Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

·750cc Supersport race last June. In that race, Chouinard was disqualified for illegal valve modifications, an infraction he vehemently contested. "What happened to me last year, I'm just glad that everything worked out to our favor," he said. "I feel like I still got second last year and this just again proves that we did our homework and, with the blessing of the rain, it worked out in our favor." The locals dominated the first race, but faltered in the second. New England Performance's Scott Greenwood took second in the first race, 1.218 seconds behind Chouinard, with Pepsi Cola's Des Conboy, a New Jerseyan and Loudon regular, third. Arclight Suzuki's Craig Connell was fourth, with Hooters/Mountain Dew Suzuki's Michael Barnes fifth, his nagging left-wrist injury less of a problem because of the rain, in front of 14K the Movie's Eric Wood. In the second leg, Greenwood got the jump on the field, and earned the Cycle News $250 Holeshot Award, only to tuck the front going onto the back straight a few corners later. That put Chouinard in a lead that he would never give up. Conboy chased him for 18 laps, only to crash in turn 11 with less than two laps to go. The runner-up spot was handed to Barnes, who won a four-rider battle over Connell, Millennium Technologies' Shawn Higbee and Blackmans Cycles' William Himmelsbach. Higbee's fourth, along with a seventh in the first leg, kept him atop the championship standings after six of 16 races. Higbee leads Barnes, 7264, with Connell moving into third with 61. Chouinard pocketed $5000 from the $20,000 Superbike purse for his day's work. Connell's fourth and third earned him $2475, with Michael Barnes taking $2350 back to Florida. Barnes also earned $2000 for winning the Buell Lightning Series final, and $1500 for coming second to Eric Wood in the Honda Pro Oils 600 Sportbike main. What of Acree? The North Carolinian who came to New Hampshire second in the points fell down the standings. He'd decided on Saturday that he wouldn't ride in the rain, and his sponsors backed his decision. "I was given permission by my sponsor not to compete," he said on a drizzly Sunday morning. "I don't approve of this track in the rain." Acree said the surface was slick, though not as slick as Summit Point Raceway, the previous rain-out on the FUSA schedule. "There's a whole lot more concrete that's unprotected in the high-side zones," Acree said, while acknowledging the amount of air fence in place. "If you're in a group and you fall, you'll get bounced back into the group." RACE ONE There were complaints before the race started. With rain in the area, and predicted for much later in the afternoon, a number of teams approached FUSA officials about altering the program. They wanted the premier Unlimited Superbike races moved up in the schedule, instead of running them at approximately 3 p.m. as advertised. "Everybody here asked them to move the schedule up so we could run in the dry," Hooters/Mountain Dew Suzuki's Larry Pegram said. "They told us that was impossible to do. They were looking at the radar and it wasn't going to rain. Common sense tells you, when it looks like that, you don't know when it's going to rain. But I guess that's two times in a row that we've asked them to pump the schedule up and they've done that." had to have been made during the 11 a.m. riders' meeting, he said, to be fair to all the teams. The race was further delayed, by about 12 minutes, when Joe Spina crashed in tum three on the warm-up lap. The skies were an ominous, cold gray and the temperature seemed to drop into the 50s as the Superbikes lined up. Eric Wood, a Penguin Racing School instructor with vast experience at Loudon, got the jump followed by Greenwood, Barnes, Pegram, and Chouinard. Wood held on to the top spot for the first six laps, Barnes into second early on, with Chouinard up to third by lap three. Barnes took the lead on lap seven just as the first drops of rain began to (Above) Chouinard passes Greenwood for the lead exiting tum three in the first of two races. (Below) Eric Wood finished sixth In both races. Outgoing FUSA road race director Bill Syfan said it was a difficult decision to make. "It was the same as Summit Point [another race where the schedule wasn't changed and the races were eventually rained outl, I didn't know when it was going to rain. If it was going to rain, it's a no-win situation." Syfan said that it wasn't fair to the spectators· to move the premier races, which had been advertised for starting after 3 p.m. The decision would fall. Another lap, and it was strong enough to stop and the race was declared wet. All the teams were given a liberal 10 minutes to change tires, then two warm-up laps. The race would be a 13-lap sprint. Barnes got away strong on the first lap of the restart, Greenwood and Chouinard going with him, with Connell close, then Conboy. Greenwood soon took over and tried to check out, Chouinard patiently moving to second and biding his cue I e time. As the race passed the halfway mark, Chouinard began to close, moving around the outside of Greenwood going up the hill out of turn three. From there, it was no contest, Chouinard pulling away with Greenwood a safe second, 1.218 seconds back. "For most of the first race, I had him [Greenwood] in sight and then I could see that I was making progress. I was getting closer and closer to him," Chouinard said. "He made a pass on me, coming into three, he got a good run on me out of two; I think I slipped," Greenwood said. "He made a move and I just tried to latch on the back of him and get away from everybody else. He did get away from me and then, once he started creeping away, creeping away, I just tried to keep him in sight. Gauge where he was on the track to where I was and try to match his pace. I don't think I was." Four riders contested fourth - Connell, Conboy, Barnes, and Wood with Higbee just off the back. With five laps to go, Conboy passed Connell and the pair pulled slightly free, though they'd soon be sucked back in. "In then end, Des [Conboy], he did get me," Connell said. "He seemed like he was prepared to try a lot harder than I was. In the end I said, 'It's all yours.'" Conboy was established in third, nearly 21 seconds behind Greenwood, with Connell finishing on the same second. Barnes was a close fifth, with five seconds on Wood, who misjudged an oil smudge and fell back, with Higbee back in seventh. "I sort of wished it had stayed dry because I ran quite a hard tire in the first race when it was dry, and the further it got the faster my lap times got," said Connell, who had the second fastest dry lap time to Chouinard. "So I was sort of quite happy with the way the proceedings were going. I do congratulate the organization on stopping it when they did. Some people said they stopped it too early. My personal opinion is we don't need to make it any more dangerous than some of the places are." Barnes was suffering what he thought might be carpal-tunnel syndrome in his left wrist. Though he led the race in the dry, the slower pace of the rain race may have saved him. "The rain was my blessing here because it really didn't bother me too much, although I would've liked to stayed in that dry race leading it," Barnes said. "It didn't hurt me until I pulled my glove out. I didn't think about it. In the rain, you get this tense poise on the bike and I've got cramps on my shoulder and what not from being so tight the whole time." Wood said that, as he was racing with the trio ahead of him, he saw a "big shiny rainbow thing in turn one and basically totally shut off," he said. "I figured that everyone was going to crash, and it didn't happen. I went around another lap and I added like two seconds a lap to my lap n e _ s • JUNE 26, 2002 25

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