Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

ROAD RACE Round 3: AMA Pro Honda Oils 600cc Supersport Series Round 3: Laguna Seca Raceway Duhamel r'ated XXX By Scott Rousseau Photo by Kinney Jones MONTEREY, CA, APR. 20 redit Miguel Duhamel for achieving a milestone. Credit Aaron Yates for keeping him honest. For it was the Yoshimura Suzukimounted Yates - and only he - who had the juice to battle with Smokin' Joe's Duhamel, the king of the AMA Pro Honda Oils 600cc Supersport class, when round three of the series visited Laguna Seca Raceway. Yet when all was said and done, Duhamel stood atop the heap with his 30th career 600cc supersport win, his Honda CBR600F3 the class of the 600cc Supersport field - this week. Yates was second in the race, his best finish in AMA road racing thus far in the season. He was followed by Muzzy Kawasaki's Tommy Hayden. Duhamel now trails series leader Pascal Picotte by a single point, 96-9S. "TItis makes me feel great," Duhamel said. "A lot of this is the CBR Fl, F2 and F3. They've been incredible bikes to ride, and they've allowed me to display my talent. "Nobody has been taking anything away from us," Duhamel continued in reference to the recent performances by the rival Suzuki marque. "We've always been in there. We've been having some good races, but with the points it's going to be close." The actual race between Duhamel and Yates should have come as no surprise; they qualified first and second in the 38-rider field. When the green light flashed to start the 17-lap final, Yoshimura teammates Yates and Pascal Picotte battled for the lead up the front straight, followed immediately by Barnett Tool & Engineering/ American Honda's Matt Wait, Duhamel, Hayden, Hyper Cycle Suzuki's Jason Pridmore and Zero Gravity's Ben Bostrom. Wait won the race into turn one. Duhamel went to work right away, pulling up the inside going into turn one and exiting it in third place behind Wait and Picotte. The champion then took control of the race on the uphill between turns six and seven with Picotte moving into second while Yates moved to fourth, and then third one lap later. Duhamel, Wait and Yates then started putting time on the rest of the field, running nose to tail while battles for position erupted behind them. Pridmore overtook Picotte for fourth between turns six and eight. Picotte continued to fall back; the winner of the two races of the year would obviously not get number three today. "I had the wrong setup," Picotte said. 'The front end was too soft, and it was pushing a lot. I was also down on power, and I don't know why. Instead of putting it on the ground I'd rather finish seventh or sixth. To win the championship, you have to bring it home on two wheels. But we'll have to work harder. The Hondas obviously did. TIleir bikes were really fast." Bostrom's day ended early, when the promising Californian suffered a rare electrical failure, and he was forced to pull off on lap four. C "We blew a fuse, a IS-cent part" Bostrom said dejectedly. '1t started running on two cylinders, and then it just quit. We're in big trouble (for the championship), so we have to set a new goal. I'm just going to go out there and try to win every round. T!lank God I still have a superbike ride today or I'd be leaving here really upset." Duhamel continued to lead the parade, with Wait pushing hard to stay with him and Yates just a few lengths back. Wait applied pressure in turn three on laps three and four, and it appeared as though he might attempt his pa s for the lead there. He finally did on lap seven, and it was his. undoing as he lost the front end and crashed. He was uninjured. "We started out with setup problems already," Wait said. "When I came back around from the warmup lap I told Poncho (Rangel) that the front end was chattering. So I was following Miguel as good as I could while the front end was skating. I should have backed off, but I'm a racer, and I want to win the damn race. My 600 was running great. I've got one of the fastest bikes out there. We proved that in qualifying. Next time I will lay back. You get nothing for crashing." "We all think alike," Duhamel said. "Matt rode really well. He was just trying too hard. He gets too excited when he gets up there, but he showed good speed. It (turn three) is a good romer to pass in. I've done it before." Wait's exit left Yates with a little less than 20 lengths to make up on Duhamel, and the Georgian did so handily as he drew closer to the French Canadian. "I was pushing the thing around a bit, trying to make up some time on Miguel," Yates said. "Matt was in there for a while, but he was being really aggressive, and I figured it was just a matter of time, so I hung in there. Once Matt was gone, Miguel got out a ways and I just tried to reel him in." Behind Yates, the battle for third had opened up to include Hayden, Pridmore, Picotte and Smokin' Joe's Steve Crevier who had a bit of a gap over a three-rider battle for seventh, consisting of Erion Racing's Doug Toland, Yamalla's Tom Kipp and Erion's Andrew Stroud. More space, and then there was another close battle between Cycle Gea(s Steve Rapp, Kinko's Kawasaki riders Mike Smith and Jamie Hacking, and Team Oliver Yamaha's Rich Oliver. Yoshimura Suzuki's Larry Pegram was further back in 16th and would wind up finishing 12th, though tha t' s not as bad as it sounds. "I started in 39th position, because the bike broke in qualifying," a positive Pegram said. "So we wound up passing 27 riders. It's harder to do mum better than that because there are 0 many guys in this class who are good riders." Up front, Yates continued to cut into Duhamel's lead, and finally came to within striking distance on about the ninth lap. From there the gap between them ebbed and flowed until Yates was but two lengths behind. Yet on each lap it looked as though he was having difficulty staying with Duhamel through turn five, forcing him to make up the ground on the uphill. "That happens," Yates said. "It wasn't as bad as in turn 11. We've been messing with the gearing. Sometimes I'd try first, sometimes second. One time I spun the tire real hard off there and had to slip the clutch, then it spun again and I had to slip it again to get it to hook back up. But that stuff happens. They're all 6OOs, but they each have their different powerbands." NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP ROAD RACE SERIES Yates finally did make a bid for the lead on the 13th lap, trying hard to hold tight in turn five and get under Duhamel, but the c1lampion again got the better drive and opened up the gap to about four lengths. Two laps later, lapped traffic would seal Yates' fate as Duhamel sneaked through cleanly while Yates could not. "I tried to reel him in," Yates said. "But with the bikes being so equal, it's really hard to make a move on someone unless you're right on their rear fender. After that (lapped traffic), I knew that there was no chance," "I figured he was too far back to make a clean pass," Duhamel said. "I figured that if he did try something, tha t it was going to be a situation where he would take me out or take us both out, and he didn't do that. That shows you the caliber of rider that he is." . Hayden rolled home alone in third after dispensing with Pridmore early in the race. "I just felt really comfortable today," the soft-spoken Kentucky rider said. "My bike was working excellent, and that made it a Jot easier to get around those guys. We didn't really run into lappers until the end, so that really wasn't a factor for us today." "I'll take it," Pridmore said of his solid fourth-place run. "Those guys were kind of splitting on me. Tommy rode really well. I started catc1ling him at the end, but his bike was accelerating really well of off 11. Chassiswise, our bike was spot-on, and I think that Carry Andrew will make it better still. I've got a good team around me. I'm a lot happier with that ride today. Real happy." Next came Toland, who despite nur ing a bad right wrist, managed to just beat Picotte and Crevier at the flag for a hard-eamed fifth place. "Once I got by Stroud, Kipp and Crevier I had a clear traffic in front of me, and I could go a little faster," Toland said. "Up until then it was just follow the leader. The bike worked well. I just wish I'd had a better start or a little more time. I never even practiced today because of my wrist. I've just got to give a lot of credit to Dr. David Kieffer. He helped me a lot." Crevier was perhaps the most disappointed with his finish, but he took it in typical Crevier style. "Who passed me? Sore-wrist Toland?" Crevier said. "He was riding good. He seemed to square off the turns better than me. I was fighting a bit of front-end matter, but what a competitive race. Where did I finish? Seventh? Seventh sucks, but this one's in the books and we're going for the next rn~." ~ Pascal Picotte (21) leads the way earty In the 600cc Supersport race. Matt Walt (95) ran a strong second only to crash before the halfway point. Laguna 5eclI Raceway Monterey, california Results: April 20, 1997 (Round 3 of 11) AMA PRO HONDA OILS 600« SUPERSPORT F1NA[., 1. Miguel DuhameJ (HoN; 2. Aaron Yates (Suz); 3. Tommy Hayden (!

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