Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Pro Honda Oils U. S. Supersport Round 2: California Speedway . . . . . . . []C!!J@ OneBY SCOTT ROUSSEAU PHOTOS BY BRIAN J. NELSON FONTANA, CA, APR. 6 fter a crash-filled stint with Team Yamaha the first time around, Jamie Hacking may be making good on his promise to become a kinder, gentler motorcycle racer. If his performance at California Speedway is any indication, his new "go slow to go fast" philosophy could payoff big in the Pro Honda Oils U.S. Supersport Series. There's still a long way to go, but already Hacking has been a major player in the first two rounds, backing up his second-place finish at Daytona with a commanding victory at Fontana to assume the series points lead. En route to the win in the 1.7 -lap Supersport feature, the South Carolinian needed only to brush aside Tommy Hayden on the opening lap before putting his factory YZF-R6 on cruise for the remainder of the race. Team Yamaha's Aaron Gobert finished second. Hayden was third. "I'm glad to be on top," Hacking said. "Things are just going really well for me right now, really smooth. The bike is working flawlessly - I can't complain one bit about the motorcycle that I'm riding. I wish I had gotten a better start. I had a little clutch grab there on the start, and then Damon [Buckmaster] swung over on me, and I had to back off, and Tommy got the holeshot. I sat in behind Tommy for the first lap or two, and I knew I was running a little harder than he was. 1 knew if I could get around him and run some low lap times, some 27s, I could kind of shake these guys up a bit, and they wouldn't maybe respond that quickly. Those guys obviously rode a great race, but we got the job done today. That's what we came here to do, and we did it." Hacking never did dip into the 27s, but perhaps more importantly, he also never appeared to put a wheel wrong, as he clicked off low one minute 28-second times lap after lap. His margin of victory at the finish was a little over three seconds, but at A times that gap was as much as 7.5 seconds during the race. Behind Hacking, there were two distinct battle groups. The first included his Yamaha teammates Gobert and Damon Buckmaster, the two tussling with Hayden over the second and third positions. Hayden managed to fend Gobert and Buckmaster off for the first eight laps, but then Gobert drafted past the Kawasaki rider at the finish line to take over second place at the start of lap eight. Buckmaster overtook Hayden as they came out of tum 21 for the run onto the speedway on lap nine. Buckmaster then turned in the fastest lap of the race, a 1 :27.947, on lap 10, though it took him two more laps to sprint past Gobert and take over second place. Buckmaster was looking good, but then his luck ran out about four laps from the finish. "By the time I got around Aaron and Tommy, I had enough in me and enough tire left to try and chase Jamie down, and things were looking all right," Buckmaster said. "Then I cut one of the curbs in the back [infield] section, and I flattened the tire and flattened the rim with about four laps to go. The tire had about 15 pounds of air in it at the end of the race. I could feel it getting slower down the straights because the tire was going down, and couldn't even open the throttle coming out of the turns because the rim was vibrating so badly. It was just one of those things where I had to consolidate, you know? I was just trying to do the best I could with what I had left underneath me." Both Gobert and Hayden came back around Buckmaster on the last lap, Hayden's pass robbing Yamaha of a podium sweep. "Yeah, I kind of feel like I let some people down, but all in all I think I proved that I can be there," Buckmaster said. For his part, so did Gobert, who still feels that he is not completely recovered from that horrific Daytona crash of 2002. "It was good," Gobert said. "I'm just happy to be out there. I'm not really trying to rush into things. I was with Tommy, and we were setting a really good pace, and I was happy with that. I knew the opportunity would come to get him. Basically I just hung in there, and I got the opportunity to draft him. It's really hard to pass here, so I took it when I had it. It was really good. It was a happy, steady race, and we set a nice, comfortable pace. Buckmaster went past me, but he slowly came back to me at the end. I think I ran the same lap times the whole race." Hayden remained consistent to the finish as well. "It started out really good," Hayden said. "I got out in the lead and led for a lap or two maybe, but then Jamie came by. I tried to hang with him, but he was just a couple tenths faster than me each lap. He started getting away, and I just couldn't keep up. I just tried to keep as much pressure on him as I could, just keep putting the laps in, and then maybe he'd come back to me or get into traffic or something. Then Damon and Aaron got in there, and I pretty much battled with them for the second half of the race. The last lap I was able to get a run on Damon and outbrake him into turn 12. "I thought maybe their tires would go off, so I didn't want to get too far behind them," Hayden said. "Also, I thought traffic could come into play. I got some pretty good breaks in traffic. I got through it pretty good. I just tried not to give up. I tried to keep them close because a lot of times at the end of the race when the tires get greasy, I'm able to finish up pretty strong. It usually works out good for me if I can stick close, so I just try not to give up." Further back there was an even more ferocious scrap among Yoshimura Suzuki's Ben Spies, No Limit Honda's Doug Chandler, American Honda's Miguel DuHamel, Team Yamaha's Jason DiSalvo, and the Erion duo of Roger Lee Hayden and Jake Zemke, Zemke running as high lAbove) Gobert (96) had his strongest run since coming back from his 2002 Daytona crash. He finished second. Buckmaster (6) slipped to fourth after banging a curb and flattening his front tire. (Left) Hacking on the Fontana podium. The South Carolinian now leads the series, 69-55, over teammate Gobert. cue. e n e _ os • APRIL 16. 2003 25

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