Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

(Left) Aaron Yates (2 01 was able to w ork his way pa st his t eam mate Mat M ladin (11 to fi nish th ird. (Right) M igu e l " The Mummy Returns" DuHamel (171 manag ed to fi nish fifth after holding Eri c Bostrom (3 21 at bay. jumped the start and then i g n o r e d re peated efforts to call h im in for a st op -and - g o p e n a lt y , t h us he wa s pen alized - and drop ped a ll the w ay d own to 16th in the fi na l standings. This moved DuH a m el t o fifth an d Bostrom to sixth - w ith o ne a lot h app ie r t o b e there than t he other. W h ile DuH amel w as rel ativ ely p leased consid e r ing it was a weekend of strug gles, B o st ro m was rather disappointed after expecting much more. Seventh place went to Doug Chandler on the second facto ry Kawasaki , w ith the veteran running mostly alone. Then came two of the fac tory D uc ati s , ridden to eighth and n inth by Steve Rapp and Larry Pegram , respectively. Erion Racing Honda's Kurtis Roberts finished l Oth in a Superbike . race h e'd rather forg et , bes t ing Harley -Dav idson 's Pa s c al Picotte , Yamaha 's Tomm y Hayd en , B lueBa you Harl e y 's Jord an Szoke and HMC Ducati ' s Andreas Mek lau - in h is AMA debut. Mladin r o de i nj u re d and p erse vered, keep in g h is championship lead intact aft er two o f 11 ro u nd s. He now l eads Bost rom b y 10 points, 67 -57 , w ith N ic ky Ha yden vau lting h is w ay to th trd -I n t he stand ings with 55 point s. Ch andler is fourth with 5 1 an d Roberts holds down fifth place with 50 . Gobert's win puts h im in n inth in the se ries stand ings w ith 3 6 points aft er his Daytona non -finish. The r ace beg a n with a M la din holeshot, but H ay d e n was qu ic kl y arou nd the Au st ra lia n and into t he lead . It was a posi t ion h e l oo k e d comfortable with a n d he wa s n ever threatened u nt il t he 15 th of 26 la ps. That 's w hen Gobert, who had moved i n t o seco nd o n the sixth lap w ith a pa ss on Ml ad in in turn 1 1 (he'd done the sa me t h in g to DuH am el a lap ea r lier to move i nto t h i r d), started to ma ke inroads into Hayden' s modest lead. B y th en both had done th e i r qu ickest l ap s of th e r a c e on t he eighth l a p : Hayden a 1:3 4 .3 5 0 an d Go bert a 1:3 4 .4 2 7 (an d they were the on ly ride rs to c rack into th e 34s in me , " Gobert sa id . " I thought it was cially after qualifying 12 t h the first going to be tough , but I knew if I kept chipp ing away I co u ld get back o n him. Gradually, I got on the back of day," Hayden said. "I had a rough h im and onc e I got on t he b a c k of hi m I wa s p re s s u r i n g him an d he started making mistakes." m a ll y I don't ge t t h at good of starts . I and A nt ho n y got close . Fro m there, we j ust went back and forth a f ew got around Mat [Mladi n ] and just tried times. He got b ac k b y me at the end . to put in a few good lap s to see where I stood with ev ery b ody . Then I tried to I just t o ld m yself to k eep digging and Then in turn four on the 16th la p , road and a long way to go, but in the race I g ot an awesome start, and no r - get away and I pushed p r ett y h a rd and got a little bit of a ga p . Then I t h in k I got a little close with a la pp er, keep going after him. O n th e last lap, Gobert to o k the lea d. T he pair wou ld race in t hat formation until t h e 21 st lap - when Hayden squeezed past in turn seven . Three laps later, Gobert returned the favor in t he exact same corner. He held the lea d th e rest o f th e way, though n o t w ithout a last -ditch effort in the fina l corner by Hayden. "Once I got in front, I started mak ing a little b it of a brea k , a nd then I realized the re were 12 l a p s to g o there was too long to go in the race ," Gobert admitted . "T he re was no wa y I was go ing to b e a b le t o keep tha t pace, and even savi ng th e ti re as w ell was i n the b ac k of m y m ind , so I s low ed down a li t tl e b it. When I s lo w ed d own a li ttle b it, Ni cky g ot b ack on t h e b a ck o f. m e , then I sl owed down quite a bi t. And then he en ded up go ing ba c k p a st m e aft er about fo u r laps . It k in d of he lp ed m e out a bi t. I h ad ti m e to so rt of b reath e, ca tch m y brea t h a b it, and I to ld m yself I' d try to attack w ith ab o ut two laps t o g o an d t ry to pull aw ay a li ttle bit if I could. " I made m y m ove and I wa s having trouble seein g t he board, not because o f th e gu y s , b u t it see med whe n I came out Nicky was in m y v isio n to the guys. For a few laps I d idn 't see the la p c ountdown , and I th ought it was two to go and I co m e around and I m ad e my move an d it wa s th ree to go and I was a b it disappointed becau se I d idn't have enough energy to do w hat wa s nee ded. I had to keep the pace a little b it less than what I w anted to . Nicky sta y ed on th e back of me . I started riding defen siv e . H e nearl y ca u g ht m e out o n the la st c orn e r. I expected him to g o up th e inside and tr y t o stuff me in th e l a st corn er , in st ead I bl o cked the co rner a lot and he went around t he outsid e of me. He t he race ) . G obert di dn't w aste any time i n trying Hayden and he did so aga in in turn II, but he ran w id e m idcorner , nearly fo rced a m ist ak e out o f me." all owing t h e H o nd a RC5 1 r id er t o k eep h is le ad . " I just gradually kept picking t h em off an d Nicky was getting away from h e'll li k ely be pleased w ith his effort - H ay den doesn't like losing, and he di dn't l ik e losing this one . Still , when h e wa k e s u p o n M o n da y m o rn in g , ali th ings co n si d er ed . " Co m ing in to the weekend , I didn't What a difference a few days can make. The Monday prio r to the Sears Point race weekend, Mat Mladin and his Yoshimura Suzuki team went to Spring Mountain Motorsports Park in Pahrump , a racetrack 45 minutes from Las Vegas, to see how the Australian's recently broken fibula would hold up the task of riding a m otorcycle. As it tums out, it wasn't good. After eight laps, Mladin and his team packed up and went home . Five days later, Mladin put the Yoshimura Suzuki on pole positi on for the Superbike National at Sears Point. Quite a turnaro und, "I'm a little surprised, yeah," Mladin admitted. "I j ust have a little bit of a problem moving across the bike and stuff. Unfortunately , there's one good reason to come to this track and one bad reason. One bad reason is that you have to move around so much from side to side. The good reason is that we don't do too many gearchanges here, so that sort of trades off a bit. After Monday at Pahrump, I though t I was going to strug gle a lot more than I did. I still can't get over the bike like 1 want to, but we've managed to set the bike up to the poi nt where I feel reasonably comfortable riding it as it is. It's good to be up here." But one lap a Superbik e National doesn't make . Would the leg pose a problem at race distanc e? "Not at all. I can do one [lap] or I can do 26," Mladin stated. The final qualifying session was vintage Mlad in. Although thre atened by Yam aha's Anthony Gobert, Mladin did what he had to do. He upped the ante until clicking off his record-setting 1:33.0 13, eaming his 17th career AMA Superbike pole position - a mark that ties him with Freddie Spencer for second on the all-time list, just one behind Doug Polen, "Pole position is always good, and the beauty of it in the AMA Series is that it pays a point," Mladin said. "That's the main thing. The money that the AMA pays is pretty shitty , so it really doesn't mean anything when it comes to pole. The point makes a big difference." Gobert held on to qualify second with his 1:33. 139, his best effort thus far in his debut season on the factory Yamaha. "I was happy ," Gobert said. "Obviously, you want to be first, so I'm not 100-percent happy , but I feel happ y with what I'v e done. The goal is to get on the front row. Mat [Mladin) is always really hard to beat for pole in the times that I've been here. He's definit ely really good. I don 't know if I just caught the end of that , but it sounds like he might have done it on a race tire so that is pretty good. I'm happy. I've been going pretty good on norm al race tires, so I feel happy for tomorrow." Third quickest was Yoshimura Suzuki's Aaron Yates, the provisional polesitter from Friday's session, Yates kn ew that he'd been just a few of the top men to run qualifying rubber on Friday, and he couldn't get thing s sorted enough to make a run at Mladin in the final session. "It's been going real good for me this weekend," Yates said. "I think yesterday I was the only one to stick a qualifier in there. 1 was looking at the tim es and knew that these guys were saving their qualifiers for tomorrow (Saturday] . I came around and only had one Q for the end of the session there. I had some things I wanted to try this moming, but I got here late today and ended up trying them in that session there. I didn't really have time to dial it in like I wanted it, but we stuck a new race tire in there at the end and did some high 33s. It felt okay, but we've got some changes to make. On my first lap with the qualifier, I had a bug hit me right in the middle of the facescreen, and I didn't have enough time to come in and do something with that. We'll try to mak e up for it tomorrow, I guess." The front row would be filled by Am erican Honda's Nicky Hayden, the young Kentuck ian imp roving mig htily over his Friday effort to lap at 1:33.645 to end up fourth on the grid. "I'd like to be on pole, the same as these other guys , but yesterday I was 12th ," Hayden said. "I didn't sleep good last night. I definitely left mad last night. We made a lot of improvements today , and I think the big thing here is being on the front row - it's a big advanta ge. Th e start is defin itely critical because it's tough to pass. The re's no big straightaways... I'm happy to be on the front row, but I would have liked to have been up a few spots. The bike feels okay. I think tom orrow will be really toug h. I will just try to dig deep, and I'm look ing forward to the race here. In the past , I've always done pretty good here in the races." Com pet ition Accessories Ducatl' s Larry Pegram wou ld lead row two In Sunday's National after he lapped at 1:34.185, marginally better than Kawasaki's Eric Bostrom and Doug Chandler. Miguel DuHamel, in his "The Mummy Returns" getup, qualifi ed eighth to fill the second row. Row three would consist of Yamaha's Jamie Hacking, Erion Honda's Kurt is Roberts, Harley-Davidson's Pascal Picott e and HMC Ducati 's Steve Rapp. "I' ve never qualified inside the top 10 at this circuit," Pegram said. "I feel this circ uit requires more caution than anywhere else so I never really push myself. This proves how good my crew is. The bike is so good that even riding at 90 percent I call qualify well ." re all y expect to do that good , espe - cu e. e n ... _ S • MAY 16, 2001 7

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