Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

(Left) Move over, bud : J .R. Schn abel (33) found a line in tum three that allowed him to sc oot up the inside of se veral riders on a track where passing was difficult. Schnabe l went from 11th to fifth. Geo Roeder (66) finished se venth, an d Rich King (80) 11th. (Below) Scott Parke r pulls off the track after running three laps . The nine-time series champion registered a vociferous dislike for the track conditions. 'him aga in, and I th ou ght I had th em covered, but I just cou ld n' t ge t through the bumps in turn three as good as they wer e wh en they we re beh in d me. They were ru nn ing up higher, an d I was runnin g low, through the worst st uff ou t there. On ce I saw wha t they were d oing, I ca ugh t on , b ut I s t ill co ul d n 't ge t thro ug h there the way they were ." Th e TCR Racin g-ba cked Hayden's dism ay over his fou rth -place finish was certainly not the resu lt of his riding performance, but more over the facl that he squandered a perfectly good front-row starting position w hen he left the line too soo n, along with Parker and Ceo Roeder II, and wa s sent to the penaltv line. The new AMA 600cc Supersport road racing champion was u ndeterred, though, and he go t what was pe rhaps the best sta rt of the main event, passing half of the field in turn one, and abo u t the other half off of turn tw o to run sixth on th e open ing lap. He would ge t by Ste v e M oreh ead a n d Bry a n Big e lo w befor e runnin g down Kopp , bu t that 's as far as he could ge t. " I a m d isappo inted in m ys elf fo r jumping the start," the IS-year -old Kentucki a n said. "I think that if I wou ld n't ha ve jumped, and would have go tten a good s ta rt, I w ould ha ve had a go od sho t at winni ng it. I jus t came fro m the back and rode really, really aggressively - maybe a little over my head . I got up behind Joe, an d he never mad e any mistakes. O h well, w ha t are yo u go nna do? It was kind o f good beca use a ll yea r long at the d irt tracks, I was alw ays kind of worried in the back of my mind about the 600 ( road race) champio nship. Tonight I didn' t have to worry about tha t, and I could just go fo r it. Turn three was nice. It ha d more holes in it than Swiss cheese." And 1 and behold, Team Powell / 0 Sunoco Race Fuels-backed J.R. Schnabel landed in the fifth spot, earning his first top-five finish s ince Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1997. The 19-year-old Wisconsinite wasn't the fastest rider on the track, but he passed more riders than anyone, somehow finding even more consistent success than Davis had . Schnabel ran 11th off the start ing line, and then fou nd an even bett er line than Davis and Carr had thro ug h the cra te rs in tu rns th ree and four, passin g Rich King, Ceo Roeder II , Ja y Sprin g st een , Bige low an d Morehead befo re it was all ove r. "I d on ' t know," Sch nabel said. "The ho le in tu rn thr ee kind of help ed me . I was ge tting around ther e good, a nd it see me d like I was jus t pickin g people off o ne b y o ne . Pret ty soo n it was lik e, 'W h oa , I' m in fif th : I sa w Kopp a nd Hayd en u p in front of me, an d the way that I was go ing, I thou ght tha t I might be a ble to ca tch the m . Then th at lin e kind of w or e ou t. But I'm happy . I' m very happy. It's been a lon g time since we go t a to p-five finish. We need ed one. We we re d ue ." Sch na bel was follow ed bv USC Racing/Lancaster Harl ey-David son's Bryan Bigelow, Schaeffe r's Ha r ley-Davidson/ Las Vegas Ha rley-Davidson /KK' s Ceo Roed er II, KK/ F&S Harley-David son /Shepherd & Dragoo's Steve Morehead, Bar tels' Harley-Davidson /Real. McCoy's of Japan's Jay Springsteen and 1-800-FASTHOC /Moroney's HarleyDavidson's Mike Hacker to round out the top 10. Co rbin Racing's Rich King was 11th , followed by H-D of Dallas' Willie McCoy, re tu rn in g rider Kenny Coo lbeth o n the Harley-Davidson of Misso uri XR and Coziahr Harley-Davidson's Pegram, who was th e la st rid er runnin g o n th e track after Ba rte ls ' Har ley-David son 's Sha u n Russell fell in tu rn three and Va rnes, Poov e y an d Parker cas hed in early. HEATS Carr opened u p the show with a hea tra ce win o n th e tra ck , w h ich h a d alr eady chunked badly by the time the field ro lled ou t for the firs t 10-lapper. Ca rr go t the holeshot off the line, leading Hayd en, Lyn ch Racing' s Paul Lync h and Spri nge r into turn one. King, mean w hile, go t a terrible start, and he was stuck toward the rear of the field, trying to figure out a way to salvage a spot in the ma in event. He d id , but n ot fast enough, and he ultimately wound up fourth. Carr managed to sort his way thro ugh the turns, and he quickly built up a four- length lead over Hayden, while Springer' was still trying to make his way past Lynch for thi rd . Springer finally did so on the fou rth lap to lock up the last direct transfer. Carr glanced back off of turn two more than once to check the gap that he had on Hayd en before ta king the checkered flag by a comfortable margin. "T his track pretty much sucks , so you have to kind of see how hard you have to go to maint ain your lead ," Carr said . "I was jus t keeping an eye on the guy behind me and riding only as hard as I needed to ride. If anythi ng, the racing line is ge tting nar rower. There we re pa sses (in later heats) bein g mad e simpl y becau se the ri der in fro nt ma d e · eno ug h of a mistake. If a guy can get on the bot tom and not mak e a mistake, it w ill b e to ug h to go b y h im . Re all y tough." Da vi s mad e th a t o n e b ig m is ta ke. afte r taki ng the early lead in the seco nd heat race, wh ile Kopp ran second, followed by National number 72 Steve liberty, Bigel ow and forme r National numb er 72 (n o w 72F) Pe g r am. Bigel ow even tu a lly slipp ed u nd er Lib er ty for thi rd, as d id Pegram for fourth, but the big su rprise came right in the seco nd se t of co rners, as Davis s kid ded up ju s t a tad too high and Kopp power ed underneath him to take the lead . Davis tried to fight b ack in turn s one and tw o, attempting to roll around the outside of Kopp on the na rrow rubber strip that had been lai d down. Kopp fen ded off the move by simply moving up another six inches on the line, effectively blocking Davis for the rest of the way. "Coming out of tu rn four Will got out of shape, and it was a dogfight to the groove there, and I beat him to it," Kopp said. "After that I knew tha t he was on my heels , and I thought that he was making time on me going into one up high. I just moved my line up for a couple laps . I hea rd him a whole bunch of times, and there was a couple of times when I heard him getting off the throttle before I did , and that's when I knew it was time to go ." Roed er go t the holeshot in heat three, wi th Brett Landes on a loaner TCR bike run nin g seco nd, Adki ns Racing / Winches ter Ha rley-David son ' s Mike Varn es run n ing th ird , Coo lbe t h fo ur th and Parker fifth. Par ker was the man on the move, as he tiptoed under Cool beth in three and four on la p th ree a fter both rid er s blitzed past Varnes a la p earlier. Parker then ran it in hard und ernea th Landes in turn one on the fourt h la p and tr ied unsu ccessfull y , to ru n Roed e r j down. Roeder held on to take the win, with Parker second and a fast-moving Coolbeth third. "I could hear Parker right on my butt there," Roeder said. "I started to screw up, and then when he got on me it made it even worse because I knew who it was. Parker's a lw a ys tough, and you can't ever count him out. Same with Morehead . Those guys might be struggling at the beginning of the day, but you always know that they are going to be fast at the end of the day." Morehead, Poovey, Varnes and Schnabel duked it out early in the final heat rate, wit h Poovey leading Morehead as the two ol d guys pulled away. Morehead waited for two laps before making an unsual - but very calculated - move to take the lead fro m the Texa n as they started down the fro nt stra ightaway . "T he re was jus t on e good s pot to pass , co ming off turn fou r, whe re it' s slick and you can ge t abov e the groo ve or be lo w the groove and get a run on so mebody," Morehead said. "It's about th e on ly thing that yo u can p u ll off . I though t Poovey was hooked up pretty goo d o nce h e go t the thin g poi nt ed s traigh t. He ju st los t h is momen tu m through the middl e of th e corner and moved u p. I was able to get a run and roll und erneat h him ." From there, More hea d sim ply looked grea t as h e left the rest of th e fiel d behind, winning by the largest ma rgin of any of the heat-race wi n ne rs and putti ng hi mself in posi tion to earn a second Las Vegas victory in as many. " We ll, I damn su re don 't like Del Mar, so this is the last chance thai I've got to win," Morehead said. Poovey finished second, while Schnabel got around Varnes and earned a rare direct transfer to the main event. H-D SPORTSTER PERFORMA NCE NATIONAL A friendly war on the race track continued to foster a friendly war of words off of it, as Harley-Davidson Sportster Performance Series title combatants Shaun Russell and Wille McCoy squared off once aga in in what was basically a twoman show d uring the 12-lap Spo rtster final in Las Vegas . McCoy came into the race wi th a three-p oint lea d over Russe ll, w ho won the las t event in Sac ra ment o. But when the dust clear ed a t Las Vegas Mo tor Speedway, Russe ll was the top dog in the series stan d ings. The Mill er Elec tric/ Bartels' Ha rleyDa vi dson-sponsored Russell beat th e TL C Ra ci n g -b a ck ed McCoy to t he groove a t th e start of th e 12-lap fin al, '" '" '" - M ~ C1> .c o U o 15

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