Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

elbow when the bracket that holds the rear stand penetrated his skin and muscle, requiring nine stitches in the muscle and nine in the skin to fix the wound. "I kind of decided on the straightaway that I was going to make a move on Eric [Bostrom) in the left," Yates said. "I tried to shoot up in there, but I wasn't close enough. I got on the brakes pretty hard. I could've bumped Eric pretty good, but I wasn't ready to do that." Hayden was in front when Yates crashed, but he'd been with the Georgian enough earlier to see that he was in a mood to go for it. "Aaron was going hard," Hayden said. "I could tell he was ready to go today. I guess after the 600 race he said, now that it's over, he was going to let it hang out. He was going for it for sure. I didn't see him until I came around and seen the bike lying there. He was going for it - it was going to be a good race." With the red flag stopping the race, Bostrom opted to go to a softer compound rear tire. Hayden left his Honda alone. On the restart, it was finally someone else other than Bostrom getting the jump. It was Mladin. But Bostrom wasn't in the mood to let others lead and he took over on the run down to turn six at the end of the back straight. Hayden, meanwhile, moved around the fast-starting Hacking to take over third. On the following lap, Hayden went past MJadin on the back straight and set out after Bostrom. At the end of the 13th lap, Bostrom led by a second. That was whittled down to .9 of a second, .6, then .2, where it stayed for several laps. Hayden kept trying Bostrom down the back straight and into six, but the Kawasaki rider was simply too good on the brakes. A few more laps of constant hounding finally paid off for Hayden when Bostrom drifted a bit wide in turn six, allowing Hayden to pass. Bostrom stayed close, but traffic didn't do him any favors and he never got close enough to seriously challenge in the final few laps, coming up 1.6 seconds short at the finish line. "Ba'sically, we weren't fast enough," Bostrom said. "I went out this morning in practice and wasn't fast. And went out this afternoon and tried to get a start and see what we could do. And I pushed - I didn't want to push too hard at the beginning of the first one, because it's a long race, and it's hot, but I was just trying to be smooth. I needed to be smooth and try to conserve the whole bike for the end of the race. That didn't work out so good, but I got saved by the red flag. That was certainly the first red flag in about two years that I actually wanted to see. We got a breath of fresh air there. I don't know. I just kind of let it all hang out there on the second try, tried to do what I didn't do in the first one, which was try to go right from the beginning. And it seemed like we were dropping the (Above) Brian Livengood (741) was the first of the privateers at Mid-Ohio in both races. On Saturday, he took ninth, and on Sunday took eighth, In front of Jason DiSalvo (440). (Above) Kurtis Roberts (80) leads Chandler (10), and Hacking (92). Roberts ended up taking a sixth and a fourth over the weekend. Chandler didn't finish Saturday's race due to a broken footpeg, but rebounded to finish fifth on Sunday. we can get a good result tomorrow, though, if the track is dry." Roberts was also lonely, though he had the nagging pain from his injured leg to keep him company in the closing stages of the race. "I got such a bad start," Roberts said. "I had a lot of making up to do. I just couldn't do it all. I was catching those guys, then I lost three seconds to lappers. I just didn't get lappers where I needed them. A lack of setup time's killing me. We don't have anything to fall back on because we haven't been here all year. If we can get that better, it would be good tomorrow. But I've got to get a start and ride a little harder and hopefully the bike will be where I need it. I almost crashed big, tucked the front in the water. I hit the water twice and tucked the front once into six and it was too damp." Behind Roberts came DuHamel, the Honda factory man getting the best of Hacking in one of the few ontrack battles other than the Bostrom/Hayden fight. "We saw that there was no show out there so [Jamie] Hacking and I decided to make a show," DuHamel said. "We always think of the fans first. Other guys don't do that. I got a bad start. The clutch wasn't engaging that well and I let go and it was a little sensitive and we tried to be careful with that. Me and Jamie had a good little race, but that gave Kurtis [Roberts] some room. He put his head down and left. By the time I got past Jamie and put my head down and got in the 30s, my tires were gone. I kept looking up to see if I could see him, if he started slacking, but he kept going. I got into that empty void there and was just riding around staying out of trouble. I had a big gap on Jamie and a big gap in front of me. Three races left, hopefully we'll get a bit better. The bike was a little bit off and the idiot that did that was me. I'm the guy always giving them the information and I think we went a little bit the wrong way there. I think the front suspension could be working better. We're going to take a look at it. It [his injured foot] could be better, but it could be worse. I had a bad break, a spiral break of the meta-tarsal. It's healing, though. We had an X-ray done yesterday, but there's still a big gap in the bone where it's broken." Then came privateer Livengood, the HSA-backed Suzuki rider having gotten the better of Gobert. The Australian was still struggling physically, and he and the team had missed on the setup of the R7. "I didn't ride much in the dry this weekend," Gobert said, "and we just didn't have a good dry setup. We were expecting a wet race. Plus, my fitness just isn't good enough to hammer hard for 26 laps. I've got to build my fitness for Virginia. That's my goal - to finish the season well at Virginia." The lone factory man who failed to finish was Chandler, the HMC Ducati having snapped its footpeg off early in the race with Chandler running sixth. "We broke one and bent one at Laguna," Chandler explained. "We just thought it was because how tough Laguna is on you - but we did one here, going into the first turn. I ran a tire that I thought might not be as good in the beginning, but it'd be good at the end. I was just settling in and getting in a good rhythm. I thought about staying out, but we weren't even halfway and, this place, you're on your feet a lot." RACE TWO One thing became certain straight away on Sunday - Bostrom wasn't going anywhere in this one. Though he did try. Again, the holeshot went to Bostrom and, with his head down, he proceeded to open up .9 of a second on the field by the end of the first lap. The pursuers were led by Hayden, with Yates, Mladin, Roberts, Picotte, DuHamel, Hacking and Chandler in tow. Chandler was already a tad unhappy, having to start on his backup bike after the clutch failed on his number-one bike on the warm-up lap. It would take a while, but things would improve for the three-time AMA Superbike Champion. It became clear straight away that Hayden and Co. weren't going to let Bostrom clear off in this one. On the second lap, they'd closed the gap, with Hayden just .4 of a second behind and the others in tow. Nothing much changed for a while, the top four separated by less than half a second as they drew away from the second pack. At the head of that was Picotte, but the French Canadian tossed his Ducati down the road in turn 13 on the seventh lap. "Kurtis [Roberts] blocked the line and I lost touch with the four guys in front," Picotte explained later. "I was trying to close the gap and it's not easy to close the gap on those guys. I didn't go through there faster than I had before, but I must have hit a seam and it tucked the front. The water hose was broken, so I couldn't restart... A red flag a few laps later would give him the opportunity to get the bike going again and he would venture back out, finishing an eventual 31st. Back at the front, Hayden took the lead for the first time on the ninth lap. At the end of 10 laps, he led by half a second. A good run through traffic gave him a 1.B-second lead at the end of 12 laps, but it was all for naught as Yates crashed in the uphill left hander (turn seven) - and very nearly hit Bostrom in the process. The crash brought out the red flag, with Yates trapped under his bike in a precarious position on the outside of the track. He ended up with a gashed c u c • e n _ _ os • AUGUST 7,2002 13

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