixth -p lace finish in the first race. With grid position for the second race determined by finish po stion from the first, the Virgina Tech student was eager for the second ou ting and a be tter start, having mo ved up a row. After running as high as fifth, the unfamiliar ma chine bit h im in turn six, where he went down hard. "I don 't even know what happened ," he said in his pit area afterw ard. An other w ho s truggled wa s Doug Polen. In what w as the fo rmer AMA and two- time World Superbike Cha mp ion '96 Form ula-USA debut, the weekend could have gone better. Like many of the racers this w e ekend , he was caught short of time and simply wasn't prepared to race, perhaps more so than some of the others. Polen on ly just got his new team, called The People's Network, finalized some three weeks ago and rece ive d his ' 96 GSXR750 s from Suzuki just a week a fter th at. Pol en struggled with carburetion all weekend and was clearl y down on power. After a run to 16th in the first race, the Texan elected to sit out round tw o to conserve his machine and to try to be ready for Daytona, where he hopes to have a new engine. "We' re Iow an parts and damaged a few things in the first race," said Polen from his team truck. "We can't afford to have a pr oblem in the seco nd race. We jus t can 't jeop ard ize Daytona." Oliver le ad s th e fie ld going in to rounds three and four at Daytona in two weeks with a perfect 70 points, where he wiII no do ubt be more challenged than he was at Willow Springs. "We' re going to Dayt ona in a few weeks and I think there we'll be work ing on ou r tans an d trying to come up w ith some th ing at the Supersp eedway to run with these guys ," Oliver said m atte r-of-fa ctl y. "We' re going to go there and ge t some sa nd kicked in our face and the y'll make up (for) what we did to them this day. " Bateyleaves the Miche lin Cali fornia F-USA Championship in second , eigh t points adrift of Oliver, and is followed by Graves at 60 poin ts and Adams with 54. Team Valvoline Suzuki 's Dave Stanton finis he d fifth and sixth in the tw o races fo r a t all y of 51, whil e Graves Motorsports ' Glenn Sza rek rou nd s ou t the top six with 50 points on 6-4 race finishes. ROUND ONE Ad ams lau nche d his GSXRIIOO off the line from the second spo t on the grid to get a clea r jump on th e p a ck, an d especially over Oliver, who noneth eless did surprisingly well off the line. Dut chman Raci ng/Yama ha's Fritz Klin g got an excellent d rive from the second row to ch alle n ge for a lead sp ot into tu rn one. Sadowski, too, looked to be a fron trunner, bu t his race would soon be over. "I got a good holeshot going into the first tum and it (the engine) just started burbling," sai d the d isap p oint ed Sadowski. "I was hoping it would clear up, but it never did. " For Oliver, thin gs cou ldn 't have gone much be tter . By h alfway throu gh th e first lap, he had st reak ed into the lead and had clearly broken away from second -pl a ced Ada ms, w ho wa s now under some pressu re from a charging Kling and Batey. Kling 's solid start netted him fourt h after the comp letion of one lap and he soo n moved to third as he ch arged u p the inside of Batey, but the "Yarnamo n- ster" rid er wo uld soo n fade with transmission troubl e. "I went freewheeling into the first comer - that's where Batey got me," said Kling, wh o also said he w asn 't particul arl y fond o f the track. " We still haven't go tten so me of our parts, so we're using' p arts fro m la st year, jus t trying to fit the best w ith the best. They' re jus t worn out." Kling was forced to use his second engi ne af te r having his nu mber-one bike blow up in p ractice on Friday. By the third lap, th e to p fiv e h ad opened a m argin on the rest of the pa ck and the unfor tunate Sadowsk i h ad pulled off. Af ter a disappointing sho w ing in qu alifyin g, Gra ves was running a strong fifth, and he wou ld soo n move to fourth as Kling dropped back. Th e Yamaha rid er w as d oing h is best to hold on to ' the spot, bu t Graves made his mov e to fourth as the pair flew into the blazingl y fas t turn nine. Klin g man aged to h old fifth to the finish. Oliver's more-than -six-second lead wa s unassailable a nd the Californian rode to his th ird Willow Springs victory in a row. Ad ams had held sec on d for most of the race when a key moment came on the last comer of the last lap. "I knew I wa s in th ird and I thought ' Curt 's going pretty good:" said Batey with a smile. "But I didn't wanna get beat by a mil e and I th ought it would look good if I could just stay close - then 1 could say, 'We ll, I could've had him..: .But it just worked ou t. We go t into nine and h e w as breakin g up som e of the wind for me a little bit so I was able to inch a little closer . It d efinitely wasn 't clo se en ough th at I co u ld h a ve done anything an d taken a position, bu t he slip pe d the rea r jus t a litt le an d I happened to be there and I tho ug h t, 'Oh, wow, I can't be lieve this: It was so close coming down the front straight I d idn ' t know which one of us had it:' Batey did, by half a w heel. Desp ite nar rowly losing the runnerup spo t, Adams was still h appy with h is stro ng sho wing. " It went extremely we ll the wh ole race: ' sa id the lanky Californian. "1 was actually kind of nervous the whole time. 1 think 1 overrode the bike a lit tle bit for the last couple laps an d made a few mistakes ou t the re. I think we'll correct that for the second race: ' Graves, who was ' battling a sho ulder inju ry su ffered here severa l w eek s ago that mad e it difficult for him to tum the bike, rode to fourth after having exerted .som e pressure on Bat ey in the closing stages of the race. Suzuki-mounted Stan ton follow ed at some di stance in sixth, with Ta ylor, Pet er Ch ristensen, Glenn Sza rek an d Lance Holst ro un d ing ou t the top 10. ROUND TWO By virtue of his fou th-place finish in th e earlier race, Graves would st art on

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