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/128178
Formula USA/Lockhart-Phillips Unlimited Superbike Series Final Round: Daytona International Speedway STORY AND PHOTOS BY HENNY RAY ABRAMS DAYTONA BEACH, FL, OCT. 20 he air went out of Craig Connell's championship hopes in the first of two legs of the final round of the Formula USA National Road Race Series Lockhart-Phillips Unlimited Superbike Series at Daytona International Speedway. The rear tire on Connell's Arclight Suzuki gradually lost air as the 12-lap race wore on, and with the air went his title hopes. "That was incredible. I've never had a flat tire before in my life," the Australian said. The 10-point cushion he took into the race turned into an 11- point deficit to Michael Barnes, the Hooters/Mountain Dew Suzuki rider who won the first leg over "14K the Movie's" Eric Wood and teammate Larry Pegram. To wrest the crown away from Barnes, Connell would not only have to win the race, but also hope that Barnes finished no better than fourth. It was possible, but not likely, and Bames made sure it was less so. In the second race, Bames jumped T 22 OCTOBER 30, 2002' cue I out to an early lead, taking Wood and KWS Motorsports/Millennium Technologies' Shawn Higbee with him. Connell chipped away and moved up to third on the ninth lap, after Wood was forced out by a freak accident on the same lap, and the three leaders raced as one, well in front of Arclight Suzuki's Lee Acree in fourth. Barnes wouldn't win - Higbee did with a perfect draft-pass at the line but he finished second, one spot in front of Connell - more than good enough for the number-one plate. "I knew he was there and all these guys have caught me too quickly before," Barnes said. "With Higbee doing it at Road America, I wasn't putting it past him that he could do what he did. I still wanted to win. I rode accordingly. I rode my own race. I rode the tires. I rode the racetrack." Higbee said: "Drafting by on the last lap was really hairy. I set him up coming out of the chicane and had the right amount of draft, but my dad told me to remember to draft on the lowside, because in the past I drafted to the high side and it just doesn't work. So 1 got it right this time • made the move down to the bottom." n .. _ s .. Connell was disappointed, but not disconsolate. "From the very first lap, it felt different - as in weaving and I thought, 'Well, who knows?' I was catching Michael [Barnes] and I got to a certain point and I couldn't hold it any more around the banking. And every lap, I'd back off a little bit more, a little bit more. In the end, the last few laps, I just thought I might have been a third throttle and that was as fast as I could go. It was incredible. Hey, what can you say? It's motorsports." Barnes ends the season with 245 points, 15 ahead of Connell, with Higbee third at 210. RACE ONE Pegram and Barnes put the orange Hooters/Mountain Dew Suzukis out front at the start of the first leg, held on a cloudy, warm afternoon at Daytona. Barnes took the lead quickly, and Pegram fell back to fourth, Eric Wood and Connell filling the middle spots, with Lee Acree, Higbee, and Blackmans Cycles' Michael Himmelsbach back in seventh. Higbee moved up, and then back the longer the race went, the worse his setup was. Larry Pegram (72) got the jump on the Unlimited Supet1)ike field In the final race of the Formula USA season at Daytona International Speedway. Among those giving chase are his teammate, the man who would be champion, Michael Barnes (34). "I put my head down after halfway, thinking we'd be ready to go," Higbee said. "I worked my way up to second in the first leg and had trouble and fell back." Barnes was able to pull out a cushion in the final stages of the race, Wood holding off Pegram and Acree. There would be no drafting at the line. '" just wanted to win, because that was going to increase my chances and I had Connell on my pitboard in seventh and I didn't see the last signal which would have put him further back," he said. Barnes went with the hardest Pirelli available, the yellow, while Connell and Acree had gone with the slightly softer green. How it would work was an unknown, so Barnes had to be careful. "We ran the hardest tire we've ever ran here," he said. "We've been reluctant to run it before. It's what we