Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

ROAD RACE .· Sunoco Race Fuels Formula USA Series Rounds 3-4: Daytona International Speedway can impro ve on 53s. I was shoot ing for consistent 52s." Because of the red flag, there was no official time, averag e speed ; or margin of victory for the first 14-1ap, 50-mile race. There was in the second one, and it was C ha nd le r a gain w in n ing, again ove r Barn es - who made good use of his frontrow s ta rting spo t - by 5.260 seco nd s. Chand ler completed the race in 26 minutes, 29.666 seconds at an average speed of 112.869 mph. But he had his hands full in the early going. Barnes stuck with him and led a few lap s before ru nning into tire trou ble and backing down the pace .alittle. That ga ve Chandler 'some breathing room , a seco nd win, and a $5000 payday, $2500 for winning each of the races. "It wa s good fu n to get ou t the re," Chandler said after winning his first race since 1990. "We' ve been sittin g around a ll w in ter. You do some testing, bu t it doesn ' t put you out there with anyo ne. It's good to get out there and mix it up with so m eo ne. The b ik e, the Dunlop tires, everything w ork ed r eal w ell this weekend. Hopefully, we can carry it over for next weekend : ' "Primarily we were testin g tires," ers By Henn y Ray Abra ms DA¥rONAB EACH, FL, MAR. 1-2 fter a year of stru ggling on . the Harl ey VR1000, Muzzy . Kawa saki's Doug Chand ler se n t a mess agp th at h e' s back , winn ing both of the North Am eric an Spor tbike Form ula USA races convincin gly at Dayton a Int erna tional Speedway. Then FUSA sent their own messa ge, claim ing Chandler's 1995 ZX-7R for $42,800, and serving notice to the factory teams that they race here at their own risk. First the racing, which can't be discu ssed with out d iscussing the politics. "We told all the superbike teams that we may very w ell claim a su pe rbike," Formu la USA Ltd . Presid ent Do ug Gonda said of their decision to enforce the claiming rule. "We told them we had to make good on what we 'd told them. Quite frankly, it's no t fair to th e gu ys wh o follow F-USA and .the gu ys wh o race superbike to have not claimed it: ' That threat , th a t a team could lose their Daytona race bikes at any pri ce, let alone the ma ximum cla iming rate of $60,000, was enough to keep all but Rob Mu zzy aw ay . And h e came with 1995 ZX7-R's, the bikes that Scott Russell rode early in the 1995 World Sup erbike Championship. Muzzy's intent was to test tires and, on that count, it wa s successful. T1,e only other AMA Superbike regular was Ch and ler' s Mu zz y Kawasaki teamma te Mike Smit h, also on a 1995 ma chine, one of Anthony Gobert's. Smith took himself ou t of the first race with a crash on the warmup lap. That dropped him to a back-row starting sp ot for the second leg, which consid erably diminished his threat. So it was left to Chandler to tangle with th e F-USA regula rs, the bes t of w hom turned ou t to be Michael Barnes, th e journeyman racer la ndin g on the EBSCO Media Suzuki 1100. Th ough he wasn't a ble to qu a lify, Barn es was given a provisional start in the field as part of the team owners' program w h ich a llows th ree p ro vi sion al starters for the series regulars. It pu t him on the back row, bu t that oniy served to motivate him. . Ch andler led ev ery lap of the firs t race, right up to the red flag on the eighth lap, and. then he was better than 10 seconds in front of Valvoline Suzu ki's Tray Batey. Du tchman Racing' s Fritz Kling A (Above) Doug Chandler (11 0) leads the way in the first 01 two Formula USA races at Daytona. (Right) Chandler came under press ure ear ly on from Tray Batey (5), and David Sadowsk i (25). (Below) Michael Barnes ended up second in both legs, keeping the heat on Chandler in race two until encountering lire wear problems . was third on the Yama ha FZR10oo, with Valvoline Suzuki's David Stanton fourt h an d Graves Motorsp orts Chuck Graves fifth on anot her Suzu ki 1100. Th e field w as regrid ded for th e res ta rt by th ei r running p osition-in th e aborted firs t leg; that put Barnes up to the third row, and he woul d lau nch from there for a run at Chandler. No one wou ld s to p th e Muzzy Kawasaki rid er as he was lap ping in the 1:53s, abou t two seconds a lap better than anyone else and the win was his. Barnes took over second on the fourth of eig ht laps, and he would finish there in fron t of Graves , Batey, and Kling. "We went out there to go as hard as we could an d see wha t we could come up with," Chandler said . "Th ese guys around me really d id a goo d job an d stayed pretty close. It might be a tougher race for me in the next one . I think we team owner Rob Muzzy said . "Tha t was the concern for us. It was our first chance to run tires at distan ce. What we learned was not so much about Dou g Chandler, though it was good practice and good for his morale, we learned about tires: ' Barn es en d ed u p a s trong second, abo u t 18 seconds in front of Fritz Kling, the Dutchman rid er jus t clea ring away from a thr ee-way battle he'd been waging with Tray Batey and Dave Sado wski . Mu zz y Kawasak i' s Mik e Sm ith ca me fr om th e back row to ta ke six th, then came Gr aves, Stan ton, Triumph' s Scott Zampach, and TPN's Dou g Polen. . After two events, fou r rou nds, Batey moves into the Sunoco Races Fuels Formula USA poin ts lead wit h 118. Graves is second at 114, with Barnes moving up to third with 102. The leader coming into today's racing d idn't fare so well. Team Oliver's Rich Oliver was having a sp irited di ce over six th place with the Britten of An drew Stroud . Then came the crash - Ken Krebs goi ng down in the Int ernation al Horseshoe , oiling up the track - and the waving ye llows. Oli v er went under Stroud in that very corne r and was given a one-lap pe na lty, w hich he took amazingly well when he was told duri ng the 30-minute track cleaning d elay. "I never saw it," Oliver said of the waving yellow. "I was on the inside of Andrew (Stroud) and braking in the tum.

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