Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127854
ROAD RACE AMAIMBNAS UPERBIKE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP 'RotintJ 8: Pikes Peak International Raceway b ike flipping through the air a t 150 mp h." Chandler ended up second and was quietly content with the result. He was concern ed more with Mat Mlad in than he was with DuHamel. and his secondplace finish to Mladin's fourth suited him just fine. DuHamel ma y have beaten him in the battle, but Chandler, the mos t consistent man in the se ries, is still winning the war. With two races left in the series, Chandler leads Mladin by 25 points, 252-227. And DuHamel now appears read y to pounce o n Mladin as he moves to w ithin fou r points of the Austra lian, with 223 points. This r a ce wasn ' t just between DuHamel and Chandler, however. Kipp was also in the hun t, leading laps fo ur thro ug h 13 b e fore g iving way to Du Hamel. In the end he was third, but the r es u lt co ntinues h is late -sea son cha rge after a rather dis ma l sta rt to the . series. Fourth place we nt to Mladin and the Michelin-sh od Duca ti, the Au stralian and Mic helin suffering from a lack of testing. tim e at the new circuit. Wh ile the o the r factory teams a nd Dunlop had tested at Pikes Peak ea rlier in the summer, Mladin's lone tes t came at Putnam Park. There was never anv doub t that the others had gained an advantage, and Mladi n had to be co ntent wit h fou rth pla ce. Smokin' Joe's Honda's Steve Crevier ended up fifth , maintaining a consistent run that has him four th in the overall . point stand ings. Crevier battled pa st the tw o Yo sh imura Suzukis of Pas cal Pi cotte and Aaron Yates, then rode away to a lonely fifth. Picotte, meanwhile, got the better of Yates, though By Paul Carruthers Photos by Henny Ray Abrams FOUNTAlN, CO, AUG 17 aybe Smokin' Joe's Honda' s Miguel DuH a mel s ho u ld destroy Honda RC45s mo re ofte n. Despite wrecking the bike on wh ich he'd won his past two AMA Superbike Na tio nals on Friday mornin g a nd not find ing the correct setup on his ne w bike until the wa ning moments of Sun- M d ay morn ing's war mup sess io n, Du Hamel was still abl e to wi n his third s traight AMA Superbike National - this one comi ng a t the brand- new Pikes Peak In ternation al Raceway. DuHam el faced the cha llenges of a new and dif ficult circuit. hor d es of slo we r rid er s a nd th e never-en d ing pressu re applied by both Mu zzy Kawa saki's Doug Chandler and Yama ha's Tom Kipp. But he proved to be equal to the task , mastering the rough-and- tumble layo ut , slicing and di cing his way thro ug h lapped traffi c, and eventually breaking away from the duet givi ng chase to win by 2.312 seco nds. It was his third win in a row and the 16th of his career, moving him into a tie with Wayne Rainey fo r second on the all-time AMA Superbike win list. "We changed springs this morni ng," DuHamel sa id . "W hile I was riding, I was tryi ng to adj u s t it myself. I was playing w ith the kn obs to a d ju s t rebo und. That was wrong. and the guys fi xed it with preload and p ut th e rebo u nd back. They'd written e veryth in g d o w n so they kn ew w here we were. I wen t ou t for one lap and boom, we hit it. I think tha t's called really, really leavin g it until th e last seco nd. But that's what happens wh en you send the (Above) Miguel DuHamel (17) leads Pascal Picotte (21), Tom Klpp (16), Doug Chand ler (hidden) and Steve Crevier (14) in the firs t-ever AMA Superbike National to be held in th e sta te of Colorado. The race was held at the brand-new Pikes Peak International Raceway . (Below) The ra ce was this close for nea rly the whole dista nce , w~h DuHamel (17), Klpp (16) and Chandler light ing to the finis h.