Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

DuHamel for fifth place, the French Canadian worried about his tire going the distan.ce. Seventh place went to a beaten-up Jamie Hacking. The factory Yamaha rider had crashed hard in the 600cc Supersport final, slamming into the haybale-protected barrier on the outside of turn 10 and knocking himself silly. It was actually remarkable that Hacking was able to ride at all, as he confessed after the race that he couldn't even remember his phone number prior to the start of the .superbike National. American Honda's Eric Bostrom showed signs of coming back to life at Sears Point. The youngster continues. to battle back from his Daytona crash that With Yates destroying his rear tire early on, he was left to try to salvage third place - but he couldn't. Instead, the spot went to the gritty Pascal Picotte on the factory Harley-Davidson VR1000, giving Harley its first AMA Superbike podium since Thomas Wilson finished second to Picotte in the rain at Mid-0hio in 1996. Naturally, Picotte and the Harley team were thrilled. Yates, meanwhile, managed to hold on for fourth place, well clear of Vance & Hines Ducati's Anthony Gobert - the Australian having battled through the pack after being forced to undergo a stop-and-go penalty for jumping the start. In the end, Gobert barely edged out American Honda's Miguel left him with injured feet and bruised confidence. Bostrom said after the race that he's close to getting the package back together, and he promised better results by next week's Laguna Seca Nationil. Bostrom raced for nearly the entire distance with Yoshimura Suzuki's Steve Rapp, another who was a bit beaten after a qualifying crash. Tenth place fell to last week's Willow Springs ational winner, Larry Pegram and the Fast By Ferracci Duca ti. Pegram, never a fan of Sears Point, blamed no one but himself for his poor result. Defending AMA Superbike National Champion Ben Bostrom had a day he'd rather forget. The Californian stalled his (Above) Doug Chandler had his best outing of the year, finishing second behind Mladin. (Right) Aaron Yates tried to hold off Pascal Picotte (21) for third place, but couldn't. Picotte gave Harley its first podium finish since 1996. Controvers ends with Bostrom on T empers flared after a dramatic end to Saturday's final qualifying session at Sears Point Raceway, with Yoshimura Suzuki's Mat Mladin recording a 1:38.3 right in the waning seconds only to see the lap taken off the boards when he failed to negotiate turn one to start the next lap. Naturally, the Australian was livid, but his arguments didn't do anything to per-, suade the AMA to change the order, and pole position went to the cain\ and collected Ben Bostrom (right). The young Californian lapped at 1:38.581 on his Vance & Hines Ducati to break Mladin's lap record of 1:39.425 from last year's qualifying. It eamOO him the single championship point that goes with the honor and put him just two points behind Mladin going into Sunday'S NationaL Mladin's heroic last lap was for nothing, and he wasn't really happy about it. "They (the AMA) reckon they're reviewing it," Mladin said before finally getting word that his lap had definitely been taken away. "1 didn't go straight through. I tipped it in, lost the front, stood it up and went through the grass. What matters is that I did a good lap - it was a legitimate lap. It won't matter where I start - there's going to be carnage out there. We'll see what happens. What I ilid down there was exactly what I'd do in the race if I lost the front in that corner. I was going for an extra lap - I wasn't going straight." AMA Pro Racing's Ron Barrick explained the AMA's position on the incident. "It's the same procedure we've used here for the last several years," Barrick said. '1t speaks volumes about why we have that rule when people can't make that first comer. What we talked about in the rider's briefing was making that turn. Everyone was perfectly dear when we left the briefing." With Mladin demoted to sixth on the grid, Bostrom led the rejuvenated Muzzy Kawasaki pairing of Aaron Yates and Doug Chandler on the front row - sandwiched by the second Vance & Hines Ducati of Anthony Gobert. Yates ended up lapping at 1:39.088, to edge out Chandler's 1:39.096 and Gobert's 1:39.201. 'We had the bike set up pretty good, and I kept seeing all these guys' times," Bostrom said. '1 kept going quicker and they kept going quicker yet. It was getting a bit frustrating, and then we put on that Q (qualifying tire) and it just worked really well with my bike. I've got to credit my team because the bike worked awesome. I just went out there on it and the thing put in a good time - I was surprised when 1 saw the board when I came by. I'm happy." Bostrom had one anxious moment in turn 11 when he almost hlgh-sided while trying to go under a slower rider. '1 don't know what he was doing," Bostrom said. '1 came up, and he went a little bit wide. I thought he saw me on the inside, so I thought T'd just gas it and go by him. It just stepped all the way out. I thought I was going to high-side my bike and jump on the back of his bike and .ride along. It was a moment. This track has a weird surface - even with a qualifying tire, you can stide it quite a bit. It's nice because it doesn't override the front too bad." Although he had the package for qualifying, Bostrom still wasn't sure about the race setup, and he had work to do on Sunday morning. "We have one other thing 1 want to try," Bostrom said. "The race setup is pretty good, but all these guys are going great, too. I know there wiU be five, six guys in the lead pack, and it's going to be the guy with the best setup, because everybody is riding so well. Hopefully, my chassis will work a little better than theirs. I put a lot of laps in this weekend. I keep going out and riding the whole session, trying to change my bike because I haven't been too happy. It's getting better, and the boys are doing a good job. I've just got to go out there and try to win my first race. We changed the suspension quite a bit, playing with the offsets on the front end a bit to try and make it steer a little quicker. This track is kind of weird; it's stippery but you've got to throw it in and ride the front wheel. If you've got a goodsteering bike, you can run pretty soft tires here and they grip pretty well. It's going to be whoever has a quick-steering bike and a little bit of traction. I've just got to go out there and try to win. 1 haven't won one yet, so it's something I really want to do." Both Yates and Chandler were happy to be on the front row after a somewhat dismal start to the season for the Muzzy duo. "Qualifying went really good," Yates said. '1 haven't really been experienced with the bike in the past years, but my guess is the dual-mmpound tires - the thing just doesn't like it. Here the bike is going good, and it was good in Phoenix, too. I think it's going to be a good race out there. There are a lot of guys going fast out there. This morning I didn't get much practice. [ had a loose connection or something, and my bike quit firing, so T missed all of practice, really. We made some changes from those couple of laps, and for qualifying it worked really good." Ditto for Chandler, who knew that things would get better once the team carne to a race track that didn't require the use of the dual-compound tires. '1 Was happy with what we ended up with today," Chandler said. 'We could have made a little bit of improvement, but I kinda knew we'.d do low 39s, possibly 38s, and we were real close. I'm happy to be on the front row. It's something we haven't been able to get close to SO far this year. I think we have a good race setup for tomorrow's race.as well. The race tires seem to be working really well with our bike, and I'm looking forward to tomorrow's race. The biggest thing is that we're not running the dual-eompound tires. Our bike seems to work really good on some of these race tracks where we use softer race tires. Any time we have to use a harder tire where the bike needs to abuse the tire in order to get some traction, our bike just doesn't seem to work that tire hard enough to get the grip." Behind the two Kawasakis was Gobert, the Australian having skipped Saturday morning's session only to pay for it later. He also had a crash in the final session while chasing Mladin. "1 felt good all weekend and then today 1 decided to do a gearing change," Gobert said. 'We lost a lot of time in that session because of tha t and then I ended up having a crash because [ was pushing the front a little bit too much. I did the best that I could with what I had and I feel happy to be on the front row. Not to take anything away from the other guys, because they were better than me today, but I feel that we could have gone a tittie bit better if we didn't waste so much time earlier on." Still, he defended not riding in the morning, based on the fact that he reaUy doesn't think too highly of Sears Point. "They forecast it to be pretty hot tomorrow and 1 figured there was nothing really left to try," Gobert said. "I was pretty happy ,,~th the race setup, and I pretty much know what tire I'm going to race on. They wanted me to put some more laps on a used tire. but I wasn't too keen because I know that it's just going to stide a bit more each lap. I just chose to sit out. This isn't the kind of race track where you just want to ride around and around, because anything can happen. I had a crash then, and I was lucky it was in a decent spot. You've got to try and think when you run around that it only takes one stip and you could hit one of the walls a bit funny - and you could be out for the rest of the year, or maybe for good. You've got to be really sensible riding around here, so if [ didn't have to ride, then J wasn't goona, you know?" The hard-riding Pascal Picotte put the Harley in fifth place to lead row two, lapping at 1:39.254. ''I'm riding my ass off on that thing," Picotte said. '1 think 1 could have been on the front row. The bike was vibrating early in the session. We put the first qualifying tire on and did a 39.8. Then I did a 39.3 the lap after that. Going into turn one, I tried to get around Larry (Pegram) on the exit of one, and I went off the pavement and into the dirt. 1 thought maybe I would have done a high 38 if it weren't for that. [ keep going fast, but they go faster." Behind Picotte and Mladin carne Yamaha's Jamie Hacking and Yoshimura Suzuki's Jason Pridmore.

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