Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Las Vegas Motor Speedway, with a very sparse crowd situated mostly in the vast grandstand directly across from the front· straight. When the light turned green, it was Pegram grabbing the holeshot and leading Chandler down into turn one, a corner that resembled a funnel when approached from the pit-road starting grid. DuHamel didn't wait long to show his intentions as he darted under Chandler in the second comer to set up the showdown for the National Championship. Showing that he was in' no way intimidated, Chandler struck back on the third lap as he dived under DuHamel while braking for the turn-five hairpin, the Kawasaki's back wheel dancing in the air as Chandler asserted himself for the first time. "I wasn't quite sure what I should do in this race," Chandler said later. "Our bike was working as good if not better than anything out there tllis whole weekend. I knew we were able to go for the win if we needed to, but my main concern was with my race with Miguel (DuHamel). I needed to beat him. At the start, Larry (Pegram) got the holeshot and Miguel came past me in the second comer. 1 thought, 'Well, we're going to race for the win as well today.''' A lap later and Chandler was also by Pegram with a pass on the front straight that was set up by a superior drive off the final comer; a long and fast left-hander. It was the final time Chandler would have to pass one of his peers as he stormed off into the distance, determined to take the title with a victory. "I'm real satisfied with the race," Chandler said later. "I wouldn't change anything that I did in the race. I did everything that I needed to do. The bike, the tires... everything pulled through for me. 1 wouldn't say I was any more focused than in some of the other races, but this was the last race for the champit>fiship and I needed to do something and we were able to do it." Chandler's only pressing moment came in lapped traffic on the 10th lap. With David Roy in his way on the approach to the turn-five hairpin, Chandler elected to pass the backmarker on the outside. It almost proved to be a costly mistake as Roy was spooked and ran into the back of Chandler's Kawasaki as the race leader flicked it left. "I don't know what he was doing," Chandler explained. "I didn't think he got in there that hot. I was braking and went around him on the outside. 1 should've known better than to go around him on the outside because there's plenty of room on the inside and 1 should have put it there. I felt pretty comfortable that I could go around him, but I got past him and started bending it off into the comer and here he comes up the back end of me. It kind of stood me up and 1 looked back and he was going off the track. I was comfortable getting mine stopped and I dOI;l't understand why he couldn't get his stopped. He ended up hitting me arid going off the track." As far as drama goes, that was it - at least for Chandler. Behind him, though, the battle was heating up. Pegram continued to lead DuHamel in their race for second, swapping the spot at least once before the Smokin' Joe's rider got by for good on the 13th lap. Later, DuHamel was critical of Pegram, though it is hard to fault the young Ohioan for not wanting to give way. "It was a really important race," DuHamel said. "We had a two-point lead and we were feeding off that. And we still had a point when the race took (Above) Larry Pegram (72) led early on before giving way to first Chandler (10) and ultimately Miguel DuHamel (1). (Left) Pegram and DuHamel had quite a tussle In the early laps. DuHamel ended up third, losing out in the defense of his title. off so that could have played in our favor. The biggest thing is Larry Pegram - he was in my way. He didn't give a flying hoot about my championship and me trying to catch Doug Chandler. I'm a little bit surprised because I thought Larry was a smarter guy. He couldn't catch Doug, so I thought, 'Well, let me go by because 1 can catch him while my tires are stilI good.' Doug was going good and I felt that he (pegram) was really holding me up. That was when we were a second or two seconds behind Doug and he (Chandler) wasn't really pulling away. The track is so dirty it's hard to go on the inside to pass because you don't want to . lose the front. I wanted to make sure I had a shot all the way to the end. I didn't want to do something stupid and throw it away before the end." By the time DuHamel was clear of Pegram, Chandler led by almost three seconds. That margin would continue to grow: 3.7 seconds on lap 16, 4.8 seconds on lap 17, 4.1 seconds after getting balked in traffic on lap 18, and then up to a whopping 14.3 seconds on lap 21. That was when DuHamel hit part three of his problems - an ill-rwming RC45. "So finally when the Larry ,episode was OI!er, I got by and got into 'over-riding a bit and got into some slower riders and Doug increased the ga'p a bit," DuHamel explained later. "Then I settled down and started picking off some low 38s and figured if 1 kept it up I'd inch slowly toward Doug. . "Then I felt the vibration in the rear tire as the tire started to come apart about halfway into the race. I figured I had nothing to lose so I might as well keep riding hard. So even with the tire coming apart, I was still doing some low 38s. 1 never gave up and then right toward the end of the race the bike started rwming on two cylinders for some reason. It .decided it wanted to be a Ducati or something. So when it went on two cylinders, 1 didn't know what to think. I lost a bit of ground on the first lap, trying to look around and see what the hell was going on. "It's never happened before in a race with the RC45 because it's always been buUetproof. I figured that maybe something was pretty bad about it. I looked at the temperature gauge and it was running real cool, so I figured it had to be something stupid. I just kept on going. Everytime on the banking 1 kept thinking, 'If the piston locks up here, this is going to hurt.' I just kept going. The race wasn't over and Doug could have had a flat tire or something could have happened. "So even with a two-cylinder motorcycle, I was able to finish on the podium and I like to focus on the positive stuff. I rode really hard with a chunked tire and after than I rode really hard with half a bike. And again Larry (Pegram) got in my way. He was riding with his head in the back, trying to look at something." Obviously, nothing happened to thwart Chandler, his Muzzy Kawasaki or .his Dunlop tires (Chandler had chosen a Dunlop 677, a tire manufactured in Japan, while DuHamel had picked a Dunlop 219, a British version) and he ended up winning by over 22 seconds. "We tested that tire all weekend," DuHamel said later. "I went out and tried to get it as hot as I could, but obviously we ran a faster pace today. I think handling-wise, the bike was quite a bit better so we went quite a bit faster. That might be why the problem with the tire arose. Doing 39s, the tire was fine, but with 38s it was too hot." With only a tire problem, DuHamel perhaps c,ould have held onto second place. The engine trouble, however, allowed Mladin to get a scent of the Honda' and the Australian quickly moved in for the kill. His patience had proven to be a virtue. "1 got a reasonable start, but I got stuck behind Pascal (Picotte) for a lap and Aaron .(Yates) for a couple of laps so the guys got a couple of seconds on me and 1 couldn't do anything about it," Mladin said later. "In the warmup this morning if looked pretty good and it looked like we could run the pace, but we didn't get away with 'em and 1 struggled to catch up. I sort of pulled them back slowly, but I couldn't do anymore so J settled for the fourth. Then, about five laps from the end, I noticed Miguel (DuHamel) coming back to me so I thought the boys must be having some problems, or something's going on. "At the time I was rwminghgh nines (1:39 lap times) but when 1 saw him coming back 1 put my head back down and did some- 38s and caught 'em back up again. 1 got up behind Larry \D 0\ ~

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