Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Cycle News 1998 11 11

Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles

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IN THE WIND Anthony Pocorobba (Suz) topped the 250cc A class at the final round of the AMA Fall Classic Series at Camp Coker Motocross in Society Hills, South Caroli na, on November 1. Doug Stone (Kaw) was second and Jeff Gibson (Kaw) was th ird . At the fi nal rou nd of the AMA /Husqvarna Eastern National Four Stro ke Motocross Series, held in conjunction w ith th e Fall Classic, Pocorobba (Yam) was agai n on the top step of the podiu m, w it h Kelly Smith (Hbg) and Jason Thomas (Hus) second and third . Doug Dubach (Yam) was th e big wi nner of the Whit e Bros. Vet World Ch ampion sh ips a t Glen Helen Raceway in San Bernard ino, Ca lifo rnia, O ct ober 31November 1. Dubac h won both Ov er 30 Pr o-cla ss mot os to ca ptu re th e over all victory. Second ove ra ll went to Terry Fowler (Ya m) , foll ow ed by Adrian Robert (Ho n), Larry Brooks (Yam), and Brian Manley (Ho n), Other class wi nners included Kevin Foley (Yam) in the Over 35 Expert class, Chuck Sun (Hbg) in the Over 40 Expert cla ss , and Rich T horwald son (H o n) in the Over 50 Expert class. Champion agai n department: American motocrosser Kyle Lewis rode his Suzuki of Japan entry to the 250cc Japanese Motocross Championship, October 24-25. According to Cycle News contributor Pa olo Go zz i, It alian road racer PierFrancesco Ch il i has inked a one-year deal to rid e a factory Suzuki GSXR-750 in the 1999 World Superbike Champio ns h i p. Th e d eal , repo rtedly wo rth $400,000, will put the Italian in the new Su zuki team run by Fra ncesco Bat ta. Chili will join Katsuaki Fujiwara on the tw o-man team. "I need a cha nce to win the World title," Chili sa id, "and I thin k tha t Suz uki can offer it to me. I will have a grea t motiva tion to work ve ry ha rd and to bea t the Ducat is. Durin g the 1998 season, I won five 'races - more than the other Ducati rid ers - but Ducati refused to bring me ano ther oppo rtunity . Du cati management will see next yea r that they ma d e a wro ng d ecis ion. Th e Su zuki mach in es a re gro w ing ve ry well , a nd with my experience , the development . can be fas ter. I do n' t kn ow the Dunlop tires because I rode for man y years wit h Miche lins , but I will have fu ll support and a full winter of tests to im prove my feeling. My goa l for 1999 will be to win races, and I know I ca n do that." The team will be sponso red by Corona Extra , Foxhound and Power Horse. F.4 a a ~ ~ g< 0\ ,...... Reports from Europe indica te that Aprilia will li ke ly hire Ita lian Piergiorgio Bontempi to ride its RSVl000 in the 1999 Wo rld Superbike Championship. Bontem pi suffe red two broken wrists in the Lagu na Seca round of the World Superbike Championship this year while rid ing a Kawasaki for the Bertocchi team. It now appears certain tha t Italian road racer Doriano Rombeni will ride for a sa tellite Duca ti Wor ld Superbi ke team in 1999. Rom boni, who has spen t his career entirely ill the 250 and 500cc GPs, will eit he r jo in th e Ga ttolo ne team or the Benetto n tea m and will have a factory bike at his disposal. In the 1999 World Su pers port Seri es, Kawasaki w ilt field a two-m an team, which w ill be run by Harald Eckl. The tea m will consist of tw o Scottis h riders, Ian MacPherson and John Crawford. The AMA has anno unced its 1998 Rookies of the Year in AMA Gra nd National Grand National numberama '99 T he AMA has released the list of riders wh o will be carrying Grand Na tiona l nu mbers into comba t for the 1999 AMA Gra nd National Championship Series , which is tenta tively scheduled to have 23 rounds . As always, it is importa nt to reiterat e that the dirt tra ck number system is not based upon series finis h, i.e, mot ocross and su percross, but rath er upon ava ilability and then finis h. Sing le-digit numbers are the sole d omain of past series cha m pions, thus Scott Par ker, Chris Ca rr and Jay Spri ngsteen all have them . The number 3, lon g held by the late Ricky Graham and pr eviously by 1970 title winner Gene Rom ero, is now vacant once again. Take a look, and you wi ll see that there are some new com ers to the list and a few re tu rn ing vetera ns as well. 1 - Scott Park er 4 - Chris Carr 9 - Jay Springsteen 10 - Dan Stanley 11 - Bryan Bigelow 12 - Rex Fisher 13 - Mickey Fay 14 - Paullwanaga 15 - Chris Evans 16 - Ronn ie Jones 17 ::-Doug Davis 18 - Terry Poovey 19 - Pau l Lvnch 20 - Johnny Mu rphree 21 - Will Davis 22 - Dan Butler 23 - Kevin Atherton 24 - Mike Varnes 25 - Rand y Texter 26 - Steve Butler 27 - Davey Camlin 28 -Shaun Russell 29 - Dale [enneman 30 -.Ron Waters 31 - Kenny Coo lbeth 32 - Recil Hart 33 - J.R. Schnabel 34 - Marc Gifford 35 - Eli Price 36 - Wade Ca mlin 37 - J.P. Simo nse n 39 - Del Schnitzer 40 - Jeff Annen 41 - Brett Landes 42 - Steve Mor ehead 43 - Joe Kopp 44 - Robert Knapp 45 - Jim Sum ner 46 - Lonn y Kopp 47 - Ryan Anderson 48 - Ian Segedy 49 - Chris Fitzhugh 50 - Trapper McDan iel 51 - Na te Wait 52 - John Faulkner III 53 - Gary Rogers Dirt Track and Superbike Series competition . Yama ha's Jamie Hacking has earned the Sup erbike Roo kie of the Year honors after finish ing the season ranked eighth in the championship point s tand ings. Hacking finished third in the Daytona 200 and had back-to-back secondpla ce fin ishes at New H amp shire International Speedway and th e Mid O hio Sports Car Course. Hacking had cli m bed to fou r t h in the s ta n d i ng s before a broken pelvis took him out of the series wi th two races remainin g. The 27-year-old wilt return to race factory Yama has in 1999. The AMA has given its Grand National Dirt Track Rook ie of th e Yea r aw a r d to Bryan Bigelow . Bigelow, 18, fini shed the season as the ninth-ranked rid er in the Grand Nation al Championsh ip point standings. Over th e cou rse of th e season, Bigelow finished in the top 10 eight times, wit h his best resul t being a fifth at the Okla ho ma City Ha lf Mile. Australian road racer Pet er Goddard 54 - William Brock III 55 - Troy Rose 56 - Lonnie Paul ey 57ยท Ken Yode r 58 - Greg Teagu e 59 - Willie McCoy 60 - James McItve na 61 - Shawn Clark 62 - Paul Bergstrom 63 - Robert Buffing ton 64 - Alan Edie 65 - Jason Fletche r 66 - Gee Roeder tI 67 - Mike Hacker 68 - Robert Miller 69 - Nickv Havden 70 - John 'Hlebo III 71 - Georgie Price IV 72 - Steve Liber ty 73 - Brent Arm bruster 74 - Billy Martin 75 - Pat Buchanan 76 - Davey Durelle 77 - Scott Stump 78 - Ryan Brown 79 - Jaso n Sen tell 80 - Rich King 81 - James Hart 82 - Mike Hale 83 - Paul Morgan III 84 - Brian Kromroy 85 - David Rayburn 86 - Jerry Vanderkoo i 87 - Cha rlie Orr 88 - Robert Lewis Jr. 89 - Kevin Varn es 90 - Tim Ead es 91 - Joe Duvall 92 - Randy Shank II 93 - Danny Koelsch 94 - Jess Roed er 95 - Joshu a Butler 96 - Donal d Pau l 97 - Michelle DiSalvo 98 - Bret Beyer 99 - Roger Durkee has confirmed tha t he wilt race in the 1999 Wo rld Su perbi ke Cha m pionshi p, but he has ye t to confirm the team with which he is about to co me to te r ms . There is talk, however, that Goddard will joi n the new Aprilia team for th e corn in g seas on . The 1997 World Endurance Champion, w ho finish ed ninth in the 1998 Wo rld Su perbike Championship, described his first year of World Superbike comp e tition with Tea m Ha rris Suzu ki as "f rustrati ng ," acco rdi ng to Cycle Ne ws co n tri b utor Darryl Flack. "It's been a lon g yea r, but we mad e so me good developments wit h the bik e, and bot h Suz ukis were in the top 10 regul arl y, wh ich wasn't the case in the past," Goddard sai d . "Basically, it jus t la cked top-end p erformance . We . probably d id n' t d evelop the bike as far as we cou ld, because most of the Harris guys in my team we re new . That probably wasn' t the best thing to do, beca use I was new, too - althoug h I've bee n working with Suz uk is since 1993. Still, I think we b rough t th e bike a lon g wa y th is year, bu t the lack of power was a problem. There were times when we were on the first or second row , and by the time we hit the end of the main straight, we we re back in eigh th or ninth." . EBC Brakes a nd NASB a nnounced o n Novem ber 1 a t Da yt ona Interna tion a l Sp eedway th at th e EBC Brakes Sport Bike Series will continue as the featured class for the North American Sport Bike series in 1999, ending speculation that the N ASB's Roger Edmondson would ge t out of racing pen di ng the ou tcome of his la w su it against th e AMA, w hic h is sche d u led to be heard on December 9. Th e se r ies will co nsist of six to eight, races, beginning and ending wi th rounds at Dayton a Internation al Spee dway, the dates of which will be announced in the ne ar future, acco rdi ng to Ed mo ndson. After the split with Formula USA at the end of last year, the EBC Brak es Spo rt Bike class becam e the featu red class at NAS B race meetings. The purse in 1999 will again be $5000 p er race, with a $100,000 poin t fund. Edmond son also said that the rest of the classes in the racing program will be annou nced shortly. He added that he is talkin g with various sponsors about w hich classes wou ld join Sport Bike in 1999. Penguin Racing School' s Eric Wood was forced to th e back of th e EBC Brakes Sport Bike during I ASB action a t Dayton a after his Kawasaki ZX-6 was found to produce too mu ch horsepow er following hi s qualifying run on Su nday morning . Wood 's Kawasaki produced 105 horsepower, three over the classmandated ma ximum of 102. The EBC Bra ke s Spo rt Bik e grid s ho w ed 52 en tries, the biggest cla ss of the t'!ASB program. 4&6 Cycle's Todd Ha rri ngton took the pole p osition with a time of 1:58.647, averaging 108.018 mph. Wood ended up taking sixth. Bartels' Harley-David son' s David Estok was disqualified and asked to leave Dayton a International Speed way after "verbally abusing" the race dir ector on October 30 at the Speedway. Following his Harley-David son Twin Sports Wo rld Finals pra ctice session, Estok called CCS and NASB head Roger Edmondson in the turn-one scoring area to voice his d ispleasure at having to practice with the Amateur riders who take part in the same session. After listenin g to Estok's tirade for a while, Ed mo ndson hung u p on hi m, at w hic h point Estok went to turn one to confro nt Edmondson . Following that conversation , Estok returned to the paddock, w here he voiced h is opi nio n to track a nnou ncer Rich ard Cha mbers w hose microphon e, which was in the basket of his scooter, was inadvertently left on. Estok's d erogatory comments about Edmondson and his wife, Peggy, were piped across the track's public-address system. Estok repeated those comments, along with others, at the riders meeting, after which he had a heated conversation with NAS B race directo r Bill Fuhr man. Fuhrman disqualified Estok because of verbal abuse. In a phon e call to the Daytona Beach News-Journal , w hic h w a s printed in Saturday's paper, Estok said: "1 want to practice with guys my skill level. It seems stu pid to even have to say somethin g like this. This is lik e SCCA guys practicing with Jeff Gord on a t Winston Cup events." Pat Murphy, NASB communications director, said that the pra ctice groupings had been the same for four yea rs a nd we re a product of necessit y. The only way aro u nd it, Murphy said, was to practice the Buell Ugh tning series competitors wit h the Harl eys, but man y

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