Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Vance & Hines Ducati's Anthony Gobert showed that he might have the maturity to win the Superbike title by keeping a sick Ducati circula ting fo~oo miles. The Australian knew he was in trouble from the start when the bike started to overheat, and his only choice was to nurse it home - riding at threequarter throttle to finish eighth, one spot ahead of his teammate Thomas Stevens, who had troubles of his own. Yoshimura Suzuki's Larry Pegram, Muzzy Kawasaki's Tommy Hayden, Harley-Davidson's Thomas Wilson, Tilley's H-D's Jamie James, Ricd Motorsports' James Randolph and Ast Research's Ricky Orlando rounded out the top 15 finishers in a race that, as always, featured fairly high attrition. That attrition included early crashers . Mike Hale and Jason Pridmore, the aforementioned DuHamel, Yamaha's Rich Oliver (crash), Suzuki's Steve Crevier (thrown chain) and HarleyDavidson's Pascal Picotte - among others. As impressive as DuHamel was early in the race, it was Picotte who had the attention of the crowd while he was circulating. The French Canadian had the factory VRI000 up to third place and looked like a good bet to finally put the Harley into Victory Lane. It all started to go wrong during his first pit stop when the bike had to be shut off in order to change the rear tire - thanks to a dragging clutch. Then the bike wouldn't fire and Picotte lost even more valuable time. After charging back through the field to sixth place, Picotte went through the same thing all over again during his second pit stop. But this time it was worse, and sadly he was finally forced to call it a day - ending Harley's finest day at the Speedway since the introduction of the VR some four years ago. Obviously, the big winner on the day was Russell - but several of the top AMA men left Daytona pleased with the outcome. Naturaliy, Mladin and Gobert were two of those men. The two Australians left the Speedway tied for the championship point lead with 60 points. Chandler, too, has plenty to be pleased about as he's only a single point behind with 59. Then comes Hacking with 55, Yates with 54 and Bostrom with 48. The big losers on the day: DuHamel and Hale, who now sit in 14th and 19th, respectively, in the championship with 12 of 14 races left to be run. Forecast threatening weather never materialized and the race began under mostly sunny skies with DuHamel leading the charge down pit road and into turn one. Russell, Gobert, Chandler and Picotte followed the factory Honda out of turn one for the first time. Russell's first shot at the lead came on the approach to the chicane, and he celebrated the move with a wheelie through the left-right, right-left combination corner. The Daytona 200 always claims some of the top men early and this year's race was no exception. The first to go was HyperCycle Suzuki's Jason Pridmore, the 750cc Supersport Champion crashing hard and suffering a broken shoulder and cracked wrist on the opening . lap. On the sixth lap it was Hale crashing out, just moments after he'd charged past Picotte and into third place. His crash came in turn six, the identical place that claimed the Texan early in his last Daytona 200 two years ago. '1 was babying the motor, Sllort-shifting and everything," Hale said later. "1 had the cruise con trol on and was just doing my own thing. I wasn't charging (Above) Mike Hale (219) charged througl1 to third place prior to crashing out of the race early in the race in turn six. (Right) Doug Chandler (1) ended up getting the best of both Jamie Hacking (92) and Pascal Picotte (21). Chandler ended up second, with Hacking third. Picotte and his team ran into problems during the first pit stop and those problems eventually led to his pulling out of the race. It was a bad ending to an otherwise stellar effort by Picotte and the Harley-Davidson VR1000. and I was just getting settled into a good, steady pace and taking care of things. I wasn't worried about running them down at that point - or trying to. My intention was a rostrum finish. I'd been careful with that corner all week because of what happened in the last 200. 1 turned it in and bam - I was down. I'm totally disgusted. 1 picked up the bike but it'd wore a hole in the water . pump and was spraying water everywhere." By the time Hale crashed, it had become fairly evident that only DuHamel and Russell were willing to go the pace that was needed to gain separation from the rest. Those two led comfortably' from a second group that consisted of Picotte and the Harley, Hacking and the Yamaha, and Chandler and the Kawasaki. Behind them came Gobert, the Australian already in trouble and thinking of ways to finish the race. 'The thing overheated on the warmup lap," Gobert said. "We stopped and it was all right, regridded up and went out. I came around to get a bit of fuel and it overheated. It was right on the borderline. They kept us a while on the start line. On the banking it was like, whaap, whaap. 1 sat there and it was getting so hot that I shut it down. [ let 'em all go and then it went back down to 110 degrees. For three laps it stayed 110 to 111 (normal is 87 degrees, according to Gobert), so 1 tried to go again and was pulling them in big-time. Once 1 did' three quick laps and pulled' em in, it skyrocketed to 115 to 118. From then on it was three-quarter throttle for the whole race, trying to survive. 1 can't complain with leading the championship. It could have been worse. 1 could have blown the motor. 1 was thinking - it's hard, but I was thinking." Gobert would ultimately cruise to an eighth-place finish. Nter 10 complete laps, Russell and. DuHamel led the dueling threesome of Picotte, Chandler and Hacking by nearly six seconds. Then came a fading Gobert, followed by Mladin and Bostrom. There was another gap. back to Kipp, who was holding his own over Yates. Oliver, Wilson, Crevier, Stevens and James filled the top 15. Just when the first of the factory men started their pit-stop regimen, the race for Daytona 200 victory ended. Heading into the chicane on the 19th lap, DuHamel locked up the front brake on the RC45 and skidded to a stop, the bike cartwheeling itself to destruction. "1 passed Scott (Russell) on that last lap and he seemed to be having a bit of a tire trouble, maybe," DuHamel said. "We weren't going that fast and I figured maybe I could pick up the 'pace a bit - maybe try to get a little gap. You never know with the lapped riders maybe 1 could get a second or some- thing before the pit stop. I saw my board and his board and we were both coming in on the same lap. 1 was trying to plant the seeds for success in the Daytona 200.1 passed him and I don't know , if 1 got a really good tail wind or something, but 1 got in there - and I braked where I normally braked when 1 was by myself. With Scott, I was braking really early and taking my time. I got in there and braked really hard and as soon as 1 hit the brakes I knew I was in trouble because the bike was not slowing down the way it usually did. Basically what happened is, 1 got in there too hot. I tried to save it a nd make the corner because I was committed. 1 never thought that 1 was going in that fast that 1 couldn't make the corner. "It was a mistake," DuHamel admitted. "Maybe the wind played a part in if, but the big player in this was me, and I made a mistake. I just wanted to get in .front and do a lap hard since the next lap was the pit-stop lap. No matter how hard I cooked my tires, I could have come in with Scott or been a little bit in front of him. 1 just went in there too hard. The blame is really on me. I locked the front up and totally destroyed the bike." And the race. Russell, meanwhile, had a perfect view of the destruction of DuHamel. And he knew this race was suddenly his. CO 0\ ~ "- ~ ....... ~ ce '0::::' ~ 7

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