Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Polen looked to do the double in the second leg before he dropped a valve while well out in front - and getting faster - on the ninth lap. That left the battle to Sadowski and Kling, and it was epic. Sadowski was in front of Batey and Kling when Polen's engine went, then Kling moved into second a lap later, dropping Batey back to deal with teammate Dave Stanton. Batey said he was disconcerted by the amount of smoke Polen's bike expelled when it blew and he thought there might be oil on the track. Sadowski led up until the end of the straightaway on the final lap with Kling forcing his way by and holding on right up to the final corner. The pair came sliding out, Kling more so, with Sadowski losing out on the pure horsepower run to the finish line by 0.047 second. "He almost crashed so 1 said, 'Here it is, this was the chance 1 wanted: 1 held it wide .open, but it was all over from there," Sadowski said. "It was a matter of matching up horsepower and Fritz got me by half a wheel. 1just tried to go as fast as 1 could and stay on two wheels. It was pretty crazy. out there. Without our good motors in we just come up a little short." "Everybody kind of got together," Kling said. "1 just saved a little bit for the end. It was tough, it was really tough. 1 didn't know if 1 was going to get him or not:' Batey finished third, then Stanton and Triumph's Scott Zampach. At the end of the day, Batey still held the championship points lead after 12 of 18 races, but the points race is tightening up. Batey, who hasn't won arace but also hasn't finished worse than eighth, holds 340 points, 21 better than Kling and 27 ahead of Sadowski. RACE ONE The first rule of racing is that in order to win you must first finish. That did in the Muzzy Kawasaki effort. After qualifying second to Doug Polen in a battle of the Dougs, Doug Chandler picked up the pace in the morning practice, then raised it another notch in the race. He was so easily pulling away that all that was left was to hand him the champagne. Then disaster struck. The ignition on the experimental big~ bore motor suddenly quit working and his day was over. The lead went to Polen, who had just moved ahead of Batey. One lap later, Kling's radiator hose came off and the race. was stopped and regridded from running positions at the end of the sixth lap. At this point, Polen knew that his clutch problems weren't going away, but he didn't know whether he had enough time to fix them. "We didn't touch the bike," Polen said. Off the restart Polen was again in front and again he was pursued by Batey. This time, however, they were joined by Team Labelle's Chris Taylor, Sadowski and Skagit Powersports' Pittman. Taylor's day was soon over, though, with a violent high-side. Soon after ·that the intervals between the riders began to widen and the race played itself out. Polen went on to win from Batey,. Sadowski and Pittman. Graves stayed ahead of Zlock Racing's Andy Deatherage, with Mark Miller eighth. "The first lap 1 was already a second ahead," Polen noted of the restarted race. "1 was able to get far enough away and· that was a good thing. Two more laps and that thing (the clutch) would have been gone. In sixth gear 1 was just bare!y milking it:' Batey finished about two seconds back, though there was no official margin of victory given. Sadow·ski came next, glad to be finished with the first leg. "There was a lot of carnage out there," Sadowski remarked about the non-finishes of Chandler, Stanton and Taylor. "1 was in a real conservative mode. 1 just tried to ride as steady as 1 could:' RACE TWO For the second leg, Polen fitted an extra diaphragm washer in the clutch and switched from a synthetic oil to castor oil in an effort to cure the slippage problems. That did the trick. Batey led the second race with Polen, Sadowski, Kling and Stanton, who had jetted from the back of the field, in pursuit. It wasn't until the fourth lap that PoLen was able to get by and, once in front, he was leaving the field at better than half a second a lap. On the seventh of 13 laps, he had a 2.5-second lead on Batey with Sadowski another two seconds back and over a second in front of Kling. Behind the top four c~e Stanton, Pittman and a battle between the Triumph of Zampach and James Randolph's EBSCO Suzuki 750. It was the ninth lap when Polen's motor let go in a big way, a huge cloud of smoke spewing into the air which changed the compleXion of the race in several ways. The first, of course, was that Polen's chances of a double win were done. "It was the exit of the long left," Polen said. "1 was just getting going. I'd done a 1:07.1 and the laps before that were 7.3 and 7.2:' The unoffkial 1:07.1 was Polen's fastest lap of the weekend. , Following close behind was Batey and the smoke, and possible oil slick, caused him a moment's concern, which was enough for Sadowski and Kling to capitalize. "There was a lot of smoke coming out from under it in the switchback and when 1 sawall of that coming out 1 thought, 'Man, I'm going to go down in that:" Batey said. "Dave got me on the back straight so he was probably pretty close. But 1 couldn't ride the rest of the race through those comers after seeing that smoke come out of that bike and those guys were just on rails." "It really all started when Doug Polen's motor exploded in just a big old cloud of smoke. It was hard to see where the yellow flags were, but 1knew they were there," Sadowski said. "1 didn't see the red flag come out and it was a good 300 yards of race track we were on with a smoke cloud. Doug got off the track real clean and real fast. From there Tray·Batey thought the red flag was going to come out. Fritz and 1 reeled him in:' There were just over four laps to go at this point and it was now a two-man race. Kling wanted to take the lead and tried Sadowski in the first turn. "1 took over the lead and then when 1 saw that big blue monster come on the inside of me in turn one r had to shut the door on him, and then he tried it again the next lap and got a little elbow out - and you can't outrnuscle a guy 6 foot 4, 220 pounds in turn one:' Sadowski said. "So it was just... 1 had to let him through:' Kling said that for the end of the race there was "not really any plan. 1 tested him going into the first corner on the brakes and he didn't give me an inch. 1 a On the second start of the red-flagged first race, Chris Taylor (1) was dicing with the lead pack when he suffered a violent hlgh-slde. .

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