Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

(Left) J amie James gives the thumbs up before being loa ded Into the ambul ance following his crash; he was lucky to escape with a broken lower leg. (Right) Migue l DuHamel (1) man aged to leave with a fourth -place finish; he re he leads Italian Alessandro Gramlgnl (139). " I just lost th e fro n t," Peg ra m ex p la ined. " I wasn't even going h ard . After th at J jus t w ent out an d cruised. I d idn 't wan t to put it o n the g ro u n d again. I figu red guys would fall ou t, but th a t' s not th e way it wor ked . I guess it w as okay to run the first ha lf, but not the second ." Th e fi rs t o f t wo fr ightfu l cra sh es occur red on the sevent h lap when Sm ith , w h o was running seven th a t the time, crashed h ard in th e final comer, his body and bike sliding out in fro n t of oncom ing traffic - namel y G ramigni a n d hi s D uca ti. Th e Italian did a ste llar job o f avoidi ng the fallen Georgian, but it w as eno u g h to spo ok the former W orld Champion. "This organization is bad," Gramigni said during the red-flag break. "Th e racing must be sto p ped . It's impossible to race. There are bik es everywhere and no flags. Someone mus t be dead for them to sto p the race ." Though the red flag was being thrown around the race track, the crashing wasn't finished . One of those on the ground was Picotte. "T hey red-flagged the thing and I crashed," the Suzuki rider said. "It was in the Keyhole and I knew it was really, really slippery over th e re . I just tried somethi ng a litt le bit d ifferent to try to h ook up to Jamie Games) - and I lost the front end. I learn ed fro m that for th e second heat." A t 4:15 p .m ., the race was restarted . The weather was still bad, the track still slippery. More d rama would follow. James g rabbed the h oleshot, leading Mladin and Picotte on the open ing lap of th e restarted r a ce . On the third lap, Ml adin g ot sideways in the in fa mou s la st comer, but didn't cr ash. Two la ps lat er, however, the Austral ia n w as out, crashing in th e Keyh ole. On the six th lap, James led Picotte by six seconds and Picotte h ad Wilso n all over hi s re ar whe e l, th e H arl ey rider h a ving added a tooth to his rear sprocket during the break. Th en came Metzger, DuHamel and Gramigni in tight formation. Further back was Kipp with another ga p to Chandler an d Yates. Metzger didn't seem fazed by racing in su ch fast company. " It w ent through my mind, but it al so w ent through m y mind that h e's just an other ra cer, ju st as m ortal as I am," Metzger said. " I also knew that he w a s in a points cha se and h a d the whole championship to worry about. But I also know he doesn't like to get beat by a privateer Supersport rider... I ju st t o l d myself to ca lm down and breathe. I told m ys elf to breathe everywh ere and jus t to keep co o l. When I w a s ah ead of DuHamel I thought, ' Well, h e' s ju st playing cat and mouse lik e he always d oe s: It w asn 't halfway ye t." DuHamel w asn't overly impre ssed with the upstart superb ike rider: " I was (Left) Thomas Wilson gave the Harley-Davids on VR1000 its bestever Superblke finish when he na rrowly missed winning the race. just putting the pressure on that guy," the National Champion said . "I knew h e was on the e d g e, a n d I could see th e headlines if I got ahead of him and he took me out. I was waiting, but you never know when a red flag would come out. He was trying to make a name for himsel f a nd when I p assed h im I wanted it to stick." Just when he was about to complete th e eigh th lap of the rest art, James was high-sided from his Yamaha in the last comer, slamming into th e Air Fence and fortunately not coming back out on to the Chandler's pole, and po:i nt=-----_ _ _ I t wasn 't that Muzzy Kawasaki 's Doug Ch andler (right) was overly thrilled about getting the championship point that went along with earning the pole position for the AMA Superbike National at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, but he sure thought it was nice that Miguel DuHamel didn 't get it. ... "To me it's no big deal, but jee z, I ca n' t ke ep givi ng it to 'em:' Chandler said . "We reallv put some effort into this qualifying." That effor t - a 1:29.251 lap around the 2.4-mile race track ended up p roviding Chandler with his first pole position since the French Grand Prix in 1992,and more importantly it prevented his championship rival DuHamel from getting the pole, and that ali-important ch am p ions hip point. Prior to Sunday' s rac e, Chandler led DuHamel by 17 points. Chandler's best, however, was still a few tenths off the lap record set by Colin Edwards" in 1994. "I did that time with race tires: ' Chandler said of his soft-compound Dunlop 881 on Saturday afternoon. "That's what I plan on racing with. We've done a lot of laps on 'em and they keeping hanging in there, no problem. We were fighting a chatter problem yesterday and this morning. I was trying to run a loose setting, trying to get it to absorb the bumps. We had to put some compression back in it. I was just trying to run it too loose." DuHamel was second quickest, just a few tenths slower at 1:29.529. "I was pretty disappointed not to get the point, " DuHame l said . "We could have gone a bit faster, but I didn 't have time to put on qualifying tires. I don't know if that would have mad e a difference or not. We just ran out of time, trying some suspension stu ff." race track. The red flag was brought out and the race was stopped, ultimately for good. Picotte got word of his victory while standing on pi t lan e. "Th is morning I w as in th e shower th inking what I need to d o to m ake that th ing w ork in the ra in," Pi cotte sa id. " We cha nge d th e fork s pr ing, we changed the rear spring. We put a heavier weight on the crankshaft to make the thing a little slower on the bottom. A little bit of this and th at. I played a little bit with the tire too - kind of m y own technique that yo u learn when you dirt track or ice race. Everything I did just went the wa y it shou ld be an d the bike was rea lly wo rking well:' Picotte wasn't too proud to admit that Next up was Larry Pegram and the Fast By Ferracci Ducati, clocking a 1:29.657 while using what he called his race setup . "We made a lot of improvements today," Pegram said. "Mostly with chassis stuff. We had a little wobble down the back straight, but there are a lot of things better today than yesterday . 1just know we went a lot faster today and yesterday I was pushing it a lot to go slower than today. We used the same front and rear tire for the whole qua lifying session - that's the way we do our qualifying sessions. I'm using the same tire that I used for the first time in Miami and it's just as good on the last lap as it is on the first. It's a new tire, I think. I think we can run that pace the whole race long. but we'll see. Tomorrow will tell. I just know I definitely need a better start than what I got in Miami. I hope it doe sn't rain, but if it d OL we' ve got the rain tires ." . "S Pegram 's final statement turned out to be somewhat prophetic as rain drenched the Mid-Ohio course on Sunday , and he was hopeful that his Michelins would be better than the compe tition's Dunlops in the we t cond itions. Jamie James and the Vance & Hines Yamaha filled the front row with the native Louisianan in the final rider in the 1:29s at 1:29.935. "I'm not going to worry abou t it: ' James said of the rain on Sunda y morning. " If anything, it helps us . Doug (Chandler) and (Migue l) DuHamel have to think about not throwing it down the road . We don 't have to worry about that." As for his resurgence in the dry qualifying sessions, James said: "This race track kind of suits our bike a little better. I think we've been trying so hard to find something. I'm hoping we're back up a little and it's better now. I think that's the case: ' The second row would be led by Yoshimura Suzuki's Pascal Picotte, the French Canadian still waiting for new parts th.lt he hopes will fix the bike's handling woes - namely a longer swingarm. "It's exactly the same thing." Picotte said. "We're waiting for a link and swinga rm. We may get the swingarm for Loudon . That and we're at least 5 mph down on the back straight - that's a big difference. Suzuki was so aggressive at the beginn ing of the season. When we asked for something we got it. Now there's nothing. Right now it's a big circle, like a dog trying to bite its tail. We get something fixed, but it makes something else bad:' Picotte's teamm ate Mat Mladin was next, despite missing nearly the entire final session when he crashed his Suzu ki GSXR750 early , injuring his back, thoug h not seriously enough to keep him out of Sunday 's race. Then came the two factory Harley-Davidsons, performing well on the bumpy race track. It was rookie Thom as Wilson w ho was the faster of the two, leading teammat e Chris Carr by just over a tenth ofa second. 7

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