Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Tum four provided spectators at the Budweiser Balcony plenty of action. (Left) Mladin (66) leads Bostrom (11) and Rapp (115), (Above) Doug Chandler (1) came from way back to finish fifth; Rapp (115) was seventh and Pascal Picotte (21) was sixth, With four of 14 rounds completed, Mladin leads Muzzy Kawasaki's Doug Chandler by just three points, 120-117, with Gobert gaining ground in third with 113 points. So where was Chandler today? Fifth and somewhat fortunate to be there, the defending Superbike National Champion didn't havea good time of it at Willow Springs. Struggling from the start with a front-end push through turns two, eight and nine, Chandler qualified a lowly 15th. On Sunday morning, however, he was back on the pace, lapping just fractions of a econd slower than DuHamel-and Mladin in the warmup session after curing the front-end problem with a steering-head-angle change. Still, he had to start from the fourth row of the grid. Despite the.problems, Chan- dler charged through, patiently picking off riders one by one until he was very near the tail of the lead group. At the' finish line he was just behind the fourthplaced Honda RC45 of Ben Bostrom and relieved to leave the desert with fifth-place points when things had appeared to be on the verge of disaster. Harley-Davidson's Pascal Picotte had his best outing ever on the VR1000, fin- ishing sixth and al 0 running with the lead pack for most of the race, Though the VR is still a few horsepower down, Picotte was able to parlay hard riding and the draft into a solid finishing poSition. Seventh place went to the man who had many sitting up and taking notice of his efforts - Steve Rapp. The former AFM Champion from Northern California took advantage of a good situation when he was chosen to replace the injured Thomas Stevens on the second Vance & Hines Ducati (see Briefly). Rapp not only qualified sixth in what was his first-ever outing on a superbike, but in the race he looked like he belonged there. He ran with the leaders, passed all of them at one point or another, and ran as high as second at one Mladin .Yoshimura Suzuki's Mat M1adffi (right) is starting to make a habit of this pole-position stuff. Just a week after earning hiS second pole position of the season, M1adin went out and earned number three with a record-setting lap at Willow Springs International Raceway. The Australian clicked off his 1::.10.626 lap on Friday afternoon, and neither he nor anyone else could better it on·a cold and windy session on Saturday afternoon. Mladin, who lapped at 1:20.1 dwing preseason testing at Willow, was surprised that no one went better on Saturday. Still, he was pleased to have grabbed the pole, the lap record, and the championship point that goes with it. It was a point that moved him into a tie for the Superbike Championship lead with Muzzy Kawasaki's Doug Chandler. '1t was good enough to get the pole," Mladin said. "I was lucky because a couple of guys went a little bit quicker today. I wasn't even going to go out until a few minutes to go. Then I saw a 20.7 for Anthony (Gobert) and [ didn't know what that would be on the clock, so [ thought I might go out and have a go. But I screwed it up anyway. Actually, I didn't screw it up - I just couldn't do it today. That's it. I just didn't feel good. Luckily, no one went quicker, because I wouldn't be on pole if they . did:" Mladin is obviously pleased with his Suzuki, and it isn't taking much to get it read y from week to week. He's been on pole position at every race this year with the exception of Daytona. "The bike's pretty much the same as when we rolled it out of the truck," Mladin said. "We tested here a few weeks ago, and it's been the same aU weekend. We tried a couple of things today because basically my quickest lap around here was on the 10th lap of the first session yesterday - on race tires. We thought we might as well start changing things to see if we could find a bit of time. We lost time, if anything. So we tuned ourselves to a standstill. We'll go· back to what we know is pretty good for tomorrow morning, and just go out and do a few laps. To tell the truth, I expected people to go faster than what we aU went We came here a few weeks ago and it was pretty windy, and I know how fast I went. I never thought a mid-20 would get me on the pole. It must just be windier, I don't know. I just didn't think that would be the time for the pole - I was surprised." Although Mladin's best time came from Friday's session, he was mostly alone in doing so. The others had their best laps on Saturday, including the rider who would sit next to Mladin on the front row - Vance & Hines Ducati's Anthony Gobert, who lapped at 1:20.m. Gobert was fresh from a trip to the hospital on Friday night, thanks to an ear infectiOn. "To be honest, last week in Laguna Seca I had something in my ear," Gobert explained. "From my earplugs, I had some blackheads in my ear. Since [ hadn't been on the bike in five weeks, I obviously hadn't had any earplugs in so it built up and got infected, Yesterday, it really hurt me to put earplugs in and I could feel pressure in the whole side of my head here. [ went to the hospital and they drained it and got a lot of fluid out of my ear. The doctor said that would have affected my balance and stuff, and perception. That might be why [ fired off the track here yesterday, Yesterday, I didn't reaUy feel with it and I was just sort of riding around, trying to build up, Today 1 felt awe- some. I just feel so at home with the bike and every time [ went out there today I improved heaps. [ think I'm a little bit more positive now, I let a few different things get to me before which r shouldn't have. This weekend I'm really determined after what happened last week with us on the start line (he showed up late for the start of the National at Laguna Seca and didn't make the warmup lap) and stuff. It's time for me to start getting some wins, Hopefully, we can do that tomorrow. If not, a podium and then start at Sears Point (next weekend)." Like his countryman Mladin, Gobert was also happy with the performance of his motorcycle. "The bike's awesome," Gobert added. "It flies - I think the Ducati is probably one of the quickest. The Honda might be about the same, but the Ducati is awesome, It gets off the corners nice; it handles awesome, I'm just loving my racing at the moment. I like it here. I prefer tight and twisty tracks myself; I prefer like Laguna Seca and tracks like that because I think it separates the guys more. Although saying that, this track seems to separat!, the guys a lot because it is pretty hairbalI. It's not my kind of track for racing because I think it's too much slipstreaming, and you can stay with the other guy if you just want to grit your teeth and hold it on. That's not the way I like to go racing, but everyone has to race here and I'm just hoping tomorrow we're all together and have a nice battle - and hopefully I'll come out on top." Third on the front row was the Honda RC45 of Miguel DuHamel, hot off his victory at Laguna Seca last weekend, The French Canadian lapped at 1:20,910 on Saturday afternoon. "The wind was blowing my hair - with my helmet on," DuHamel joked. "It was really windy out there, I feel pretty good, [bettered my time from yesterday and the wind was pretty bad. We had a shock go bad on us this morning, but as far as consi tent lap times, we're doing pretty good. It's just been a little fine-tuning. We took the bike out of the truck from Laguna Seca and haven't touched anything, ahnost - just a little bit here and a little bit there for the bumps. Everything is holding up well, so r think we had a good setup from Laguna. I'm feeling really good about the whole season right now, as far as the bike's going. I never liked this track that much, but I think it's because I never had the bike dialed in that good. Now it's kinda fun because it takes us away from some of the chicane tracks that we have around the country and you can actually get on the gas, have some fun and get some speed gOing. It's a little bit like they have in Europe. We can definitely go out to win. Our main goal is to go racing, Don't get me wrong, r always want to qualify well and go for a pole, but unfortunately that's not my strength:' With a Suzuki leading a Ducati and a Honda on the front row, it was fitting that a Yamaha would take the fourth spot. But that Yarnalla wasn't ridden by Jamie Hacking. Instead it was Rich Oliver, in easily his best qualifying performance since Las Vegas last year. Oliver lapped at 1:20.944 - the last man to crack the 1:21 barrier. "I'm really happy to be up on the front row," Oliver said, "It's the second time because last year at Vegas I was on the front row, I only made about seven laps in Vegas (prior to crashing), so hopefully I'll make the whole race tomorrow. The team has worked really hard to put a bike underneath me that's more easy to ride. I had a lot of problems over the wintertime testing, and I fell off a lot of times. They've changed the bike around 100 percent for me, to give me something I can be comfortable on, and it works for my riding style. I've also changed my riding style quite a bit, and slowed down quite a bit. I've tried to start over again. So we're starting to get some good results and I'm really happy to be on the front row, 1hope we end up here in the race, "We just came in here with our eyes open, thinking that there wasn't anything that we couldn't do. We didn't have any expectations. We were second fastest yesterday and fourth today, so I'm not complaining. I've still got a lot to learn, as far as racing, I'm pretty good on a qualifier, but that's not a race, Your qualifier makes you a hero, When you've got to ride hard on the race tires, that's what separates the real good riders from the guys who are coming up - like me. ['m just a rookie at this and I'm just trying to absorb it as much as I can for next year. I'm running low 22s on race tires, so I have to pick it up a little bit. I think we're okay for the race," The second row would be led by American Honda's Ben Bostrom, thanks to his 1:21-016 on Saturday. The Californian was still bothered by his injured ankle. "Our race setup is good," Bostrom said, '1 did 215 on race rubber and I thought [could do a 20 flat on the qualifier. I did a 21.0,2] .0, then the tire was gone. Maybe I'm not a good quaIifying guy yet. I think right now there are four fast guys here and I believe I'm one of them. I think we can hang with 'em and keep the learning curve up. I just want to try and get better with each race and try to win one, This one is worse (on his ankle). At Laguna it was mostly lefts. Here you're going right so much, there's a lot of weight on it and it's not strong enough." First-timer Steve Rapp was next to Bostrom on the Vance & Hines Ducati after lapping with an impressive 1:2],517, Then came Yoohimura Suzuki's Steve Crevier and the Harley-Davidson VRIOOO ridden by Pascal Picotte, Believe it or not, Muzzy Kawasaki's Doug Chandler was aU the way back in 15th and struggling to get the bike through turns eight and nine - the most critical section of the race track. Chandler was going to go back to trying last year' fork on the ZX-7R and would also try some different steering-head angles. "Hopefully, we'U get it better," Chandler said. '1 don't have a good feel from the front, It isn't sticking and I can't feel it. Everything else is good and I made up my mind on tires by Friday."

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