Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

AMAlChevy Trucks U.S. Superbike Championship Round 1 0: Road America and was lucky to be saved by a red flag. The ensuing debate on the front straight among various AMA officials, riders, and team personnel, took up enough time that the live television window was threatened (see Briefly... ) Hondas led off the restart and ran one-two the entire race, Hayden in front at first, then DuHamel. The pace was faster than it had been on Saturday, which didn't surprise the riders at the front. "Yesterday, everybody was just checking everybody out," DuHamel said. "It wasn't all-out racing. It was like, 'Who's got what?' At least from my part. I was trying to not let anybody break away. I was a little fearful of Eric [Bostrom] and Nicky [Hayden] - when they get the lead they can put their head down and go, they were fastest in qualifying. Yesterday was playing like that. Today, I knew it was going to be 'just go.'" "I guess the second day the pace is always faster," Hayden said. "Everybody gets a race and gets to go back and make changes and find out what they need to do better." The opposite was true of Bostrom. The changes he made weren't for the better, and he knew it right away. "I was kind of doomed right from the start," Bostrom said. "We changed the bike last night and it seemed to work fairly well this moming. This afternoon, we just had an incredible amount of chatter every comer. Yesterday, I thought we were pretty decent and I had some really special corners out there. Now, I'd get chatter and it'd transfer straight to the front, and it was chattering in scary places, like into the kink and all the way through the Carousel." The Honda riders took turns at the front through the first six laps, with Hayden in front from lap seven on, though with little comfort. DuHamel was pushing the whole way and neither could afford to make a mistake. DuHamel made his way by on the front straight, and into turn one, more than once, but Hayden was always able to take it back by the stripe. Hayden was having trouble with his front end pushing, sometimes in the kink, which isn't somewhere he wanted to crash. On the final lap, it was again Hay'den marginally in front, the pair across the line side-by-side. DuHamel stalked his teammate through the first handful of comers before making his move in turn five, up the inside. "Basically, on the last lap there's a few places you can pass, [turn] five being one of them, but it's one that people anticipate the most, so it's pretty hard to do," DuHamel said. "When I went in there, I went in there 12 JUNE 19, 2002' cue I • deep and Nicky went in there deep and I'm like 'Whoa, we're in there deep.'" Hayden said he could hear DuHamel's front tire barking as it struggled for traction. "I was going to go ahead and lean it in and I heard his tire, he was on the brakes real hard, you could hear it skipping across the ground, and I kind of stood it up," Hayden said. "I didn't want to take us out. I stood it up and gave him a little bit of room." The only two chances to pass after that are in Canada Corner, turn 12, or on the run to the line. "I thought I might try to square him up going down into Canada Corner, which is really the last place to pass, because I didn't think I could get him up the front straightaway," Hayden said. "I came up on a lapper on the outside, and Miguel went to the inside, so there wasn't really a whole lot of options to go. Coming to the line, I mean I got a good run on him, kind of rode a little bit of a wheelie - that didn't help me." The battle for third was constant Bostrom mostly in front, with Yates taking the spot on laps 12 through 15. The race would come down to the final lap, with Bostrom drafting by into turn one and holding Yates at bay for the duration. "I think we just had Aaron [Yates] beat a little bit," Bostrom said. "He definitely had more corner speed, because we were just on the steering stops all the way through the corners. He definitely was beating me in the corners, but we just were able to make it up in the draft." Yates said that he had to ride a little harder than he wanted to get to the front. "Once I got by Eric [Bostrom], we got in some traffic and I think somebody killed my drive out of a tum and I lost the draft off the Hondas, and that was pretty much it. Once they got a full straightaway, without their draft it pretty much put me back a little ways." Yates' last chance came on the run to the flag out of tum 14. "I spun on the way out and got wide and had to let up a little bit going up the hill, and Eric just got by me," he said. Zemke was 12 seconds back in fifth, all by himself after moving through the field from an eighth-place start. In the early part of the race, Zemke just paced himself, watching the race unfold in the company of the front-runners, something he hadn't seen on Saturday. "When I got comfortable, I started making a few passes," Zemke said. "I was surprised that it was that easy. Definitely the Honda has a bit of an n • _ s advantage with the long straightaway." Passing Chandler was easy because Chandler was struggling. All smiles in DuHameMlle. Someone knew that Miguel was on the verge of vlctory. "When Yates went by [on the fourth lap] it started spinning the thing up, while these guys were going forward." Picotte had greater problems. After his litany of problems on Saturday - good feeling from the front all year and that has been our main cause of concern. We have a few test days planned for the coming weeks, so hopefully that will allow us the time to get things sorted out." clutch, tires, ignition, suspension - he thought the problems were fixed. The The race for top privateer went to Parriott by half a bikelength over first handful of laps were productive, and he was moving along, only to hit a misfire about the fifth lap. After per- Arclight Suzuki's Craig Connell. Parriott started 17th and worked severing for a few laps, he threw a dashboard switch that stopped the misfire, but was too far back to make a run. For the second race, he used different tires and brakes. "The whole race package was much, much better," Picotte said. "I still made time on Mladin, and I got Jamie [Hacking] at the end. Doug [Chandler] - I couldn't do anything with him." Hacking was next, struggling on a virtually new machine. With the destruction of his race bike on Saturday, the team had to build him a new one on Sunday. "Fifteen minutes Ithe morning warm-up session] is not enough time to sort out a bike," crew chief Tom Houseworth said. "It looked promising at first. Then the thing got tight tight on suspension - there was no rear grip. We just didn't have time." Mladin had pulled in at the end of the 10th lap after a few too many close calls. "I realized during Saturday's first race that there was more work to be done with the front suspension of my bike," Mladin said. "We have spent a lot of time looking for a problem with the rear of the bike, but we are now looking at the front. I haven't had a his way up, finally moving into the mix in the closing stages. Cruise America's Jason DiSalvo was just in front of Connell when he crashed in turn 12 on the final lap. Connell's teammate Lee Acree had been hounding DiSalvo and his teammate until he was forced to pull out on the 14th lap with an overheating engine. CN Road America Elllhart Leka, Wisconsia Results: Jane S, 2002 (Roand 91 SQPERBIKE QUALIFYINCi: I. Eric: Bostrom (2:08.510); 2. Nicky Hayden (2:08.784); 3. Aaron Votes (2:09.223); 4. Miguel DuHamel (2:09.550); 5. Doug Chandler (2:09.605); 6. Jamie Hackin9 (2:09.800); 7. Mat Mladin (2:09.806); 8. Jake Zemke (2:10.208); 9. Pascal Picotte (2:10.248); 10. Jimmy Moore (2:15.217);11. Chris Ulrich (2:15.467); 12. Jason Disalvo (2;15.798); 13. Lee Acree (2;16.065); 14. Craig Connell (2:16.087); 15. Lerry Pegram (2;16.342); 16. Vincent Haskove<: (2;17.415); 17. Adam Fergusson (2:16.575); 18. Andrew Deatherage (2:16.681); 19. Brian Uvengood (2;17.210); 20. Rich Conicelli (2; 17.376); 21. Brian ParTiott (2; 17.460); 22. Ty Howard (2;17.561); 23. Alan Schmidt (2:17.569); 24. Chris Caylor (2;17.630); 25. Robert Jensen (2;18.168); 26. Scott Jen.en (2;18.427); 27. Marco Martinez (2;18.508); 28. John DU9an (2;18.570); 29. Dean Mlldal (2;18.650); 30. Shane Prieto (2:19.759); 31. Shawn Conrad (2:18.942); 32. Chris Voelker (2:19.025); 33. J.J. Roetlin (2:19.051); 34. Shane Clarke (219.242); 35. Dave Ebben (2;19.304); 36. Randall Mennen9a (2:19.334); 37. Justin Bloke (2:19.903); 38. Scott Hermersmann (2:20.231); 39. Giovanni Rojas (2:20.284); 40. Michael Luke (2:20.630); 41. James Compton (2;20.651): 42. Douglas Duane (2;20.663); 43. Jeffrey Purk (2:20.934); 44. Eric Spector (2:20.943); 45. Robert Christman (2;21.266); 46. Leo Vene9a (2:22.608); 47. Roger Hendricks (2;22.657); 48. Jason Knupp (2:22.978); 49. Steve Johnson (2;23.238); 50. Anthony Ruggiero (2;23.450); 51. ErIc Dooyema (2:23.822). RACE ONE: 1. Miguel DuHamel (Hon); 2. Eric Bostrom (Kaw); 3. Aeron Yates (Suz); 4. Nicky Hayden (Hon); 5. Mat Mladln (Suz); 6. Doug

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