Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

attended to the mess created by Dean Mizdal's oily crash on the entrance to the high banking on the 46th lap, Crevier elected to bring the Honda RC45 onto pit road for a fresh rear tire. He used the soft-compound Dunlop. tire to· his advantage, passing both Pascal Picotte and Tom Kipp in the final run to the flag to claim fourth. Picotte and his Yoshimura Suzuki, meanwhile, were able to hold off Kipp and his Yamaha in the closing stages to finish fifth, despite fighting a race-long brake problem. Kipp held on for sixth, his impressive ride near the front thwarted somewhat by a failing transmission. Kipp ended up being the last rider on the lead lap as the impressive Russell lapped all but the top six. Seventh place went to DuHamel, the French Canadian somewhat fortunate to finish there after a difficult day that saw him pit four times to Russell's two, including one after only three laps. DuHamel's problems were all tire related and at the end of the day he felt a bit lucky to have done as well as he did. Behind DuHamel came the Yoshimura Suzuki pairing of Larry Pegram' and Aaron Yates, both on GSXRs that weren't to their liking. Pegram ran quick early on but was forced td fade when his bike stopped revving, and Yates never got going all week as he struggled with suspension woes. Tenth place and top privateer went to Attack Performance's Paul Harrell and his Yamaha, topping former Daytona 200 winner Dave Sadowski and the Atlantic Motorsports-backed Suzuki GSXR750. Eric Moe, John Jacobi, Ricky Orlando and David McGrath rounded out the top 15 finishers. As is the case in any Daytona 200, there were several notable non-finishers - none more so, however, than the man who led the AMA Superbike Champi- . onship coming into the second round, Mat Mladin. The Australian had a miserable day on the Fast by Ferracci Ducati as he barely made the start when his number-one bike failed him prior to the sighting lap and he was forced to ride his backup bike. And then that one only lasted for three laps as it developed an oil leak. After his crew worked on the bike for some eight laps, Mladin went back out without much hope of scoring any championship points. To make matters worse, he later crashed in turn one and was lucky to escape without injury. And his Ducati teammate Gerald Rothman Jr. didn't fare much better. Rothman was out of the race early when a fuel pump failed him on only the second lap. He returned to the fray later with a new gas tank on his Ducati and ended up completing 18 laps for 63rd place. The other factory man who failed to finish was Harley-Davidson's Chris Carr. The Californian was running strong and seemed certain of a secondstraight top-IO finish in the 200 when the cam sensor on his VRI000 failed, eventually forcing him out of the race after 48 laps. Carr's teammate Thomas Wilson was a non-starter after hurting himself the week prior to the AMA National (see Briefly...). Chandler's Muzzy Kawasaki teammate Tommy Hayden was another who never made it to the grid, the youngster crashing his 600cc Supersport bike in practice and suffering ligament damage to his right thumb. .When the lights turned green to'start the 56th ed.ition of the race, it was Russell placing the bright blue Yamaha at the front of the pack, his teammate Edwards tucked in behind with Chan- (Right) For a while it was close, with Russell (4) leading Edwards (45) and Doug Chandler (1). Russell was eventually able to pull clear, leaving Chandler and Edwards to squabble over second place. (Left) Smokin' Joe's Honda teammates Steve Crevier and Miguel DuHamel were close at times, though DuHamel suffered from having to pit four times. Crevier ended up fourth with DuHamel seventh. dler, DuHamel, Kipp, Crevier, Mladin, Picotte, Pegram, Rothman, Carr and Michael Taylor. Former World and National Champion Doug Polen, meanwhile, was already out of the race after frying his clutch on the start line. Rothman would be the next to go, his Fast by Ferracci Ducati starving for fuel after only one lap. Edwards took over from his teammate Russell on the first lap and the Texan would lead for two laps before giving way to his teammate for good on the third lap. Chandler would then lead the field across the stripe for the only time on lap five, but other than that it was all Russell at the front. By this time, Mladin was out, part of his ordeal complete, but with more to come. "They started the race bike and it was ready to go," Mladin explained. "They t~ied to start it again and an oil line was leaking. They dumped it and took the spare bike. They started the spare bike, no worries, and put it on the line. They went to start it to go for the sighting lap and the fuel pump quit. So I missed the sighting lap. Then they took the second bike back and tried to change the oil lines and everything over to the first bike. I went out, did the warmup lap and a couple of laps in the race, but the oil line was spitting oil everywhere and I ca.lI)e back in. They changed the oil line and everything, but I'd come back and got my clothes off. Then they wanted me to go back out and have a ride. I went back out about seven or eight laps dQwn. I was running with (Tom) Kipp and we were doing 53s pretty easy. I passed him when he had to back off for a backmarker. There was oil on the footpegs, it wasn't really cleaned up enough, and my foot sort of slipped a little bit. I'd already overcooked it a bit on the way in (to turn one) and that was it - I was on my arse. We were eight laps down, so we weren't going to get points anyway. So that capped off another brilliant weekend at Daytona. Shit happens." The race started to settle down quickly and it soon became apparent that no one was going to be able to run with Russell. Chandler tried to early on, but decided it wasn't prudent. Ditto for Edwards, who ran off the track and eventually chunked a rear tire trying to make up the ground he'd lost. He'd later admit that on this day at least, he was overmatched. "I thought last year that the only place to go was up," .Edwards said at the end of the race. "I couldn't run Scott's pace. I tried to run his pace and blew a tire in 15 laps. Apparently, he hit the setup right and we'll come back here next year. It's a little bit intimidating of course with Scott coming on to the team - with him winning here three times. I tried to put that out of my mind, but I think it still lingers. But now we're going to both our backyards so he's going to have to put up with me and I'm going to have to put up with him. That's the way it is." By the eighth lap Russell had almost two seconds on Chandler, who in turn was holding off Edwards. Kipp was fourth, followed by Picotte, Pegram, Crevier; Carr, Yates and DuHamel, the defending race champion having already pitted once on only the third lap to change a front tire. He would pit three more times along the wall (on lap 20 for a routine stop, on lap 26 for another front tire and on lap 44 for fuel and to replace a damaged rear tire), eventually finishing a lap down in seventh place. "It's frustrating, but anywhere else it would be extremely frustrating," DuHamel said later. "Here at Daytona, sometimes you have to expect that. Daytona's like that. Some days it treats you good and some days it doesn't treat you so good. I know for a fact that the Dunlop guys worked really hard to give me the best that they had - the same as Scott Russell and all those guys. Since this morning, we really got unlucky. We I:'-. 0\ ~ a\ ..... ...c::: u ~ "" ~ 7

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