Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Road Race Round 11: Brainerd International Raceway AMAIMBNA SUPERBIKESERIES (Left ) Larry Pegram (72) was a facto r early in t he race, but he eventually finis hed fi fth after be ing passed by Eri c Bostrom (32) " last year's B ra inerd winner. (Ri g ht) Ben Bostrom t ak es hi s tuner, Gary Medley, o n a victory lap aft er posting the win at Brainerd. They were both w aiting for the last lap before Gobert crash ed the party . "I thought I'd lost him and when he ca me b y, h e came b y at full cl ip, " Bost rom said of Go be rt. "I was a little worried about Larry, bu t once Gobe rt wen t by I wasn' t w orri ed at the end ." Hacki ng had a lso be en pa ssed by Gobe rt, but not wit hout a struggle. The still-develop ing Yama ha R-7 is down on power, so Hackin g had to override it in the inf ield and take his lumps on the long straightaway. "I'd have to ride it so hard to ge t th em on th e brakes in the infield and they' d l au gh a t m e, " Ha cki n g said . tr eat .you , They 'd do 'an yt hing 'for you . It 's totally nice. And the . w eathe r wa s unb ellevably hot .; B9 degrees and B5 percent . humidity. Today (w hen it was near 100 degrees in Brainerd) is . . ' ' . .. . . .. ' ~a~rick a'iso .said that he visited Phoenix 'I nte~ationai Race~ .. nothing,", . . Mi.ke Hale .retu,!,ed to ' racl~ g at Bralnerd. ·though obviously not .. w ay following ·the race at. Mid.Ohio to d.scu sschanqes whi ch . Am~rica~ Ho~da'sMigiael ' DuHamel waS advised by his dO~- . on the Proton M ode nas KR3. Instead. the Texan was aboard a ' wou ld make the .track acce ptable to AMA riders: The track . which tors to no t race at B rain erd , accordinq .to his manager A lan World Sports lmports Honda RS250 . the same machine that Kurtis . . has been troubled with safety iss ues from its .inception. proved :Robert s rode last year arid that WSl" s Chu ck Sorensen rode to .especially perilou s thisyear, and the 'prevailing con sensus .was . , Labrosse . Labrosse said that Dr. A rthur Tlnq. who performed the fourth place' at Dayt ona thi s year befo re sw itching to a Yamaha . that. the AMASuperbike to ur not return to PIR. ' They' re willi ng to .surqery on DuHamel after he rebrok e his leg in a crash at Road .lZ250. H ale said the ride had been coordinated by Mik e W att of do a lot of stuff ." Barric k said-. adding that the final approval wou ld .. Atlan ta, said that he, " could have raced , but' it' s probably.best not . to . Physically he could have. The bone isn't healed yet. It would Fo x S ho x," a fr i end of t he . fall to Jim France of the lnternajust take one bad 'incident 't o break it again, If you look' at him, . WS lteam:and had b een p ut . tional Sp eed w ay C orpo ration : compa red to D aytona in ·March,. he 's d'e finitelynot wo rse, He 's t 6g eth er i n t h e pa st t w o t he t rac k 's ' o w ne rs. Barrick ' s .w ee k s . " {t was i a · g6 0 d · feeling wa s that t he tra ck wa s· walking with out a cane and has full mobility . He' s been traininq wi th some specialists . Actu ally,' he's in pretty good shape. " . . o pport unity b e f ore', I g o willing to make the changes neeessary t o keep the race, though back," Hale said, referring to A me; ican Honda:s Ga rY Mathers confirme d that t he team his' retu rn to the GP wars at he didn' t know if the othersane'the C z ech GP i n B rn o in tioning bodies who run races at wo uldbe racing the new Honda V-tw insnext year with Nicky Hay" the facility wo uld agree. : . .rien . w ho 's unde r co ntract.va nd, most likely, Miguel DuH ame l. t hree week s . ' I ' v e' b een w anting to r ide a ' 250 and ' My boss, Ray B lank : is in:Japan right now ," Mathers said. "H e's supposed to co me. back .wlth the budgets 'and some information .see what I can leam. It'll give . Yamaha's Jamie Hacking finmy foot and handa shake- ' ish ed ·14 t h in t he S uzuka B- ' on the twin s. " Math ers said the only decision is whether they'll ' get DuHamel., " I assume he wants lots of money. " Mathers said, down .." Hale broke a bone in Hours o n' a mo stl ys tock bi ke , his left .hand and also brok e ' but ca me away impressed w ith ' "The rumor is that Harley is afte r him big time, I don't think they ' .both the bike and 'the co untry. knew what they had when they had him the first time. " ' Harleyhi s left' f o ot In a c ras h in pract ice at t he M ay French ' " I liked the ' track , it suited me, .. David son' s Steve Sche ibe said the team hadn't ye t made any ' GP at Paul Ric ard . .Tend on suited my s ty le of rid ing ." ·.he ' decision on a seco nd rider to Scott Russell, who' s under contract said, " It 'w ent good . w'e weren' t . for next year. The team will have three bik es. one 'for' each' rider ' ·damage Io the hand .vwhlch on . th e b est eq uip men t , but I . ' and 'a spare. M athers also revealed that the team was meant to required su rgery in Te xas, hampered his rec ov ery : He .learned a lot , learned a lot about . have the . v -twin s for this season , 'but that it got delayed whan . Hondastarted over with a comp lete ly new bike: Theplan was for . .put the hand at about 70.pe r- . ' the . tra ck, about having to .deal cent. but had the use of the wl th .a cer ta in se t up .i'l .que ss'l . the. fac tory to run. tw ins in 1999 .:with two or three other bikes ' made tb ose .quyshappy , t hey ' 'going to ot her teams , likely Honda satellite team Erion Racing, in .thumb and first~o' fingers. . . were impre ssed, " The bike ' was , 2000,'A s .it is, M athers does not believe' that any ot her teams will the dig its mos t needed for be supplied wit h tw ins next year , . '. . .. . .grippin g the handl ebar. The . nearly stock. " It had no computstill tender and need. . " . " , , er 'on It.' no' noth ing. no st uff to foot ed nosurqery for the break, which was in the.area.of the socket of set it up WIth, stoc k forks. sto c k shoc k: It had a kit radiato r and The 'pursefor Colonel's Bn.inerd I;'te;:"ational thelittle toe: Hale had 'practiced On a friend's 250 , most rece ntly at ' some of, the motor wa s kit st uff and it had .quick-change stuff on . . event was up $7500 to S60,0 00, V&H Ducati's Ben Bostrom iook ' th e Moto rsports Ranch,' a new facility outside of Fort Worth : it. tha t wa s' basica lly 'about it. " Hacking thoug ht he was going to . home.$4 500 fo r w inning, wi th Yos himura Suzuk i's M ai M ladin takTe xas : Th is wou ld be his f ir st race . " ltaaomethinq Ken ny : be on more highly modi fied. equ ipment, " Li k~ my guys told me , ing ·the $3200 seco nd place money, and V &H D ucati's Anthony .(Roberts) 'and I talked about doing during the break, get on a 250 ;" w hen. ~ got over the re , I can t .expect on th e first t ime over.there ' Gobert eaming $2500 for third. Bostrom.also co llected t he $ 1.000 Hale said. "'These guy s .(W orld· Sp orts, lmports) run a top 25 0 : . to be on (No riyuki) Haqa' s bi k~ : I made a good impre;;sion and ,if I nterst~te Batt eries Superbike Pole Award for fast qualifying time. . .. . ·team.·M ike (W aW had talked ' to them and they said they 're game I stay With Yamaha next year 111 be on a factory bike , ,Hacking s . any time I want to ride," Since getti ng'the word that he'd been rae- ' . teammate was Noriyuki Fuj iw ara, whose style' wa s much differ- ' -The race was s ponsored by .Colonel's Truck Accessories;. a ing, 'H ale had started to train more heavily. ' mounta in biking and ent than Hacking : s,' " It' s weird , I wo uld've thought he wou ld've ' Mic higan aftermarket.supplierfor t rucks,' which also has naming ' running 'fo~ the .10 days.prior to the Brainerd race. Hale finished ' . bee n closer to the set -up than he was . We finallyconvinced him . rights tothe circuit. officially "The Co lonel's Brainerd International second in'his heat race and second in.the 250Cc Grand Prix final. . to t ighten the bike up a littl ~ or getting it into the ballpark wherel Raceway. " . . .' . ' ., ., . . . . could ,ride,and he went out and rode it and he liked it . then they ' . . .". ' A M A :road rai:~ man~ge~ Ron.· B~rrick wi ll j6ih FiM . offiCials : kind of sto pped. Th ey said, 'Okay' : Because' the crew that wa s BIR co nnoues to be ;';'ork i n 'p rog ;"'s s' after 'the owne rship " whim they.inspect Road America with an eye toward homolo- . warking on. it:they were just ' factory. Workers. they worked in' the transition that took place ove r the winter. An-lOng 'the' casualt ies'of g8tllTg ,t for the 2060 U,S, Grand Pnx. Barnck said he'd be go,ng . factory, they bulltbike s in t he fact ory, Th ey' d never· done this . theflux was t he race program' that h~d 'always been .done in the to Elkhart Lake With hiS FIM counterpart ClaudeDanis and Franco before. To change some of the stuff those guys were freak ing past by D ave Ferroni . the. eminent ly efficien t for mer public rela- . Uncinl.tbe riders rep for the Intemation al Racing Tearns As sociaout . " Overall . Hacking said, " It wa s just an 'experience . I had to . nons director who was part of the purqe. N o prog ram ' was avail·tion (I.RTAl,' August 11: 12. Barrick said they 'd look at where the deal with the b ike the way it was andwe handled it pretty wel l." , 'able at. Brainerd .,even thoug h fora day and a half the announcer . problems 'are for moto rcycles . There .are existing' plans for a ·chi· Hac king was ac co mpanie d by Yam aha' s Tom ' Halve rso n and . impl ored the fans to ·go .out a nd buy' one: There will cont inue to be ·cane in the middle of.the backstraight. "I think they' re comfortable cre w. chief Tom .Ko usew.orth. A s for Japan , '-1 liked 'it; Ma n. its , 'changes for next year; w ith the planned addition of a 125-room ." they tr . . " . hotel just outside the trackentrance. ' . . :.' . ' . , '. with those," . Barrick ·said.· " But they .want .to have -a look atIt_. . not f ight " the way. .eat you . It' s unbel ievab lethe way they . . ' . " . . ·Briefl ... There 'are other iss ues to discus s.' Including: the mandatory full' . co urse closed circuit TV syste m that the track has to install. is l'I~ceway' a ' 16

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