Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

AMAIProgressive Insurance U.S. Flat Track Championships Round 1 1 : The Dirt Track at Lowe's Motor Speedway his way past all of them before the race was over, but Hart never did lose eighth, the relatively unknown Expert turning in the finest ride of his stillyoung career. "That guy" can ride a motorcycle. "That's what people have been calling me - 'That guy' - but hopefully we can start making a name for ourselves." Hart said. "This is my first year on a 750, and we've started picking it up. It's all in getting the experience, getting laps out there. I feel real good about how we did tonight. The motorcycle worked really well. Eddie Adkins did a great job tuning it, and I want to thank Performance Harley-Davidson for helping me out so much." On the other hand, King was having a nightmare of a time back in 14th, battling with Eades and McCoy for most of the race. It was not the way in which the Du Quoin Mile winner was hoping to rekindle his championship drive. "I struggled all night," King said later. "I think that the problem was that I was just trying to override the racetrack. Bill [Werner] changed everything around for me, but I just couldn't get calmed down. it was the type of track where you couldn't afford to get behind, and I was behind right off the bat. It's hard to make up time, so you've got to really run it in, which doesn't give you a very good exit. You 'do what you can do. It just didn't happen tonight." Davis finally got under Springer in turn four on lap eight, and while the three-time Grand National Champion put up a valiant fight, he soon started to lose ground to the new leader. Worse yet, Cool beth picked him off for second on the back straight, and then Kopp dropped him to fourth. Something clearly wasn't right. "Those boys didn't have a chance man, but we chunked a damned tire," a slightly bowed up Springsteen said later. "It started going away before Will [Davis] caught me. It was getting slipperier and slipperier, but I just kept going. Then Will went by me, and I just kind of peeked over my 24 AUGUST 8, 2001 • cue I e shoulder and there was three or four more of them in a big clump on me. I was just lighting up the tire. There was nothing I could do. At first, I thought I was getting away. But it was a fun race. This is a beautiful facility. It's a fun track to ride." Murphree did Springsteen only one better, finishing fifth after he, too, appeared capable of winning the race. "For some reason, I was thinking that I was going to be light years faster than everybody, and instead I was only just as fast," Murphree said. "I got stuck racing with Jay [Springsteen], going his pace. Then those guys started passing us, and I couldn't seem to find that little extra motivation to get by and go after them. When I finally did, it was too late. I know that I could have run with the leaders. We just have to come back harder next week. I'm working my butt off, and everyone else at the shop is working their butts off to put good races together. It's about time for us to make it happen." Ahead of them, Hacker rode steadily on his Johnny Goad-tuned XR, never too far from the front three riders, but seemingly unable to capitalize on any mistakes that they might have made. A last-ditch effort in the waning moments of the race put him in contention for third, but eVen if he had made the pass on Kopp, that may not have been good enough for Hacker, who was looking for a repeat win at Charlotte. "I'm kind of disappointed, but the way that my season has been going, I'll take it," Hacker said. "That was pretty crazy. We were on our toes the whole race. Me and Joe [Kopp] collided out there one time, and I almost went down. It was pretty crazy. I got a good start the first time but not the second time. I don't know, maybe we Former AMA Grand National Champion Mert Lawwill has returned to the dirt track arena once again, as he is testing a radical successor to the dual-shock Lawwill Harley-Davidson XR750 chassis that practically dominated the scene throughout the '80s and well into the '90s. This one is based on the parallelogram design used on the Schwinn bicycles that found success on the World Cup Downhill mountain bike circuit. The system effectively uses two swingarm pivot points that are connected via linkages. "It does two things," Lawwill said. "First, it conserves power. Second, the weight transfer is accomplished in a completely different manner. It rises instead of lowers when you accelerate, and with the geometry of the two swingarms, that means that the rear wheel is basically trying to get underneath the motor and the weight is all on top of the rear wheel." If successful, the design could pave the way for the use of a greater variety of engine combinations, as it would more or less equalize the tractability of the different engines if each is set up properly. "Totally ... Well, that's my belief anyway," Lawwill said. "This is only the third time that the bike has been on a racetrack." With Indiana rider Sam Lowe aboard, the bike was plenty competitive, and Lowe almost put it into the show at Lowe's, just missing the transfer spot by less than a wheel length in the second semi, which proves that the design is already sound for dirt track use. That's not Lawwill's end goal, however. "The goal is to make a street version," Lawwill said. "If I sold one or two to everyone in the pits, where does that get me?" Stay tuned for more on this interesting concept. n e _ s (Above left) It may not look like it, but this bike was on fire 15 minutes before this shot was taken. Chris CarT rebounded from a potentially championship-damaging crash to run seventh after crashing. (Above) Jay Springsteen (9) and Johnny Murphree (20) were heavy players in the early going. Then Springer chunked a tire and slid back to sixth. Murphree waited too long to make a move to the front, settling for fifth. can grow on this and do better for the rest of the year. But I still love this place. I wish that we could race here every other weekend." Further back, almost unnoticed was the fact that Morgan ran a steady ninth, just behind Hart, and Schnabel, too, had worked his way into 1Oth, seemingly the only other rider besides Carr who was able to make any significant strides toward the front. "Yeah, but I was faster than just a top-10," Schnabel said. "I should have been at least sixth or seventh. I'd catch one guy and then move onto the next guy. It was my own fault because I screwed myself in the heat race, putting the wrong gear on, which was my call. Then we win the semi and get a bad start in the main and have to work our way up from dead last. I felt good, and the bike worked good. We've got a lot of positive things going, but I just have to make the right calls earlier on instead of messing myself up and getting on that third row." HARLEY·DAVIDSON SPORTSTER PERFORMANCE NATIONAL Series champion Willie McCoy rode his DPC Racing/Kegel's HarleyDavidson Sportster to a potentially pivotal win in the 12-lap HarleyDavidson Sportster Performance Series final. McCoy was set for a showdown with series points leader Paul Morgan III, but that never materialized, as Morgan lost the front end in turn three and crashed while running third. Morgan would get up to finish 17th - dead last.

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