Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Formula USA Sportbike Series Round 3: New Hampshire International Speedway coming out of there. That was a major letdown for me. A little bit of a motivator here." Wood said he stayed with Greenwood until about the 15th lap, then lost him in traffic, "and I just said, 'That's good enough.' But that was the deal. We're both riding what I think is pretty good here. We're both the same pace, so there's not much room for passing. That's just the way it went." Third in both legs went to Team Celtic Racing's Des Conboy on a Suzuki GSX-R600 that couldn't match the leaders' power. "Finishing third in both legs is a victory for me considering the amount of struggling we're doing here on the weekend," the Irishman said. "I was definitely with these guys for a while, but the next thing I saw, I don't know what happened behind me, but I saw plus lOon my board. I says, 'You know, put it on cruise and put it on the box.' We're just down a little bit on horsepower." JS Racing's Carlo Gagliardo, a first year Expert under the tutelage of local Jim Lester, was fourth in the first leg on his Yamaha in front of the Kosco Harley-Davidson/Buell of Eric Wood, with Nate Wait sixth, suffering transmission problems on his Kawasaki ZX-6RR. Wait came back in the second race to take fourth, with MRP Motorsports Christopher Rankin (Suz) fifth and Hooters Suzuki's Michael Himmelsbach sixth. At the end of the day, Wood had taken over the Sportbike points lead with 77, six more than Greenwood, after three of seven rounds. Loudon was unique in having two legs, rather than one, the format for the rest of Carlo Gagliardo 13201 leads Eric Wood in the second Sportbike race. Gagliardo beat Wood in the first race but crashed out of race two. 40 JUNE 25, 2003' cue I e the F -USA series. Kneedraggers.com's Matt Wait broke his right shoulder blade and fractured ribs in a spill in qualifying and sat out the day (see Briefly ... ). He sits third with 46, two ahead of Conboy. RACE ONE Jeff Wood got the jump on the field, Greenwood in tow, and was leading when the red flag came out on the sixth lap, a rider down in the tires outside of turn one. They lined up to do it again for the remainder of the 18-lap race, and again it was Wood out front with Greenwood chasing, probing, hoping, only to come up short. "I expected a dogfight the whole race,"'Greenwood said. "What I had hoped for is that I would just get out front and get away, but there's no getting away on Jeff because he's just too strong. He'd square it off the corner a little better than I would and run it a little bit faster down the straightaway, a little more top end. And I'd run a little harder on the brakes and make it up midcorner, but he had exactly what he needed to do to stay ahead." Wood said he knew Greenwood was there, "and I just tried to ride a steady race and hold him off as best I could, and we did it that time." There was a point when Wood gained a slight gap in traffic, but Greenwood took it right back. "I didn't know I gapped him, but my tires started to fade at the end and I got tired," Wood said. "I just rode as hard as I could. If he got me back, he was going to get me no matter what I did." Greenwood wasn't going to force the issue. "Obviously a win's real important, but I'm not going to do anything stupid to get the win on my own teammate or my friend," Green wood said. Conboy had been in a fight with n e vv sa Eric Wood en route to fifth place in the first race. In the second race, Eric Wood lost a chain and failed to finish. Cycles 128's Jim Lester and Carlo Gagliardo, who'd gotten away second before first Conboy then Lester came by. Conboy stayed in third while the pair behind battled until Lester crashed in the turn six bowl, injuring his forearm (see Briefly ... ). "[Des] Conboy came around, [Jim] Lester came around; unfortunately Jim [Lester] crashed in the bowl," Gagliardo said. Conboy said he spent the first race coming to terms with the Suzuki. "We really don't have much time around here on that Suzuki, because it's been raining so far this year, and I've been running my dirt bike more than that," said Conboy. "That first race, there was a couple of guys who were right on me and made me work hard for it. I really had to put my head down to stay ahead of them." Conboy said his Suzuki was making 106 horsepower on the dyno, well off the 115 class limit, and had no midrange. Eric Wood moved into fourth on the 13th lap when Nate Wait hit a false neutral going into turn one and had to use the escape route around the bowl to get stopped. "My bike's been acting up all weekend with going into a false neutrals and just grinding and won't go into any gear," Wait said. "That happened to me the first race. I dropped a position after it happened in turn one. Then I caught Eric Wood again, and it happened again in the bowl, and I knew I had a problem." Despite almost unparalleled experience at NHIS, Wood was having to relearn it in the first leg. "The first race I spent really learning how to race the thing around people," he said. "By itself, the way the chassis is on this thing, you almost ride it like a 250. You can't go in on the power and turn the thing on the brakes. You have to just carry a roll speed. The hardest part is figuring out how to do that while racing with 600s that ride in a point-and-shoot fashion. ' RACE TWO Wood and Greenwood in the first, Greenwood and Wood in the second, though Greenwood's lead grew faster and was more definitive after he lost Wood with about three laps to go. By then the lead was well over a second, and traffic helped Greenwood stretch his lead, and Wood realize his second was secure. Greenwood gave much of the credit to his crew . For the first time he was able to get real time splits from his pitboard. '" never had this kind of support before," he said. "They just left a zero there the whole race, pretty much until right there to the end when they gave me a plus one and then a plus two on the last lap. "The last bunch of people that we come upon in turn 11, I just kind c>f waited them out in twelve and caught them in kind of the right spot. I caught them in the right spot; I caught them in the exit of 12 and just outbroke a couple into turn one and took one in 1A. It was pretty smooth from there." Wood said in the second race h~ had to alter his lines and that had worn out his tire. At the end, he had nothing for Greenwood. Conboy was again third, this time with no opposition. He moved into the spot on the first lap and was alone for the duration, finishing we!1 behind the leaders, and well in fro,,!:t of fourth-placed Nate Wait. Wait changed his strategy in the second race, making sure he ha~ clean downshifts, always completel~ engaging and disengaging the clutch~ '" just went out there and rode a smart race without taking any chances," he said. "I waited. I knew in 18 laps I could finish where I wals bound to be."

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