Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128115
A MAIC hevy T r uck s U.S . S u p e r b ik e S e r ie s Round 9-1 0 : Mid- Ohio Spo rts Car Course (Above leftl Kurtis Roberts (8 01 lea d s Tommy Hayden (221 In Saturday's fi nal. Roberts ended up fourth In th at race, while Hayden slipped to ninth. (Above rightl Doug Chandler put In two s~rong races at M id-Ohio. Here he leads M iguel DuHamel and Kurtis Roberts. traffic that he had no other choice than to throw in the towel. Hayden ha d whittled the margin to Bostrom to u nd e r two seconds , but that gap grew suddenly on the 19t h la p when he h it a traffic snag in the Carousel. "I don't know what he was doing , reall y ," Ha yden sa id of the la p p e d rider. "I thought he knew I was there. I was going around him and I do n ' t know if he heard me and tried to get out of my way, but I thought he wa s coming in th e pits . I was able to get by him. After that I had a gap on Jamie [Hac k ing ] a nd I ju st tried to fin is h. That's a bout it." With n o c h a nce of c a tc hing Bostrom with ju st a h andful of laps rem a ining , Ha yd en s ta rte d to cruise. Bostrom, how ev er , kept the pressure on, tho ugh it was for na ught as Mladin had th ings in hand . "I felt this year th at at mos t races if I could get to the le a d I was running ve ry fast, an d I could ma ke a bit of a br e a k," Mladi n s a id. "I honestly fe lt that at probably a ll of the racetra c ks we've been at this year. A couple of tim es we've been held up , a nd some tim es it gets tough when the tire sta rts s pinning and if th e y get a b it better dr ive , so metimes yo u just can't do it. It m ake s it ve ry tou gh witho ut do ing something stupid. The first five la ps I had to be aggress ive. My b ike was ru nn ing pretty similar to E r ic ' s [Bostrom] down the backstraight ; Jamie 's [Hacking ] was running a bit better than ours, but that's probably due more to his size when it comes to my bike . He's very light, and there's not much of him, so his bike is going to be fast. 1 ha d a bit of troub le even stayi ng with Ja mie close e nough to g et h im o n the bra ke s , s o I had to shove him in tu m six to get by. I put a pr etty agg res sive move on, but 1 ha d to do it. 1 was luc ky our bike was run ning good a nd 1wa s a ble to get a good drive with Eric a nd e sse ntia lly pull out rig ht a t th e la s t mom en t a nd get in th ere." Follow ing the race, Bos trom 's fac e showed the disappointment of not winning a race he an d his team thought they had a great chance of winn ing . S A UGUST 1 , 2 0 0 1 ' cue I Still, his second place was a personal best for Bostrom in a Mid-O hio Supe rbike race. "O u r job is pretty sim p le - we ' ve g ot to beat Mat [Mlad in ] - and we didn't today," Bostrom said. "He did a good job. We d id our best for today, a nd we' re looking to do that tomorrow. Fo r s ure we c hi pped [away at the lead] , but I felt that I had a pretty bad traffic run - definitely in the beginning of the ra ce. Mat [Mladin] had got a lot of good passes on lappers and I got hung up down the bottom. I wen t from basically a 28-flat to a 29 .5 , 29 .3 ... You ca n' t afford to give away a 10t h, let alo ne a second and a hal f. I thought we co uld run a qu icker pace, bu t the track te m perature was pretty high ." Hayd en was left wishing he 'd gotten a better st art. "I didn 't get the start I quite wanted ," Hayden sai d. "I ca m e out of the first corner fou rth . J amie was rid ing good, and I could not get by him for a long time. We were spinning the tire really bad trying to get a drive on him , and I do n't think that helped me. I got by him a nd 1 trie d to make a ru n at Eric [Bostrom], and I think I may have been chi pping away a litt le bit. then I got int o some lappers. I th ought I should chill out, get anoth er shot at the boys tomorrow and just try to take it to the house today and get on the box . 1 know it's not that good , but it feels good to get back up there after th e way the last few races ha ve been go ing. I' ll get another shot at ' e m tom or row. Hopefu lly, I can get with 'em at the beg inn ing and tr y to run their pace." Hacking ha d his own set of problems. namely a motorcycle that wasn't running at full s ing. "The engine was just cutting back going down the back straightaway," Hacking said. "It was pretty consistent every lap. You 'd shift a gear and it would die and then pick back up , shift again and it wo uld d ie again . It was really small a t th e b e g inn ing , so it wasn 't slowi ng the bike down to o much. It wasn 't he lping it, but it just kept getting worse and worse a nd worse . I'd come off a corner a nd my he a d would hit th e wind shi e ld . Two la ps left to go, I co uldn't even ge t o ut o f th ird ge ar on the st raightaway . I couldn't belie ve th o s e guys d idn 't catch me. The las t lap I thought I was going to have to jump off the thing and run dow n the back straightaway . I'd come out and pass 750 [Su persport] guys . I'd get right up alo ngside those guys and they'd look at me a nd figure I'd pull away . I'd be .wa ving to have them let me back by ." With the top four relatively spaced out fo r th e majority of the race , the battle be h ind them turned o ut to be the best one on the track. That group DuHamel (171 and Roberts (8 01 were stu ck together on both days. On Sunday, DuHamel barely bea t Roberts for the final rostrum spot. On Saturday, Roberts beat DuHamel for fifth place. e n eVIls wa s o rig ina lly led by Rapp , but trac tio n problems slowed him to an eventua l eighth· place finish . Then Chandler took over the spot, th ough a soft-tire choice would ultimately do him in as well - but he was able to hold on to a seventh-place finish . Ultimately. the battle for fifth would come down to two Hondas: Roberts vs. DuHamel. It was an intriguing battl e , w ith the p air ru n n in g close th rough out the last quarter of the race. DuHame l took a turn a t le a di ng his young er tea mmate , but it was Roberts who led the most and when it mattered the most - a cross the finish line . When it was over, just .025 of a secon d sep a rated the two RC5 I s . Both men had ridde n well, with Roberts getting fifth in what wa s his retum race a fte r undergoi ng s urgery some six wee ks ago to c ure a n arm -pump prob lem. "The a rms a re good , but m y back hurts - yo u ca n defin itely te ll I've be en off a roa d racer for s ix wee ks ," Roberts sa id. "My b a c k was b a d t he wh ol e race , but th en the le gs wen t o ut th e last tw o lap s . Th e a rms a re g reat, tho ug h. I ca n ge t the bike sto pped in eve ry co rne r, and t h in g s like t ha t. That's the biggest thi ng a bout t he arms being fixed ." Cha nd ler ma naged to gai n a bit of grou nd on the battling duo late in the race , b u t he couldn't catc h Roberts/ DuHamel and had to settle for seventh. "I ran a real soft tire , " Chandler sa id . "It got really loose when I was trying to pass Rapp. I figured it was better to get it to the finis h. Three laps from the finish , I got stuck aga in [in traffic] , but I ke pt pushing because it looked like those guys were going to ra c e to the finish - but they kept it pretty clean." Afte r Ch a n d le r came Rapp , all alone in eig hth as he was well clea r of Yama ha' s To mm y Hayde n . Mek lau held o n to fini sh 10th, clea r of th e Harle y's of Smi th , Picotte and Szoke. "I rod e as hard a s I c o uld fo r the entire race," Rapp said. "My pra ct ice and qualifying times were more tha n one second faster , and no matter how hard I tried , I just couldn 't ma tch them. It seemed to be a loss of traction . I was