Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

before I go t go ing. I actu ally w anted him to get in front of m e because I wanted to fo llow h im . 'H e was sitting ba ck th er e comforta ble, 'and I wanted to sit behi n d him -and be comfortab le. I w as m ayb e a little b it n e rvous for m y first time, not because I w as leading m y first superbike race, but because I w as lea ding my first su perb ike race an d he (Du Hamel) was sitting right behi n d m e. I knew what h e was thinking: 'I'll ju st follow h im to the en d and th en I'll p ass him: I kinda wan ted him to get in fro nt o f m e so I cou ld wait until the end and pass h im. " With 12 laps in the books, DuHame l made h is m ove for the lea d . Natura lly, th e pass ca me on the e n trance to tu rn seven w ith DuHamel h old ing a tigh t line an d m ainta ining his exit speed desp ite his extra effort on the entrance. Th en came the red flag, with privateer Paul H arrell crashing his Yamaha in tum three, resu ltin g in d ebris on the race track and th e usual melee on p it lane as crews ru shed to m ake tire changes, suspension alter ations, etc. Th e top 10 running order at the end of th e fir s t p ortion of th e ra ce r e a d : DuHamel, Pe gram, Ch a nd ler, Ja mes, Mladin, Picot te, Hi gb ee, Crevie r, Smith and Kipp. W ith most o f the factory riders taking on a t least new rea r tires, th e race w as rest arted in a ca rbon -co py o f th e firs t s ta r t: Pegram le d wi th Ch andl er and Jam es betwee n himself and Du Hamel. " I g ot the e xact s a me s t art rig h t b eh ind th e sa me gu ys," DuHamel said later . " I got a littl e m ad b e cau se I th ought, 'Th ey know where I'm passing th em so the y're p robabl y going to b e block ing or going in deeper: An d th ey were , but I w as still ab le to get in there. But it w as getting uncomfortabl e: ' Again, m ost of h is passing ca me in tu m seven : "All w eekend I'd bee n br ak- in g r e a ll y good an d late in th e r e, " DuHamel said . "I sort of had a good idea w hat I cou ld ge t a w a y with. 1 tr ie d to catch them off guard . Righ t off the bat 1 needed to su rp rise them an d ge t inside them : The second rest art it was qu ite a bit tougher because th ey all expected me to come there an d they all started braking a bit deeper. I was still abl e to go in there an d uti lize th ose H onda brakes. I knew 1 ha d to get u p th e re q u ick wi th Larry (Pegr am) becau se he seemed to ' be riding good , really smooth an d not making any m ista kes . I fig ured th at he m ight start pulling away. The first race I wa sn't in as much of a hurry be cause it's a longer race. The second race was jus t 16 or 17 laps so 1 w anted to get up there quick because the way th at we were r id ing, a really hard and fast pace, to make up a second or two takes qui te a while . It turned out all righ t." Th at it d id . DuHamel started ho u nding Pegram by the second lap and he con tinued to do so until the seventh go-around - at times waving his h and and shaking his h ead at th e yo u ngs ter every ti me h e lo o k e d be hind. "1 didn't hav e tim e to wave at him, so I just shook m y he ad. I d idn't want to al ways d o th e same th in g because th en he'd stop lo oking ba ck if I w as always waving at him," DuHamel sa id. Then he mad e his m ove - but it wasn't in tu rn seven . Pegram had w ised up to that, m ovin g in sid e on th e en tra nce to turn seven an d braki ng much later th an in th e first p a rt of th e race. Th e p ass, th ough, seemed imminen t, and it came on the en trance to th e b us-stop chicane whim Pegram ran w ide on the-e ntrance. Chandler, m eanw hil e, w as closer in thi s one, sticking to Pegram's tail - th anks in part to a suspension change during th e . break. ' "1 thou ght I co u ld run w it h those Carr and Harley stun 'em . S tunni ng is the only word to describe the perform ance of Chris Carr (right) and the factory Harley-Davidson VR1 000 during qualifying for the L.A. Superbike Championship at the Pomona Fairplex. Carr's pole position marked the first for Harley in the 20-ycar history of AMA Supcrbike racing, giving the factory that produ ces the Milwaukee marque a hu ge reason to smile a collective smile. Carr's best, a 1:24.377, came on his penultimate lap on Friday afte rn oon a nd it withs tood the test of time by hold ing up th roughout Satur day's red-flag-interru pted final session. The former Grand National Champion was pleasantly surprised and even his rivals seemed sincerely happy for both Carr and his somewhat beleaguered team. "I didn 't think yesterday's time wou ld hold up, [ really didn' t," Carr said on Saturday afternoon. "I figured something in the mid-23s would be fast time, so maybe I can thank my teamm ate (Thomas Wilson) for blowing up down the straightaway and blowing oil. It got everybody out of rhythm and made everybody use a different line going into that far comer. That kind of screwed with everybody a little bit, but I'll take it." Carr circulated with third-fastest qualifier Pascal Picorte - the lap record holder from a year ago - at one point du ring Saturday's session, but wasn't able to keep pace. Still. the Californian ~ w asn't concerned. "He was on qualifiers (tires)," Carr said. "That's what I hear. My good laps at the end of yesterday were on qualifiers. I felt like I might be able to squeak out something a little quicker than yesterday, bu t on all three of th e laps I got hooked up wit h somebody and it slowed me down a little bit. On the last lap, the tire w as roached so I w as dirt tracking instead of road racing ." Thoug h su rp rising, Carr's effort only followed a trend at Pomona: Dirt trackers do well on the tight and bumpy 2.l -mile track in the Fairplex parking lot. "It's tight and twisty and tha t favors the Harley as well. and I'm not afraid to slide the bike around when I have to," he said. That's what it takes to do a good lap here; you can' t just expect to hook up the whole way around. You've got to light it up and get sideways to get turned and ignore the bumps. At Daytona we probably slide a little more because the tires we have to run there. are pret~ hard. For a track this tight, yeah, we' re probably Doug Chandler finished third at Pomona, his best AMA result since his championship season In 1990. guys a little better, bu t 1 was ha vin g a bit of trou ble in th e mi ddle of the comers - it w as com ing around an d th ere w asn't a lot of tr acti on," Ch andler sa id la ter, "I m ade a little b it o f change to th e rear shock in the second leg and it w as quite a bi t bett er . I w as still h aving a bit of the same trouble, but it allowed me to go a b it quicker to run with th ese guys , I stayed close the whole ra ce, 1 was real happy wi th th at." James, too, was in the hunt - until he h it a false neutral on th e en trance to the bus- stop chi cane. That dropped him out of th e le ad group a n d w ell int o the bunched pack th at trailed. " I was going in there co mfor ta bly every lap," Jam es explaine d . " Then I hit a fa lse n eutra l, w ent st ra igh t an d tu rned aro u n d . I shou ld ha v e gone straight th rough , but I though t I'd ge t docked a ll sliding a little more. The track's dirty. If yO get off the edge of the track there's a lot of dirt. The rain thev had earlier in the week didn' t help." . As for the "new" engine that Carr was using in his Craig Filmer-tuned VRlOOO: "Yeah, it's faster. That's all I can say; I'll leave that to the P.R. department. The bike is bet ter. It's got about five to seven more horsep ow er over wh at we had at Day- tona : mo st ly mid ran ge. We're s till figh tin g th at (chassis changes). It's not 100-percent cured. I've had problems with the front end wanting to tuck, and really buckle und er on me out here and we're trying to get that out slowly but surely. It's getting better, I feel comfortable running - not at a 24.5, but I did a 24.7 this morning on a race setup. I sped up today on the race setup, but didn' t get any faster on the qualifying stuff. I'm glad to be the man who piloted the bike that did that (gave Harley its first pole). Har ley-David son is a great compa ny to race for . They' re very loyal as long as you're loyal to them. I slarted riding for them in '86 when they were just coming out of the rut with the reorganization of the company, and I've been with them ever since. If you go out there and give laO-percent effort, they're going to reward you for it. If you take off, there's no chance of you ever coming back. I had to wait for Harley to build a super bike for me to go road racing because had I tried it before and failed I wouldn' t have had anything to fall back on. I'm glad I did now. At Daytona we were the first Harley to finish in 20 years, the first Harley sup erbike to finish in the top 10. Who knows what's next? We' re caught off guard by this. We hoped to be more competitive than we were at Daytona, but to sit on the pole? We'd never had dr eamed tha t in our wildest dreams. I think I can win this race. I've showed some consistency out there and 27 laps (actually 30 laps... Editor) is different than a one-lap wonder." Keeping the dirt track trend going was Fast By Ferracci's Larry Pegram, who qualified second in only his second race on the red V-twin. "I did that time (his 1:24.617) on race tires," Pegram said. "1 can run that the whole race - mid to high 24s. I don' t think they can do that. If someone pushes me, I can go faster. We'll see in the race. I'd like to try and get away so I can cruise. The bike is good and the tires are good. I think Miguel (DuHamel) and Pascal (Picotte) will be tough, maybe Chris (Carr).I haven't run with him (Carr) at all, but he may be able to run with us. It doesn't bother me running with these guys. Everybody seems smart and nobody is going to do anything stupid." Picotte ended u p third on the Yoshimura Suzuki at 1:24.657, with his best time coming in Saturday's final session. Picotte, like his teammate Aaron Yates, recently completed a test at Willow Springs in an effort to gain more confidence in the GSXR's chas- lap or something, so I decided to make a V-y (Ll-turn)." Th at wasn't a popular ch o ice with Crevier, who was badly balked when Ja mes came b ac k o n track ri ght in th e m iddle o f the race fo r wha t was n ow fou rt h, a dice between H igbee, Mlad in , Crevier, Kip p and Picotte, "Th e se con d start w as p re tty go od ," Crev ie r said lat er. "I came out fig ht in g h ard. I had so me trouble getting aroun d ,(Ma t) Mladin. He's scary enou gh to w atch ride, let alone ride behind. I was kind of s tu ck the r e. (Sh a wn) H igbe e a lso g o t through an d he was p arking it in the turns. Jamie Games) came back on track right in front of everybody and screwed us all up, I got the crud end of the stick in that deal." Although DuHamel now led , Pegram and Chandler w eren't giving up. Th e key ca me on th e 14th lap , w h en DuHame l sis. Both riders ended up crashing, but only Yates was injured, suffering a broken collarbone. "The bike is good," Picotte said. "It still needs some work. but we'll have some new parts for Laguna. We learned a lot at Willow, but there was no time before this race. We tried a bunch st of different things with the chassis; it's the be test I've had in a long time. I thought I'd do 23 something, but I got stuck behind so many lapped riders - not slow riders, but lapped riders; these guys were pretty bad. I think we'll go back to the other pipe (exhaust) from yesterda y. We were trying to get more midrange, but we lose it on top. It's a real compromise. I think the race will be tough. That Harley is faster than my bike on both straights - in every gear - and it's like a train on rails.through the turns. He (Carr) can win here; it's possible. He's been doing consistent 25 flats on race tires, but he may be shy in the race. He may have a lot of respect for guys like Miguel (DuHamel) and won' t want to do anything stu p id. And he' s not that young. When you' re young. you don' t worry about stuff like that you just go out and do it." Rounding out the front row was Muzzy Kawasaki's Doug Chandler, the Californian having his best outing since his championship season in 1990. Chandler clocked at 1:24.893, one of six riders to circulate under 1:25. "I did that time on a possible race setup," Chan dle r said. "But [ don't think it's cool enough today to run that." When told that Pegram thought it was possible to do 1:24s for the ent ire ' race, Chandler smiled and said: "That'll be good. It seems like they do that for a lap, and then they're back in (the pits)." Row two would consist of Australian Mat Mlad in (1 :24.895) on his Yoshimura Suzuki, defending Superbike National Champion Miguel DuHamel (1:24:933), his teamma te Steve Crevier (1:24.087) and Vance & Hines Yamaha's Jamie James (1:24.166). DuHamel, who used a 1995-spec Honda RC45 in winning the Day tona 200 last mon th, wa s back to 1996 specs, at leas t in , regard to suspension and chassis, according to his tuner Al Ludington. "It's about two-thirds '96 stuff," Lud ington said. If the Honda crew were concerned with DuHamel's qualifying effort, they d idn't show it - and for good reason. Someone had asked Ludington when the last lime DuHamel had qualified on the second row? The answer: The 1996 Daytona 200. . Row three was headed by Muzzy Kawasaki's Mike Smith, the Georgian strugg ling to find the right setup and crashing a total of three times during practice and qualifying (once on his 600, twice on his superbike), Vance & Hines Yamaha's Tom Kipp, Ferrucci's Shawn Higbee and Earl Small Harley-Davidson's AISalaverria filled throw three. In all, 40 riders qualified for the third annual L.A.Superbike Championship.

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