Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

softer tire, and I could tell they wouldn't be able to get away, so I wasn't in a big hurry to burn it up. We weren't going that fast, low 57s. I could see the lappers coming, and I wanted to try and get ahead. He got a break and put a couple between us. The first lappers we came to, I wasn't aggressive enough, and he got a few between us and got a little lead." He may not have been aggressive enough, but he was patient. He kept the pressure on and had started to eat away at Hacking's lead when the Suzuki rider threw it all away. "It was a stupid mistake, totally stupid on my part," Hacking said. "I just had a miscommunication with the pit board, and I thought they were closer than they were. I just ran off in there a little deeper than I was supposed to and bottomed the thing out." Hayden's patience had paid dividends. "He [Hacking] was making a few mistakes, then he made a big one and threw it away," Tommy Hayden said. "From then on, it was just keeping an eye on my board. It was plus zero for a while and I got a little lead and then was just trying to hold it if I could." Meanwhile, Yates took over second place. Then his race unraveled when he got into it with a lapped rider. "The tire was greasy," Yates explained. "It was pushing real bad. I lost the front big time, and I did the same thing in front of that guy. He hit me, and I never looked back to see who it was. With Jamie [Hacking] out, I just had to bring it home because he was the guy in the points." With Yates slowed, Zemke took over the chase on Tommy Hayden, and he appeared to be making some inroads when it all went wrong for him as well. Again, it was trouble with a lapped rider. The batUe of young stars Tony Meiring (56) and Roger Lee Hayden (9S) ultimately went to Meiring. And It was for second place! "I got by the guy going into the esses, and normally when you come up to seven you can go up the inside of someone going into seven," Zemke said. "But the guy took a super-tight line. He went straight to the curb from six to seven. I said, 'All right, I'll go around the outside.' I came around the outside of him. I think, I don't know, I think he saw me and tried to turn in tighter, and he tucked the front and he crashed, and when his bike hit mine it snapped the left handlebar off and I was done. And it sucked because I had a harder of the two tires, and Tommy had the soft one, and I was reeling him in pretty quick at the end." By that point, Roger Lee Hayden and Meiring were involved in their own war. That battle became one for second place. It would go to Meiring with a good run through turns one and two on the final lap. "It was a fun ride," Meiring said. "I had my work cut out for me. I think I went into turn one about 12th. I was just trying to stay clean and not get knocked off because it was a long race. I was trying to get guys real smooth and not get anybody upset at me and knock me off. I saw there was a podium there, and I thought, 'I'm gonna go get it.' I saw Tommy up there and was trying to see how he was going through the corners, keeping a flow. I was suffering in a couple of corners, but I figured it out by the end of the race. Roger got by me, and I was going to try and go underneath him. He got a good drive off, and I decided to just sit there for a little bit and let my tires cool a bit. On the last lap, I just wanted to get him. I put it into turn one real deep, at least show him a wheel so he'd know I was there, hoping he'd make a mistake. I got in deep and got by him. Then I put it into turn three really hard on the last lap. The tires held really well. " Roger Lee Hayden was content with the knowledge that he'd just finished a career best in the class. "I got a pretty good start, and I just tried to ride consistent and smooth - I knew the race was long," Roger Lee Hayden said. "I didn't want to get too excited. I stayed pretty close to the leaders for a while. Hacking got away, and I saw Yates coming back. I saw somebody behind me, and I thought it was [Jason] Pridmore. I Lockhart-Phillips USA Formula Xtreme STORY AND PHOTO BY HENNY RAY ABRAMS FOUNTAIN, CO, JUNE 1 he story of the Lockhart-Phillips Formula Xtreme race mostly took place not on a warm and windy Saturday afternoon at Pikes Peak International Raceway, but in a meeting room in Pickerington, Ohio, where an appeals board determined that the Yamaha R 1/R7 hybrid that Graves Motorsports Yamaha's Damon Buckmaster had ridden to victory in the first three FX rounds was illegal. For Pikes Peak, the Graves' crew had to build two new motorcycles essentially from scratch, dropping everything else, chopping and swapping frame bits, modifying everything, and building a parts-bin's worth of fittings. And they had to do it in less than a week. A burst of optimism swept through the camp when Buckmaster stole the pole position on Friday afternoon. It would be short-lived. At the start of the race, delayed by 20 minutes by a brief shower, Buckmaster bolted to the front, only to fade to fifth with handling problems under braking before retiring on the last lap with a major engine failure. The race would be decided without him. Two riders emerged from the lead pack, Bruce Transportation Group's had no idea it was Tony. I saw it was him, and he got by. I kind of settled in, and he got away a little bit. Then he got killed in the lappers bad, and it worked to my advantage. With about five laps to go, I tried to make a pass for second on Tony. I was getting a good drive and was setting him up a little bit, figuring if I got in front of him I could hold him off. I was going to pass him there no matter what, and he got in the corner pretty good, and I was going to run off on the escape route, but I got it stopped. I turned it and then he was behind me. My board said 'Plus 0' the whole time, and I could hear him the whole time. I was trying not to make any mistake and my tire was greasy and I know his was too. I was getting nervous and couldn't wait for the race to end." CN Jake Zemke and Attack Suzuki's Jason Pridmore. Zemke took the lead from Buckmaster on the fourth lap, holding it for every lap but one until the 24th when Pridmore came by. The pair battled, but Pridmore had made the right tire choice and fought Zemke off at the end, winning by 0.369 sec., his second win in a row at PPIR. "I ran a hard tire and I wanted to try to save my tire to the end of the race," Pridmore said after ending Buckmaster's winning streak at three. Pridmore's winning time of 27 minutes, 18.821 seconds, was 14 seconds slower than his time from 2001. He averaged 83.771 mph this time. cue I e Pikes Peak Interutional Raceway Fountain, Colorado Results: June 2, 2002 600cc SQPERSPORT FINAL: I. Tommy Hayden (K8W); 2. Tony Meiring (KlIw); 3. Roger Lee Hayden (Hon); 4. Allron Yetes (Suz): 5. Jason Pridmore (Suz); 6. Tom Kipp (Suz); 7. Mike Hale (Han); 8. Jim Filice (KllW): 9. Ty HOWllrd (Suz); 10. Shane Turpin (Suz); 11. Mark Ledesma (Han): 12. Tyler Wedsworth (Yam); 13. Chris Siglin (Suz); 14. Hector Romero (Yam); 15. Elton Curry (YoIlIm): 16. Dirk Sanchez (KllW); 11. Justin Blake (Suzl; 18. Jason Hobbs (Suz); 19. Kevin Pate (Suz); 20. Scoll Larrn (Hon); 21. Michael Applehans (Suz); 22. Chris SiebeMaar (Han); 23. Ale. McElyea (Han); 24. Tim Mitchell (Yom): 25. Frank Hamey (Yam): 26. Demon Buckmaster (Yom); 27. Jake Zemke (Hon): 28. David Guy (Suz). rune: 27 min., 51.128 sec. Average speed: 82.152 mph. Margin of victory: 2.972 sec. AMA 600cc SOPER SPORT C'SHIP POINTS STANDINGS (After 5 of 10 rounds): I. Aaron Yates (169/3 wins); 2. Tommy Hayden (119/1 win); 3. Jason Pridmore (117); 4. Mike Haie (114); 5. Tom Kipp (113); 6. Tony Meiring (112); 7. Damon Buckmaster (111); 8. Jamie Hacking (109/1 win); 9. Ben Spies (99); 10. Roger Lee Hayden (93); 11. Jake Zemke (85); 12. Ty Howard (79); 13. (TiE) Ale. Gobert/Anthony Gobert (66); 15. (TIE) Jimmy Moore/Jimmy Filice (51 ). Upcoming Rounds Round 6 - Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, June 9 Round 7 - Brainerd, Minnesota, June 28 "I was trying to save my tire as best I could for the end," Zemke said. "Hindsight, my tire was still pretty good at the end. Maybe I should have burned it a little earlier." Aside from the leaders, there wasn't a lot of excitement at the front. Third, over five seconds back, went to Corona Extra EBSCO Media Suzuki's Adam Fergusson, his first podium in his second FX race. Erion Honda's Roger Lee Hayden was fourth, another six seconds adrift, with Valvoline EMGO Suzuki's Tom Kipp fifth, 2.5 seconds behind, but over 10 seconds up on Lance Isaacs in sixth on the No Limits Motorsports' Yamaha. Buckmaster ended up ninth, watch· ing the final lap from the turn-threefour banking after a connecting-rod bolt broke on the final lap. Buckmaster had bolted from the pole position, but knew he couldn't get away, "not on such a short lap," he said of the 1.315-mile PPIR road n e _ S • JUNE 12. 2002 13

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