Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Road Race Round 10: Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course AMAIMBNA SUPERBIKE SERIES By Pau l Carruthers Photos by Tom Riles LEXINGTON, OH, JULY18 o u g Chandler had t o w ait 26 months between victories p rior to win ni ng th e la s t round of the AMA /MBNA Suberbike Series at N ew H a m p shire In tern atio nal Spee dwa y. Th is time aro un d, he wasn' t so pati en t. No t even a month a fte r h is wi n at Loudon , Cha ndle r did it again , with this on e comi ng on a brilli antly sunny day at . the Mid- Ohio Spo rts Car Course. Using t he im prove d spee d of h is Mu zz y Kawasaki, Chandler was fas t all weeke n d, a n d co me Su n day h e to o k fu ll advan tage of Va nce & Hi nes Du cati' s Ben Bost rom' s misfor tune to sco re his second win of the season. It was also the 11t h vic to ry of h is ca re er , a win ,th at m o v ed h i m int o so le po ss ess io n o f eig ht h on the all-time AMA Su perbike win list. Although Chand le r ended u p winning ha nd ily, th ings mig ht ha ve been d iffer ent if not for Bostrom's wo es. The Californ ian see ming ly had thin gs und er co n tro l throu gh 17 la p s of the 26-lap Na tiona l. The n everything we n t wron g. Bostrom had been circulating for several laps with his Duca ti lea vin g a trail of smoke, the co nsequences of an oil-line fitti ng th at had pulled loose and was dep ositin g oil on an exhaust pipe. Fina lly, the AMA black-flagged the Duca ti rider, an d he went one more lap before pitting. Although he was able to get the problem fi xed and rejoin the fray, Bostro m's worl d had turned completely upsid e down in 'th e span of jus t tw o D 8 (Top) The AMA Superbike National gets sta rted at Mid-Ohio wit h the front ro w of Ben Bostrom (1), Doug Chand ler (10), Ant hony Gobert (95) and Mat Mlad in (66) getting the jump on the rest of the pac k. (Left ) At the end of the day, Doug . Chandler had won his seco nd suc cessive AMA Superb ike National. laps. He:d go ne from near-certain winner and cham pions hip points lead er to 10th place - 14 points behind Yoshimura Suzuki's Mat Mladin with just two races remaining . Wi th Bos trom out of th e pic ture, Chandler was left to cruise to vic to ry, and he crossed the finish line with nea rly ni ne seconds in ha nd . Second place we nt to Mlad in, who was fully awa re of his rivals' troubles an d was conten t With finishing in the top thr ee. He was han ded second p lace on the fina l lap w hen his Yoshi m u ra Suzuki teamma te Jason Pridm ore s lowed to a llo w th e A ustralian to pass. And that wa s only mad e p o ss ib le after A me rica n H onda ' s impressive su perbike rook ie Nicky Hayden crashed just th ree laps from the finis h as he w as scra p p ing w it h th e tw o Suz ukis. Fo u r t h pl a ce e n d e d u p go ing to A mer ic an H onda ' s Er ic Bostrom, thou gh the resu lt looked better on paper than it did on the race track. Bostrom 's fourth would have been sixth if not for his brother' s and Hayden's misfortunes, and he knew it. Eric Bostrom is n ' t a racer content w ith finishing fourth, an d he definit ely wasn' t impressed with this fou rth-place finis h. Fif th pl a ce went to Ha rley-Da vidson's Pasca l Picotte, despite a miserable start that left him scrambling for positions. The Frenc h Ca na dian was forced to pick th rou gh the field and was left knowi ng tha t even a halfw ay-d ecen t s tart wo uld have allowed him to finis h higher . Yos h imura Su zuki's Steve Crevier en ded u p si xth, get ting the b e tt er of Muzzy Kawa saki' s Aaron Yates - w ith last yea r's wi nner here th e vic tim of a poor tir e choice. Eig h th p lace went to Fast By Ferracci' s Larry Pegra m, wit h the Ohioan still feeling the effects of his d irt track crash of a few weeks ago. Nothing is certai n in the fickle wo rld of racing, and the Vance & Hines Ducati squad was living pro of of tha t at MidOhio. Still riding the high of its recen t

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