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ROAD RACE
AMA PROGRESSIVE INSURANCE
SUPERTWINS SERIES
By Henny Ray Abrams
DAYI'ONA BEACH, FL, MAR. 9
or the second.time in a row the Progressive Insurance SuperTwins race
was a two-rider battle decided nearly at the stripe. It happened at the season opener in Phoenix and it happened
again at Daytona and both times Eric
Bostrom prevailed over Shawn Hig~.
And both times they were miles ahead
of the field.
Miller Electrical Construction's
Bostrom and Tilley Small H-D's Higbee
made a very clean early break and the
race was theirs and it was a pparen t
early on tha t it would go to the end,
which it did. The decisive factor was
Bostrom's last-lap desperation line, low
down off the' East Banking exiting
NASCAR Four - almost to the pit road which effectively neutralized Higbee's
chances of using the all-important draft.
At the finish line it was Bostrom by .180
of a second in record time.
He covered the seven-lap, 25-mile
race in 15 minutes, 30.500 seconds, at an
average speed of 96.413 mph, lowering
Scott Zampach's two-year-old mark by
better than three seconds.
"I think the horsepower pulled me
through to the finish line," Bostrom said in
the winner's circle. "It turned out perfect."
Higbee's view was understandably
different. "I got beside him, but I came
up a little short at the end," Higbee said
aft.er failing to take advantage of
Bostrom's draft from the chicane to
start-finish.
Bostrom pads his championship
points lead to six points, 71 to 65, after
two of 10 races.
Third on the day was former dirttracker Lance Jones. The Widman H-Dsponsored Jones was in a four-, then
three-way dogfight that went right to
the fj.ag. He ran third early on, dropped
back to sixth, then made his way back to
the front of the pack wi th fewer than
two laps to go.
"Dave Estok and the other guy (Jake
Zemke) showed me a way around the
race track," Jones said. "Once·I got into
a rhythm I knew I could get 'em on the
straightaway once they split up. They
made a couple of mistakes, I kept my
F
(Above) Like
round one In'
Phoenix, the
SuperTwins
race was
between two
riders, Eric
Bostrom (20)
and Shawn
Higbee (3).
Bostrom went
on to win.
(Right) Lance
Jones (28) and
Jake Zemke
(98) finished
third and
fourth,
respectively,
well off the
leaders' pace.
momentum going and pulled out a pretty good distance on the fourth-place
guy. I'm tickled to be here."
Bartels' H-D's Zemke finished fourth
ahead of Estok, the TilIey's-Small H-D
rider who was racing with a broken collarbone. Then came a pack with Bartels'
Jody Hendley at the front, followed by
Bartels' Shaun Russell, then Chad Healy.
Las Vegas H-D's Jess Roeder and
Australian Darryl Gadsby rounded out
the top 10.
Before it even started, the race began
badly for two of the faster qualifiers.
Citrus Height's H-D's Matthew Guidera
and Hendley were penalized after technical irregularities were found on their
machines during post-qualifying teardown. Their times were disallowed,
they were fined and sent to the back of
the 30-bike grid. Second-fastest qualifier
Higbee assumed the pole with a new
qualifying record of 2:11.747, lowering
Scott Zampach's mark of 2:13.922.
The race had been set to start at noon
following the 600cc Supersport race. But
the protracted cleanup from a crash in
the 600cc race meant there wasn't time
to run it before the Superbikes, so it was
pushed to the end of the day.
•
When it was finally green-flagged,
after 4 p.m., it was Higbee and Bostrom
jetting to the lead, swapping the point
on the first lap and almost every successive lap after that.
"I was just kind of hanging behind
Eric," Higbee explained. "Then I tried
leading up front and I couldn't get away
from him. I'd take a little ground, not
maybe on the infi~ld, but make a little
ground and the draft could just allow him
to catch back up to me. So 1 figured I'd
playa little strategy and try to hang back
with him and just let him set the pace and
then try my drafting moves at the end."
Bostrom led across the stripe on laps
one and.two and Higbee on three and
four. Bostrom then took the lead going
into turn one on the fifth lap only to
have Higbee take it back on the exit.
Higbee would remain out front for the
next two laps, plotting his drafting strategy and waiting for the end.
"Two laps from the end I practiced it
and had my timing marks down and it
worked." Higbee said. "So I was pretty
happy on the last lap, I was in good
position. Coming off the chicane I went.
to go by and went to pull out in the draft
and it didn't work the same as it had
before so I came up a little bit short."
Higbee added tha t, due to financial
constraints, his fufure in the class is
unclear.
"Our program is still a little bit up in
the air. We're hoping to continue with
the series, but unless we can organize
some financial backing it might be difficult," Higbee said.
Bostrom said that he "gave Shawn
the bait to pass me going into the chicane. I didn't want to lead it out of the
chicane, so I broke real early, but Shawn
didn't take it. The whole race 1 was trying to work something out to have an
edge on him because 1 knew he could
get by me in the draft -and I ran real close
to the wall all the way to the banking to
try to scrub off any draft and then 1 cut
down real hard and went into the apron.
I don't know how; but I pulled it off."
That was the race in a nutshell.
Behind the lead duo came the battle
for third, which was just as hard-fought
and among more riders. Jones, Estok,
Joe Mills Services' Perry Melneciuc and
Jake Zemke hooked up on the third lap
and separated from the field.
Crossing the line ending that lap, it
was Estok at the front of the pack,
though there were some aggressive·
moves in the infield that would reshuffle the order. And when they crossed
the stripe the next time it was Zemke in
front, then Estok and Jones, with Gadsby by himself behind the trio. Melneciuc
dropped out of the race.
Jones made his move soon after that
and powered up, taking enough of a gap
to not be challenged for the podium.
"These guys here were so far ahead
that 1 didn't see what was going on,"
Jones said of Higbee and Bostrom in the
post-race press conference. '1 had a good
three-way battle on the last two laps and
luckily came out on ·top of that battle.
They (Zemke and Estok) made a couple
of mistakes while 1 was trying to set them
up for the last lap. 1t so happened they
did make the mistakes and I was able to
pull a good 15-bike lead on them."
Zemke and Estok were fourth' and
fifth, respectively. The former dirt-tracker Jones credited his experience in that
discipline to his drafting success today.
"We do it a lot on the mile dirt tracks:'
he said.
Behind the battle for third was Gadsby, alone much of the race until the final
two laps. Then he was swallowed up by
a pack of seven riders contesting fifth
and was shuffled well back.
Russell was the first to catch him with
Hendley joining in, bringing Healy along.
Hendley moved up to sixth on the final
lap, making a run at Estok and dropping
Russell to seventh. Healy held eighth,
then, in quick succession came Roeder
and Gadsby, who ended up 10th
~
Daytona Intemational Speedway
Daytona Beach, Rorida
Results: March 9, 1997 (Round 2 of 11)
PROGRESSIVE INSURANCE SUPERTWINS
FINAL: 1. Eric Bostrom; 2. Shawn Higbee; 3. Lance
Jones; 4. Jake Zemke; 5. David Estok; 6. Jady Hendley; 7.
Shaun Russell; 8. Chad Healy; 9. Jess Roeder; 10. Darryl
Gadsby; 11. Frank Stroman; 12 Herbert Mandelartz; 13.
Chris Bliss; 14. Jeffrey Johnson; 15. Paul LisU; 16. Jerry
Casciero Jr.; 17. Steve Blackburn; 18. Mark Reynolds; 19.
Michael Stoecker; 20. James Whitaker; 21. Gary Rogers;
22. Steve Vlasblom; 23. Thomas Marx; 24. Kenneth
Tessier; 25. Jason Fletcher; 26. Lane Boger; 27. Perry
Melneouc; 28. Randy Texter; 29. Robert Brown.
Time: 15 min., 30.500 sec.
Distance: 7 laps, 25 miles.
Average Speed: 96.413 mph.
Margin of Victory: 0.500 sec.
PROGRESSrvE INSURANCE SUPERTWINS C'SHIP
POINT STANDINGS (J\£ter 2 of 11 rounds): 1. Eric.
Bostrom (71/2 wins); 2. Shawn Higbee (65); 3. David
Estok (56); 4. Jake Zemke (54); 5. Lance Jones (51); 6.
Joay Hendley (SO); 7. Shaun Russell (48); 8. Jess Roeder
(45); 9. Jerry Casciero Jr. (30); 10. (TiE) Gary
Rogers/Nate Wait (28); 12. Perry Melneciuc (26); 13.
Steve Vlasblom (25); 14. Chad Healy (23); 15. Darryl
Gadsby (21); 16.