Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

good, clean pass on Pascal. He tried to get back by me and I just said, 'I'm going to ride through the dirt if I have to.' I got· in front and got my head down and started charging. I was charging a little too hard the first two laps. I was a little bit all over the place. And then I got settled down, and got down to a nice pace, and started catching Aaron. And then, when we got into traffic, he wasn't gaining that bad. The gap definitely closed a bit. After that, I was sort of tormented, because I thought I saw him pass ,on the waving yellow. I'm pretty sure he did, where the ambulance was parked going up the hill. Even if that wouldn't have happened, and I would have been totally concentrated, Aaron since day one had' the track dialed. n Picotte would fall back to fifth in time, after discovering early on that he didn't have the bike to stay with the leaders. "I couldn't get a drive on these guys," Picotte said. "They would pull me, really stretching. From the last corner to turn one, they'd stretch me 10 .Iengths. My bike was working good from start/finish to turn one. I tried holding up Miguel as much as I could. I knew I wouldn't be able to keep up with Aaron. I tried pulling Miguel as much as 1could so Aaron would be okay." Picotte's teammate Larry Pegram was the next to get by, on the 15th lap, with Crevier going by on lap 19. That . would settle the order of the top five. "I lunched my start. It was just a horrible start," Crevier admitted. 'T ve been having a lot of ,confidence problems with the front end. 1 said, 'The heck with it, just go there or crash on the way.' I've just got to get onto the box. There was so much silly, aggressive passing; I hope everybody's not too mad at me. It's just been too long since I've been on the box, and I'm just happy to be here, and I don't give a dang what they think about it." , What concerned Crevier was how long the tires would last, though most everyone was on the same rubber. "There was a lot of chattering, and I was worried about shagging the tires, and I definitely couldn't turn as well as ,the other guys could," he said. "I think that kind of helped me a little bit, because I carried a lot of speed around turn 10 and I stuffed (Mike) Smith. But 1 was out of control, and 1 was glad that he crashed, because I don't think I could have stopped 'for him." Crevier finished about 4.5 seconds !:>ehind DuHamel and at the front of the quartet which included Pegram, Picotte, and Kinko's Hacking, who couldn't make a move once his brakes began to fail. "A little bit before halfway, I had bit of a front-brake problem; I had some fading," Hacking said. "1 don't know what caused it, but the lever started coming back to the bars. I couldn't run into the corners as hard as I wanted to as I had been doing during practice all week. I could make some really good ground on the back part of the track. Unfortunately, my brakes went away. 1 just tried to sit back there and ride, conserve my tires. I knew we were going to get into some lappers. Everyone was going to start panicking. I knew 1 had good tires when we got into lappers, and I was going to try to use them, and 1 just wasn't able to pick up the pace to gain off their mistakes." Yamaha's Kipp and Zero Gravity's Ben Bostrom were the next across, the pair not separated by all that much for most of what, for them, was mostly a processional race from the seventh lap Rich Olivet (1) ended up winning the 250cc Grand Prix. Was there ever any doubt? on. Bostrom said that he missed his setup, and that e:very time he got on the gas, the rear end would go sideways. f,N New Hampshire International Speedway Loudon, New Hampshire Results: June 15 (Round 5 of 11) 600cc SUPERSFORT: 1. Aaron Yates (SUZ)i 2. Miguel DuHamel (Hon); 3. Steve Crevier (Hon); 4. Larry Pegram (Suz)i 5. Pascal Picotte (Suz); 6. Jamie Hacking (Kaw); 7, Tom Kipp (Yam); 8. Ben Bostrom (Hon); 9. Eric Bostrom (Hon); 10. Jason Pridmore (Suz); 11. Eric Wood (j(aw); 12. Andrew Stroud (Hon); 13. Rich Oliver (Yam); 14. Charles Chouinard (Hon); 15. Tommy Hayden (Kaw); 16. Douglas Toland (Hon); 17. Jeffrey Curtis (5uz); 18. Nathan Sane! (5uz); 19. Dax Snow (502); 20. Mike Ciccotto (Kaw); 21. Matt Wait (Han); 22. James Bronson (S~); 23. John Salemi (Kaw);.24. Pablo EscaJante (Hon); 25. Keith Wilson (Kaw); 26. Rad Greaves (Han); 27. Glen Goldman tSuz); 28. Craig Babcock (Han); 29. Christopher Holske (Han); 30. Stephen Duval (Han); 31. Dale Dandrea (5uz); 32. Bob Lapusnak (Kaw); 33. Jim Lester (Suz); 34. Mike Smith (Kaw); 35. Richard Alexander Jr. (Suz); 36. Mark Miller (Suz); 37. Todd Harrington (Kaw); 38. Tony lannareUi (Hon). Time: 30 min., 46.690 sec. Distance: 24 laps, 38.4 miles. Average speed: 74.851 mph. Margin of victory: 2.15 sec. 600« SUPERSPORT C'SHIP POINT STANDINGS (After 5 of 11 rounds): 1. Miguel DuHamel (163/2 wins); 2. Aaron Yates (162/1); 3. Pascal Picotte (152/2); 4. Steve Crevier (135); 5. Jason Pridmore (112); 6. (TlE) Jamie Hacking/Rich Oliver (107); 8, Ben Bostrom (102); 9. Andrew Stroud (96); 10, Mike Smith (92); 11. Eric Bostrom (87); 12, Larry Pegram (84); 13. Tom Kipp (80); 14. Douglas Toland (79); 15. Tommy Hayden (73); 16. Matt Wait (57); 17. Rad Greaves (54); 18. Todd Harrington (51); 19. Richard Alexander Jr. (48); 20. Mark Miller (41). Upcoming Rounds: Round 6 - Brainerd, Minnesota, June 29 Round 7 - Lexington, Ohio, July 20 En FuelslLubricanls 250cc Grand Prix Series Round 5: New Hampshire Inter'l Speedway Oliver s1IfJl!()!kes . By Henny R'ay Abrams Photo by George Roberts LOUDON, NH, JUNE 15 ifteen in a row and countin,g: That's the number of consecutive Elf Fuels/Lubricants 250cc Grand Prix wins that Team Oliver Yamaha's Rich Oliver has racked up after yet another completely dominating win on a sunny day in New Hampshire. This one was nearly as flawless as the rest, though there was a brief hiccup when he crashed in the morning warmup, and another at the start when he trailed Aprilia Racing's AI Salaverria for a lap. But his crew quickly fixed the· light damage from the crash and, when he entered turn one on the second lap, he was out front. Then there was a crash on the third lap, in turn three, and a red flag was brought out. ~ From the drop of the flag at the restart, he was flying and gone. Lapping his usual second-per-Iap faster than the rest, Oliver was more than 10 seconds in front at the halfway mark, stretching it to nearly 20 before backing off at the end and winning by 17.460 seconds. "I stressed the crew out this morning when I fell off in practice," Oliver said of his first crash since the Pomona race in April of 1996. "You get your confidence level up to the point where you go, 'Alt, I think I'll go out and go half a second per lap faster in the morning warmup.' You put the whole team at risk. I just low-sided the bike, and nothing would have r~ally happened, but 1 hit the wall. Of course, we're at Loudon, so you tell yourself, 'We're at Loudon, Rich, don't hit any wall, don't hurt yourself, don't end your career here.' And what do I do? 1 crash where I can hit a damn wall. I backed into the wall; I broke the seat and knocked the silencers straight up in the air. '1 just went in there with the brakes on and hit a bump and tucked the front. Typical rookie maneuver. I just go back to what I know I can run, which is 14.1s and 14.2s, instead of 13.8s. It d'oes frustrate me when you can go around the bowl a thousand times and never fall off because it's nice and smooth, but you go into that turn - turn three - and you hit a bump and crash and you go, 'Man, that bump was here five years ago.''' Second place went to Aprilia Racing's AI Salaverria, who's finally getting a handle on setting up the temperamental Aprilia RSV250. Once he installed himself in second, he was unchallenged, finishing well in front of a spirited scrap for third. "On the restart, I got hung up, and it took a while to get up to the front group. By then, Rich was gone," Salaverria said. The three riders behind him were Moto Liberty Honda's Randy Renfrow and Toshiyuki Hamaguchi, and Performance Machines' Roland Sands. After spending most of the race in fifth, Renfrow moved up to put himself in position to make a run for third on the final lap. He took fhe spot, just in front of Hamaguchi, with Sands back to fifth after nearly crashing halfway into the final lap. Zero Gravity's Bobby Keith was sixth; then came Matt Wait, while Ultima Sports Car's Greg Esser made his pass of Bruce Lind stick for eighth. Woodstock Cycle Barns' Chad Healy was 10. Because of the red flag, there was no official time or average speed, so no new records were set, except for Oliver's ever-mounting consecutive-wins records. This win was Oliver's fifth in a row this year, and fourth in a row a t this track. That"1eve1 of perfection gives him 180 points after five of 10 races. Second in points is Moto Liberty Honda's Reno frow with 124 points. FolloWing his seventh today, Keith is third with 118 points. The first crack at starting went off well, but ended soon after when Thomas Dinardo crashed in turn three, COIning to rest in the middle of the track. . A red flag was thrown, and Dinardo was taken to a Concord hospital for observation. The second start belong to Oliver, as did the rest of the race. As usual, the only question was the margin of victory, though on such a short track, a second question was how high he could lap into the field. It would end up being to .the· seventh-place finisher, Keith. Behind Oliver, Salaverria was settled into second. The trio fighting over third didn't seem to propel themselves forward, so he was in a no-man's land, neither gaining on Oliver nor losing to the others, so he finished an encouraging second. "The Aprilia is a great bike, but it has to be right on or it doesn't run as strong as it can," Salaverria said. "Just before the start, 1 had one of the mechanics pull off a piece of tape from the radiator, because the engine was running too hot. The Yamaha and the Honda' don't have to be quite as precise. We're starting to get the bike dialed in." The order of the three-four-five bikes didn't change much for the second half of the race, with Sands leading Hamaguchi, who'd passed Renfrow on the 13th lap. Renfrow looked to be off the pace, from time to time; then he'd draw them back in. . "We seemed to be pretty equal," Sands said. "It seemed like Randy's bike drove pretty hard off the corners maybe a little harder than my did." In the final few laps, Renfrow got serious; drafting by Hamaguchi into turn one on the 22nd lap, but having to back off when Hamaguchi closed the door on him. Sands was still at the fro!).t of the gmup, but that would soon change. "Going up the hill, on the right-hander there (turn three), he (Hamaguchi) passed me on the brakes, got in really hot," he 'explained. "I took it back and down the hill, he passed me again, he got in hot again. So I was inside him in the bowl (turn six) and really threw it away - over the bars. There's probably boot marks on my seat, and Randy (Renfrow) took advantage of that.. Then on the last lap, we all got in there on the brakes - there was a lapper - I was wailing on the brakes going into three, and 11

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