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AMA En FuelslLubricants 250Cc Grand Prix Round 1: Phoenix International Raceway By Henny Ray Abrams PHOENIX, AZ, FEB. 16 eam Oliver Yamaha's Rich Oliver picked up where he left off after last year's perfect season, confidently winning the opening race of the 1997 season for his record-extending 11th win in a row. If anyone can stop Oliver, they didn't show it at Phoenix. "It was a great race," Oliver said after besting the 33-rider field to record his 33rd career 250cc GP win. "I was a little out of shape. I haven't ridden my 250 since the last race of last year at Las Vegas so I'm a little out of practice, but Matt Wait got a great holes hot and Randy (Renfrow) got out there. 1 just had to be patient and find a weak pOint and see what I could do with them. Once I got out front I felt comfortable. My Yamaha was just running terrific. The motor kept running faster and faster every lap. It's kind of a funny bike. The more you ride it and the harder you ride it the faster it goes." Not unlike Oliver himself. He later admitted that, since he was out of shape, his lap times dropped every lap as he got up to speed. The season arrived more quickly than Oliver would have liked and he said he barely had time to prepare his new machinery. "We got our Yamahas about three weeks ago," Oliver said. "1 built two '97s (250s) from nothing and two 600s, along with my mechanic Jeff (Meyers). So we were tempted to bring our old '96 bike and just run that this race. But we decided it was better to get some time on the new chassis. Yamaha's changed the frame quite a bit this year in steering-head angle and they changed the shock linkage and they changed the forks. It's all starting from scratch, baseline settings, and I really don't have it handled right now. I think 1 rode better and better every lap of the race." Oliver beat Renfrow acro 's the line by 14.410 seconds in a race that was redflagged early on. "We were fairly close to race," Moto Liberty's Renfrow said. "Unfortunately, we couldn't give him more of a battle than we did. He just went faster than me in a couple of sections consistently and I couldn't go any faster, arid I didn't feel like l.could go any faster whether 1 could or not. Consistently, the two right-hand comers, turn three, and the combination which comprises like six, seven, eight. He was just faster there. Faster basically, really a lot faster coming out of that corner, which meant it was real hard to approach him going into five and' faster going into six, through seven, and out of eight. It's a pretty long section he was faster in. A couple of times 1 actually did pull back a little approaching tha t section and we'd come out and I'd look up and he'd be further ahead. "Once Rich really got away we started spinning a little bit on the banking. That was really the only section that 1 could make up any significant amount of time on Rich. Once that happened, and I didn't feel that 1 could take any chances there, I figured tha t I'd just watch the board. 1 went as fast as 1 could within reason, bu t 1 wasn't ta king any chances there." But after only one race, Renfrow isn't willing to concede the season to Oliver. "You have to wait until the end of this year and see how (third-placed Kenichiro) Iwahashi is and Matt Wait," Renfrow said. "We've got some new blood. Rich is riding really, really good. o one is unbeatable." Iwahashi was something of an unknown quantity, mostly because he hadn't raced for two years and had never raced a 250. He'd stopped racing after a street bike accident in 1994 put him in the hospital for three months. The 33-year-old Japanese racer said he had his leathers in the closet when Moto Liberty's Sam Yamashita called and asked if he'd race in America. lwahashi, who was the 1992 Japanese IT-Formula One champion, riding a Blue Fox Honda, quickly agreed and will contest the entire AMA schedule. He was part of a quartet that hooked up early on and hung together until about four laps from the end when he and Performance Machine's Roland Sands made a slight break. Sands was in front tllen, but Iwahashi was into third on the 23rd lap and held on to it despite Sands' best efforts and a last-lap scare. "The difference at the end was la pped traffic," Sands said. "It seemed like I hit somebody every lap. He did too, but I was kind of left with the leftovers. On the la t lap 1 set him up for the last corner and he went out way wide. 1 had him set up to drive around him and I smacked the hay bale at about 120 mph and 1 think that was the difference right there. 1 was just riding as hard as I could ride. There was no way to get ahead of him on the last lap because every time 1 went into a corner there was somebody there beside him." The fun to the flag was thrilling and Sands nearly ended up third, coming up short by about half a bike length. The second half of the quartet were Matt Wait arid Mark Foster, both of whom got a little lucky in the race. On the lap that the race was red-flagged by Kent Shoemaker's crash in turn three, Wait crashed after hitting Foster while· going through tum nine onto ilie banking. "Mark Foster blew ilie corner," Wait said. "I was turning into ilie corner and he went straight. 1 was turning in and he was right there and his back tire clipped my front tire." Wait made ilie restart and led the lap before Renfrow got by. Oliver was past on the next lap and Wait dropped into the foursome where he'd toil much of ilie race on a machine he had little time on. "We haven't done anything to the bike," Wait said of ilie factory-backed Honda RS250. '1 rode it for one day at Laguna. 1 think I got the feel of it down and the riding down. We just"need to learn how to make it go fast. There are a lot of things we can do to ilie bike iliat we haven't done to it. It's basically a stock motorcycle put togeilier out of ilie crate. We need some more R&D out of it to get up to speed. Hopefully, once we get more out of it we'll be up wiili Rich and Randy. That's ilie goal." Today ilie goal was to hold off Foster, which he did, but just barely. At the finish line he was about a bike length in front. Foster's problems started early in the restart. On the third lap his Deutsch Financial Services Yamaha seized going into turn one. "I was going in iliere and just kept it on idle and 1 let the clutch out and it revved back up and 1 nursed it for iliat lap and when I downshifted 1 kept the gas on for ilie whole race," Foster said, adding iliat it wasn't just the power he lost. "More ilian anyiliing 1 lost my concentration. 1 didn't want to get up in iliere and do anyiliing to those guys. If 1 had a problem it would have been really screwy if 1 took one of them out." The Yamaha seized again just past the start-finish line at the end of the race. A secure seventh place went to Bobby Keith after the pursuing Bellevue Suzuki-Ducati/Dick Wall's/Centralia Knitting Mills' Mike Sullivan dropped out with eight laps to go. Eighth was a four-rider scrap, with Chris Rogers getting ilie nod after passing Ultima Sports Cars of America/Fabweld's Greg Esser with less than two laps to go. American Supercamp's Brady Welton and Perry Melneciuc were 10th and 11th, respectively, at the back of the quartet. t'N Phoenix International Raceway Phoenix, Arizona Results: February 16, 1997 (Round 1 of 10) ELF FUELSILUBRJCANTS 2SOcc GRAND PRJ'" 1. Rich Oliver (Yam); 2. Randy Renfrow (Hon); 3. Kenichiro Iwahashi (Han); 4. Roland Sands (Yam); 5. Matt Wait (Hon); 6. Mark Foster (Yam); 7. Bobby Keith (Yarn); 8. Chris Roger.; (Yam); 9. Greg Esser (Yam); 10. Brady Welton (Yam); 11. Perry Melneciuc (Han); 12. John France (Han); 13. Hikaru Miyagi (Han); 14. Aurelio Peccei (Yam); 15. Derick King (Yam); 16. Joshua Hageman (Yam); 17. Leon Cortes (Hon); 18. Thomas Montano (Hon); 19. Andrew Edwards (Yam); 20. Rocky Wong (Yam); 21. Jeff Ortlip (Yam); 22. Mark Orchard (Yam); 23. Mark Lessac (Yam); 24. Aaron Nichols (Yam); 25. Derreck Dixon (Yam); 26. John Burgoyne (Hon); 27. Mike Sullivan (Yam); 28. Joseph Cubbage (Yam); Robin Holiday (Hon); 30. Bruce Lind (Yam); 31. Pablo Escalante (Yam); 32. AI Salaverria (Apr); 33. Kent Shoemaker (Hon). T~e: N/A due to red f1a~ Distance: 25 laps, 37.75 miles. Ave.r:~ge Speed: N/A due to red flag. Margin of Victory: 14.410 sec. ELF FUELS/LUBRICANTS 250« GP CSHIP POINT STANDINGS (Aller 1 of 10 rounds): 1. Rich Oliver (36/ I win); 2. Ra,ndy Renfrow (32); 3. Kenichiro lwahashi (30); 4. Roland Sands (28); 5. Matt Wait (26); 6. Mark Foster (25); 7. Bobby Keith (24); 8. Chris Rogers (23); 9. Greg Esser (22); 10. Brady Welton (21); 11. Perry Melneciuc (20); 12. John France (19); 13. Hikaru Miyagi (18); 14. Aurelio Pecce; (17); 15. Derick King (16); 16. Joshua Hageman (15); 17. Leon Cortes (14); 18. Thomas Mall Wait (95) leads Randy Renfrow (2) , Rich Oliver (1) and the rest of the 250cc Grand Prix pack. Oliver won for the 11th straight time. Montano (13); 19. Andrew Edwards (2); 20. Rocky Wong (11); 21. Jeff Ortlip (10); 22. Mark Orchard (9); 23. Mark Lessac (8); 24. Aaron ichols (7); 25. Derreck Dixon (6); 26. John Burgoyne (5): 27. Mike Sullivan (4): 28. Joseph Cubbage (3); 29. Robin Holiday (2): 30. Bruce und (1). Upcoming Rounds: Round 2 - Daytona Beach, Florida, March 7 Round 3 - Monterey, California, April 20 Progressive Insurance SuperTwins Round 1: Phoenix International Raceway By Henny Ray Abrams PHOENIX, AZ, FEB. 16 iller's Electrical Construction's Eric Bo~trom is following a tough act: his broilier Ben. The older Bostrom won five races last year on his way to a close second in the Progressive Insurance SuperTwins championship. In the season opener at Phoenix International Raceway, Eric did ilie family name proud by narrowly edging Bartels' H-D's recently signed Shawn Higbee. It was a two-rider fignt from the start, Higbee leading the most laps, but making a few crucial mistakes, the last of whim cost him ilie race. "He got a little wide going into turn two, two laps from the end, and tha t allowed me to get back by him," Bostrom said. "1 just put my head down and tried to get a lead on him." Bostrom won by 1.430 seconds, averaging 79.137 seconds in winning the 17lap, 25.67-mile race. The win puts him atop the championship standings with 35 points, two better than Higbee who earned an extra point for leading the most laps. Higbee's ride with Tilley's HD came at the last minute and he raced in the Fast By Ferracci leailiers he wore last year. For much of the race the top six places were contested by three pairs of riders. Third place was fought between Tilley's H-D's Dave Estok and Nate "Gator" Wait - in his first AMA race since suffering severe injuries in a horrific crash at Brainerd last year. With two laps to go, Wait got in front only to 11

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