Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Superbike Nationa l was gri dded . After th e sigh ting lap and the warmup lap , the riders pulled back to th e grid and AMA officials decided to send the m out for two more laps as a constant drizzle , turned a damp track into a relati vel y wet race track . Following the two test laps, the AMA determined the race to be a we t one, meaning th a t th e rid ers wo u ld take their own chances with tire choice - no ma tter what the weather did, t h e AMA wou ldn't st op t he race to allow for a change in tires. An d so it was at 2:40 p.m. that th e race go t started, with Chandler leading the w ay down the back straight and into tu rn five for th e fi rs t time; Kipp follo w ed ah ead o f Ml adin, Pic o tt e, DuHamel, Gramigni and Hi gb ee. For Gramigni, it wa sn't a case of him getting a good start, it was a case of him havin g a ve ry good run throu gh the first set of Though Muzzy KawasakI's Doug Chandler didn't s co re the SuperbIke win, he was still happy with his se cond-place finish - he moved s ix more points ahead of his champ ionsh ip rival Miguel DuHamel, who finis hed fifth. co rne rs. "Start to rac e - no good," Gram igni said. "I never start good with this bike. Now I must try one day only (p ractice) starts. I start, I don' t know, maybe 15th. I p ass five o r six here, an d five or six there." Chandler continued to lead the first lap, w ith Kipp second and Mladin third, but Gramigni was the man on the move an d he went around both Pico tte and DuHamel to ta ke over fourth on the op en in g lap. La ter th at same la p, the It alian would move into third with a pass on Mladin. On the third lap, Kipp moved around Chandler under braking for tu rn five. A lap later, Gramigni too was by the series point s leader. Whil e Gramigni was go ing forw ard, DuHame l was headed backward. At the en d of the second lap, he tr ail ed th e leaders by 24 seconds as he dropped to se ve n th p la ce. Soon he would come under attack from the likes of Nobles, Muzzy Kawasaki's Mike Sm ith an d Pegram - after already giving way to Yates. His tire choice was obviously not a good one. " It was definitely a wron g t ire choice," DuHamel admitted later. "Even w ith (Mat) Mladin probably throwing cau tion to th e wi nd, h e couldn't stay w i th th e guys wi th rain tir e s. I ju s t wan ted to stay alive to get another shot at hi m (Cha ndler) ." Kip p 's tum at the front was brief as . Gram igni took over on the fourth lap . It ~as also on this lap that Harley-D avidson 's Tho mas Wilson pitted, h is VRI000 su ffering with electrical problems which ca u se d the bike to mi sfire badly. H is tea m m a te, Chris Carr, had the sa m e prob lems later in th e ra ce, th ou gh he op ted to pit for a new engine module and rejoined the race to finish 25th. C ra m igni not only took the lead, but he su d den ly led by 1.5 seconds a fter fou r ' co m p lete la ps. Th a t lead wou ld gro w to four seconds after six laps, and s lig h t ly m ore a lap later. Su dd enl y, tho ugh, the Italian hi t traffic just as Kipp was gett ing a secon d wind a n d after eig h t laps th e p air w ere separated by only 1.9 seconds . "Sometime I thi nk abo u t the rear tire becau se every tim e. in the straight I must go in th e rain." Gramign i exp lai ned late r. "Some times it was spinning and I think th at m aybe in the last laps ther e w ou ld be a problem. But I th ink I see tha t th ey also have problems like me. Three or fou r times I nearly crash, but this is no t tires. Some lapped riders go in fro nt of me and I go slow . Then I see To m (Kip p) coming an d I se e ' Plu s 2' where it was 'P lus 7: I do n't understand if he 's coming fast or if I'm slow. I try to push h ard again an d the lap after I alm ost risk crash." Ju st as u ickl as he'd lost his lar e lead, he re-established it. By the 10th lap the gap w as back to four seconds. That would grow to over se ve n s econd s before he backed off the pace on the fina l lap to take the win, the first by an Italian in an AMA Superbike National. "In the dry I ha ve problems because I think 1 ne ed tim e," Gr amign i sa id . "In rain, no rmally I good in rain . I drive factory bike only in 1993 in rain, but eve ry time it rain in practice but no t in th e race . This is first win in race in rain. I am very happy." Happy, yes - but d id he think w hen the skies opened up on Sunday aft er noon that he 'd w in the race? "No. Bec ause tlie setting o f th e bike had a h ard er spring than Saturday and everything was different. I tried to make it nearly the same. I was starting carefuL After I start, I see many riders can go m o re fa st, y ou know . I think if I g o faster these first laps, maybe I can win. I think he (Chandler) go for the first tim e. I w at ched and I sa w Doug go to th e front and I think maybe I can catch jus t him (Kipp). But then I arrive and I think if I can continu e like that.. . But'! only think win w hen I pass here (the finish line)." On the 13 th of 16 laps, Chandler zeroed in on Kipp, the Ohioan spinning Pegram's first pole A ttrit ion was the o rder of the d a y during the fina l qualifyi ng session on Saturday afternoon at Road Ameri ca, but although Fast By Ferracci's Larry Pegram (right) and h is Duca ti need ed a ride in a truck back to the pit area , he d id so as the fastest of the superbike men. For the 23-year-old Pegram the effort, a 2:12.744 lap at an average speed of 108.479 mph, gave him the first su pe rbike p ol e position of his young career. It wa s an afte rn oo n fill ed with me chani cal dra ma , but non e suffered through as much as Smokin ' Joe's Honda's Miguel DuHamel. The French Canadian was fortunate enough to click off five qu ick laps before spe ndi ng the rest of the sess ion on the pit wall, his crew frantically trying to bring life back to his Honda RC45. Their best efforts cou ldn't get the p roblem fixed and DuHamel was fortun ate to end up on the ou tside of the front row with the fourth -fastest time -a 2:14.122. "I think that 1don 't know wha t the problem .is," DuHam el said righ t after qualifying. "We ha ven't got a clue righ t now . We think it ma y be a wire s om e w he re in th e m ain h arnes s. The y tried to find it, but couldn't. " The team also had electrical probl ems on Friday, a problem with the coil which was d iscovered by the crew . On Satu rd ay, thoug h, DuH amel the bike misfired and bar ely made it back to pit lane. "I think I did four or five lap s," DuHamel said. "I'm pretty happy to do that time in five laps and still be on the front row. We're definitely behind right now wit h testing tires on a d ry track. I did seven laps yesterday and five toda y. But with the knowledge of the crew, we'll have a setup. With tires we'll just have to make a calculated guess. Tomorrow we have to do two days of testing in the morning warmup. We'll look at tire wear and suspension. The gearing wa s different today, bu t we'll look at the computer in the truck to see where we are ." The Smokin' Joe' s crew even tually fo und that the p roble m with Du Hamel's Honda was a bad ign ition exciter box. A crew member ran back to the truck to get a new 'box, but it w as on ly later tha t they wild ly on the comer exit s. Soon Chand ler was by and the race for second w as over as Kipp slip ped back and out of touch. " Yes te rd ay morning I tried what I gu ess Miguel (DuHam el) ended up running - a wet front and an intermediate rear - and it had to be a fairl y dry track," Chand ler sa id . "I w as a bit frustra ted from last week. I was never really comfortable on the bike in the wet. We got a chance to get out there yesterday (Saturday) and get a few things sorted and it d id me a lot of good. There's a big difference betw e en la st week and this week. We basically ran it the way it was. remembered tha t new boxes don' t come fitted wi th chips already in them . Thus, the new box never fired the bike to life. The problems which caused Peg ram's Ducati to coast to a stop were also not d iagnosed immediately, th ough the bike was fitted with a new engi ne for Sunday's race. " I'm not sure, something broke," Pegram said. "It just d ied , but they'll figore it out. They brought me back on the truck and all I could do was sit there and d o voodoo on Doug." . Doug was Doug Chandle r, the second-quickest qu alifier at 2:12.836. The.Muzzy Kawasaki rider wasn't able to match Pegram, despit e doing his quickest lap right at the end. "1 blew it in the last comer," Chandler said of his final lap effort to gain the championship point that goes with earning pole position. "When I'd come in he'd (DuHamel) wo uld still be there. I didn't know if he ever got it going again. I gue ss I got too greed y on the last lap; I g ot too wide in the last com er:' Chandler was one of only a handful of riders who practiced in wet and drying cond itions, but he said the Satu rday morning sess ion-was useful. " It wa s useful for me after last week," Chandler explained. "I was never confident last week in the wet. Now I feel that in any conditions we'd be right there." , With Chandler's last-minute effort failing to unseat Pegram, it left the young Ohioan to celebrate what was his first-ever pole position. "I definitely felt comfortable at that pace," Pegram said . "Whether I could 've gotte n a clean lap in and gon e faster is hard to say. I definitely feel capable of going faster. 1 wa s a little off on suspens ion, bu t the track is so smooth and so forgiving you could probably set it up a long way off and still be only half a Second off." Vance & Hines Yamaha' s Tom Kipp had his best qualifying session of the year, putting the YZF750 third on the front row with a 2:14.086 lap . Kipp was also back to being fit aft er an illness slowed him last week at Mid-Ohio . "We had some troubles halfway throu gh," Kipp said of the final session. "I don 't know how long we were in, but we had a bad rotor and it wa s giving us a bad vibration. We had some chaos in our pits, bu t we got going good later in the session. The bike's wo rking great, we just need some laps. We're just coming back from a lack of tra ck time, but I feel pretty good:' The seco nd row was led by Muzzy Kawasaki's Mike Smi th with Yoshimura Suzuki's Pascal Picotte alongside. Picotte 's teamma te Aaron Yates and Fast By Ferracci Duc ati ' s Shawn Higbe e filled the second row . There was a la rger than usua l time discrepancy between the top factory riders, with Pegram's time over four seconds quicker than the lOthplace qua lifier - Harley-Davidson's Ch ris Carr. In all, 37 riders made the cut with KelleY ,Lacount the final qualifier at 2:31.879. 7

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