Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

(Left) Ben Bostrom kept the pressure on Chandler throughout the National, but he wasn't able to seriously threaten the Kawasaki rider late in the race. (Right) Bostrom's teammate Gobert (95) led for several laps before giving way to both Chandler and Bostrom. pressure. I didn't know who was behind me. [ sort of figured tha t it was Doug. I was trying to set the quickest pace [ could with trying to save the tire, and Doug went past me pretty easy into turn one and gapped me pretty much straight away, so I knew that he had some more pace a ound here than what I could do around here. So, I wanted to try and just do the best to stay with him and hopefully make my way in traffic." Gobert was vocal about his disdain for the track, and he felt it was made more dangerous by oil patches on the track. "I saw a bit of oil around here and there, and a lot of guys crashed in oil last year when we out to start," he said. '1t's the same thing, but there was more of it the track was oiled around the whole track, so that just sort of put me right off. This time, I was just was being cautious. I didn't want to crash. It's real easy to crash here. Once Doug went past there, then I pretty much figured that he was going to win or beat me because he gapped me in the first two turns - he was already going." That was it for his win streak. The leaders got away from Gobert and Chandler edged away from Bostrom. The gap was more than a second on lap 25 and it would grow, accelerating at the end. "We came up on a lapper situationwe came into three and that allowed me to get a drive up over the hill and I went around the bowl and I was tempted to run it up under him, over the hill like I did my brother, but I was thinking, 'Gee, it's pretty dangerous, you know,'" Bostrom said. "I was like, This is my only chance to win the race. Maybe Doug won't be able to pass me back: I was worried I wasn't going to get a drive and [ didn't want to take us both out, for sure. Once I did have him there, 1 knew he probably had the better bike, so I just did my best to try to keep up and he just kept pu tting the distance on us each lap and I just rode the best I could and I just ended up here. There com'es a point where you just say, 'Jesus, I'm not going to win this one. The other guy's outriding you, you take second: You go on to the next one and see how we do. I'll try to win one of these:' Chandler said that last year he didn't mind not winning since he was fighting for the championship. "This year we're struggling with the bike and got the thing going pretty good and then we had that DNF at Atlanta, and so that took us out of the championship," Chandler said. "So at that point in the season I felt that all I can do is ~ try to go for the wins, and it's really good to get one underneath me." As to what it means to the team, Chandler said: "It's more a morale bOoster than anything else, especially for the mechanics. They've been working so hard. We had some frustrating races at the start of the season. Those guys just don't give up and they need some type of reward and to be able to give this to them, I think it's great. Now we're going to put more time and effort into every- thing and try to give me.a better motorcycle for the next race." Gobert was cruising along in third when suddenly Mladin caught up with about a dozen lap to go. The pair had come up on traffic, which had slowed Gobert until he took action. Within two laps he had nearly a second on Mladin, which he stretched to about seven at the end. Better late than never I t was clear from Friday's qualifying that changes to the track, which didn't change the 1.6-mile length but did alter the configuration, made for a much faster lap. Muzzy Kawasaki's Doug Chandler was on the provisional pole with a time that was 2.5 seconds under the lap record he'd set in 1997. Saturday would be faster. After skipping Friday'S practice because he wanted to limit his exposure to what he feels is a dangerous track (he played golf instead), Vance & Hines Ducati's Anthony Gobert blitzed the 35-rider field with a lap of 1:10.178 with about seven minutes to go in Saturday's 50minute session. The best lap came at the end of a string of three, each progressively faster than the previous one. What made the feat impressive was that he'd only done 11 laps in Saturday morning's practice session - only one of which was fast - and was still coming to grips with the slightly altered layout. "[ felt good from this morning and literally just wanted to sort of ride around and get a good feel of the machine and the. race track," Gobert said after his second pole of the year, and the one point that goes with it. "[ like tI,e layout now. It's a lot safer, it's a lot better for myself to be willing to put it on the edge, and that's what I did. Luckily enough, we had enough to get tI,e pole." He later added: "To be honest, if I had known about the changes, how it is, tI,en I would've been here yesterday for sure. I was thinking about not everr coming here at all. 1 just don't thillk that we should be racing here how it is at the moment. The track's really dangerous. It's a shame' that we do have to race here. We just raced somewhere that's beautiful, like Road America. Plenty of runoff and stuff. It·s really one line; it's a good sort of layout. It'd be good fun if we had more runoff. 1don't know; I don't want to complain about it. 1 mean, that's why I didn't-come here yesterday. I'm just here trying to get my points and get out of here in one piece. I heard they made changes, but 1 just sort of thought they probably moved the tire wall back a foot or something like that. That's generally classed as a change." Gobert's time - a 1:10.178, which he clocked by riding conservatively, he said - was just enough to beat Chandler's 1:10.185 but was weJ] under Chandler's record of 1:13.033. "I was hoping to do a nine, really," Gobert said. "I think if I had rode yesterday I could have done possibly a high nine, maybe. Each time at a race track, the more laps you do, the quicker you go. But I just wanted to know whatever time SO I could try to beat that and fortunately enough 1 did beat iliat time and ilie other guys really didn't end up going that much quicker." As to how confident he was going into the race, Gobert said: '1'm confident-enough-to-miss-Friday sort-of-thing, you know. And I don't want to seem cocky saying that or doing that, but that's basically just where I'm at with the bike. I just feel 1can get On that bike and do whatever 1want on the bike. It's a really rider-friendly machine." Chandler held the second spot, scrambling to grab the pole at the end but clocking his best with about six minutes left after fitting his second qualifying tire of the session. What it came down to, Chandler said, was too much effort. "1 think 1 was kind of trying a little too hard and I missed a couple of apexes and couldn't seem to put it together," Chandler said. "We were close that first one, but there we were, just kind of racing amongst "I got held up same as what Doug was saying: two guys, probably the same two," Gobert said. "I didn't want to sort of risk stuffing one of them in case I tucked the front, so I followed them for a long time and then Mat got right on me again, and then I just pulled out again on him." When Gobert went, Mladin didn't have an answer - not with the setup he'd ourselves, concentrating on what you need to do. And when I came in for my second tire, he (Gobert) was just in front of me. 1 just basically over-tried:' The new track didn~t demand any changes of the machine, which still needed to be set up for ilie many downIUU comers. "I think the biggest thing with the track is having a lot of confidence in ilie front end," Chandler said. "You just don't have no room in case you do overshoot something." . Gobert's teammate Ben Bostrom was a very angry third. The defending Superbike National Champion found that he couldn't run a qualifying tire On his"A" bike, so he had to switch to the less userfriendly "B" bike. "The 'A' bike was perfect," Bostrom said. "We were doing mid-lOs on race tires on that thing." Then Bostrom was told that, with the wheelbase and gearing he'd . mosen for the "A" bike, the qualifying tire wouldn't fit. "1 found that out, they said you have to ride tbis one," he said. "We should've done nines so easy. It was a joke. I went out there and dldn't ride gOOd. because I dldn't like ilie bike. l don't like losing a point and T don't like losing to anyone. It's like, it's really hard to get pole positions, then when you bave one, you should take advantage, not just throw it away like we dld. Like when you have a cl,ance at pole, you should use it. We had it, but we're just not doing it. Little mistakes are killing us. 1'm kind of bummed." As bummed as he was, at least he survived th.e day unscathed.. Not SO for Yamaha's Jamie Hacking. Hacking crashed twice in turn three, once on the 600, which was his fault, and once on the superbike after coming togetller with Yoshimura Suzuki's Steve Crevier. "Steve, he kind of obviously saw me coming on ilie track and coming out of the pits," Hacking began. "He started like pulling to the inside and let me come through, just kind of like rushed on into turn three and I was coming in there ~I lock. I got down in there and he was on the outside of the track, just right to the apex, and turned right in on me. And all I had to do was, there was nowhere else for me in this comer, 1 had to stab tbe brakes and I threw it in there and just locked the front. It shook me up pretty good." As he was sliding along, Hacking was hit by Crevier's bike. "He ran over leg and over my thumb and kicked me in the head. T thought, 'Damn, what else?'" Hacking said. He retired to his motorhome and got out of his leathers, thinking his session was over. Shortly, the team showed up and told him the machine was ready for more. ,At the end of the day, he still wasn't sure he had the right package for the race. '1t's kind of hard, man," Hacking said. "You get it set up one place and you've got so many funky different places on tI,e track. You've got tI,is, you've got a bump there, you've got a jump here, you've got a whoop-de-do here. There's just so many different things. H's like you've got to take your good points and set your bike up for there and kind of like the bad points, get through them. It's a long race. I'm sure we'J] be il, lappers five laps into it." Last year's race winner, Aaron Yates, led off tl,e second row, the Muzzy Kawasaki rider just ahead of American Honda's Eric Bostrom and Yoshimura Suzuki's Mat Mladin. Mladin's Yosh teammate Jason Pridmore was eighth fastest. Yates said the tight and t\visty Loudon track reminded him of bis roots. "It's the kind of riding I kind of grew up doing at home," Yates said. "Riding around, catch a little trail, slinging the thing around back and forth, going around trees, trying not to get hurt, try to go fast." The third row had the Harleys of Pascal Picotte and Scott Russell just in front of the other two Suzuki Steves - Crevier and Rapp. ~ ... c :s ..., 9

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