Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Round 6: Road America =- - - - - --;;;:::;;;r.... '" :>' -c a:: :Il £ ~ z W :I: ~ 8 o :I: Q. ~ u: I tioned final lap and Picotte wasn' t concerned th at he'd be drafted u p the hill and lose the race to the flag. "Not really," Picotte said when aske d if a draft-pass up the hill had him wo rried . "H e (Yates) was behind me two laps from the end and he didn' t come by me. I tho ught, 'Maybe he's saving it for the en d, but I don' t thi nk so .' He was tryi ng so hard in the infield, if he cou ld pass m e on th e s tra ig ht of co u rse h e wo u ld've. So I thou gh t I wou ld be okay to lead on the last lap as we ll." He was, takin g this third win of the season an d at least putting a tem po rary stop to the m omentum h is team mate Yates had recently gained. Pico tte celebrated with a backwards victory lap on the four- mile race track: "We work so hard and we do this job for the glory," Picotte said. "Everybody th inks we do this because we like money, but we don't really care about the money . We like the fans and we like our job. It' s just glory. When I win I like to do a lap with the checkered flag. So I did it the rever se wa y." fX Road Ame rica Elkhart Lake, Wiscons in Results: June 8, 1996 (Round 6 of 11) 12 7S0cc SUPERSPORT FINA L: 1. P ascal Picotte (Suz ); 2. Aar on Yates (5uz); 3. Mark McDaniel (Suz); 4. Dou g Chandler (Kaw), 5. Mark Miller (5uz); 6. Michael Barnes (Suz ); 7. Jim Les lie (Suz); 8. Da le Kieffer (Suz ); 9. Mark Black (Suz); 10. Dcx Snow (Suz); 11. Daniel Bailey (Suz ); 12. Th om as Stevens (Kaw); 13. Rad Greaves (Suz); 14, Owen Weichel (Kaw) ; 15. Frank Wilson (Sux); 16. Steve Patterson (Suz); 17. Christopher Rankin (Kaw); 18. Mark Ju nge (Suz); 19. Boyd Bruner (Suz); 20 . Ryan Me yer (Suz); 21. Harold Winkles (Hon ); 22. Gordon Lun de Jr. (Kaw): 23. Tom my Dyreson (Suz); 24. Gary Ricci (Suz); 25. Eric He rbison (Yam); 26. Glenn Filshie (Suz); 21. Jeff re y Pu rk (Hon); 28. Walter Sakowski (Kaw ); 29. Steven Mino r (Suz); 30. Bradl ey Von Behren (5uz); 31. Jam ie Wort hington (Ho n ); 32. Dani el Brody (Kaw); 33 . Tod d Harrington (Ka w ); 34 . Ray Yoder (Yam); 35. Eduardo Reyes (Kaw). T ime: 23 min .., 19.011 sec. Distance: 10 la ps, 40 miles. Average Sprfli: 102.925 mph. Mar gin of Victory: 0.384 sec. 7S0c< SU PERSPORT C'SHIP POINT STANDINGS (After 6 of 10 rounds): 1. Pascal Picotte (204/ 3 wins); 2. Aaron Yate s (198 /3); 3. (TI E) Mich ael Barnes /Ma rk McDaniel (163); 5. Mark Miller (159); 6. Jim Leslie (124); • 1. (TIE) Mark Bla ck /D al e Kie ffe r (108); 9. Doug Ch andler (101); 10. Jam es Ran do lph (101); 11. Jason Pri dmore (94); 12. Dax Snow (88); 13. Steve Patte rson (82); 14. Th om as Stevens (19~ IS. Frank Wilson (72). Upcoming Rounds: Round 7 - Loudon, New Hampshire, June 16 Round 8 - Brainerd, Minnesota. July 14 AMA Progressive In surance SuperTwins Round 6 :Road America Estok at the line By Henny Ray Ab rams ELKHART LAKE, WI, JUNE9 roving th at te amwork pa ys off, Bartels'. Harley-Da vidson's Dave Es tok and Ben Bostr om g ot . togeth er and ran down race leader Scott Zampach at the finish line with Estok taking the very narrow win in the Progr essive Insurance SuperTwins race at Road America. . Suburban Motors H -D ' s Zampach had led from the stin t and had built up b etter th an a five -second lea d at one point. Then Bostrom and Est ok, ridin g w ith a sh ifte r damaged in a first -lap in ci dent, got together an d began t o move forward. Slowly th ey closed th e gap until the final lap wh en Estok took the lead, only to be repassed a few corners later. Coming ou t of the final corner, tum 14, for the run to the flag, it was almost dead even, with Zampach just narrowly in front of Bostrom and Pascal Picotte made a last-lap pass on teammate Aaron Yates to score his th ird 750 Supersport win of the season. Estok. Then Estok, using a narrow strip of the track to his right, won the drafting war to take his first Progressive Insurance SuperTwins race in over a year by a scant 0.038 second. Zampach held onto second with Bostrom third : . "That' s the hardest race I've ever had to run, especially with havin g to shift with my ha nd," Estok said. The Day tona Beach rider had tangled wi th Mitchell's Modesto's H-D's Matt Wait in tu rn 14 on the first lap. Wait go t into a vicious tank-sl apper an d went down. Estok stayed upright, but his shift shaft was bent up about two in ches and if h e n eed ed to downshift more than one gea r, he h ad toreach down and d o it wi th his hand. Estok co m p leted th e se ven-lap, 28mile race in 18 minutes, 35.834 seconds at an average spee d of 80.336 mph. By finis hing third, along with Wait's failu re to finish, Bostrom extended his p oints le ad to 201 -78 . Tilley' s H-D's Nate Wait, seventh today, is third with 160 poin ts, and Estok moved into fourth with 151. The race began under cold and overcast skies, the field of 22 snaking along the 4-m ile course with Matt Wait in the lead ahead of Estok, Bostrom and Wisconsin ' s favo ri te son Zampach . The order changed drastically at the end of the first lap when Estok ran into Wait as they exited tum 14. "I exited and went to come back to the ins ide and Estok hit," Wait sa id . "As he hit me, it just jerked the b ars our of m y hands . I went in to a ba d tank-sl apper. Th ere are rubber marks a ll over m y b ike. He cam e back later and ap olog ized, but he'd a lre ady hit me." Estok sa id that on the first lap , "I followed him and he followed me all the wa y around. He got in deep and he was pushing it up near the rumble strips on the edge of the tra ck. He got into a wobble. I tried to stay off him as much as I cou ld . We nailed into each other and it put h im into a big ta nk-sl app er. H e we nt down pret ty hard. "When we h it, it bent my shift shaft up abo ut tw o inch es to the case," Estok added . The shunt sh u ffled the or der behind Zampa ch, wh o was runn in g with Hi karu Miy ag i and Bostrom n ot far ad rift, who w er e in turn fo llowe d by Na te Wait and Estok. Estok said he ra n aro und in fifth and sixth gear for a while, try ing to figu re ou t where h e cou ld find time to reach , d own and downshift gears w ith his h and . The rest of th e time he h ad to ove r-rev the engi ne, kn ow in g he'd lose time ha vin g to downshift . "I was so ha rd on the front bra kes I almos t tu cked the fron t end a couple of times," Estok said . By the fourth lap Miyagi led Estok and Bost rom , the trio falling better than five seconds b eh ind leader Zarnpach . Soon after, though, Bostrom ,and Estok went flyin g by Miyagi, and by the sixth lap they had pulled well clear of now fo urt h- p lace M iy a g i. Bo s trom and Estok's new -found spee d came from the p air draftin g one a not her, and they began to seriously gain on Zampach. "We sta rte d working together, just lik e in qualifying," Estok said, of tlie strategy wh ich h ad begun a few lap s earlier. "I pointed to Zampach and he still had a good lead on us . I pointed up to him and then poin ted to my tail section." Up ahead, Zampach took notice of the gaining pack. "I knew that jus t being all alone like th at pushing all that wind, I cou ldn't make any headway. I couldn't gain any speed on the straightaway," Za mpach said. "Plus, I was just overworking my bike so much. These things get h eat stroke and lose power at the en d of the race. If you've go t two b ikes and one gu y carr tow you a straightaway or two, and yo u can tow him, yo u kin d of save each other's equipment." Bostr om and Estok had closed to less than tw o seconds when the seventh and final la p b eg an . Estok ran Za mpa ch down in tum eight. "D ave got by me d own into eight and I followed h im th ro u g h th e Carousel and I was better in the fast kink, so I passed him for good," Zampach said. "I led through 12 and 13, and in 14 I leaned in and someone got their wheel under, Ben got his wheel under. But I stood it up because I didn't want to shut the door on him. So I thought I'd kind of weav e a littl e bit to break the draft. But I left a little roo m between the wall and me and I didn't want to smash into an ybody." Estok said that his motor was a little st r o n g e r than Bostrom's. And h e believed he also had an edge be cau se Bostrom was using upright h andlebars and couldn't tuck in as well. "I couldn't go to the left because Ben was th ere. I w as hoping there was enough room between Zampach and the wall," Estok said. The trio finished under a blanket , with Estok just leading the way over Zampach and Bostrom. "I feel that if I wo uld have come out of 14 and went straight up the track to the line I would have finis hed in th ird

• Cover