Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

ROAD RACE AMMfBNA SUPERBIKE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP By Henny Ray Abrams SONOMA, CA, MAY 3 e have seen this before. We have seen American Honda's Miguel DuHamel back himself into a corner with an injudicious crash - last year it was at Loudon, this year Daytona then emerge furiously, winning races nonstop, four in a row last year, and three so far this year after easily handling the field in the MBNA Superbike race at Sears Point Raceway. The win, the 20th of the Superbike career, ties him with three-time Superbike champion Fred Merkel for most career victories. It was also DuHamel's fourth win at Sears Point, and he did it in record-setting style. He completed the . 25-lap, 63-mile race in 42 minutes, 31.130 seconds, at an average speed of 88.902 mph. His margin of victory was 1.8 seconds. We have also seen Muzzy Kawasaki's Doug Chandler chase DuHamel to the very end, and come up just short, most recently two weeks ago at his home track of Laguna Seca Raceway. In that race, DuHamel led flag to flag. Here he had to run down Chandler and the slightly off V<-7 to take the lead just past the halfway flags. And we have also seen Yoshimura Suzuki's Mat Mladin struggling with a Suzuki GSXR750 which is clearly not the equal of its peers, and finishing third. He has done it at all three races of the California trio, Laguna Seca, Willow Springs, and Sears Point. What this adds up to is something we haven't seen for a few years, a logjam at the top of the MBNA Superbike championship point standings deep in the season. After five of 14 races, Chandler and Mladin are tied with 150, and DuHamel, after throwing away a bundle of points Round 5: Sears Point Raceway (Above) Doug Chandler (1) set the pace earty in the Suparbike race ahead of Miguel DuHamel (17) and Mat Mladin (66). (Right) DuHamel took over from Chandler just past the halfway point and led to the fi'1ish. in the chicane at Daytona, is closing fast with 134. lfe leap-frogged his teammate Ben Bostrom, fourth in the points and fourth on the track today after running down Yoshimura Suzuki's Steve Crevier on the final lap. In the end, Crevier's TL-lOOOR V-twin was no match for the V-four power of the Honda RC45. Fast by Ferracci Ducati's Tom Kipp was a lone sixth, his best finish of the year after rethinking the way he has to adapt to the Italian V-twin, and listening to old master Eraldo Ferracci. ·Then came Harley-Davidson's Pascal Picotte, the French-eanadian caught out more than the others by a lack of track time~eror~emyinthernrewee~ end. Picotte said the frame on the VR1000 was too stiff for the bumpy 2.52mile, ll-turn Sears Point Raceway, and that it was causing the VR to move around a lot. Just before the start of the final lap, Picotte passed Vance & Hines Ducati's Steve Rapp, who was filling in for the second, and final time, for the injured Thomas Stevens. Rapp passed him back, then it was Picotte again a turn later and to the flag. Rapp rode three different motorcycles in three different classes and was mentally tired as the race wore on. He nearly high-sided three times' when he whacked the Ducati's throttle open as if it was a Supersport machine. Behind Picotle/Rapp came another duo, Harley-Davidson's Thomas Wilson, finishing ahead of Team Yamaha's Rich Oliver on a visibly ill-handling YZF750, his teammate Jamie Hacking further back in 11th, well in front of Yoshimura Suzuki's Larry Pegram. Mike Hale continued to struggle with the front end on the Fast by Ferracci Ducati and finished 13th. Vance & Hines Ducati's Anthony Gobert was a factor early on before a misfire forced him into the pits on the ninth lap. The team gave the machine a once over, then sent him back out where he soldiered on to a 30th-place finish and a single championship point. The problem was later diagnosed as a faulty throttle-position sensor. Once the sensor failed, it gave faulty information to the on-bike computer, effectively ruining the computer's mapping. When the green light flashed, on an intermittently sunny afternoon in the Sonoma Valley, the entire front row of qvalifiers got away quickly. Chandler led DuHamel, Gobert, and pole-sitter for the third race in a row, Mladin, with Crevier and Bostrom just behind them. The top four set off quickly with Mladin passing Gobert on the third lap, and then Crevier dropping him a lap later. Gobert's problems had already begun and he'd have to pit in a few more laps. "I was real comfortable at the front," the rurrently red-haired Australian said. "I was there. I was just going to see how the race panned out. I was looking forward to a rehearsal of Willow Springs," where he and DuHamel battled to the flag and he finished a shadow second. With Gobert dropping back it became a three-rider race, and there wasn't a lot of movement. Chandler led DuHamel and Mladin until the 14th lap when DuHamel made the pass, with Chandler's assent, in the turn-six carousel. "I didn't want to put myself and Doug at risk doing .a stupid pass," DuHamel said. "I tried to put pressure on him, showing him a wheel here and there, and measured him up in a couple of places and bided my time. But when

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