Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

problems, but that wouldn't do for the race. "We just made some changes and I think we finally got onto something and it worked really good for me in the race," said Chandler, who had to monitor the possibility of an overheating engine. "Kurtis was really riding good considering the amount of time he's been off. You always kind of expected him not to be consistent and sharp the whole race. Even when he was in the front, he started making a few mistakes early on and I could see he was going to kind of come back. I tried to get him earlier, but he was still fighting, so he just kept charging, so as long as Miguel didn't really make a gap on us, I wasn't too bothered to get by him until the end." BRIEFLY••• Brainerd International Raceway is scheduled to become one of three all·concrete. quarter-mile drag strips. The track is planning to rip up the drag strip. which begins the long front straight. and replace it with one. continuously poured concrete patch. How well that will endure the brutal Minnesota winters remains to be seen. The strip shouldn't affect the road-race track. except in the wet. though motorcycles currently don't race in the rain. Three months after leaving the AMA. Gary Mathers is back. but only for one race. The former operations manager has agreed to help Superbike manager Ron Barrick at the July 14 AMA/World Superbike weekend at Mazda Raceway at laguna Seca. Mathers was asked to return because Barrick will be occupied with his duties as clerk of the course for the FIM race. He'lI basically be performing all of Barrick's normal AMA duties at the race. Valvoline EMGO Suzuki's Marty Cragg III was sporting a soft cast on his left foot at Brainerd. the result of an incident at Road America three weeks earlier. Craggill said that the rear tire on his Suzuki GSX-R 1000 suddenly let go. "My neck went up against the screen and my foot come off the footpeg and I ran over it. The bones inside went crunch." The damage was three broken metatarsals. Craggill used a larger-sized boot to win the Formula Xtreme race. Who gets to race at the World Superbike race at Mazda Raceway at Laguna Seca? The answer comes shortly when the AM's Superbike Commission chooses which of the nine riders whose names the AMA submitted will be eligible. The AMA submitted nine names. all three American Honda riders. three Blimpie Yoshimura Suzuki riders. and the lone entries from Yamaha. HMC Ducati. and Austin/Bleu Bayou Ducati. Kawasaki's Eric Bostrom is in as the third member of Kawasaki's World Superbike team. The strong possibility exists that only six of the AMA riders will be let in. Guessing the top four or five to get in is simple - Nicky Hayden. Miguel DuHamel. Mat Mladin. Aaron Yates. Anthony Gobert. After that. it gets tougher. Do you let in Kurtis Roberts. who's missed much of the season with injury? What about a Ducati? Is Pascal Picotte. currently fifth in the AMAlChevy Trucks U.S. Superbike Championship. more worthy or three-time AMA Superbike champion Doug Chandler? American Honda's Nicky Hayden is one of the riders certain to get a wild card for the U.S. round of the World Superbike Championship at laguna Seca. "For me to race a World Superbike race on my home track. it's a big deal. I'm going to try to make the most of it." Hayden said. It may not be a formal audition. but there's a chance he'lI be racing for someone who' s watching. That someone is five-time 500cc World Champion Mick Doohan. The buzz in the paddock at Assen was that Doohan. who now works with HRC in a largely ceremonial post. would be starting a team for 2003 with Hayden as one of the nders. What makes the rumor tantalizing is that Jeremy Burgess. the crew chief for both ValentinO Rossi and Doohan. and Wayne Gardner before that. may be tiring of the intervention of some members of Rossi's extended posse. and could be looking for another challenge. This isn't the first time that Doohan made a run at Hayden. last year at laguna Seca. Doohan offered Hayden a 250cc GP ride on a team that never materialized. Though it's too early to make many decisions on next year's Superbike calendar - there are some tracks with long-term contracts - one of the possibilities is the Barber track near Birmingham. Alabama. "There's a high probability of that. but who the promoter or co-promoter is is key." AlMA road race manager Ron Barrick said. The Colonel may be out at Brainerd International Raceway. but the bumps are still there. The combination of scorching heat and track wear made the three-mile track surface more challenging than ever. The bumps were magnified and the sealant. used to fill cracks in the asphalt. was a slippery mess. forcing riders to alter their lines If they wanted to avoid crashing. Asked why his time was less than stellar after the first day of qualifying. American Hondas Nicky Hayden said: "For one. the track the surface is crap. It's got all these sealer patches. Going into two there's a couple of them. I never remembered it here before. It's so greasy across those things. And then. when you come out of the comer, you'll be driving out and you hit one and it spins up and spins. The track's definitely worse. I remember the sealer, but nothing like it is now. It's pretty slippery out there. Especially this aftemoon. I think it was even worse. " Blimpie Yoshimura Suzuki's Mat Mladin concurred. "The track's terrible. The sealer and it's rough, really For Chandler, it was his first podium since Pikes Peak of last year. "It makes me feel good for the team," he added. "Our first race [Fontana] out, we got a pair of fourths. I thought, well we'll be on an uphill climb from here, the bike's good, I feel good, then we got a bit of bad luck. I haven't felt I was able to move around on the bike as well as rough." Mladin went on to say about the bumps, "Tum one's not too bad. tum two's not bad, but once you get into three and exiting three and all the way there till you sort of come on the straight pretty much. I think it's getting a lot worse, the lap times show that: 1.1 seconds off last year's pole. - American Honda's Miguel DuHamel said: "The track is definitely a lot more bumpy than it was last year. And the sealant. I don't know where they got that. on sale at Home Depot or what. but it was terrible. There's no way it can stay like this or get worse. This is as worse as I'd like to see this track. Hopefully, It'll be doing something next year. So you're lines are limited how many places you can pass somebody and what you want to do." Kawasaki's Eric Bostrom wasn't bothered by the bumps. The problem was making his ZX-7R work over them. "I don't mind the bumps, I just wish the bike would kind of work on the bumps. Right now, that's not the case. We really need to get this chatter out of the bike's front and rear. When the rear gets shot off over the bumps, it stays hung out and I really can't accelerate. I think our race setup's pretty decent." Corona Extra EBSCO Media Suzuki's Jimmy Moore has been involved in a numbers game all year that the other Genuine Suzuki Accessories Superstock riders are tired of watching him win. In practice and qualifying, Moore uses his even number 86 so that he can qualify with the faster riders. But in the race, he reverts to number one. The practice is perfectly legal. according to AlMA road race manager Ron Bamck, though Barrick did say he was considering asking him to stick with one number for the entire race weekend. Corona Extra EBSCO Media Suzuki's Steve Rapp finished his first race since Fontana. though not without controversy. "They said I jumped the start," Rapp said. "I came in to do my stop and go, I passed my start/finish line, I got the meatball flag at my pit box, and when I was there they threw the red flag and said it didn't count." They were deballng it and they said he crossed the start/finish line so therefore it does count because he came in. "Right when I was getting ready to go. then they said it doesn't count. Then they said they were going to show me the stop and go for the first three laps of the second race. but they never did. so I didn't pull in. Why pull in?" they didn't show for me to pull in. So I stayed out." AMA road race manager Ron Barrick had a slightly different story. He said the team was informed that Rapp had to pit within the first three laps of the restart and that they did display his number for three laps. When he didn't come in, he was docked a lap. The team discussed it with the AlMA after the race and said they wouldn't file a protest since it could affect the finishing position of another Suzuki rider, Attack Suzuki's Jason Pridmore. who might have lost points had Rapp been credited with second. As for the race, Rapp said. "To be honest with you, I'm glad they told me to stay out because I haven't ridden at all. To be five seconds back and be able to catch up and pass them was good." For the first time since Daytona. Josh Hayes was being asked about his race, not about his health. The Valvoline EMGO Suzuki rider, who suffered a serious hand injUry in April. was back in the Formula Xtreme wars, but not the Pro Honda Oils Supersport mix. He finished seventh in FX on a hastily prepared machine, "Barry [McMahanl threw together a motorcycle in just a matter of a couple of weeks out of old Xtreme parts from years past. and a new frame and swingarm and built some new motors out of some old parts. We didn't have the big motors that these guys had over there." Having been out for two months, sorting out a motorcycle in two practice sessions and qualifying was a challenge. and Hayes thought he might have a chance in the race. "We had a couple of good laps in the beginning and it looked like we might catch up to those guys. I ran over something on the track or something and got a vibration in the rear tire and was having some struggles in one and two with that. I ended up having to slow down a little bit and worked my way backwards from there. " Hayes said that his hand worked better than he thought it would and that he didn't notice it on the racetrack. "About two weeks ago. I went to Talladega for a little WERA race and did some riding there. just to see how things would go, make sure I could ride. I was pleasantly surprised. I just wanted to do laps more than anything." Now, however, he's lost his machinery to Marty Craggill, who was brought in as his replacement. "Keeping Marty on board. they didn't have enough crew to give me my 600 back also. So apparently, after I left. now there's not enough resources for me to come back and ride all my stuff. " Bruce Transportation Group's Alex Gobert hopes to be back for the next round at Mazda Raceway at laguna Seca. but at what strength? The youngest of the Goberts snapped two bones in his right foot in a motocross accident at lake Elsinore on the Monday prior to Brainerd. The doctor he saw in Califomia proposed putting the foot in a cast for three to four weeks, then another three to four weeks recovery. So he flew back to Australia, where his doctor suggested a natural healing process. If he a I'd like to. This is the first race back that I actually felt good, comfortable, could change direction on the thing, get side to side really good." DuHamel is usually the most fearless rider, but at Brainerd he was willing to be less so. On the third lap, he lost the front end and almost fell. The team had made a small change to the front and it wasn't working. does retum for laguna Seca. his right foot will certainly get a workout. not only by the physicality of the track. but because he's a rider who uses a lot of rear brake. Corona Extra will field Adam Fergusson and Jordan Szoke in the August 4 Suzuka 8-Hours, according to team principle landers Sevier. Szoke has an open weekend from the Canadian Superbike wars and Fergusson isn't in the hunt for any of the AMA championships. The team will have a number of different sponsors for the machinery, which will be sent over from Japan and built in Amenca, before the team takes it back over. Sevier said the 20-strong crew would be composed of half of the current crew and half of their 24-hour crew. The group will leave just after the July 28 Mid-Ohio round and return just before the final race at Virginia International Raceway on August 11 . The Buell Pro Thunder class is out for 2003, though it may be moved to WERA. Where does that leave the current teams? "It's kind of early to tell," said Henry Duga, Buell's senior man at the track. "I think it was a little bit in the wind. We've heard some rumblings about it last year and it never really happened and now it finally did happen, so I guess we're just going to have to go back and make some decisions as to what we're going to do in the future. I don't have an answer for you at thiS moment. Now the hour has come when we know that the class is finally over with and we'll just have to sit down and see what's going to happen." As to whether the team would consider moving to WERA, Duga said. "It's still open. We still have ties with F1JSA with the Lightning Series. We had Enc Wood in the Sportbike class [at Loudon] a couple of weeks ago. I guess it's safe to say there's possibilities out there. We just have to sit down make up our mind which way we want to go." Munroe Motors' Tom Montano. the defending national champion. said that he liked ra<:lng WERA in the past. but didn't know how many teams would move there because it's not "the big show." "When it was F1JSA. back in the old days. it was fun because we'd do the endurance races and do the sprints. But the AMA. I don't know what they're thinking. I understand one thing about eliminating the class, but they could eliminate some other classes and mix some classes, like pretty much the rest of the world and have a couple of free-fall classes like ours. The other thing is they talk about our class as opposed to the 25Os, but the 250s have more regular guys. But I think there's three guys that go fast in 2505, maybe four. And at least in ours there's five. There's one f-ing freak [Kirk McCarthy] at the moment who's really hauling ass." Montano said he didn't know how much retum there would be in WERA. "We're not going to do it." There is a possibility the team may try the Pro Honda Oils Supersport class, which is allOWing the Ducati 748 twin next year. Austin/Bleu Bayou Ducati's Pascal Pic_ had a rough weekend. There was a niggling misfire that they couldn't trace to an ignition or fuel problem. "We pretty much couldn't figure it out. We had an oil leak. a problem with the clutch also. And finally like last 30 minutes before the final event we couidn't even figure out what was missing. And finally we switched the tank-fuel fiiter, fuel - pretty much everything - the whole wiring hamess. spark plug. and wire. We hit something that it fixed it. but we don't know exactly [whatJ. And we went into the race and the exhaust cracked so it was making a lot of noise, probably fourth lap, fifth lap. It's not a bad finish. The tires have been hurling me a lot this weekend. That was pretty much the stiffest one we had on the list this weekend. There was one that was a little stiffer. but the left side was way too stiff. Because they had some kind of a dual compound so we picked out what we thought was going to be the best. but it didn't tum out so great. American Honda's Nicky Hayden admitted that he hadn't been at 100 percent prior to the race. "The last few weeks. three or four weeks have been pretty hard on me. off the track. I tWIsted my ankle real bad about two, three weeks ago. First two or three days I couldn't get off the couch, the thing swelled up bad. Since I did my foot I could ride a little bit of short track. I couldn't run or bicycle or anything. I could swim a lillie bit, but even that caused swelling. I think now I can go back and get back in my routine a little bit for Laguna. " The Hayden crew did Brainerd in style. "It was an awesome weekend right from the start." Nicky Hayden said. "Me and my bros and my parents and some friends of ours, we chartered a plane up here and we stayed right here (at the condos inside tum 1OJ. So in the morning, I'd be watching the 600 practice brushing my teeth. Waking up at the track is fun." Hayden also found a good-luck note from one of his sisters in his bag when he arrived. Blimpie/Yoshimura Suzuki's Mat Mladln had a premonition that bad things were happening. "I heard something on the start line. like a ticking type sound on the start line and about four laps into the race. I knew something was going to happen because I'd heard it before. For the last fIVe or six laps before I pulled in. I was waiting for it. By 11 to go, 10 to go, it just wasn't pulling any more. Through tum one, it felt like I hadn't changed down a gear. On this track, you really notice it because it's so wide open so much." U c I • n e _ S • JULY 10, 2002 11

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