Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

BY HENNY RA YABRAMS hen I get old I will leave the house without pants. People will stare, children will point, there will be commensurate embarrassment. The sad truth is that it has already begun. This past year - rather, the second half of this past year - I left the house without pants. Mechanics stared, riders pointed. Reading lips, I could see them saying, "He's the one who picked Mike Hale to win the AMA Superbike Championship." I have lived with the choice for a year and now it's time to try to explain myself. The prediction wasn't made using a Ouija board or a dart board. My record speaks for itself. I'd correctly chosen Muzzy Kawasaki's Doug Chandler to win the title the two previous years, in 1996 and '97, the first pundit in the history of the Cycle News pickers to accurately choose the champ in consecutive years. Maybe it went to my head. Or my pants. I should have stayed with Chandler in 1998, but I thought his luck was about to run out. Chandler had had two nearly dream years with only a single failure at a crucial time, that coming a t Brainerd in 1997. He was overdue. The first stroke of misfortune struck at the Laguna Seca World Superbike race, where a clip-on - which was built in-house, as opposed to the works item available through Kawasaki - broke entering the Corkscrew. The resulting crash was horrific, though Chandler escaped serious injury. Still, he was beaten up enough that his performance at Mid-Ohio and, to a lesser extent, Brainerd suffered. Valuable points were lost. Then came the engine failure at Las Vegas that truly sealed his fate. That he finished tlle year in second speaks volumes about his tenacity. I had thought to choose American Honda's Miguel DuHamel but was convinced he would do something silly. He didn't disappoint. First came the spill while chasing race winner Scott Russell early in the Daytona 200. Then came the awful wet-track crash into the turn-one wall at Loudon. In better conditions, with more concern for rider safety, he would have walked away. As it was, DuHamel severely broke his leg and will still be recovering when the green flag drops for this year's Daytona 200. W Hale had come off a year where he struggled on the Suzuki World Superbike team - not a surprise, given who was running the squad. His results were generally consistent, though not great. He'd included a provision in his contract for a test on the Suzuki RGV-500' Grand Prix bike at the end of the season. The test was in Australia and it went brilliantly. His times were impressive and constant. Garry Taylor, Suzuki's GP , boss, wanted to hire him. Having lost Lucky Strike as a sponsor at the end of the 1997 season, Taylor had no leverage and was forced to hire two Japanese riders. The 1998 season was probably the worst ever for the Suzuki 500cc GP team. In preseason testing, Hale was fast on the Fast By Ferracci Ducati, the team he ended up signing witll. He went well at Willow Springs and Las Vegas - inlpressively well - and, hearing that, I made him my pick. Added to that was the more direct involvement of Michelin, which hadn't looked so good in 1997. Even though Mat Mladin won four races on Ferracci's Ducati, he was let down by tires more than once. Part of it, Miadin is convinced, was Eraldo Ferracci's fault for not asking Michelin for the best World Superbike product. For 1998, Michelin rededica ted their efforts with their most ambitious testing program ever. So I chose Hale, and things looked good until he crashed the magic bike in practice for the first race in Phoenix. The magic bike was an ex-works Ducati that wen t particular!y well - vertically, it turned out, as well as in a straight line. Once Hale destroyed that bike in a vicious high-side, his season was irreversibly doomed. He had no faith in the front end of the Ducati and nothing could change that. It was downhill from there, and both sides came to a sensible dissol ution after Hale crashed in practice at the midseason Loudon race. Needless to say, he did not make me a three-time winner. This year, the smart choice is Mat M1adin, at least according to his peers, ' and who knows better? I had the idea that Cycle News should ask the Superbike riders thernselves to pick the top 10 this year. (Their choices are on page 29.) Though w~ didn't get to all of the factory riders, we got to most, and the consensus choice was M1adin, and why not? He's smart, he's fast, he's fit, he's experienced, he doesn't crash, and he works his ass off. His Achilles' heel last year was the team, from which he tried to separate himself by making his own team within a team. Unfortunately, not everyone on the team was up to snuff, which is why he had an engine failure at Loudon that likely cost him the title. Tha t engine builder is gone, replaced by one who is thought of very highly. Also, the team has been making steady progress on the fuelinjected GSX-R750, which can only add to his already-impressive package. So I picked him second. My choice for the championship is Eric Bostrom. Watching him win at Brainerd and Pikes Peak last year was almost as impressive as the credit he gave to the bike afterward. Bostrom knows he's but one part of a team that is totally committed to winning, and he doesn't take it for granted. He works as hard as anyone, both on the track and off, and is relentless in his quest for perfection. Winning spot races as a stand-in is considerably different from being in a championship cpase for the world's largest motorcycle manufacturer. Bostrom knows this. But he's a big-picture rider and sensible enough not to get in over his head. There will be tracks that will confound him. This winter, he struggled in his Superbike tests at Laguna Seca. Over the course of the season, I think he can work through the bad and amplify the good and, at the end of the year, a Bost,om will again wear the number-one crown. Behind Mladin I put Chandler, because he's Chandler and he'll always be there. He backed the team into a corner this year with the very serious threat of defecting to Fast By Ferracci, and he might have, except that the FBF offer was about half of what he'll make with Kawasaki. In exchange, Chandler got some assurances that things will be better, though neither he nor the team has been more forthcoming with details. Gary Medley, his longtime mechanic, is gone, replaced by Nick Davies, someone Chandler feels will bring new enthusiasm to the team. I picked the Vance & Hines Ducatis of Ben Bostrom and Anthony Gobert fourth and fifth, respectively, and not because of their abilities, but because of the lin\itations of the equipment. Of the 10 races in which Gobert competed, he won three. More inlportantly, mechanical problems took him out of contention in three others - Daytona, Sears Point and Las Vegas. A 30-percent failure rate doesn't cut it in this company, and there could easily have been another failure in one of the three races he missed after he failed a drug test prior to Mid-Qhio. It's not because Gobert's hard on equipment, either. Team owner Terry Vance says that Gobert treats his machinery well. According to Vance, L-his year's equipment will be much inlproved and will come directly from the factory. After some initial problems at Daytona, it's been reliable. On RC45 Hondas, Gobert would be the pick. On Ducatis, there's a question mark. What has been openly debated is whether Gobert will have a dope relapse. After what Vance has done for him, I can't imagine that he'd do anything so silly and damaging to his career. Knowing that he'll be tested at every race guarantees that Gobert will be constantly reminded of the consequences. Wa tching the rid ers struggle with their picks, especially mid pack, reaffirmed my belief in the depth of this year's field'. From sixth on down it's a nearly complete crap' shoot, with a few mitigating factors. How well will Aaron Yates adapt to the Kawasaki after a career on Suzukis? He's always shown bursts of speed, but he hasn't yet been able to sustain it. The health of Miguel DuHamel and Yamaha's Jamie Hacking, a rider not heard from in months, is still in doubt. The new Yamaha R-7s: Are they any good, and how hard will it be for Rich Oliver to develop them during the racing season? They certainly won't be at Daytona. How well will the much-improved Harleys hold up under Scott Russell? And, after a disappointing 1998 season, does the Georgian still have the fire in the belly? It won't be until the beginning of October that many of these questions will be answered and I'll know whether or not I'm wearing pants. CII MARCH 4, 1969 20 YEARS AGO... FEBRUARY 28, 1979 10 YEARS AGO... FEBRUARY 22,1989 ould this have been the most risque Cycle News cover of all time? Safety gear sure has come a long way ... Russ Turner debuted a new Maico and grabbed the overall win in the 250cc Sportsman class during the ACA motocross at Saddleback Park in Orange County, California. Gary Bailey (Gre) won the 250cc Senior class... Terry Dorsch fended off the efforts of Don Dudek and Mike Posey to win the Open Expert class at the Lake Perris scrambles. All three were Triumph-mounted ... Bill Onga (Hus) won the Elsinore Grand Prix... After running well at the Houston National IT, Mark Brelsford (H-D) returned home to Northern California 'and set a new six-lap track record in the Cow Palace, going from start to finish in 54.86 seconds... You could buy a 500 or 650cc Rickman Metisse scrambler - straignt out of the Rickman brothers' factory - for between $1575 and $1750. " T h e Latest Poop" section brought word tha t reigning SOOcc Wor!d Champion Kenny Roberts had been seriously injured in a testing accident while readying his new Yamaha for the fastapproaching GP season. Roberts suffered a compression between the 11 th and 12th vertebrae - the 12th being fractured as well - and a ruptured spleen, among other injuries... Mike Hannon (Kaw) rode his factory-backed KDX400 to the win at the opening round of the AMA National Championship Enduro Series in Red Mountain, California. Maybe Hannon was reading our ongoing Championship Enduro techniques series of stories? .. Danny Chandler (Mai), Goat Breker (Hus) and Brian Myerscough (Suz) all clinched CMC Golden State MX titles at the final round of the series in Huron, California ... We also featured an interview with dirt tracker Mike Kidd, who had lined up the United States Army as his main sponsor. Now tlml's selling a program! ick Johnson (Hon) was smokin' hot in the stadiums, as he scored his fourth supercross win in as many rounds at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego, California. Jeff Matiasevich (Kaw) was no slouch, either, as he did the same in the 12Scc class ... We tes ted the 1989 Yamaha YZ250WR and loved it. The two-stroke WR remained in Yamaha's dirt bike lineup through the 1997 model year... Larry Roeseler (Kaw) was the top dog at the Adelanto GP, winning all five of the races that he entered and pocketing $1400 in prize money... Barry Carsten (Suz), Jeff Beckington (Hon) and Gene Naumec (Kaw) scored big at the second round of the AMA/Worid Sports Supercross Countdown Series at the Gatorback Cycle Park in Gainesville, Florida. Carsten won the 125cc Expert class, while Beckington took the 250cc Expert class. Naumec won the 500cc Expert class. CII 30 YEARS AGO... C 84 R

• Cover