Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

AMAIChevy Trucks U.S. Superbike Series Rounds 415: Sears Poin~ Raceway Pro Honda Oils 600cc Supersport Round 3: Sears Point Raceway STORY AND PHOTOS BY HENNY RAY ABRAMS SONOMA, CA, MAY 5 he most competitive class in road racing is suddenly less competitive. For that, we have Aaron Yates to thank. On a sunny, warm and breezy afternoon at Sears Point Raceway, the Blimpie Yoshimura Suzuki rider sped from the pole position, and a new qualifying record, to his third Pro Honda Oils Supersport win in three tries - all achieved in different ways. At Daytona, the veteran Georgian used his guile, and the internecine warfare of the Hondas, to break the final-lap draft. In the race at California Speedway, the hard-braking Yates patiently eliminated the leaders before pulling away to a comfortable win. At Sears Point, Yates bungled the start but easily moved through the field to take the lead from Yamaha's Gobert on the 14th of 16 laps. Once out front, he was unmatched, firmly imprinting his name at the top of the championship. "Yeah, it took a while to settle in and get comfortable," Yates said. "I was fortunate to be behind them and I got to see where the guys were going good and where they were kind of spinning up the tire and I got to see the tires progressively get worse. I was trying real hard to be easy on mine so I would have it all at the end and it worked out good for me." Yates won the 16-lap, 37.12-mile race in 25 minutes, 39.242 seconds at an average speed of 94.301 mph. Both were records, since the track was slightly altered this year. The margin of victory was 2.023 seconds. With three wins in three tries, Yates leads the championship with 110 points, 29 more than teammate Jamie Hacking, third today behind Yamaha's Anthony Gobert. Gobert controlled the early pace after taking the lead on the second lap. He and Graves Motorsports Yamaha's Damon Buckmaster got away at the beginning, with Attack Suzuki's Ben Spies an early third, the lead trio leaving the rest of the 39rider pack behind. Though he was sailing out front, Gobert was struggling with a rear shock that was too soft, which consequently caused a front-end push. It would eventually be his undoing. The pursuers were led by Yates, in front of a string that included Valvoline EMGO Suzuki's Tom Kipp, Hacking, Bruce Transportation Group's Jake Zemke, and Erion Honda's Mike Hale. By the fifth lap, it was clear that Yates was on the move and he was up on Spies on the seventh lap and past on the eighth, at the halfway mark. In time, Yates would reel Buckmaster in, taking him on the 12th lap, then catching Gobert a lap later, before passing him in thick traffic on the 14th lap in turn seven - a hard-braking, slow right at the end of the drag strip straight. "I was getting into turn seven really well on the brakes, I don't know if it has something to do with the Suzukis or what, but I felt pretty comfortabe getting in there pretty deep and that was helping me out because the guys were kind of pulling me in a couple of sections," Yates said. "And I was able to make up all the ground right there." Go~el1 tried In vain to hold Yates back, but the Georgian won his third straight 600cc Superspol1 final anyway. 20 MAY 15, 2002' cue • e n _ VIr S After that, Yates was gone, adding a second a lap to the lead. "I knew it was time to really ride hard and try to put in some clean laps and make a little gap," Yates said. "I didn't really want them to be able to be close enough to try to make a move in the last turn on me, because I knew I would have if I was close enough to them, but I was trying to avoid that." Gobert had too many problems to make a run. There were the handling problems, plus a lack of aggression. "I don't want to make excuses, but we missed the setup big time," Gobert said. "The rear spring was way too soft. The back just made the front all tucking everywhere. It made my race a misery, really. It kind of wore me out because of how much I had to override the bike to get it to do what I had to make it do." Gobert said the problem only cropped up when he ran with a full tank of fuel, a setup the team doesn't normally practice with. "We need to start running more because as soon as we get into the race with a lot more fuel that changes the characteristics of the bike a lot," he said. As for Yates, Gobert admitted that he was much more aggressive in traffic. "I'm not really willing to take those chances in lapped traffic. Maybe I need to a little bit," Gobert said, before expressing his displeasure with the state of racing. "I hate racing in the AMA when there's so many slow guys. They see the leader go past and they don't even look over their shoulder and move out of the way they just friggin' race. And at a track like this, it's so tight, you get caught behind a guy in one ess bend and he's got a second on you. You don't make a second in one lap. It's a joke. The whole AMA system is a joke." Hacking passed Buckmaster on the final lap to take the last podium position. Like Yates, he'd had to come through the pack, but his problems were caused by a bad qualifying session that put him 10th on the grid. "When we first went out, I had a really bad chatter in the front end, so I came in and changed a front tire; at the same time, I decided to go ahead and change the rear tire," Hacking said. "It kind of put us back behind. And then we go to start my bike and it wouldn't start, it was backfiring and just missing and not running that well. I went back out. I thought I was doing okay, but I just got balked in a lot of lapped riders. I just couldn't get a good, clean lap. I didn't want to be that far back. That just made my race that much harder. I knew off the start that I had to be really aggressive and I was real aggressive picking my way through."

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