Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

s [ approached the'track, the first sign I saw read, "Willow Springs International Raceway, The Fastest Road in the West." Once inside, the second sign I saw read, "Please jiggle the handle, the floa t sticks." Like a malfunctioning toilet, Willow Springs evokes mixed emotions: Sure, it'll do, but can't you fix it up just a little? At first glance it appears to be nothing more than an expansive collection of rocks, dirt, tumbleweed and macadam. It is the land where every West Coast road racer cut his or her teeth and which has been anointed the closest place to Los Angeles for a superbike race, and therefore somehow good. It's a place that is 'so barren, so devoid of life and tormented by weather, that it makes the ground zero of a nuclear blast look like Maui. And yet it's not without its charms. lf the wind isn't blowing in like uninvite<:l relatives, and the temperature hasn't gone down like a three-dollar hooker, it's a truly splendid place to hold a motorcycle race. The not terribly interesting layout is one of the safest on the AMA calendar and the riders like it because of that, and because it takes big hair to master - and it's fast. Runoff seems to go on forever, which is a good thing when you have riders such as Miguel DuHamel turning exquisite one-off machines like his RC45 into cartwheeling, bin-filling parts orders. More on that later. Of all the tracks on the calendar, Willow Springs is probably the best for spectators, the area outside of turn fOUT, the Budweiser Balcony, affording a generous view of almost the entire track with closeup action right in your lap. Whether they know it or not, the crowd is treated well at the concessions, the prices being among the lowest on the circuit, though the attendant lines are some of the longest. What riders don't like about the place is the place. The pits are cramped and oddly shaped, with team semis seemingly arranged by a blind guy with a sense of a humor and a limp, and the privateers shuffled off to the nether regions like the drooling uncle. With every sort of traffic whizzing through the pits, getting from your truck to the track can be a bigger challenge than the race itself. As a showcase, this falls short. A One complaint the riders had was dust. Through no fault of their own, the track workers driving through the inside of the track kick up dust storms whenever they move, causing some riders to think one of their own had overshot a corner by miles and couldn't get stopped. That isn't possible. If you ran off in turn one full stop in sixth, you wouldn't hit anything but an old pick-up truck or a prairie dog for several miles. Short 9f paving the inside 6f the track, which is less likely than seeing an "I Love the AMA" sticker on the back of Roger Edmondson's motorhome, or putting a dome over it, there is no easy solution to this one. Live with it, guys. The structure of which the track seems most proud is the "House of Charmin'" - [ am not making that up. A noble structure, the paddock reading room makes you happy to know that the track would spend time and money not only thinking up a name for the paddock crapper, but putting the energy into painting the name on the brick shi... building. After a trip to the facility, it seems a more accurate name would be "House of newsprint." On the flip side, children can enjoy the playground the track has built near the "house." From what I've seen, that's a unique feature among AMA facilities. Since returning to the AMA calendar last year, the weekend has been a success, dra wing considerable crowds, despite what the locals say was little advance coverage or advertising in the various local media outlets. Those who skipped the Long Beach Grand Prix, held on the same weekend, were treated to sterling racing under optimum weather conditions. Race-day temperature was around 90 degrees - even though a week earlier the high was 46. No doubt the event's success encourages everyone involved in the decision-making process to continue with this one, if for no other reason than that the riders don't complain all that much about it, especially compared to Sears Point, where they'll spend next weekend holding their breath for long stretches of track. No such problem here. The racing, in three classes at least, was superb, though nothing like last year's Superbike race; when Miguel DuHamel held off a determined Anthony Gobert at the line. That was a two-rider race; this year was five for much of the time, then two at the end, neither being Gobert or DuHamel. If DuHamel never spoke to me again, I'd understand. Last year, Cycle News built their Laguna Seca World Superbike preview issue around a boast he made that the AMA regulars could keep the visitors off the podium in both races at Laguna. He also defended his "Win it or bin it" racing style, which, even then, was a cause of visible discomfort to some of the higher-ups at Honda. Not long afterward, he hit an unprotected wall at a wet Loudon and his season was over. . With another road race issue of Cycle News coming up, we decided that it was time to talk to Miguel again. His Daytona performance was heroic, and he was right in the thick of the title chase, even with a leg that's at about 25-percent strength. Saturday we sat down with him and he again defended his all-or-nothing approach. Sunday brought all of nothing. In the 600cc Supersport race he tarted half a lap back after it was discovered that someone on his team had forgotten to turn his fuel petcock on. Undeterred, he rode like a demon to take 15th and the handful of points that goes with it. I think with the AMA points system, he earned 1347 points. Unfortunately, the winner gets a dillion. A problem in Su perbike qualifying didn't show what he could dq on a track which wasn't particularly taxing to his [ego The race would. . Getting away in second, DuHamel chased former teammate Ben Bostrom for the first half of the race before slipping back a few spots to fourth. On the 21st lap he overshot turn three and grabbed a handful of brakes. The rear of the bike carne up and stayed up longer than the Wright Brothers, though they didn't have Jamie Hacking in their flight path. DUHamel was sent tumbling through the desert, the parts bill on his bike hitting five figures in a hurry and probably ending up somewhere in six figures. Luckily, he walked away. Hacking continued on his way to the podium. The day before, Miguel had complained that some riders had picked him to finish sixth (in our poll for the series championship). They made their judgement based oh his physical health and not th.e bonehead issue that strikes too often in a field this deep. Since his health coming into the season was an unknown, I picked him to finish eighth in the championship, his peers picked him sixth, and Cycle News editor Paul Carruthers picked him sixth. Carruthers picked Anthony Gobert to win, while [ chose him fifth, espousing the view that he clearly had the talent to win, but the equipment hadn't proved all that reliable in 1998. After blistering the track in qualifying, Gobert said the Vance & Hines Ducati was the best iJ'd ever been and the closest thing he'd ever ridden to a 500cc GP bike. The colorful Australian was running up front when he was forced into the pits with an electrical problem which took the top end off of his rev range. Had he stayed out, he probably would've run into the same tire problems the rest of the boys had. Fast By Ferracci's Larry Pegram won the race because, on this day, his Michelins were the best tires - better than the Dun10ps which everyone else was using, and he knew they would be as early as of Friday. On Sunday morning, Kevin Schwantz, who's working with Pegram this year, said they had a tire that could run 1:21s the whole race. Pegram's average lap time was 1:22.648. Pegram rode a smart race, lurking with intent in the lead quintet before putting Vance & Hines' Ben Bostrom behind him with five laps to go. Bostrom didn't give up, but he didn't have the drive to keep up, and he took second. Yamaha's Jamie Hacking survived his punting by DuHamel to take third, with Yoshimura Suzuki's Mat Mladin a content fourth after two of his championship rivals, DuHamel and Gobert, ended the day in the pits. The riders we polled picked Mladin to win the title and, three races into the season, it's easy to see why. Fourth was the. best he was going to do today and he took it, moving on to two tracks, Sears Point and Laguna Seca, where rider skill weighs heavier than machinery on the balance scales. And where the facili ties are maintained in such a way that you don't have to jiggle the handle. CIII 30 YEARS AGO... MAY 6,1969 20 YEARS AGO... MAY 2,1979 10 YEARS AGO... APRIL 26, 1989 ur multifaceted cover included several images, from desert races to road races to bike shows to hillclimbs. And topping it all off was none other than the "evel one" himself, Evel Knievel, as he flew his American Eagle over a Ford van... Tony Murphy was the man to beat at the Willow Springs road races, as he copped three class Crowns. in a single day. Murphy won the SOcc, 350cc and 500cc/Open events... They were scramblin' at Perris and Huntington Beach... Sammy Tanner (R-E) rolled his Shell Thuett-tuned special to career main-event win number 372 (!) at the Ascot weekly half mile... Maicos were the hot ticket at the Lompco Slo-Pokes MC Motocross in Santa Maria, California. Cal Bottum (Mai) won the Open Nov / Am/Ex class, and Woody Wilson (Mai) won the 2S0cc Expert class... We published a very interesting letter from an American motocrosser living ill Europe, Russ Darnell. In it, Darnell explained the learning process involved in growing up and racing in Europe. ack. Johnson (Hus) made our cover as he busted brush en route to shar.;. ing in a Las Vegas 400 ;t,:. win with temmate Larry Roeseler. After 11 grueling hours, Johnson and Roeseler only managed to beat the second-placed team of Scot Harden/Brent Wallingsford (Hus) by a sca n t two minutes ... Yamaha continued to steamroll the AMA 125/250cc outdoor nationals, as Broc Glover (Yam) and Bob Hannah (Yam) bagged overall wins at the Omaha Moto Sport Park in Nebraska ... Former speedway racer Jim "The Animal" Fishback (Yam) was beginning to make a name for himself in the off-road ranks, as he took the win in the AMA Two-Day ISDT Qualifier in California City, California... On page 12, we offered you a road racing primer entitled "The joy of road racing: How to make your first race a successful one." Crashing was not covered in the how-to portion of the story ... We also previewed the AFM Ontario six-hour race, held at the former Southern California superspeedway. he cover carried the news of an American triumph, as Wayne Rainey (Yam), Kevin Schwantz (Suz) and Eddie Lawson (Hon) swept the SOOcc class during the U.s. GP at Laguna Seca. Unfortunately, it also carried word of the tragi"c crash tllat ended the racing career of Bubba Shobert (Hon), who was nearly killed after ramming into Australian rider Kevin Magee.on the cool-off lap... There was more to celebrate in the 250cc ranks, however, as John Kocinski (Yam) won that class... Kawasaki dominated the two-day AMA Supercross Series stop at the Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan, as teammates Ron Lechien (Kaw) and Jeff Ward (Kaw) left with a win apiece in the 250cc class. Damon Bradshaw (Yam) won both nights of 12Scc action... American Trampas Parker (KTM) took a surprise win in the opening round of the World Championship 125cc MX Series in Italy... Larry Roeseler (Kaw) and Kenny Parry (Kaw) tearned up to win the Las Vegas 300. CIII O J T 87

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