Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Craig Connell (6) leads Martin and Bames en route to his first-leg victory. great hurry. They looked like they were riding pretty hard and not really getting anywhere. 1just took my time, and as it turned out we won." On his first visit to Mosport, Connell described the track as a "piece of cake. Pretty easy. The hardest thing about this is you've got some blind corners." Martin and Barnes stuck together to the end, Martin coming out just in front after learning how to use Connell's fast line through turn two. "The American guys are very fast here," Martin said. "They are very good in the corners. They have a lot of corner speed. They are good on the brakes. Almost everywhere they are good. I have good power on the straightaway. I can stay with the guys." Martin's best lap came toward the end - a 1:22.847, well under his qualifying. It was good enough to keep Barnes at bay. Fourth went to Barnes' teammate Pegram. Pegram was in fourth when he tried to make a move on Barnes. Not only did he not make the pass, but he dropped to seventh place. It took him until the penultimate lap to work his way back to the front of a six-rider pack fighting for fourth. "I screwed up," Pegram said. "I don't know where. I tried to pass Barney [Barnes] on the outside and ran wide and moved back to sixth or seventh and worked my way back to fourth. I thought we were going to go away, me and Barney, in the first one if they hadn't stopped it." Just behind Pegram came Jeff Williams, the Diablo Racing Suzuki rider who began the season on the sidelines. Williams nearly began the race on the sidelines, getting pinched at the start and completing the first lap in 13th place. From there, it was a matter of scratching and clawing his way to the front. "I realized I was catching the leaders, and when I realized that I put my head down a little bit, caught up to Eric Wood, [Michael] Taylor, and Clint [McBain], a whole pack," Williams said. "Once I could get into the draft, it helped me a lot." This was Williams' second weekend back. After racing for Alan Labrosse's Honda team in 2001, he found himself without a seat in 2002. A series of events followed that landed him on the Suzuki team backed by Diablo, the world's largest paintball company. Brooklin Cycle Yamaha's Michael Taylor was sixth, lucky to have survived a run-in with defending class champion Frank Trombino. Trombino blew an engine on the back straight while in fourth place, just in front of Taylor. "I wasn't looking through my windscreen for about two seconds there while I was shifting gears tucked in the bubble," Taylor said. "And I looked up and I cleaned out the side of him and took out his handlebars. I thought we were both going down. The Aprilia [Himmelsbach] and [Larry] Pegram and somebody else all went by me and I had to try to get by them." Himmelsbach would finish seventh on his back-up bike. The Pennsylvan- ian was a victim of a quirky Canadian racing rule which mandates that any time a safety car is on the course, the riders have to remain in place. Himmelsbach, and the rest of the field, was stuck out on the course when the first-leg crash brought out a red flag. Since he wouldn't have been able to start the Aprilia had he shut if off, he had to let it idle. Already it had been overheating. The delay sealed its fate. Himmelsbach brought it in on a sweep truck and raced to seventh on his back-up. "This bike's running good," he said of the RSV-1000 which he'd ridden for only eight or 10 laps all weekend. "It's just not as fast in a straight line." RACE TWO Martin led the second leg, with Barnes getting by on the second lap and holding off Martin until the seventh. Once in front, Martin was able to stay out there, though Connell never gave him any rest. There was a chance to make a run on the final lap, but Connell ran into a backmark- er on the final lap and the race was Martin's. He celebrated with a stand-up wheelie over the line, then did a perfect circular smoking burnout with his rear tire on the victory lap. It probably cost him the race. When Martin went through the dyno run after the race, his Suzuki made 150.3 horsepower. When the team fitted a standard tire, it made 149. "That was a very expensive smoker," Martin said after being dropped four places, as per Canadian rules, for failing the test. Martin surmised that the tire was a little bit lighter and a little less tall, which made the engine appear more powerful. It also pointed out the whimsy of the dynamometer. Connell was given the win, though he had nothing but praise for Martin. "He rope fantastic," Connell said after finishing .687 of a second back. "I tried to outrun him. He was too good for me." After losing second place to Connell, Barnes fell to fourth, then recovered to take third, a second behind Connell. "The bike just didn't work as well as it did in the first one," Barnes said. "It had a little bit of a chatter here and there. I thought there might be a little bit of temperature in the track even though it's later. It just didn't work as well. I started thinking about the championship after 1 had a couple of moments." Jeff Williams was next, 5.3 seconds behind the winner, with Himmelsbach chasing him to the end. Himmeslbach might have caught him had the race gone much longer. With four laps remaining, the transmission in Williams' Diablo Racing Suzuki began to give him a false neutral. After Himmelsbach came another battle, this one between Shawn Higbee and Brooklin Cycle Yamaha's Jean-Francois Cyr. Higbee's day was compromised by what he thought was a tire problem in the first race. He felt a vibration in the rear and slowed, eventually finishing 12th. A visual inspection showed no obvious problems and the wheel weights were in place. He started badly in the second race, then worked his way past Cyr on the final lap. The second leg gets under way with Pegram (72) leading again. Martin Is right behind him, with Bames (34) and Connell (6) giving chase. cue' e n e _ S • .JULY 31,2002 23

• Cover