Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

(Left) Scott Russell (4) and Miguel DuHamel(1) battled to the bitter end of the 20D-mlle race. At the finish line It was DuHamel by a scant 0.010 second. (Below) Yoshimura Suzuki teammates Pascal Picotte imd Aaron Yates battle through the chicane early in the race . Carr gave them that in 1996. Carr spe nt most of th e da y racing with hi s team m ate Thomas Wil son b efore pulling away to a clear-cut 10th-place finish, far and away the be st Dayton a effort for the VRlOOO and Harley's best finish in th e 200 since Jim Dunn fin ish ed 17th in 1975. Harl ey-Davidson last won the race ' in 1969 with the late Cal Rayborn, coincidentally the last tim e the race was ru n a week late because of inclement weather. As far as the AMA Superbike National Championship goes, Du Ham el, obviously, leads th e ch ase w ith 35 p oints . Since D ayton a m ark s Ru ssell and Edwards' only AMA appearance of the season, Picotte is in all actu ality second with 28 points and Chandler third with 26. Mike Smith is really the only top AMA star to emerge fr om Dayton a without championship points - but every one will head to the next round in Pomona, California, healthy. . THE DAYTONA 200 BY ARAI The 55th running of the Daytona 200 by Arai finall y got started under high clouds and sunny skies at close to 1:45 p.m., with people lin ing the infield , fe nc es and partially filling the m ain ~randstands despite the six-day ra ce :Ielay. Following a parade lap behind the race car and a flying warmup lap, th e ights finally turned green - and red ilIed the front spot as Mike Hale shot lis Promoter Ducati to the front of the ,2-rid er field . As' the p ack roared owa rd the west horsesh oe for the first ime, Hale led a sta r-s tu dded supportn g cas t of Gobert, Corser, Ru ssell, .d w ard s, DuHamel, Smith, Yates an d 'icotte. Corser d id n't waste any time in hasing h is te am ma te, th e Austra lian -u tting his Ducati behind Hale 's similar ,'-twi n on the first go around the west anki ng before losing the spot to Gobert gain on the run aro und the tri-oval to ie finish line. By this tim e, James' d ay had come to p rem ature en d, hi s Va nce & Hin es amaha YZF750 coasting to a stop on Ie exit of the first comer. "We fried th e clu tch on the start," mes said later. "Th at' s the way it goes . 's un usual for that to happe n - we 've ever had any tro uble with it. It was a zw clu tch system an d 1 guess we ha ve , go a lot more easy on the clutch, you lOW? It's a sh ame we had to learn it James wasn't alone in clutch troub le. luzzy's Kawasaki's Mike Smith w ould it for the first time on the thi rd lap, his u tch also fried fr om th e start. Th e lu zzy crew replaced it, 'sen d in g him ack out some six laps later. And th is 'as onl y the beginning of Smith's long ay a s it would only get longer. He /ould pit again later, this time to have a rokerr exhaust pipe repaired, yet h e zou ld carryon, ultimately fi nis h in g 1st and well out of the points. Hale led across the stripe to complete he first lap, but it would be the only lap ied lead in thi s Da ytona 200 . The 'oung Texan would continue to run in he lead group, but only briefly. On the ifth lap, Hale crashed out of the race in :urn six, the left-h and er which leads on :0 the west banking. "The ignition was cutting out and it was losing power," Hale exp lained later. "Then it quit cutting out and 1 was closing on (Anthon y) Gobert and (Colin) Edwards. 1saw the oil flag and 1just ,put it in there. The next thing 1 knew, 1 wa s on the ground." Hale rushed to hi s d owned Ducati , only to find water spewi ng out of the water pump, via a n impeller bl ade . Thus, with five lap s in the books, the race was minus three of its sta rs, th ough Smith would continue to circu late, and on e of the four factory Ducatis. Corser, m e anwhile, had his h ead d own, putting nearly two and a half seconds between himself and his pursuers Edwards, Russell, Gobert and'DuHamel. Th en his Du cati started to give him negative feedback, in th e fo rm of a fa st-cl imbing temperature gauge . It was an indication of th ings to come for the Aust ralian. As quickly as Corser had o pened h is le a d , it was gone - and Ed w ards led across the stripe for the fi rs t time on the seventh lap. Then, {ust as qui ckly, Corser was back, blasting around the Yama ha on the west bankin g to take the point posi tion a lap later. And then he opened up a lead again, p u llin g away from t he foursome of Edwards, Russell, Gobert an d DuHam el. What ever was wrong with the Du cati was obvio usly fixed . Or was it? Ed w ards' cha nce of a p e rfect d ay took a blow on the ninth lap wh en he pitted with a sh redde d rear Dunlop tire. "We didn't plan on it (the first p it stop) for sure," Edwards said. "It came way too soon. 1 guess we screwed up, to be honest . We screwed up th e tire choice. We had a different tire choice, but we came int o today and it was a little warmer - so we went up a step on the front and the rear, to the harder ones . W e were thinking that it would be enough, but it w a sn ' t. We h ad to go even more (harder) th an th at. The tir e was completely destroyed. " The second o f th e four factor y Ducatis expired on th e 10th lap, with Shawn Higbee bringing his Fast By Ferracci Ducati into pit lane with a blown transmission. Higbee had been running 13th. ' The order after 10 o f 57 laps read: Corser, DuHamel, Gob ert, Rus sell, Yates, Picotte, Pegram, Mladin, Kipp, Crevier, Chandler, Edwards, Carr, Wilson and top privateer Mich ael Taylor. Gobert was the next of the factory stars to pit, rou tinely taking tw o new tires and fuel on the 15th lap . A lap later and he w as back on pit row, the crew s trugg lin g to fix a p roblem with h is front b rak e cali pe rs. On the 22nd la p, the talen ted Au stralian wo ul d call it a d ay, the Mu zzy Kawasaki finally h aving engine problems. "I had a front tire problem," Gobert said from pit lane . "I was a bit too hard on it and took some chunks out of it. Th en we h ad a front brake problem... then the engine. N ow we 're calling it a d ay." "Tires, brakes, motor... it w asn 't his da y," team owner Rob Muzzy said of Gobert's problems. On the 15th lap , DuHamel was right w ith Corser, w h ose second attem p t at running away had fail ed. They had a sligh t' gap back to Rus sell, who in turn had space between himself and Yates. With DuHamel pitting for tires and fuel on th e 18th lap, Russell SUd denly found himself in the lead for th e first tim e with Corser second, Picotte third, Yates fourth and MIadin fifth, the four new Suzukis performing to perfection in their debut race as the y held four of the top five spots. Corser took to th e pits for th e fir st time on the 19th lap, and Russell found himself with a IS -se co n d lea d over Picotte, with Corser rejoining the race in fourth place. DuHamel and Edwards, meanwhile, were locked in a d uel over fifth. On th e 22nd la p, Corser took over again as Russ ell p itted, but the Geor gian wa s able to rejoin the pack in secon d pl ace, some six seco nds behind Corser and barely ahe ad o f DuHam el a n d Edwa rds. Russell started to chip away at Corser' s lead, taking it down to under four seconds on the 27th lap. On th e 28th lap, Russell w as back in front, with Corser slowing his pace dramatically. By this tim e, MIadin's chance at a top finish was gone as he had back-to-bark p it stops only two laps apart (laps 26 and 28) after havin g blistered his tires. "I blistered two tires and it pissed me off, actually," Mladin sa id after fin ally finishing one lap d own in 11th place. "We were right in there, We were right there with Pascal (Picotte) and he got fourth. We had tw o extra stops and we probably would ha ve still been all right if we'd d one one extra ." On the 30th lap the pace car came ou t fo r the on e and only tim e, w ith 1989 Day to na 200 wi n ner John A shmead crashing out of the race in tum one. Seve ral riders to o k this o p p o rt uni ty to sneak into th e pits, an d Edwards was \D 0\ ~

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