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Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127774
(Left) Chuck Graves battles with Chris Taylor
(1) early In F-USA act ion. (Below left) Tray
Batey (5) and Fritz Kling (2) dice over fourth
place In the first leg; Batey earned the
pos ition. (Below) Doug Chand ler celebrates
his first race win s ince 1990 in Daytona's
Victory Lane.
Th e g uy had just crashe d an d I didn't
have a straighta way to see the flag.
"When I was docked a lap, 1 realized
there was no use wearing my bike out,"
Oliver said of his decision not to make
the restart , tho ugh he was going a second
faster tha n he'd gon e last year.
Another rider who had a day to forget
was defending WERA F-USA champion
Chris Taylor. The Team laBelle Virginian overshot tum one to sta rt the fifth lap
and wasn't ab le to rejoin the race until
the whole fie ld ha d passed. He compounded his problems by cr ashing in
tum one near the end of the race.
RACE ONE
Two teams filled the front row after
Sunday morning's qualifying. The Valvolin e Suzu kis of Tray Batey a nd David
Stanton bo ok end ed the row w ith th e
Mu z z y Kawasaki s of C hand ler and
Smith between them. Oli ver led off th e
seco nd row on his Yamaha TZ250, in
front of Taylor' s laBelle Honda CBR900,
the Yamaha FZRI 000 of Kling, and the
Team Su zuki Sport GSXR750 of Mark
Miller .
Miller go t a good jump from the seco nd row a nd led th e ribbon of racers
through the infield and on to the banking
before bein g reeled in by Chandler. The
1990 AMA Superbike Champion cam e
through on the next lap firmly in control,
with th e squabbling beginning o ver the
next spo ts.
Batey, Stanton, and Kling got together
with Taylor in front of Miller, quickly
dropping back, then Oliver and Stroud,
and Gra ves on the charge.
Graves was up to fourth on the third
lap, moving by Taylor who would soon
overshoot by tu rn one. The field was
n o w st retching o u t, with s eco nd the
excl us ive dom ai n of Batey while Chandler began to clea r out posthaste. Kling
an d Stanton got together and Graves was
in fr ont o f O liver w ith Strou d jus t
behind, then Miller leading ano ther pack.
Graves didn' t linger and left Oliver to
d ea l with Stro ud , th e pa ir a con tras t in
p o wer and riding style, O liv er abl e to
stic k the TZ where Stroud wa nted, taking
the advantage on the infield , only to lose
it o n accele ration, es pecially fro m the
middle of fifth gear and up to the top of
sixth.
Still they .ran together until the red
flag came out for Krebs, endi ng his day
as we ll as Oliver' s race.
Th e 'restart was grid ded by finishing
positions in the first portion, and it was
Chand ler next to Batey, Kling a nd Stanton.
After better than a 3D-minute delay it
was C hand ler again lead ing th e pack,
with Batey a nd Kling following, then '
Graves, Sadowski, an d Zam pach,
On the third lap Chandler had close to
five seco nds, and he was on his way to
the wi n. The battl e would be for second.
Bate y was there on the third lap, bu t
Barnes was carvi ng his way throu gh the
field, passing an y- and everywhere, moving up from sixth ending the third lap to
second end ing the fourth lap o f the
res ta r t. He wa s a bo u t e ight se co nd s
beh ind Cha nd ler at tha t point, a nd his
concern was m ore with losing his pursuers tha n pursu ing Chand ler. Grad ua lly, he eased away a nd had abou t four
seconds of cus hion wi th tw o laps to go .
Second was his.
"I' rn kind of emo tional right now,"
Barnes sa id in victo ry lan e. "From the
back of the g rid to the wi nner's circle: I
d on 't kno w w ha t to say. I jus t wan t to
thank Land ers (Sevier; team owner) and
(eng ine b u ilder) Carry Andrew . I
cou ldn' t have done it witho u t them."
The last three riders Barnes wou ld
pass - Batey, Kling, a nd Graves - were
now going at it for the last spot on th e
podium. Batey and Kling looked to pull
away with about two laps to go, th en
Graves took it back, taking over the spot
wi th a lap to go and setting up a last -lap
fight. Kling led the trio onto the banking
w ith Graves a nd Batey following, then
Graves m otored by. He led in to and out
of the chicane and ra n hard to the checkered flag as Bat ey an d Kling were unable
to use the d raft to pass him.
"I co ul d see those guys (Kli ng a nd
Batey) up there, an d I knew I could get
in to the draft," Graves said . "If I cou ld
just put it in the draft an d get ah ead of
them o n th e last lap it really wouldn't
make a d ifferen ce. It s eem ed li ke th e
Graves Mo torsports Suzuki had a little
m ore stea rn tha n the res t of the bikes
through the tri-oval. I figured if I was
so mew he re near th em I could probably
win."
.
After the top five came Sadowski, getting the best of Stanton, then a big gap to
Cycle Worl d Magazi ne's Doug Tolan d ,
w ho gained two spo ts on th e fina l la p
after spending much of the race in a fourway tussle. Scott Zampach put in a creditab le ri de o n a Triumph 900 to ta ke
ninth in fron t of Tea m laBelle's Honda
CBR-9OD-mo un ted Jason Fraser, who he'd
been dicing with throu ghou t the race.
~
RACE TWO
Startin g on eq u al footing this time,
Barnes aced the start and led the 51-rider
field into turn o ne, with Gra ves a n d
Chandler following; and Chandler about
to make his mo ve.
Th e m ov e w ould o n ly b e for o ne
place, dropping Graves to second, then
he followed Barnes for a lap before going
under him in the International Horseshoe
o n the th ird lap as the top two left the
fiel d behind. But Barnes wasn' t giving
up, and he was back in front a lap later
and pulled ou t a decent lead when Chan dler slowed goi ng into the chica ne on the
fourth lap. An o th er tour of th e circ ui t
and Chand ler was hard on the brakes in
the chicane, this time closing righ t up on
Barn es, following him for one lap, th en
taking the lead aga in in the International •
Ho rseshoe. Barnes stuck with him for
two laps, then ran into tire troubles, and
on the ninth lap it was Chandler starting
to pull away .
A lap later and it became more obvious and Chandler was soon setting sail ,
winning by 5.26 seconds.
"I don't have-a lot of experience in the
su pe rbike field , and I was just trying to
milk m y tires ' a li ttle bit to w ard s the
end," Barnes said. '1 tried a little bit hard
in the beginn ing and didn' t have much
left at the end ."
Though the new Du nlop tires wo rked
we ll on Chand ler's su pe rbike, they may
not have been as effective on the F-USA
bike of Barnes, which weighs abo u t 80
pounds mo re tha n the Muzzy superbike.
All in all, Barnes was p leased . "I fee l a
part of the (EBSCO Media Suzu ki) family
alrea dy . These guys are great and so pr ofessional I kno w we're go ing to have an
awesome yea r."
When Ch andler an d Barnes clea red
out, the fight for third was between Kling
a nd Graves, w it h Sadowski and Bat ey
moving up to join them on the fifth lap .
Kling didn' t stick arou nd to see how it
would tum out, taking his leave near the
halfway po int and letting the others stage
their own fight.
Just past the halfway mark in the 14la p race, the posit ion s w ere be co m in g
more defined - Kling in fron t of Ba tey,
Sadows ki, wi th G raves ne xt . Fu rt her
back, Mike Smith was on the move having taking eig hth pla ce after seve n laps .
He wo uld tak e ov er sixth on the nin th
lap, but cou ld n' t get any closer to Sadowski
"I knew th ey (Batey a nd Sado wsk i)
were back there," Kling said. 'There was
a whole bunch of lapped riders and I did
a big dive on the far-end (west ) banking,
s tayed tucked in and prayed that th ey
lost th draft for a m inute. These bikes
ma ke for a good show, even th ou gh it
wasn' t for the win."
Barnes was abo ut 18 seconds in front
of Kling, w ho was we ll in front of Bat ey
a nd Sadowski, who in turn h ad so me
room on Smi th, the Georgian wait ing
until the last lap to run Graves down an d
. pass him on th e infield chu te leading up
to the kink.
Stanton wa s alone in eighth, Zarnpach
was ninth again, then came Polen .
Daytona International Speedway
Daytona Beach, Rorida
Results : M
arch 3, 1996
FO RMULA USA RAC E ONE: 1. Doug Cha nd ler
(Kaw); 2 Michael Barnes (Suz); 3. Chuck Graves CSuz); 4.
Tra y Batey (Suz); 5~ Fritz Kling (Yam) ; 6. David Sadowski
(Hon): 7. David Stanton (Suz); B. Doug Toland (Suz); 9.
Scott Zampach (TrO; 10. Jason Fraser (Hon); 11. jeffrey
Stern (Kaw): 12. Andv Dea therage (Kaw): 13. Eric M ~
(Kaw); 14. Don Canet "
(Ka w ); 15. Shan e Tu rpin (Hon) ; 16.
Tri p p Nobles (H- D); 17. Fran k Wilson (Suz) ; 18. Jam ie
Bowman (H a n); 19. Brett Metzger (Suz): 20. Roland
Sands (Yam ); 21. Kristian Kaas (Yam ); 22. William Luk e
(5u z ); 23 . Benjamin Welch (Ya m ); 24. Jona than Bolton
(5uz); 25. Masayuki H aya shi (Yam); 26. Davi d Kieffer
(Due); 27. Owen Weichel (Kaw): 28. Curtis Adams (5oz);
29. Steve Paterson (5uz); 30. la me Dicke nso n (Suz); 31.
s
James Milroy (Kaw ): 32. Bria n Gibson (l-i on): 33. Eric
Kno pp (Kaw): 34. John Ashm ead (Kaw): 35. Mic hael
Sidwell (Ka w ); 36. Chris Taylor (Hen): 37. Jon Co rnwell
(Ya m ); 38. Ma rk Mille r (Su z): 3Q. Richard Alexa nder
(Kaw): 40. Michael Fitzpatrick (Ya m ); 41. Bobby Keith
(Yam) ; 42. Andrew Stroud (BrD; 43. Derek Kin g (Y.1m );
44. Gerald Roth man (Hen ): 45. Sha nt' Prieto (K.1W); 46.
Da ve E.. tok (Yam); 47. Joe Pittman (K.1W); -l8. Damien
s
weber (Due); 49. Kevin Gra ham (Ka w ): 50. Rick Beggs
IKaw ): 51. Rich Oliver (Yam ); 52. Doug Polen (5uz); 53.
John Morris (Suz); 54. Marco Marti nez IKaw ): 55. Mike
Wal .h (Yam); 56. Ken K~ (Suu; 57. Rad Grea ves (Suz).
.
Time N / A du e to red flag.
Dis tance 14 laps, 50 miles .
Average speed: N / A due to red Ileg .
Ma rgin of victory: N / A due to re fl.1g.
d
FORMULA US A RACE rwo. 1. Doug Chand le r
(Ka w); 2. M icha el Barnes (Suz); 3. Fritz Kling (Yam) ; 4 .
Tra y Batey (Suz) : 5. Da vid Sadowski (Hon): 6. Mike
Smith (Kaw); 7. Ch uck Graves (Su z): 8. David Sta nto n