Round 9: New Hampshire International Speedway
AMA/MBNA SUPERBIKE NA TIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP
Eric Bostrom (32) did his best to keep championship leader Mat Mladin (66) behind him. He
couldn't and Mladin finished fourth.
BrieflVi .'.
~
Vance & rlines Ducati's Anthony Gobert caused more than a
little anxiety within his team when he didn't show up at Loudon for
Friday's practice and didn't tell anyone on the team about it. "I just
didn't want to do too many laps around here," said Gobert, who
came to Loudon riding a four-race win streak, "It was my way of
protest. I mean, it's way too, dangerous in some areas for how fast
our bikes are. It wasn't really a protest. I just didn't want to do too
many laps around here. The more laps you· do. the more chances
you've got to crash, l;iopefully, I can do whatever ~ takes to go
around and around and get out of here in one piece," What caused
the anxiety was that he didn't contact anyone on the team, '1
spoke to (crew chief) Jim Leonard sort of vaguely about it during
the week. No, I didn't really have the number for the(Tl at the track
here, I thought I did, but I couldn't find it So it was something
where I didn't mean not to tell them, but that's the way it tumed
out." Leon.ard said he didn't know Gobert wasn" t going to appear
on FridaY. He found out he wasn't going to show up "when ,he
didn't show up," Leonard said. Gobert didn't impress in the moming session on Saturday, but he qualified on the poie with a new
lap record. Gobert finished third in this race last year and later
admitted that. afterward, he smoked marijuana When the mariiuana showed up in a drug test administered by the FIM before the
Worid Superbike bike at Laguna Seca last year, Gobert was disqualified from that race. A subsequent failed test, administered by
the AMA prfor to Mid-Ohio, cost him a three-race suspension.
What was more surprising was that Cobert considered not attending the race meeting at all, something which would have been in
clear violation of his V&H contract. "I spoke to tbem (the team)
dunng the week and I told them that I was even thinking about not
coming here,' Gobert said, "And they were all. 'You should come
here because we want to make the points up.' I was like, 'I reckon
I could still make the points back as long as we don't have a
mechanical or anything.' Then I thought it was too risky. If I had a
mechanical problem and lost the championship by two points, then
I'd be kind of angry. So I thought. I should come here and ride
around, When I saw the changes, I thought. 'Well, it's all right.' It's
safe enough to let it hang out. so I've been letting it hang out and
it's put me ",here I want to be, so I can't complain,'
New Hampshire International Speedway issued a release
detailing the changes to the 1.6-mile. 12-tum track. "Tums 1,8,
10: The comers were revised to change the angle of braking, thus
making the area more open. Tum 12: The area was ground and
repaved to remove the bumps." And what of the changes to the
rood course? The opinions were mixed, thl>ugh mostly negative
with a hint of optimism that it would improve for the year 2000.
Muzzy Kawasaki's Doug Chandler was bne of a handful of riders
to tour the track with Jerry Wood, the owner of the Penguin
Roadracing School. who worked closely with the AMA's TRAC
committee to make changes. as well as other track officiais.
"They agreed to make some. changes for next year and if we
could get that done, it'would be better yet: Chandler said. "Right
now the blggest thing ttiat concerns everybody is ut this thing was really, really dull. It
didn't feel good. You could see it off a
lot of the turns, especially this tum two,
the left. It was really bad coming off
there."
Yamaha's Hacking had moved pasf
Eric Bostrom on the 22nd lap and separated himself in short order. He'd come
within about four second of Mladin but
knew he was doomed from the start.
'1 had the worst start ever in my life,"
Hacking said, '1 don't know why.l had a
tough time with the clutch."
Ending the first lap in ninth place,
Hacking clearly had his work cut out for
him. He moved up, using traffic when he
could.
'1 just waited for the lappers to come
into play and J picked off as many as 1
could and got as far as J could. 1 probably
now, I. mean, everyone was kind of complaining a bit. It's understandable. but 1 think as IOD9 as they're wilfing to work with us.
This place gets a good crowd and if they keep working at it. I think
we'll have a decent track,'
Chaparral Suzuki's Tom Kipp. who worked with the. AMA's
TRAc committee to make the changes at Loudon, resigned from
his post with TRAC, (See "Vo~es,") Kipp, who'd made three
trips to Loudon to improve the track. said: "The situation for me
evolved into a lot of things instead of rider representative and it
was a real distracMn. It's not what I'm here to do. I'm here as a
racer and paid by Suzuki to go out and be 1DO-percent focused on
my job and try and win, That situation is really turning into something other than what it startec out to be, So I thought that out of
faimess to Suzuki and the rest of my sponsors that I needed to
step away,' The distraction included his being the middleman
between Hie riders and the AMA. and it all came to a head at
Loudon,where opinion on the track changes was' mixed but mostly nega\ive. What the riders don't understand, Kipp said, is that
"in a lo~ of ways my hands were tied. These guys here (the riders)
don't get lhe full picture, they don't understand," As for the track
itself, tf people don't understand that and they don't understand
some of the politics that were going on," The end result, according to Kipp, is that "there was no doubt in my mind that it's a
safer race track, There's a lot of riders that wouldn't admit to that.
To say that this race track is more dangerous than it was a year
ago is not true. Whether it's safe enough for us to be here or not
is an entirely different question, and I can't answer that. I have
mixed feelings about that myself. I thought that the work that we
did Improved the safety aspect of the race track..'
Vance & Hines' Ben Bostrom and Anthony Gobert were of a
different opinion. "It's the same as last year," Ben Bostrom said.
before correcting himself by saying, "II's not - iI's faster now, but
it's no safer. I don't think It'S a safe track, The only one was, tum
one's far safer now, but the other ones aren't any better. Tum
three· that one's just dangerous, I can't believe they didn't make
a change." Bostrom said the changes over the' hill in tum six,
where the track was straightened, weren't an improvement. The
lack of runoff, which necessitated the placement of air fence,
made it risky to push the front end. "It's really dodgy, The track
needs work, I was out here untH about 8 o'clock at night on Thursday night. I didn·t practice, but with Dougie (Chandler) and my
brother (Eric) and a few guys, I was walking around it and saying
we need to change this, and those guys had their views. It's pretty positive, but it's like, it's weird how you have to argue with
them to change something," Gobert added: "The changes are
go9d. The' track's a lot safer now. It's all right when you're riding
•
could've finished better if J got a better
start,"
Eric Bostrom's start wasn't the problem, it was midrace that hurt rum. He
sajd he wasn't running that hard when
he caught back up to the leaders.
"And then, about 12 or 15 laps into it, it
started sliding and then J started tlUnking
about it because J was flicking it in and
th!" thing would come around," Bostrom
sajd. '1 couldn't get the drives that I was
wanting to get. I was tlUnking, 'What am J
doing wrong?' J was disappointed. Then,
when 1 started going backwards, 1 sta rted
thinking about it too much and lost some
of my concentration. The last several laps J
got kind of mad at myself because J was
paying attention to other things and 1
started at least riding better again. J started to at least get back into it."
Bostrom had nearly eight seconds on
the raucous fight for seventh, the best
race on the track. Russell was at the front
of the pack when it achieved its final
form, after Hacking got away, but he
wouldn't last. Tire problems would
cause
to fade to 11 tho
His teammate Picotte took over the
spot on lap 24, but he, too, had problems,
and Crevier took
on lap 27. Crevier
held it to the en.d, making the job of passing him very difficult.
'1 figured J held a few people up:'
Crevier admitted. "J think that there's not
going to be a lot of positive things sajd
rum
rum
around by yourself. But when you get into a situation where
you're trying to race a guy. you've got to really do a desperate
move to tuck inside, And if you tuck the front, you can take Doth
guys out or. if not. just your$elf. I don't know, it's just pretty·dangerous, really, Last year I was in the third row and I just cnJised
around because we didn't have a very good setup, This year
We're on the front row, so hopefully 1can get away, hopefully, at
the front and just sort of run my own race, 'These guys are always
hard to beat. I'm not going to ride how I normally do anyway
because it's not even so much if you crash, but even if you have a
mechanical problem, there's nowhere to go, last year we had a
guy (H-D's Thomas Wilson) who had.a front-brake problem and
went sort of straight into the wall. Uke some of the comers, lucky
it didn't happen at another place on 1he track. That's probably the
best place it could've happened around here,'
Yoshimura Suzuki's' Jason P·ridmore wai one of the riders
who was un!"quivocal in his disdain for the lack of work. "I'm very
unhappy, act~ally',:' he said. "I mean, we were s~pposed to come'
here a~d have it be safer, I was. told that the curbs ,were going to
be removed and that they fought to get the trees tom down and
that they weren't going to leave until the treeS got torn down.
Maybe they were under the assumption that it was going to hap·
pen when they got back here, but it didn't get done, To me, now,
the track is more dangerous than it was before because you're
going faster through the top there and we still have the same
amount of runoff, I'm really unimpressed, We shouldn't be racing
here," As to whose. fault it was, Pridmore answered, "That's a
tough question for me to answer. I'm not really sure. I know the
AMA. Ron (Barrick), and Merrill Nanderslice) and those guys, the
TRAC committee. came and looked at it. But I'm not really sure. I
have a great deal of respect for Randy (Renfrow) and Tom (Kipp),
but this track is completely unacceptable.•
Pridmore's Yoshimura Suzuki teammate Mat Mladin, who won
here In 1997 and was leading last year when a broken valve
stopped him, thought there was still work to be done, "A few
spots are a little better," he said. '1 don't think they've 'done
enough just yet. But we were out there with them last night. with
the guys that made decisions on what needs to be changed, and
they agreed to make a few major changes before next year, This
year is a little better, but it's still not enough. It's still not good
enqugh. but they have tried, you've got to give them that. The
things that we told them last night, they said they'll have done for
next Yl'ar, so the track should be 100 percent. If they do tlie
things we said last night. then the track will be good, The only
pcoblem will be turn two, which there's not much you can do
about that but put some sort of airbag system in there. If they do
that. then we'll be okay. Bu) the rest of it, if they make the
changes next year, it'll be good,"
Would Yoshimura Suzuki's Mat Mladin like to take a more 'active
role? "I've really given up on the whole thing. If someone wants
my opinion, they can come and ask me and I'll tell them, But I
think most people seem to think that I whinge for no reason, If
that's what they think, that's what they think. But don't forget. this
track here's been good to me as far as results. And potential
results, Last year I should have won this race.. 1 want to come
here and come Sunday I'll always give it 100 percent no matter
what race track I'm at. I don't whinge for nothing. I whinge
because I feel there's a problem. If you go out there, and on some
