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ROAD RACE SUNOCO RACE FUELS FORMULA USA CHAMPION5.HIPSERIES Round 1: Willow Springs International Raceway ~ ----J Valvoline Emgo teammate Grant Lopez and Fast By Ferracci's Steve Grigg pastand he ended up right back in front of Batey. Smith firushed fifth, with Batey sixth. . Though Lopez went through first, Grigg ultimately benefited the most from Smith's miscue, riding to third place in front of Lopez. Grigg had finished a lonely sixth in race one. Adams' double win - making it four Formula USA race wins in a row at Willow Springs for the Californian - puts him in the championship lead with 100 points, followed by Graves with 84. Smith lies third with 66 points - effectively the series lead since neither of the other two plan to contest the entire series. Grigg is fourth with 64, followed by·Batey with 59. By Mark Hoyer ROSAMOND, CA, MAR. 15 t took just two qualifying laps for A ttack Performance's Curtis Adams to stamp his authority on the Formula USA Michelin California Championship - that's all it took for the Willow Springs regular to land pole position. So what if he crashed tight afterward - it was but a small hiccup. Adams returned on race day with a repaired Yamaha 840 and - after battling through an eight-lap back-and-forth duel with Graves Motorsports' Chuck Graves in race one - it was clear sailing from there on out. Adams led Graves across the line with a comfortable margin in the first race after getting a better break through traffic late in their race-long fight - then he just flat ran away in race two, leading at the stripe on every lap and winning . by an even bigger margin. No breaks in traffic were needed. Graves might have given Adams a bit more of a run in the seqmd race, but after crashing in both the Pro-Tek Super Sport and EBC Brakes Pro Sport races, , (Above) Double winner Curtis Adams was . absolutely flawless at the opening round of the Suno.co Race Fuels F-USA series. In addition to $5000 in purse money, Adams also earned the $500 Alpha Sprinkler pole award. (Right) Chuck Graves (10) leads the early going in race one ahead of Tray Batey (3), Adams (45), Mike Smith (5) and Steve Grigg (27). he was just too sore to keep up. Still, he managed to finish second despite heavy pressure from behind. Team Valvoline Emgo Suzuki teammates Mike Smith and Tray Batey spent a lot of time together on the race track, battling in both races, though Smith got the better end of the deal both times. Despite a cooked tire, Smith held off Batey's advances in their lonely fight for the final podium spot in race one, and even managed to shake his teammate'in race two. Although in that second race Smith had worked his way into the runner-up spot after pressuring Graves for several laps, Graves managed to get him back. But Smith was going for one more try, and it proved his undoing. In his final bid for the runner-up spot, Smith lost traction in turn nine, allowing both RACE ONE After a delay of nearly an hour and a half due to red flags in earlier WSMC club races, the first Formula USA race finally got under way at 2:20 p.m. Graves got off to the early lead, with Adams right behind, though the Yamaha rider would soon find his way by. Of course, Graves, too, would find his way back by, and so it went. It was practically useless to note who was leading at the stripe, though Adams gets credit for leading the most laps. Adams first moved into the lead after getting a better drive on the exit of turn one, the scene of classic back-and-forth battles in which the pair frequently engage at the regular club events. "It's our typical battle in every race event," Adams said. "We always battle into turn one. Luckily, I was able to come out on top each time. He (Graves) runs it in deeper and apexes it early, which kind of hurts him on the way out. I run in much slower and apex later. With that line, it just translates into a little bit more speed on exit." Graves, riding an RF900-engined GSXR750, managed to make a pass and lead Adams across the line just before the halfway mark, but it was the last -time. As the pair pulled further away from their pursuers - battling teammates Smith and Batey - Adams got a break in traffic in turn seven that let'him get out to a comfortable margin, and that was the end of it. "The bike was so good, 1 was comfortable passing lapped riders, and I