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Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127831
ROAD RACE
ELF FUELSILUBRICANTS
250cc GRAND PRIX SERIES
Rich Oliver (1) leads Randy Renfrow on the way to his
12th consecutive victory In the 250cc GP c1asa.
By Henny Ray Abrams
DAYTONA BEAQl, FL, MAR. 7
",,~=";;:::l hough he would like us to
believe it isn't so, Team Oliver Yamaha's Rich Dliver has no
peers in the Elf Fuels/Lubricants
250cc Grand Prix class and he continues
to prove it with every passing race. Daytona was no different.
After winning the faster of the two
five-lap heat races a day earlier, Oliver
jetted away from the pole position on
his 1996 Yamaha TZ250, shook off the
initially persistent Randy Renfrow, and
sped to his record 12th 250cc GP win in
a row, going back through last year, and
34th career, late on a cool and windy
Friday afternoon.
"This is becoming a great habit,"
Oliver said after winning his third Daytona in a row, and fourth ever." ow
that we've got Scott Russell on the
Yamaha team maybe a little of that 'Mr.
Daytona' can rub off on me and I can be
like, 'Boy Daytona' or something. We're
working on that but Scott's got me beat
right now."
Renfrow hurt his chances when,
while chasing Oliver through turn one
early in the race, the Moto Liberty
Honda rider banged his shoulder on a
tracks ide barrier. That slowed him
enough to allow Oliver to escape. By the
halfway point in the 18-lap race Oliver
had better than a IS-second lead which
was cut to 13.390 at the end. Oliver completed the 64.08-mile race in a record
'time of 35 minutes, 14.4 seconds, lowering the mark he'd setin winning the
1995 race.
By leading the most laps, and winning both races, Oliver leads the championship with 72 points, eight better
than Renfrow.
"Rich (Oliver) was riding better than
me at the beginning of the race," Renfrow said. '1 was using the draft and the
horsepower that the Honda had and
basically kind of closed up on him. I
could see at the beginning that we were
going to have a little easier race with
him because I could actually pull him on
the infield straightaways - not just the
big straights. I thought for a while that
maybe I'd be able to hang with him but
he put in a really hard lap and I wasn't
ready. I made a mistake. I got some (one
minute) 56s at the end which maybe
would've been enough to hang with
him and make a race of it, but unfortunately he did it at the beginning and I
didn't."
Near the end of the race it looked as
though Renfrow might be in jeopardy of
losing second. After breaking away
from a battle for third, Performance
Machine's Roland Sands drew a bead on
him. He closed the gap - which was as
much as five seconds - to nearly two
with five laps to go. Then Renfrow
turned up the wick and pulled away
from Sands to take second by about 7.6
seconds.
"1 saw Randy