Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

ROAD 'RACE AMA 250cc G Prix Series rand Round 3: Lag n u aSecaRac ay ew lversa ~ e ec \ By Henny Ra y Abrams MONTEREY, CA, APR. 28 it h Jerem y M cGra th ' s wi n nin g s tre a k o ver, th e rid er w it h the mos t co nsecu ti ve AMA pro fessiona l w ins becom es Team Ol iver Yama ha' s Rich O liver. Th e tw otime defending AMA 250cc GP Champion' m aintain ed his perfect season, winnin g his th ird race in a ro w , ag ain in com pletely dominating fashion . Though he has a way to go to match McGrath 's 13 in a row, there's little evid ence tha t anyon e can stop him . On a day w he n the su n shined bright and the track was ho t, Oliver blistered the competition, stre tching his legs early and pulling aw ay a t better than a second a lap th rou g hout the 17-lap, 38.05mile race on the recently altered 2.238mile Laguna Seca Raceway. At the end , the Fresno, California, res ide nt won by 17.458 seconds, completing the race at an average speed of 86.103 m ph in 26 minutes, 30.710 se co nds. For all bu t a ha ndful of those seco nds, the race was never in do ubt. 'This wa s a tough race for me," Oliver bega n, confounding th os e who'd watched him win with considerable ease. The n he explained : "Th is w eekend I think I w as still kind of recovering from Pomona and that too k a lot ou t of me. I didn't p refer the dangerous conditions th ere and I tried to co me here with a clean h ead and a clean attitude, but I think I had a bit of a carry-over caution from that race w here I might have been hold ing back a little too much here. And w he n I rod e aro u nd in th e m orning wa rmu p thi s mornin g I d id m y fast est times and was just enjoyi ng the morning sc e n ery . A nd' realized th at if I just relaxed I could d o good tim es and w in the race." And that's exactly what he did. In second place, his best AMA finish, wa s P erfo rma nc e Machi ne's Kris tia n Kaas, The 23-yea r-old native of Finland th ought he coul d hang wi th Oliver ea rly before concedi ng the race. His pl an then becam e to ho ld o nto second, which he did , w it h a judiciou s eye o n h is pit board. Just behind him w as a fierce battle and Kaas m ad e sure that he always had a two- or thr ee-second cushion. W I stances. Nothi ng untoward happened and Oliver had his 25th career 250cc GP win, eac h wi n a d di ng to the record which he cu rre n tl y holds . Thou g h he continues to ins ist that the class is competitive, he can only be referring to the spots behind h im . Of th a t, he' s rig ht, th ough no t necessa rily today. Kaas moved in to second at the end of the firs t lap and, like Oliver, he would not be d islod ged. "Th e first two or three cou ple laps I thought that I cou ld hang arou nd and cat ch Rich," sa id Kaas, who sa t ou t last yea r. "The n I saw there w as no wa y. My b ik e was a littl e bit slo w . It w as ho t today an d I had problems with the bik e. It w asn't as fas t as I w anted it to be . I w as pretty alone there and I tried to do my best." H is best w as good eno ug h to keep (Above) Randy Renfrow (96) leads the way at the start of the 250cc Grand Prix final at laguna Seca; he's being chased by eventual race winner Rich Oliver (1). (Right) Renfrow had his hands full with Kurtis Roberts (81), the youngest son of Kenny Roberts. Tha t ba ttle w as betw een one of the oldest an d on e of the yo u ngest riders in the cla ss. Randy Renfrow, th e 40-yearo ld vet er an fro m Virgin ia , hooke d up ea rly in the race w it h PJ-l Racin g Oil s Plu s' Kurtis Robe rt s, th e l7-y ear-o ld so n of Kenny Roberts, who was mak ing h is A M A Pro racing d ebut. Ro b erts rod e hard and too k the lead fro m Ren frowa number of tim es, but Renfrow's Ra n d y Re nfrow Mo torsp orts RS250 Honda was v isib ly qui ck er than Roberts' Yamaha TZ25 0, an d Ren frow exploited the sp eed advantage to o u trace Roberts to the line by a bo ut half a second o n th e last lap. Th e pair were about 1.23 second s behind Kaas a t the end. Fifth place w as a p ho to fini sh, with Ross Baron Racing' Mark Foster ta king the spo t by inc hes over the Zero Gravity Yamaha of ick Ien a tsch . Jeff Leggi tt w as seve n t h , the Ro land Cu shway / Heli m ot European Arai-backed H ond a rider in fro nt of Chris Rogers. Then cam e Team Mon toya's Michael Montoy a a n d Cin e C a m e r a ' s Ja s on Paden. By w inning every round, and leading th e mo st laps in each race, Oliver has a pe rfect score of 108 po ints aft er thr ee of 10 races. Renfrow is 16 points beh ind , w ith Mark Foster third at 80, one point in fron t of Kaas . The last race of th e day, the 250cc GP wa s started under a scorching late-aft erno on su n, with Renfro w ju mping into the lead o nly until Oliver took it o ve r late on the fir st lap. From th en on, th e wi n ner w as not in dis pute.' Halfw ay into th e l7-lap race, Oli ver had near ly 10 seconds and his third wi n . was ass ured, barring unforsee n circu m- him in second, a coup le of seco nds in fro nt of th e Renfrow -Roberts battle. The cu s hi on Kaa s ha d was as la rge as six seconds at the ha lfw ay point, but shra nk rapidl y in the next tw o laps as he felt his tires go away. " I saw it was three s eco nds an d I knew so meone was be hi nd m e all the tim e," Kaas sai d. "I tried to tak e it easy. Th e tires were gone . They fe lt really slippery after eight laps." Renfro w and Rob erts weren't so much trying to cat ch Kaas as stay ahead of each other. Roberts h ad sta r te d s lo w ly , compl eting th e first lap in seven th place b efore quick ly movin g forw ard . H e w as sixth on th e seco nd lap, fifth on the fourth lap , a nd wo uld make hi s w ay up to fourth on the fifth lap, pa ssing Ienatsch . Ie n tas ch, w ho'd s ta rte d w ell, was finding that his Yamah a was ove r hea ti ng a n d was n ' t ru n nin g a t pe ak po w er . 'We've go t a basic problem like fuel o r tim ing," he sa id. " It ran real hot. On the sta rt it was 60 degrees , then it wen t right up to 72 an d d idn't come d own. It wasn ' t revvin g . I ra n 1:33s in practice and this m o rn ing a nd thou g h t I w a s ready to go . I couldn't ge t ou t of the 34s i n th e race." So for the final 11 laps it w as Roberts rid ing hard in the co rners , using the Cor kscrew to pa ss on mos t laps , onl y to lose his ad vantage to Renfrow 's power on the now -longer fron t straight. "I was trying to find a wa y to shake him off," Robe rts sai d . "He was passing me on th e stra igh t. Tha t was th e onl y place that he was pa ssing me. I was so much faster in th e co rn ers and' wa s o u tb ra k ing h im eve ry la p in the Corkscrew. My bike wasn't stopping so good . The b ra kes m a ybe go t a little glazed on th e pads, b ecause it wasn ' t stop ping at all. Like every tim e' passed him in th e Co rkscrew I had a real hard The letestRobens urtis Roberts, the youngest son of three-time World Champion Kenny Roberts, and brother of Marlboro Roberts Yamaha's Kenny Roberts [r., made his AMA debut at Laguna Seca a thrilling one, scrapping with veteran Randy Renfrow before finally coming up half a second short. It was his first taste of AMA 250cc GP competition and it won't be his last. The 17-year-old redhead is committed to five more AMA races, while shuttling back and forth to the European 250 Championship series, all in the name of experience. cc Kurtis Roberts said that he called his dad from Spain in March and suggested he find a way to fill the time between the extensive gaps in the European schedule. He and his teammate, former AMA 250cc GP Champion Jimmy Filice, were having trouble with the 1996TZ250 Yamahas and he needed a place to get track time. "I said, 'Why don't we start doing stuff in Europe on an older bike?' Me and Jimmy Filice, my teammate in Europe, we can't get used to the new bike," Roberts said. "It eats up tires and we just can't ride it like we want to. I like the '95 a lot better than the '96. It just gives me a lot more fceling. On the '96 I can't feel the rear tire." 50 the decision was made to race a 1995 TZ250 in selected AMA events. The bike is being tuned by Brian Turfrey with sponsorship from PJ-l Racing Oils Plus, the same sponsor he has in Europe. Currently, Roberts is planning to contest the AMA races at Homestead, Mid-Ohio, and E1khart Lake. He'll skip Loudon due to a conflict with a race in Portugal. He'll be back in July to do Brainerd, then back to Europe, and he'll finishthe AlvlA schedule at Las Vegas. He'd never ridden at Laguna Seca and had only seen the track from the passenger seat of a car. The only American track he's ridden on is Thunderhill Raceway, and that for an abbreviated 2O-lap session. At Laguna Seca his lap times showed that, after a few laps of orientation, he was quickly up to speed, unofficially clocking the second-fastest time to Team Oliver Yamaha's Rich Oliver duri ng practice. "Toward the end of the first practice session I star ted gelling used to it," Roberts said. The first taste of competition would come in Saturday's five-lap heat races. As in practice, Roberts started slowly, finishing the first lap in sixth place before working his way up to fourth at the end. '1 really didn't know what to expect," Roberts said of the competition. "I knew Rich Oliver was here, I knew (Randy) Renfrow was here and (Nick) Ienatsch." Though he said it didn 't faze him, Roberts was making his debut in front of a passel of famous friends and family. In addition to his racing father and brother, and sister Kristy, threetime World Champion Wayne Rainey was in his pits, along with Bud and Chuck AksIand and sponsor P.J. Harvey. In the race Roberts quickly moved into a battle wi th Renfrow that would go right down to the checkered flag. Renfrow's Honda R5250 was clearly quicker than Roberts' Yamaha, but Roberts was beller on the brakes. But he ran into brake problems and, though Roberts passed him two turns from the end of the race, Renfrow was able to motor by to take third. As for whether he would ever do a full season of AMA racing like his brother, Roberts replied: "I don' t think 5 0 . I don't know. Europe definitely has a lot more competition. The other thing in Europe is that everyone has really good equipment." See him while you can. He won't be here long. K

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