Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

(Above) Miguel DuHamel celebrates his third . Daytona 200 victory. (Right) DuHamel leads Mat Mladin in the mad dash to the checkered flag. The pair were this close for the entire 200 miles. teer finisher, 12th-placed Floridian Michael Barnes on the Dutchman Yamaha. As is becoming the norm in AMA Superbike racing, the top of the result sheet fea tured a variety of different brands. The results also answered the question: How many Hondas does it take to win the Daytona 200? In this case, just one. With his teammate Eric Bostrom a nonstarter after breaking his ankle in a qualifying crash, DuHamel had the lone Honda in the race. They didn't need any more representation than that. On the opposite end of the spectrum, there were 41 Suzukis represented in the field. Notable nonfinishers included Harley-Davidson's Pascal Picotte (crash). Yamaha's Jamie Hacking (mechanical) and Yoshimura Suzuki's Steve Crevier (crash). The most notable nonstarter was Harley-Davidson's Scott Russell (see sidebar). DAYTONA 200 Without Mr. Daytona, the race went on, with DuHamel putting his head down from the start, leading into tum one and leading the first two laps. Mladin was already with him and the pair didn't waste any time in separating themselves from the pack. By the fifth lap, the duo led the pursuing pack by more than 2.5 seconds. That pack was led by Rapp, with Oliver, Gobert, Pegram, Hacking, Yates and Chandler giving chase. Rapp' 5 race got a little more hectic on the eighth lap, when he lost the rear end in the kink, sending him to the grass and almost into the line of fire in the next comer. "The back end went big," Rapp said. "I barely stopped before I got to the edge of the track. After that, I thought I'd be 13th or so for the whole race." The next to encounter trouble was Picotte. The French Canadian tumbled to a stop in the grass on the outside of tum one after hitting a false neutral in tum one. "I started downshifting and the transmission got in neutral somehow," Picotte said, "so I can't ride it. It wasn't bad. I was off on the race setup, though, because we didn't have much time out there. We lost almost the first day; we lost qualifying on Thursday. I jumped on Scott's (Russell) bike and did two laps and it felt good - so I said, 'I'm gonna go with that.' I didn't have any side grip at all. Unless tll.e tire was off that could happen also. 1 was trying to pick up the pace a little bit. I went around Doug (Chandler) and crashed. I'm really sore, but I'm okay." Then came the first of Gobert's problems, a.s he b1istered a tire and pitted early - on lap 12. It was the beginning of the end for the Australian, as he ended Believe it or not, it's Gobert's first p_ol_e_ P ole positions usually don't mean much - at least to those who aren't 011 pole position. Even though many of tl,e riders downplay the importance of being the fastest qua1ifier, they all know that being on pole for the Daytona is not only prestigious but also lucrative. Vance & Hines Oucati's Anthony Gobert (right) waited until Daytona to earn the flrst..,ver pole of his AMA career, and he did it in impressive fashioll, lapping the famous race place at 1:48512 (118.102 mph) for a new lap record and ownership of the Rolex Daytona that goes with it. In the process, Gobert gave Ducati just its fifth pole posibon for the 200 and the Italian marque's first since Troy Corser took it in 1996. The Rolex also carne as an early birthday present, as the Australian turned 24 the day after putting his name in the record books. His pole and lap record also went a long way to making up for the Australian's qua1ifying disappointment of a season ago. Last year, Gobert did a lap time that would have been good enough for pole position. Unfortunately, he didn't know the timing beacon was located in turn one, so he shut off early - all but handing the pole (and the Rolex) to Scott RusselI. '1t (his qualifying miscue from a season ago) has been bothering me a little bit," Gobert said. "I just want to start this year fresh, and things have been going in the right ~on so far in testing this year and also here today. HOpefully, we're at the crossroads and we're going down the right path. Last year our bike overheated on the start line because we had a problem with the head gasket, but Ducati has worked really hard to improve the machine and improve that problem that they had. They've come a long way, and really, this is our best chance - for myself and Ducati -to win this race. I'd like to go out and make the most of it and hopefully win on Sunday. Our machine seems to be set up very good, and it seems to be getting better each time I went out there. The last change we made before that qualifying was the key, I think. When we get the Ducati sel up the way that I like it, we generally seem to be the quickest. I think, hopefully, that we have enough. SO I can run consistently quick laps, and tharll be enough to win the race and be there at the end." Somewhat surprising was the fact that Gobert set his quick lap early in the second session. (Because of the number of entries, Daytona splits the field into odd and even numbers and runs two separate sessions.) Usually, the quick laps come very late in the session, making for high drama. Gobert pretty much took that drama away by throwing down his time early on. '1 was actually disappointed, because I could only get one lap out of the bre - and that was the buildup lap," Gobert said. '1 usually go half a second quicker on the second lap, so I felt that I could have gone quicker again. On one hand, I was happy, but inside I was a little bit wonied because I thought that somebody else might be able to get a couple of laps out of theirs (qualifying tires) and go quicker. I could only do one lap, and luckily it was enough to still get a decent time. I didn't get held up by any slower guys, and thars a key factor for me. The way that I push the front tire and get on the power pretty early, if J get held up by someone, it really affects my lap bme. I also get really frustrated. J got a really clear lap and the Ducati was working awesomely. I had SO much power, the thing was hard to ride - the front wheel was in the air all the time. That felt awesome. [t felt like a GP bike, really. rm almost ready to go back out and ride it again now. The thing was wheeleying everywhere - awesome!" As for the pole sitter's race strategy? '1'm not going to try and make a break or anything like that," GoE>ert said. '1'm going to ride around and .lso lIy to finish the race. I don't think I've finished the 200 yet Oh, I finished last year, but it was kind of like not finishing. HOpefully, this year the bike will be good." Sitting next to Gobert on the front row would be fellow Australian Mat Mladin. The Yoshimura Suzuki rider lapped at 1:49.155 on a GSX-R he was far from happy with. The problems were numerous, ranging from the still-developing fuel-injection system to the 1999 Showa rear suspension. Given the problems, M1adin's time was fairly amazing. "There was only one guy who went faster, so I was fortunate enough to put a decent-enougb lap time up there to be in second," Mladin said. "Essentially, we were mostly worried about being in the top four for this race. Irs a second a lap quicker than I've been around here on a qualifying tire, and we're pretty happy with tl'lllt. Everything seems to be running well. I knew that time wasn't sale for pole position. I know what Ducati do for qualifying, and 1 know how much faster the bike is in qualifying than it is in the race. We'll see what they do on Sunday and what everyone else has done. The suspension is temble. We've got '99 suspension that we just got, and irs not workiJ:lg. Irs terrible. Irs shaking its head off all the way around the banking, and J won't be able to hang on to it for ~OO miles unless we get it sorted out tomorrow (in Friday's prac-' tice). That was the whole idea of getting on the front row, SO we've got a couple of hours tomorrow to try and sort out some stuff. We've got the '98 stuff being flown in and it should be here now,so we can test that tomorrow. Essentially, all the new stuff didn't work. Irs the first time we've been on it this weekend. '1rs just like last year, where we turned up at the first race with a bike thars no good," MJadin added. "We've started from the start again. Irs something that we're going to have to get sorted out before we come back next year. We're going to try the old stuff and try and make it work with the new frame and stuff. It (the fuel injection) is coming along. Unfortunately, we haven't got the same system as everyone else in the World Championship. They can run different throttle bodies and stuff, and we've got to run the production throttle body and obviousIya street throttle body on a race bike - irs tough to get it working. We've still got a few little problems right off the bottom with it, but we're just putting up with it. I'm sick and tired of going back and forth between injection and carburetors, so I just leave it on there now." TIllrd on the front row was the second of the two Vance & Hines Ducatis, this one ridden by defending AMA Superbike National Champion Ben Bostrom, The Californian lapped at 1:49.546 - just three months after his h.orrific accident dnring tire testing at the Speedway. You don't soon forget a tire blowulg out at over 160 mph, and Bostrom hasn't. '1 think about it every lap," Bostrom said. "I tltink about it over there and I think about it over in two (NASCAR two). Irs kind of a bummer. Irs really bad. I'm having trouble holding the bike wide open on the banking. I'm jHst kind. scared. For some Continued on page 8 7

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