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ROAD RACE AMAIlfBNA SUPERBIKE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP AMAIPro Honda Oils 600cc Supersport series Round 7: Road America Chandler's back! By Paul Carruthers Photos by Henny Ray Abrams ELKHART LAKE, WI, JUNE 14 he 600cc Supersport final at Road America turned into two separate races. One was between Muzzy Kawasaki's Doug Chandler and Yoshimura Suzuki's Aaron Yates. The other was between American Honda's Miguel DuHamel and Yoshimura Suzuki's Steve Crevier. The first was for victory. The second was for points. Two riders came out the best in both battl~s: Chandler and DuHamel. For Chandler it was victory number four and it gave him a glimmer of hope as he tries to claw his way back into championship contention after two nonfinishes. For DuHamel it was a fight to the end to gain whatever points he could on the championship-leading Crevier. In the end he finished third and gained ground on his fellow Canadian; he now trails Crevier by just a single point, 199198, with seven rounds remaining in the series. DuHamel is trying to win his sixth 600cc Supersport title. DuHamel's teammate, Ben Bostrom - fifth today - is third in the standings with 188 points, with Chandler moving to fourth with 173 points. HyperCycle Suzuki's Nicky Hayden, sixth today, is fifth in the standings with 163 points. Yates also gained som momentum with his solid econd-place finish, though his championship aspirations are IJonexistent. The Georgian is 01J the .mend from a serious wrist injury and the Road America result matched his T 10 Round 7: Road America season best - it had been five races since the Suzuki rider has stood on the winner's podium. Crevier rode well to finish fourth. He ran as high as second before falling into a personal battle with DuHamel in their fight over the championship points lead. It came down to the final lap and the run to the flag, and DuHamel had more than Crevier. But it was close. Fifth place went to Ben Bostrom after a near crash cost him any chance of victory. The older of the two Bostroms was running at the front when he got into turn five too hot, was forced to run (Above) Muzzy Kawasaki's Doug Chandler (10) leads Yoshimura Suzuki's Aaron Yates (20) on his way to winning the 600cc Supersport final. Yates was second. (Right) Yoshimura Suzuki's Steve Crevier held off American Honda's Miguel DuHamel in the 600cc Supersport race, but DuHamel took third with a pass in the last corner, relegating Crevier to fourth. wide, and then very nearly high-sided the CBR600 on the exit. He lost three places in the process - and also lost toucl1 with the leading foursome. In the end, Bostrom managed to just hold off icky Hayden for fifth place, with Eric Bostrom finishing seventh on the Erion Racing Honda CBR600. Muzzy Kawasaki's Tommy Hayden continued to show improvement as he finished eighth, beating home 4&6 Cycle's Todd Harrington and HRC's Takahito MorL 1-800-CYCLE GEAR's Steve Rapp finished 11 th, just behind MorL Notable nonfinishers included HyperCycle Suzuki's Jason Pridmore, who pulled. into the pits very early in the race with an ill-running GSX-R600. . Chandler, DuHamel and Bostrom led the way into turn one, with DuHamel. taking ·the lead going into turn two. They then ran down the back straight and into turn five - four wide. Ben Bostrom charged up the inside to take the lead. In case you weren't counting, that's three different leaders in five corners. Eric Bostrom had arrived in turn five way too hot and was lucky not to have collected Chandler on his way. The younger Bostrom was forced to pick it up and run straight, and he dropped off the pace to eventually finish seventh. The second lap was just as hectic: DuHamel led into turn one, Bostrom led into turn five and Chandler led through the Kink. Good stuff. And that wasn't all: The top six were only separated by a second. On the third lap, Crevier joined the leaders, moving into second place on the brakes into turn one. That lap saw Ben Bostrom mess up his chances of a top-three finish when he ran too hot into turn five. Then he almost high-sided on the exit, allowing both his brother Eric and Nicky Hayden to charge past. Yates was the next to move forward, and he shot into second going into turn one on the fifth lap. Chandler, meanwhile, was starting to pull away. By the seventh lap, the race for the lead was down to just two as DuHamel turned his attention to fighting off Crevier. "Job number one is to try and win the race, but when I could see that was a bit out of reach, I dian't want to put myself too much at risk," DuHamel said. "I did everything I could to try and catch up to these guys, but they were running a good pace. They were just outside of where I could get in the draft and help me get up with them. After that my focus changed to make sure I finished in front of Steve (Crevier), because Steve is leading the championship. About 3 'I, laps, I guess, from the end, I was thinking not to make a big mistake and go from third to fifili or