Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

AMAIChevy Trucks U.S. Superbike Series Round 12: Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca m cB® Own Race Jason Pridmore 5th Hey... no sixth-place finish for Jason Pridmore. After five sixth-place finishes in a row, Pridmore and his Attl!ck Suzuki team finally moved up a spot to fifth. And he was happy about it. "At Brainerd, I said J was on a bike that was 80 percent," Pridmore said. "I didn't mean to make my team sound like they weren't working. We have MoTec system we use on the bike, and we've had nothing but problems with it, and my team's been working really, really hard, but we just had a problem with this box - the whole brain. So the whole year I've been on a bike that maybe isn't capable. The motor is the best motor because Richie (Strombolli] builds the best motors. This moming we finally got a new box shipped to us, and what a difference. I went quicker than what I qualified at, and it's a lot better, and hopefully it can continue. The difference is mostly in acceleration. What you can really do with this is see what the bike is doing. You can download it and look at things. It makes it nice to sit down and talk with the guys, and it makes Carl's job easier. We haven't had that benefit all year long, but now we have it, so hopefully my results toward the end of the year wilJ be better. I got it next-day-aired to us, and this moming was the first time we tried it, and I went out and did a 26.8. Sometimes the backmarkers go good for you, and sometimes they go bad, and today they went bad. But I just felt a lot closer. It's one thing to finish sixth, but it's another to be just 15 seconds behind instead of 30 or 40." 1]71 Miguel DuHamel 6th Miguel DuHamel took all the blame for his lackluster finish in the Superbike National. His team struggled all weekend and there was no Saturday.morning magic to be found. "The tire got a Iittie greasy at the end," DuHamel said, "but my problem was the lack of good input to the team to get a good bike this weekend. I wasn't able to get a good setup. We struggled all weekend, so usually we're able to pull something good right before the race. We thought we had something good coming in here. This moming we did a 26.8, and we tried to improve it. We cfidn't. Obviously, I'm a pretty big part of what goes on with the bike, so I take most of the blame. The guys worked really hard. It's a little unfortunate to have them work that hard and not have it come to a good result. We brought it home, and we made some good points. We're heading to friendlier pasture, Mid-Ohio and Virginia tracks that I like. It was overloading the front, and the rear was too stiff and kept kicking up and down. It was moving quite a bit. It was doing this seesaw movement. So it was overloacfing the front. In tum II, I don't know if there's a bump there, but every time I'd touch the throttle, it would shoot to the back and start spinning. I got the bike into a bad situation - a bad setup. Jason [Pridmore) got by me, and I got back by him. That first lap was fun. I got hooked up with Ben [Bostrom) and Kurtis (Roberts). Kurtis got in front of Ben, made a mistake, then I was chasing. I was trying to stay them, and they started distancing me. Jason came by, and I tried to latch on, and my setup got worse as the tire got greasy. The more it was overloading the front, the more it was pushing, I was trying to get the rear to slide, and by the time I was able to do that, everybody was gone." 1] @1] Jordan Szoke 7th Michael Barnes Bostrom with a bold move up the inside in turn five. Ben Bostrom's race started badly, the result of the Honda rider getting what he felt was a bad rear Dunlop tire. But he would carryon, and things ended up getting better, despite the constant hop from the rear. "It was a bummer: Ben Bostrom said of his race. "I went out on my parade lap, and the thing was hopping - the rear. So I came in before the warm-up lap, and I told the guys, 'Maybe we should change this thing.' They thought that because the tire warmer was on, there was a cool spot or there was a sticker on it, so we didn't change it. It's kind of a bummer. In hindsight we should have Despite muffing the start, Corona Extra Suzuki's Jordan Szoke managed to plug away, and his efforts ended up netting him a seventh-place finish. "It was boring ... no, it was a good race," Szoke said. "Unfortunately, I got a good start, a good initial launch, but first gear is so tall in these trannies, I let the clutch out a little too quick, and [Michael] Barnes and a couple of guys got by me. Barney's a great guy and a friend of mine and a great rider, but he slows you up gbing into the corner, and you can't get by him because he pins it out and his bike is so fast. I couldn't get by him, and it took me a few laps. At that point, I lost touch with everybody. I put my head down and started doing some 28s to see how far up the order I could get. J was catching Josh (Hayes} and decid.ed to sit behind him for a few laps and have a good finish. The next thing you know, he hlghsided. I think something on his bike broke because of the way he highsided so quick. I almost ran him over in tum three, and I can't believe I didn't. I was lucky I didn't hit him. After that, I was all by myself, and I just tried to bring It home. Unfortunately, some other guys had problems, and we finished seventh. It's tough around here. I like the track, and I have no problem with it, but the American guys all ride here so much. I knew it would be a tough weekend for me because of the track knowledge they all have. I knew Jason (Pridmore( would be fast here, and he was really fast. Unfortunately, I just had a bad start." ®cB Not much changed through the ninth lap, with Mladin just maintaining his lead in the 2.5-second range. On the eighth lap, however, Roberts finally worked his way past Ben 9th Preito Racing's Michael Barnes carried on despite the fact that his Suzuki GSX-R 1000 was stuck in fourth gear for the last six laps - and the result was a ninth-place finish. "We didn't get our motor together, so J have to thank Kevin Hunt again for letting us use the same motor I used at Brainerd [one of Shawn Higbee's spares(," Barnes said. "It's really strong, even though It's a 'B' motor. It was a fiawless ride. I got a great start, and the Pirelli tires worked great. I finally found a front tire that I'm absolutely in love with. Things were going great, and with about six laps to go the little shifter knob fell off, but fortunately it was In fourth gear, and I could nurse it around. I went from 29s to 35s to 34s to a 33, and I got down to a 32 in fourth gear the whole way around - the last six laps. I'm so stoked to finish in the top 10. I only lost one position to [Shawn) Higbee in the points, but there's not much I can do there. I was able to reach down and downshift into second so I could do a wheelie across the line." changed, for sure. Instead we started the race with a tire with a bad hop on the left side. It was funny, coming out of nine every lap I'd see these new marks right on my line. The thing was skipping off the ground. At the beginning it would do a decent lap time only because it had a lot of grip exiting. As soon as the tire wore out, it wanted to spin all the way out. We just got a bad tire. It doesn't happen very often, but it's happened two races in a row to us. That's kind of a bummer. Mine had such a bad hop coming over turn one, the thing felt like it was just going to pop right here. I knew it had a hop from the first lap on." On the 10th lap, a lapped rider stepped off in turn three - right in front of Eric Bostrom. Bostrom did a good job of staying upright, but it cost him. Yates was now honing in. On the 11 th lap, Bussei crashed out of the race on the entrance to the Corkscrew. By now, a three-way battle for second spot was brewing with Roberts moving on to the back of Yates, the 1]1] § Giovanni Bussei 37th In his second race for the Austin Ducati team, Bussel had his first crash of his AMA season. The Italian went down in the Corkscrew while running seventh. And that was just after a miraculous save in turn four when he'd hit oil. "I'm so pissed off with the system," Bussei said. "There was no blue flag, no oil flag. I was nervous, and I was like, 'Why, why?' I was nervous, and I made a mistake because I was nervous." 18 JULY 23,2003· co U co I e nevws Georgian having caught back up to Eric Bostrom after Bostrom's near miss with the lapper. Then at the end of the lap, Roberts dived under Yates going into turn 10, with Yates taking it back on the entrance to 11 - only Ben Bostrom overcame some tire problems of his own to finish fourth. for Roberts to get it back again on the drive up the frontstraight. Good stuff, but they were still more than 4.5 seconds behind Mladin. Roberts, though, was the man on the move, stuffing his way through a pack of lappers and around Eric Bostrom in turn two. Mladin hit traffic on the 13th lap, with his pursuers doing likewise not long after. Although it appeared as though he was balked, Mladin actually got the better of the exchange, and after 15 laps he led by 5.8 seconds over the still-tight pack of Roberts, Eric Bostrom and Yates. Ben Bostrom, meanwhile, was by himself in fifth place, more than 10 seconds behind Mladin. Then came Pridmore and DuHamel with a big gap back to Szoke and Barnes. Higbee was running 10th, a short distance ahead of Mike Ciccotto. On the 15th lap, Josh Hayes crashed out of the race in turn four while leading Szoke. A lap later, Yates passed Eric Bostrom and gave chase to Roberts, those three now more than 6.5 seconds behind Mladin. On the 18th lap, Yates moved around Roberts, and Eric Bostrom went with him, Roberts dropping from second to fourth in a single lap as the group battled in rush-hour traffic. Mladin still led by 6. 7 seconds~ "Early on, I was a bit surprised because the rear tire was moving around a lot more than I expected: Yates said. "I wasn't real sure how it was going to hang in there. It kept getting worse and worse, so I settled down a bit, and Eric [Bostrom] started pulling a gap on me, and Mat [Mladin] was checking out. I just waited a couple of laps to see how it was going to hang before I started pushing again. Eric had a pretty big moment out there with a guy falling right in front of him, so I closed that gap right back up again. And Kurtis [Roberts] was right there, too. I did a couple of laps in the 28s with lappers, and Kurtis caught us up. Then we ran all together, which was beating us up a bit, but it kept the race enjoyable for

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