Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128172
~~-~I -. ~ < - ~ Formula USAILockhart-Phillips Unlimited Superbike Series • - roaC/. race --- -- --- --- Round 7: Portland International Raceway (Left) The BIg Tbree: Craig Connell IlS) IeacIs Michael Bames 1341 and Larry Pegram (72) during Unlimit8cl Superblke action at PortIancIIntematIonaI Raceway. Connell and Pegram spilt wins, and Barnes _ second In both. "Every now and then, I just don't get it turned in time, and I just let it drift. Rather than forcing the bike and wearing myself out, I let it drift," he said. "When Barney [Barnes] was in tight, I purposely went a little bit wider a few times to stop anyone else coming up the inside. And the same thing down the straight. I didn't want to have an unknown going into turn one." LARRY PEGRAM AND CRAIG CONNELL EACH WIN AT 'PIR STORY AND PHOTOS BY HENNY RAY ABRAMS PORTLAND,OR,SEPT.9 he final showdown will come at Daytona. and Craig Connell holds the best hand. The Arclight Suzuki Australian won the first LockhartPhillips Unlimited Superbike leg at Portland International Raceway and was a close third when the second leg was stopped by a light drizzle on the 11 th of 18 laps, with Hooters/Mountain Dew Suzuki's Larry Pegram and Michael Barnes in front of him. It all added up to a loss of one point to Bames, second in both legs, who he now leads by 11 points going into the final two races in Florida. Pegram took third in the first race, then got the holeshot, and the $250 Cycle News Holeshot Award that goes with it, in the second race, never giving up the lead. It was his first win of the year. Millennium Technologies' Shawn Higbee was fourth in both races, closer in the second than the first, with Blackmans Cycles Aprilia's Michael Himmelsbach fifth in the first and sixth in the second. Fifth in the second leg was Team Embry's Geoff May, after a tire change and front-end adjustment improved on his first-leg ninth. Connell has 210 points, Barnes 199, and Higbee holds 174. T RACE ONE Pegram took the lead off the start of the first leg, Barnes in second until the second lap when he took over, controlling the leading quintet for a handful of laps until Pegram came past again. Barnes was in front on the seventh, Pegram second, then Connell, Higbee, and Himmelsbach, desperately hanging on to the back and waiting for the end. "I struggled: Himmelsbach said. "We've had a little handling problem all weekend, and we finally got it fixed, but we didn't know how it Mike Himmelsbach ended up ftfth and sblth In the two races on his Blackman'. Aprills. 28 SEPTEMBER 18, 2002· cue n _ VII' S would go for a long distance. So I was trying to save the tires and everything." PIR was described by "14K the Movie's" Eric Wood as "just two long straightaways with a few squiggles at the end: an accurate description for the 1.92-mile layout where passing opportunities are rare. Most come at the end of the two long straights, and Connell was planning his move on the back straight. For several laps, he'd drift off to the left as the lead five ran up the back straight. Part of it was intentional, part unintentional. Connell made the move for the lead at the end of the back stretch on the 16th of 18 laps. There was little comfort in it, though, with four riders in his wake. None, however, could unseat him, and Connell sped to a narrow win, .227 of a second over Barnes, followed, in quick succession, by Pegram, Higbee, and Himmelsbach - the top five covered by 1.107 seconds. "I'm just really, I guess, tentative, about making the same mistake I made in the 600 race [where he crashed out of second) and I need to be a little more on the gas than off the gas there," Barnes said. "Craig's [Connell] really making us work for it today. I'm going to try to do something different in [the second] race. Do something at the beginning and try to get away, because, really, it's my only hope, I think." Pegram was third, then Higbee, who didn't have enough to get by him. "The pace was slowing down a little bit toward the middle and definitely at the end: he said. "There wasn't much we could do about it. It's really hard to pass here. It's one line through a lot of these corners, and they're all linked together. I wanted to get in there and mix it up, but we couldn't get under them on the brakes, but I had my lever set in the wrong position and had some brake fade." Back in fifth, Himmelsbach said he was conserving his tires for the end, but miscounted the laps. "I didn't realize the race was that far in," he said. "I saw the white flag. I was too far back. That was my mistake as a rider." Eric Wood was sixth, eight seconds back, his Suzuki GSX-R750 suffering stability problems on the back straight, as well as a power deficit. Synergy Racing Technologies' Brian Parriott was seventh, by himself most of the race before Tuff Dog Racing's Alan Schmidt closed hard in the late going.