Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127985
the flag. He'd ridden his butt off trying to stay close, and it would all come down to the final half mile. "I wa in a good position and the bike was running well," Mladin said. '1 knew that was the only way we were going to win it, because if 1 was in front, Miguel was going to hose me anyway. 1 got in the draft and 1 think 1 might have pulled out a little bit too early. 1 actually pulled out before Miguel swerved, because 1 was too close to stay there. When he swerved and 1 had to push my own air, 1 could feel the thing bury. He (did) a good job. He won the race and there was nothing [ could do about it. That was the only way 1 knew 1 could (Above) Jason Pridmore (43) and Steve Crevier (14) do battle early In the race. Pridmore ended up sixth In his debut on the Yoshimura Suzuki; Crevier crashed out of the race. (Right) Anthony Gobert's hopes for victory were dashed when he had to make unscheduled pit stops. He blistered his first tire and thought he'd wrecked another one en route to finishing 11th. win the race." DuHamel crossed the line just in fron t of the Suzuki - just .014. of a second ahead, to be precise. "Everything really went well," Mladin said. "I can't complain about anything. The bike was running the best I've ever seen the Suzuki run, and l'm looking forward to a good year. 1 think we're going to have a real good motorcycle this year. 1 set that last lap up exactly how 1 wanted to. [ wanted to come out of the chicane about 10 bike lengths behind Miguel because if I was too close, I would have pulled out of the draft too early. It didn't matter. When 1 pulled out of the draft and had to get a bit of my own air, clean air, we couldn't quite get him. Roll on Phoenix. We'll see what happens. We're ready to go." DuHamel further added to his legend of toughness with this one, a victory in his first superbike race since last June - nine months after his last ride ended in a badly broken leg. "The Suzuki has some speed and was able to hang with us," DuHamel said. "All weekend, 1 knew that we had pretty much the fastest bike, but I've had that thought in my head before and had people change that thought. 1 just played it easy. 1 really wasn't here to do anything crazy, just be competitive. Honda just gave me a perfect motorcycle. When I was riding out there, I . thought, 'So this is what it's like to be on the superior bike.' That's how it turned out to be. Mat rode really great." DuHamel, naturally, had few complaints - except for one about a few runins wi th lapped riders. "Some of those guys out there, 1 saw price tags still on their leathers," DuHamel said. "They probably bought 'em like a couple of days ago." With that battle out of the way, the one behind it took center stage: Oliver v .50 trom. "It was great," Oliver said. "Ben (Bostrom) and 1 had been basically going back and forth the entire day. My bike was' working really well, actually, and 1 was stuck in a pace 1 knew 1 could do. 1 made some mistakes in the race last year by going a little too hard and not pacing myself and my tires, so this time I was a little smarter about it. Ben rode a great race, but in the end there he passed me, and 1 had the legs on him down the front straightaway. I had a lot of Yamaha horsepower. We've got a lot of top end in that baby. I had a lot of gear, and I knew he was running out of gear on the start/ finish line and I had another 1500 rpm. So it didn't really . Brieflv... - Miguel DuHamel took home $16.000 of the $140.000 purse for winning his third Daytona 200 By Arai. Mat Mladin pocketed $10.500. and Rich Oliver earned $7500 for finishing third. The Daytona 200 was robbed of one of the favontes when Eric Bostrom crashed his factory Honda RC45 during qualifying on Thursday. Bost~ was high-sided in the International Horseshoe and suffered a broken ankle. Bostrom flew home- prior to the weekend and underwent surgery to repair the break with noted surgeon Dr. Arthur Ting in San Francisco. California. on March 6. Two screws were inserted into Bostrom's ankle in an operation that took less than an hour. According to his manager. Alan Labrosse. it is highly likely that he wi" be able to race at Phoenix in two weeks' time. "I really got screwed." Bostrom said priorto departing for California. "I did a wamnup lap. and it had good traction coming out of one. I wasn't going that fast. Ididn' t think. It just spit me off. I thought I was straight up and down_ I thought I'd have good traction; I figured wrong. I didn't hrt ihe ground hard. but I saw the bike flipping and I thought. 'If it flips again. iI's going to land on me.' Fortunately. it just landed on my feet. - Remarkably. it was Bostrom's first-ever road racing ~h-side and his first-ever crash on a superbike. The world's shortest 600cc Supersport career? That honor may end up going to' Yoshimura Suzuki's Mat Mladin. The Australian qualified his GSX-R600 in the middle of the grld for the final. suffering through the same problems as the other Suzuki-mounted riders: a lack of top speed. Prior to the race. Suzuki and Mladin decided to pull his entry from the race. "After qualifying. we all got together." Mladin explained. "They want me to concentrate on the Superbike." Mladln and Suzuki win meet the we~k after the 200 to decide if he will race the 600 in Phoenix. According to their manager. Alan Labrosse, Eric Bostrom and' Miguel DuHamel will team up to compete in tWo rounds of the World Endurance Championship this year: the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Bol d'Or. DuHamel and Bostrom will ride a Honda France entry filled with Michelin tires. concern me that he got in front of me toward the end. 1 just wanted to stay close enough to get a good slingshot on him. Unfortunately, I went into the chicane and he put a lapper in between us. I was back maybe 10 bike lengths, but I had a good run through there and just squeaked by. "He actually went by me a couple of times," Oliver added. '1 ran a little wide going into one lap, passing a backmarker, and he ran underneath me. 1 caught him back up on that lap and repassed him because we still had five or six to go. I wanted. him to be in front at the end, but not in front all the way through traffic. Luckily, two laps before the end, he passed me. 1 couldn't believe it. He was really attacking hard through the infield and 1 didn't quite understand what he was trying to do - 1 thought maybe he was trying to break away because he knew he couldn't draft me at the line. So I stuck with him and luckily it worked out. He rode a great race; he did a real great job." Bostrom couldn't help but be happy. He, too, was coming back from severe injury, and the December tire-testing crash was still all too fresh in his mind. One of the favorites for the 600cc Supersport final was out of the hunt right away. Yamaha's Tommy Hayden had a rear-brake lever snap off on the first lap. -I use it all over the track." Hayden said. "It took me a few laps to leam how to ride without it." Hay· den carned .on to finish 12th. Hayden also campaigned a Yamaha R6 in the 750cc Supersport class - with extra weight strapped on to meet the AMA minimum. "I just couldn't hang in the draft," Hayden said. "And I did the- tires in trying to keep up. The weight really hurts our acceleration a bunch. When we get to the smaller tracks. we'lI have a better chance." Hayden finished 1Oth. It didn:ttake long for Randy Renfrow to show his face at a race track after announcing his semiretirement at the end of last year. Renfrow. who will ride at selected events in 1999. crashed his TSR/Perfonmance Machine-backed Honda RS250 during the CCS weekef1((when a steering-damper bracket failed. Renfrow crashed at high speed entering the chicane and suffered skin and tendon damage to his left hand. "It was really scary." Renfrow said. "I was going straight and all of a sudden it turned left so hard that it washed the front - gOtng stl'81ght." Renfrow Isn't sure what races he'lI compete in. but we will see him again. "I'm ju~t doing it for fun," he said. "I'll run selected races. and they're probably not the races that I do beller at. They'll be at the race tracks that I enjoy." Renfrow drove the Pace Car for the Daytona 200. The ever-positive Tom Kipp was all smiles after getting off the Chaparral Suzuki for the first time on Wednesday morning. "The bike is awesome." Kipp said. "I'm a bit rusty. but it came back pretty quick. It feels like I never left - it felt like I was riding yesterday. I didn't expect to feel rusty and I really didn·t." Kipp was hired just a few weeks ago by ·Chaparral to replace the injured Damon Buckmaster. and he hadn't ridden since last year's season finale at Las Vegas. It was also Kipp's first outing on a Supersport bike since he rode a Yamaha YZF600 in 1997. He noticed a definite difference between the bikes. "The chaSSis rides more like a ~uperbike than any Supersport bike I've ever ridden." he said after getting off the GSX-R for the first time. "The front is really steep. " Tripp Nobles will ride a Rumi Honda CBR600F4 in the 1999 World Supersport Series. Nobles will take fomner Honda and Fast "I'm happy we finished," Bostrom said. "I think my team did a good job of making a reliable motorcycle. It may not have been as fast as I'd like, but it finished. We just ran the same engine through practice and qualifying becau e they said, 'We are going to finish: and they were right. We were down on top speed, but it ran the same the whole race, and I have a lot of confidence going into these next rounds. 1 felt lik~ a million bucks the whole weekend. Passing him was the only way to finish third. I couldn't follow him, because that Yamaha was running strong. I busted big on the last lap and 1 thought we had him - then, right a t the line, all 1 saw was a blue blur. He rode-good and his bike was good. 1 want to say that my pit stops were really good - we were smoking them in the pi ts." Rapp crossed the line a lonely fifth, followed.by his teammate Pridmore, who had gotten the better of an earlier dice with Yates and Chandler. 'Tm happy," Pridmore said. "It's my first time on the bike with a new team. I'm really happy. 1 just cruised out there, doing 515 and 53s - those guys up front just stepped it up this year. Last By Ferracci mechanic Bobby Weindorf with him for the season. Nobles rode an Erion Racing Honda CBR900RRin the Fomnula Xtreme Series last year. finishing second i/1 the title chase to hls teammate Eric Bostrom. There is a good possibility that Doug Polen will return to action at the Willow Springs round of the series in April. Polen is trying to purchase a Muzzy Kawasaki to build his program around. Speaking of Polen. the Texan's name came up again when a quick search of the AMA media guide was done after Josh Hayes' win in the 750cc Supersport final to find out the last time a non-Dunlop-shod motorcycle won an AMA Supersport race. The answer: Polen rode a Pirelli-shod Suzuki to victory in the AMA 750cc Supersport final on June e, 1997 at Road America. Hayes' Valvoline EMGO Suzuki was fitted with Michelin's new Pilot DOT tires. Daytona International Speedway fixture Gary Van Voorhis was celebrating his 30th consecutive Daytona 200. Van VOOrhiS started his career covering the race fOI Cycle News and has since gone on to work for the Speedway in various roles. A mini-furor erupted over the- official program for the Daytona 200 By Arai when the publishers of the program opted to put Mat Mladin on the cover. The problem is that Mladin is sponsored by AGV Helmets and is wearing an AGV in the cover photo. The Speedway and Arai's response was· to put Arai stickers on the front. covering a portion Mladin' s hilimet. This move en/aged Mladin. who was threatening legal action. Alex Gobert. the 15'year-old brother of Vance & Hines Ducati's Anthony Gobert. will race in the Aprilia Cup Series races that will run as exhibition races at selected rounds of the AMA Superbike Series. The youngest Gobert races an Aprilia RSY250 in Production Series races in AuslraUa. Tough-guy award; At Daytona on Wednesday. March 3.. Miguel DuHamel rQde for the first time since he was injured last year. and he 'was fast right away. lapping in the 1:51s. "The crew thought I'd blown the chIcane and I thought they'd screwed up Continued on page 10 9