Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

ROAD RACE AIIA/IIBNA SUPERBIKE SERIES By Paul Carruthers Photos by Kinney Jones · A ..... I-< 0... ~ 14 MONTEREY, CA, APR. 20 year ago, Doug Chandler left Laguna Seca Raceway with a victory. But he drove to his home in nearby Salinas knowing that he'd inherited the win because of Miguel Duhamel's late-race crash. Not this time. This time there was never any doubt. Chandler watched as Duhamel unsuccessfull y tried to make a break in the early laps, and he watched his pit board and saw that Mat MIadin was making his push to run at the front. Then he Simply put his head down and pulled away, eventually winning by almost 13 seconds on his Muzzy Kawasaki in a ride that is sure to send a demoralizing message to the rest of the superbike field. Following Chandler home at a distance was Fast By Ferracci Ducati's Mladin, the winner of the series opener in Phoenix. The Australian was no match for Chandler on this day, and he knew it fairly early on as he watched his former Cagiva Grand Prix teammate steadily draw away. Further behind still was Duhamel and the Smokin' Joe's Honda. The French Canadian started quickly, .and held the lead in an attempted breakaway before also finding out that there would be no matching Chandler. Fourth place for the second race in a row went to the resurgent Steve Crevier. Despite starting from row three after a lackluster qualifying performance, the gritty little Canadian was able to move through to finish fourth, even gaining (Above) Miguel Duhamel (17) leads the way down the hill Into tum two at the start of the AMAIMBNA Superblke race at Laguna Seca Raceway. on his teammate Duhamel as the race came to a close. He led home a race-long battle between Zero Gravity's Ben Bostrom and Yoshimura Suzuki's Pascal Picotte, with Bostrom getting the nod for fifth in only the second superbike race of his young career. Seventh place went to Harley-Davidson's Chris Carr, the former Grand ational Champion putting in a strong ride as he battled early on with the rest of the factory stars. In the end he wasn't able to match the pace of Bostrom and Picotte, but he was able easily to beat a frustrated Yoshimura Suzuki's Aaron Yates to the line. The debut of the Vance & Hines Ducati team was somewhat inauspicious. The team showed up with an immaculate paddock setup and three bikes ready for Thomas Stevens. Unfortunately, some vital computer chips didn't show up in time for the race and Stevens struggled with a 916 that was well down on power. Still, he managed to finish ninth in his debut ride on the Italian V-twin and the team left Laguna fairly pleased with the performance. Tenth place went to Muzzy Kawasaki's upstart Tommy Hayden. The former dirt tracker challenged Stevens and Yates before falling back into a comfortable 10th, matching his performance from the season opener in Phoenix. Canadian Kawasaki Motors-backed Michael Taylor earned the top privateer money with his 11 th-place finish. With his second successive victory at Laguna Seca and his ninth career AMA Superbike win, Chandler is in charge of the AMA Superbike Series point standings after three rounds. The Californian . has put his Muzzy Kawasaki in the winner's 'circle in all three races, finishing third in Phoenix, second at Daytona and winning here - givrng him a handy 99 points. That's 13 more than Duhamel, who holds second in the title chase with 86 points. Third is held by Crevier and his 81 points, two clear of ·Picotte. MIadin and Yates are tied for_ fifth with 69 points, 30 points behind Chandler. In front of a crowd estimated at 30,000, the 28-lap race started under sunny skies with warm temperatures on the Monterey Peninsula, but it really didn't start at all for Yoshimura Suzuki's Larry Pegram. The former dirt tracker was left in a perilous situation as his GSXR750 died on the second row of the grid just as the light turned green. Pegram threw his arm in the air, but was still very nearly collected from behind as those at the back of the grid roared toward the front. "Some guy hit my leg," Pegram said of the situation. "I don't know what happened to the bike - something broke. They (the Yoshimura crew) tried to start it and it won't start. They say they saw white smoke. I was definitely a hazard.. The bike was fine on the warmup lap. I revved it up to drop the clutch and it died." While Pegram pushed his bike to the wall, Duhamel led the large field down the hill and into turn two, the looping left-hander that leads to the infield section of the 2.238-mile track. Duhamel had his head down with a notion of trying to break away, and his quick trek through the infield section had him leading by .70 of a second as he blazed up the hill out of tum five. Giving chase were Bostrom, Mladin, Chandler, Picotte, Yamaha's Tom Kipp, Crevier, Stevens, Carr and his HarleyDavidson teammate Thomas Wilson. Mladin wasn't in the mood to waH around and he charged after Duhamel, almost running off the tr~ck in the process in turn five as he drifted way wide. That dropped the Australian back to sixth at the end of the second lap, leaving Chandler to have a go at Duhamel "Going into tum five I was just daydreaming," MIadin said later. "I didn't get the front tire scrubbed like I wanted to on the warmup lap, so I just wanted to cruise for a couple of laps and then try and get past." A lap later and Chandler was through, showing his superiority on this day by diving under Duhamel on the entrance to tum 10, a fast right-hander. Chandler was obviously in the zone and he sped through the infield section to lead Duhamel by almost a second as he headed up the hill out of turn five on the fifth lap. Mladin, meanwhile, had worked his way up to third and was nipping at Duhamel's heels, making the pass a lap later going into the infamous Corkscrew. By this point it was 'obvious tha t if Chandler was to be challenged, it wasn't going to come from Duhamel. The only man apparently capable of making this a race was Mladin and his Michelinshod Ducati. After five laps, Chandler led Mladin by 1.25 seconds. And that lead didn't stretch. In fact, after seven laps, Mladin had the lead down to under a second. The Australian was closing in as he pulled some two seconds on a fast-fading Duhamel. "I got a great start, actually," Duhamel said later. "I was pretty happy with that. The race was just too long. It should have been like three laps." On the ninth lap, Chandler and MIadin encountered traffic for the first time -light initially, but steadily increasing in volume through lap 11, Chandler's lead held, ranging from just over a second to just under a second. On the 12th lap, the lead started to grow ever so slightly until Chandler got it to the magic two-second mark on the 15th lap - the challenge from Mladin apparently over. "Doug (Chandler) had his game together today," Mladin said. "You could tell in qualifying that he was going to be fast. We were pretty good up until about lap 18. 1 g!lt the halfway flag and then three or four laps after that I thought, 'Oh, yeah, we're going to race until the end: To tell the truth, we had a couple of little problems with the rear shock. Something happened. I think it overheated or something, but you could see it coming up the straight. It was just bouncing around everywhere. But even if the bike was running well, Doug likes this place and he rides well here. His bike's working well and he's going to be tough." "It felt really good," Chandler said later: "We did a lot of testing here over the winter and I know Laguna Seca pretty good. The guys did a wonderful job and I had no trouble at all. The only thing I think 1 did wrong was botch up the starl" By now Kipp's day was done, the Yamaha throwing its chain as it exited turn 11, thanks to a problem with the chain adjuster, according to a crew member. Kipp had been running strong and was racing for fifth with ~ostrom. After 15 laps, Chandler led Mladin by a rapidly growing two seconds; Duhamel was a lonely third; Picotte and Bastrom were battling over fourth; Crevier was starting to shake Yates; Carr held down eighth; and Stevens had the Vance & Hines Ducati in ninth, lagging a bit without the necessary computer chips that bring power to the V-twins they were stuck in customs somewhere between Italy and California. "1 got a decent start but we just didn't have any acceleration," Stevens said later. "We basically used the race as a test. I've had the flu, but I held up good and toward the end of the race I did a 28.8 (I :28.8). If I'm not winning it sucks, but we'll get it." With Chandler's lead growing in leaps and bounds, Mladin a safe second ("The hardest thing was watching Doug go away - he's got the lead in the championship and he's the one I've got to catch. I really needed to beat him."), and Duhamel a lonely third, the only real action in this one was in the battle heating up for fourth. Crevier was on the move and had the bit between his teeth as he caught and passed both Picotte and Bostrom for fourth place. "I had a front-end chatter in the 600 race and I was really disappointed," Crevier said. "I was a bit upset with myself. Anway, 1 got a good start from the third row, but for the first half of the race I was just trying too hard. I was braking real deep and turning in hard and I just couldn't do it on the RC45. I'd picked a soft Dunlop and, as the tire got

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