Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

AMAIPro Honda Oils U.S. Supersport Series been probably my worst yet, with my hand injury and a few bike problems we've had here and there. Hopefully, Round 6: Road America we got it turned around here. Maybe this was the spark we needed." Buckmaster ran third and then inherited second after his young start, and then Kneedraggers.com Yamaha's Matt Wait went down in teammate DiSalvo dismounted spectacularly while braking for turn five on lap four. DiSalvo lost the front and then slid for over 100 feet before lightly coming to rest against a crashwall. He was uninjured in the crash. Zemke would take himself out of con- turn one, and DiSalvo dropped it in turn eight on the opening lap. tention by crashing in turn eight a lap later. The Erion rider remounted again, only to run off the track later in the race. He would ultimately wind up Roger Lee Hayden took the lead on the restart and set a fairly brisk pace for the conditions. Buckmaster, DiSalvo, Tommy Hayden and Erion Honda's Jake Zemke all attempted to go with him. Only Tommy would catch him before the finish. "I got a pretty good start," Roger Lee Hayden said. "My first tap I didn't I felt like I rode pretty easy, and then I looked back coming onto the front ELKHART LAKE, WI, JUNE 8 he Pro Honda Oils U.S. Supersport Series was the wettest race of the weekend at Road America, and Team Kawasaki's Tommy Hayden not only survived but thrived in the challenging conditions to win his first Supersport race of the season. In a classic brother vs. brother battle, Tommy Hayden came from several seconds back, ran down and passed Erion Honda's Roger Lee Hayden before the completion of lap nine, and then went on to win the race by 3.481 seconds. Roger Lee went on to finish second, with Team Yamaha's Damon Buckmaster coming home a solid third, some 14.8 seconds back. "I was actually really looking forward to a dry race," Tommy Hayden said. "I felt like we had the bike working really good, but probably it would have been tougher when it was dry. Now that it's over, I'm glad that it rained. Everything worked out good." Not everything. Instead of moving forward in the points, Hayden was later punted backward by AMA officials after his factory ZX-6R's oil T It was another Hayden, however, who won the race Tommy Hayden. The eldest of the three brothers ran down Roger Lee to take the victory, his first of the season in the class. Here he leads Jake Zemke. Roger Lee Hayden (95) was the man to beat in the soaking-wet Supersport final. He led off the start and was chased by Jason DiSalvo (40) and Damon Buckmaster (6). pump was found not to be in compliance with AMA rules (see sidebar). "It was a tough day," Hayden said. "I just tried not to get too excited early. I was just trying to feel the track out, and as the race went on, I just kept feeling better and better. I was working my way toward the front and watching the times drop a lot. J caught up to Rog there the last lap and a half. I felt good, and I had an opportunity to get by, so I went by. Then I just put my head down and tried to put a pretty good last lap in. Races like that are mentally tough because you have to watch for all the feelers and all the slick spots. You can't make a very big mistake, or you'll be on the ground." Several riders did hit the ground, losing out on potentially great finishes. Team Yamaha's Jason DiSalvo and No Limit Honda's Doug Chandler were among that unfortunate group. In fact, the race had to be completely restarted and declared as a wet race when rain hit the grid just before the turn one at the start of lap five, moving into second. Buckmaster said that he thought about going hard after the Kawasaki rider but then decided straight, and I saw that I had a little gap on Damon [Buckmaster]. I just tried to maintain and stay within my limits and not do anything too dumb. By SCOTT ROUSSEAU PHOTOS By BRIAN J. NELSON ninth. Meanwhile, Tommy Hayden caught Buckmaster on the brakes in against it, settling in for third. "I'm fairly pleased," Buckmaster said. "It's always good to win, but... we never got any real wet track time this weekend, and it's always pretty daunting when you've got to bolt It might have looked a little squirrely, but I was comfortable that way. It was mentally tough out there - there were guys crashing everywhere, dirt on the track, bikes laying every place. I just some wets on and really go out and race. That's not the way we like to do it. I tried as best I could. I had some problems getting the bike to hook up tried to stay focused and not do anything dumb. When Tom came by me, I tried to stay with him, but there really wasn't a comfortable pace for me at the end of the race. I thought about in the rain. In the first part of the race I thought that maybe I could not just hang with Rog but pass him for the lead toward the end. Then I saw a just maybe going for it, but I really needed a good result. This year has plus zero on my board, and that was Tommy. After he got by me, I just All seemed rosy after the Pro Honda Oils Supersport race at Road America. A win by Team Kawasaki's Tommy Hayden over his brother, Erion Racing's Roger Lee Hayden, naturally made for a good story. But behind the scenes, trouble was brewing as Tommy's factory ZX-6R was held up in the post-race tech. The machine was still there long after the Formula Xtreme race, late in the day. "They're checking our oil pump - I don't know what's going on," Kawasaki road race manager Mike Preston said. "We're waiting to see. I think everything is going to be okay." It wasn't. AMA Pro Racing officials deemed Hayden's oil pump to be not in compliance with Superstock rules and penalized him another 20 points and another $2000. It was the second time in three races that a Hayden Kawasaki had been deemed illegal, though the other one was in the Superstock class. The chronology of the events may have been a bit dubious, as an official AMA press release was circulated to the few remaining journalists in the Road America pressroom before, according to Preston, the team was notified of the penalty. "I don't know (about the penalty], I'm supposed to go back and talk to them," Preston said after hearing about the AMA release. "I know that they were questioning it, but they haven't told me that. They told me to come back and talk to them." Preston said that the AMA said that the oil pump didn't look like the AMA's sample part, "Which is a new part," Preston said. "1 explained to them that when you have got a new part and a used part, there has got to be some margin for wear. You can see wear marks and galling in ours. So now I have got to go back and talk to them. (As far as the penalty], I certainly haven't signed any paperwork yet." AMA procedure is that a team must sign official documentation that states the infraction and the course of action to be taken. AMA road race manager Ron Barrick reiterated that Hayden's oil pump did not meet the standard specifications of the AMA's sample part. "It didn't meet the tolerances," Barrick said. Which begs the question, if Kawasaki theoretically has two strikes against it, might a third strike bring about a more severe penalty? Barrick said while that is possible, the AMA is not so much keeping score. "The situation is that no two situations are exactly alike," Barrick said. "This is not a case of black and white, where either you are legal or you are not. Each of the infractions that we have seen so far have been d.eemed performance-enhancing situations, but of a minor nature, where a complete disqualification is not appropriate. The modifications in and of themselves are unlikely to win a race. We are doling out appropriate penalties for what is going on at the moment. At the next race there might be something that we will find with somebody that will be more or less serious, and we'll deal with that. We have already seen Honda penalized and Suzuki penalized for infractions, not just Kawasaki. V;le have not notified Kawasaki of any such thing [potentially more severe recourse], but that's not to say that that couldn't happen from the home office. That is possible. I'm sure that Tommy Hayden feeis that he can't afford to keep winning a race and being bumped backward in the points, so I would think that he would be unhappy about now." Barrick said that Preston had not informed him whether or not Kawasaki intends to appeal the decision. cycle n e _ S • JUNE 18, 2003 23

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