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ROAD RACE AMA Superbike National Championship Round 9: Sears Point Raceway Miguel DuHamel had an off day, finishing ninth after running into mechanical problems late In the race. He now leads Doug Chandler by only two points in the championship with one round remaining; his teammate, Steve Crevier (14), finished sixth at SeatS Point. 8 Yates, Picotte and Smi th with another g.ap to James, DuHamel, Crevier and Wilson. Kipp was struggling after a bad start and would fare no better than 10th despite his strong effort in the first part of the race. Kipp's teammate James, meanwhile, was ignoring the AMA's black £lag for having jumped the start. James would continue to circulate with DuHamel and Co. until crashing in the chicane on the penultimate lap. Yates was suddenly on the move, passing Carr on lap five and moving right in on Mladin and Chandler. On the ninth lap, the Georgian moved around Chandler, and the rest of the race featured an impressive riding display by the top two Suzukis. Both Mladin and Yates are arguably the latest brakers in AMA racing, and as they pressured each other more and more with each passing lap, the late-braking started to reach levels of lunacy. Both would enter tum 11 in synchronized two-wheel drifts, and both would exit with both ends of the blue and white Suzukis twitching and sliding. Impressive ~tuff. That battle would go to the very end with Yates moving around Mladin under braking for tum 11 two laps from the end. Mladin tried to emulate his teammate's maneuver on the final lap in tum 11, but there was no getting around Yates and victory was his - albeit by the narrowest of margins. - Chandler held on for third, his championship hopes raised by DuHamel's mechanical wQes which dropped him from fifth to ninth in the £inaJ two laps. "We struggled," Chandler admitted. uThi; wa; E t~".!gh race for ~. I didn't think we'd be racing for the win iike w;; were. We just kept trying and the bike just kept getting better and better. I felt really comfortable when Matt (Mladin) carne" by. I felt I could run with him; he actually slowed it down a little bit. 1 tried to ge~ by him, and when I saw Aaron (Yates) come by, [ knew those two were going to have a big fight, and I wasn't sure that I wanted to be in the middle of it. We were §oing good, and it would be good points for the championship. I just kind of sat "back to see what was going to happen. "I really can't complain how this weekend went. The start of the weekend was disastrous. We just kept trying and trying, we never gave up. We made a lot of progress, and today to get on the box is the biggest accomplishment for me and the team. I had a lot of trouble wi th suspension problems, the frotft forks. In the high-speed stuff at the ends of the esses 1wasn't comfortable at alI. Even in the race I was struggling to get through there. 1 think we did as good a job as we could do with the time we had." Chandler had made a few changes prior the restart. "I went to a softer rear tire and just minor changes, a millimeter of preload in the front forks and I think the compression was a II we changed. I got a good start in the first race from the third row. Even though I was on the rubber patch, the thing lit up, and I just kept the front end down and grabbed second, and got up the hill in fifth. When I had the front row (for the second start) 1 expected to get the holeshot the way that thing comes off the line." The restart was a complete blessing for Mladin, who was given a second chance after muffing the first start. "Fortunately for me we had a restart," Mladin said. '1 got away about fifth or sixth on the next one and I got through to the lead, and from about the seventh or eighth lap I knew 1 was in trouble. I looked over my shoulder and saw Aaron (yates), I think with maybe four or five laps to go. Aaron's been fast all weekend and I knew that he was very fast today. Obviously he's got the bike working good and he knows this circuit. I'm happy with second place ar.d. h0pefully we'll be able to go one better in Vegas. It's good tG ~ee t~o Suzukis first and second. The boys have been working really, really hard. We got a new linkage that we've been asking for for a long time at Brainerd, but we didn't have enough time to test it, so we didn't want to use it there. We tested a couple of days a few weeks ago and seemed to get it working pretty good. And I showed today, that on a cirCuit that normally our bike isn't really that crash hot on, we got them up front. We were running some pretty quick times, so we're happy. I'm happy for Aaron for him to get his first win." For Yates the race didn't end one lap too soon. On the cool-off lap, his Suzuki GSXR expired. Still the 23-year-old was caIm and collected in capturing the first superbike win of his career. Just a day at the office. "I was hoping it (his first win) would come a little bit earlier," Yates said. "But we've been struggling with the bike, getting the setup. We finally got some parts this weekend that worked and we got a new combination on the bike that worked real good this weekend and, like he (Mladin) said, it showed. "As soon as 1 saw the red flag I looked back to see how much distance I had and I said, 'damn:" Yates con tin- ued. "On the restart, I didn't get quite as good a start as before, probably like sixth or something, and 1 just started wor~ my way up. They were running through the dirt over here (in tum two) and I'd never done that all weekend. And 1 was actually trying to dodge the rocks and stuff. They were shooting up a lot of shrapnel. I didn't want to suck up a bunch of dirt in the bike. I don't know what happened, but som thing happened on the cool-off lap. It (the bike) just came all apart." The race for fourth went the distance, with Wilson just getting by his teammate Carr on the entrance to tum 11. ''I'm very happy," Carr said of his best-ever superbike performance. "1 got to race with the boys and finish with 'em. [ was disappointed after Pomona because I made a bonehead move and didn't get to race with 'em after being on pole. I learned a lot toda)'. Racing with these guys was cooL 1 knew he (Wilson) was there. With about three laps to go, 1 about bought the farm in tum three, and it ruined my rhythm. I knew he was right on my ass after that, and I just went back to my dirt track roots and tried to make the bike as wide as 1 could. He squeezed under me, but I'm glad it was him and not someone else." ~ Sears Point Raceway Sonoma, California Results: August 25, 1996 SUPERBIKE QUALIFYING: 1. Aaron Yates (1:42.691/88.343 mph); 2. Chris Carr (1:43.018); 3. Tom Kipp (1:43.24il); 4. Thomas Wilson (1:43.2S7); S. Doug Polen (1:43.378); 6. Miguel DuHamel (1:43.869); 7. Steve Crevier (1:43.876); 8. Mat Mladin (1:43.893); 9. Pascal Picotte (1:43.960); 10. Jamie James (1:44.019); ll. Doug Chandler (1:44.136); 12. Mike Smith (1:44. 93); 13. tarry Pegram (1:44.253); 14. Ben Bostrom (1:44.640); 1S. Shawn Higbee (1:44.947); 16. Michael Bame. (1:45.420); 17. Michael Taylor (1:46.040); 18. Al Salnverria (1:46.093); 19. Tripp Noble. (1:46.348); 20. Cal Rayborn III (1:46.72S); 21. Eric Moe (1:47.108); 22. James Randolph (1:47.407); 23. Steve Rapp (1:47.760); 24. Dave Estok Bostrom says yes to Honda R eports circulating through the Sears Point paddock on Friday and Saturday were that young Ben Bostrom (right) had done the unthinkable - he'd turned down a contract offer from American Honda. All that proved to be false, however, when Honda's Gary Mathers confirmed on Sunday morning that Bostrom had indeed put his Signature on a two-year deal that will ultimately see him on factory Smokin' Joe's Hondas in 1998. For the first year of the two-year deal, Bostrom will stay where he is on the Zero Gravity team, riding a Honda-provided CBR600 in the 1997 600cc Supersport Championship and an RC45 in selected AMA Superbike Nationals. "He signed it Friday night," Mathers said on Sunday morning at Sears Point. "We made him an offer through Glenn (Cook, Zero Gravity's team manager) at Zero Gravity. We wanted to make him an ofilr qUick because we knew he had others to consider. Glenn got back to me ana Si;i'-:: he. (ll.o::trc"!!) bad turned it down. We hashed it out on Thursday and Friday here and he signed it Friday night. He's going to nde s rorL:t:ru GraVity H~xryEe) and ~·:het..~-! Qr not he's going to ride anything else is between him and Zero Gravity. We'll also put him on a uperbike as many times as we can. 11 really depends on when we can get parts. For 1998, he's a full member of our team for 600 and Superbike." "I'm looking forward to a good future," Bostrom said. "( got a really good deal lined up. Next year I want to concentrate on the 600cc championship and learn the superbike. And then the next year... Well, I've got a really good deal. You've got to look at your future, look at the manufacturers, the teams and the people who do the job. J think working with Honda will be the way to go." Bostrom confirmed that he will forego the AMA SuperTwins class in 1997, even if he ends the series as the class champion.