Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

my Own Race Lockhart-Phillips USA Formula Xtreme Round 7: Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca ®0 Roger LeeLee Hayden chased his brother Tommy and Yoshimura Suzuki's Ben Hayden 5th Erion Honda's Roger Spies for the first half of the race while the lead trio got away. Then Spies puJled away and Tommy pulled off. and Roger Lee was by himself until American Honda's Ben Bostrom made a run at him near the end. But the laps ran out, and Roger Lee had a solid fifth. "Once we got in traffic, I didn't ride near aggressive enough, which I should have," Roger Lee Hayden said. Roger Lee said he'd reeled in his brother Tommy and was going to pass him but didn't know where. Then Tommy was out, Spies was away, and Roger Lee was alone. "It's just the way it goes, and I'll leam," Roger Lee said. "I think maybe I could have caught those guys back up. I'm just wanting to work on my consistency, and top five in the Supersport class is not a bad result at all." 1] 00 Ben Bostrom Spies takes over Formula Xtreme 6th Practice and qualifying was where Ben Bostrom lost the Supersport race. By the time he got up to speed, qualifying was over, and Bostrom was back on the third row. Chasing Kawasaki's Tony Meiring on the fourth lap, Bostrom ran off in the Corkscrew, skimming across the dirt on the outside and dropping from lOth to 12th. He caught Meiring back up, then cut his way through the field to finish sixth. "I loved it," Bostrom said of his second ride on the Honda CBR600RR this year. "We were getting faster and faster. That clutch was coming in faster, too." Of the off-track excursion, Bostrom said that it was difficult to pass the faster Kawasaki ZX-6R of Meiring. The rear of Bostrom's Honda was chattering as he entered the Corkscrew, causing him to skittle off the far edge. "I was hoping that wall wasn't there. I couldn't even tell if there was a wall there. I just launched off of there. Fortunately tbey cut the wall back, or I'd have killed myself." Back on track it took him a few laps to get going. Stuck in 10th at the end of the eighth lap, he gained a spot on each of the next three laps, up to seventh, and one more by the end after Tommy Hayden went out with engine problems. @@ Kurtis Roberts DNF In Thursday afternoon's Superbike press conference, Erion Honda's Kurtis Roberts said he wasn't overjoyed with having to race the Pro Honda Oils Supersport class. That displeasure didn't carry over to the race, Roberts away briskly and holding on to the leaders when he lost the front end of his Honda CBR600RR in tum five, quickly on the ground and taking a very upset Jason DiSalvo with him. "I had to lean it over so far that it hit the case and picked the front wheel off the ground and fell over," Roberts said. "I didn't think about it. I've been hitting the cases, but I didn't think about it, because I don't ride them. Unfortunately for Jason [DiSalvo], I just got it on the cases, and it picked up. I didn't even go in that fast. I wasn't worried about crashing. I thought I was fine. They told me to watch the cases earlier in the day. When you don't race something all the time, you don't think about it. I thought we were fine. I came back from way back. Lap times were easy. I was just thinking about winning at that point. Next thing you know, poor Jason's getting taken out." 1] 'fl Miguel DuHamel 7th American Honda's Miguel DuHamel gated well on the abortive first start. The second was a mess, DuHamel pinched well back in the field, completing the first lap in 15th place after being much further back in tum two. "I just bogged." DuHamel said. "The first start was great. I didn't need that red flag. Everything was perfect. We made some adjustments to the bike and I don't think it was 100-perceot the right thing to do. Bottom line is, I messed up. I messed up the start. I got pinched on top by Ben {Bostrom] and Kurtis [Roberts] and somebody else. By the time I got to the first corner, I felt like I was 25th. That was it. When I was that far back, there really wasn't a chance to win. I didn't want to do anything stupid. Just took it easy and got myself back up there. I got by everybody that was in front of me except Ben [Bostrom I." 0® TonyaMeiring for Kawasaki's Tony Meiring, learning distinctly different 8th The race was riding lesson lines from both Ben Bostrom and Miguel DuHamel during the course of the race. Meiring was leading the pack behind the leaders with Erion Honda's Alex Gobert and Yoshimura Suzuki's Jamie Stauffer just behind. The longer the race went, the faster the Hondas got, and Bostrom and DuHamel both made their way past. "I had to pick up the pace sooner," Meiring said. "Actually my last lap was my fastest probably because I got the opportunity to follow Miguel [DuHamel]." Meiring said he leamed a lot about different lines. "Ben [Bostrom] took different lines even than Miguel [DuHamel]. I was kind of like, 'Who do I follow?' I tried to follow Ben a little bit, but I couldn't get my bike to work on his lines. He was more point and shoot, run it in a little bit early. On the exit, carry a lot of speed. He was actually really fast in the middle of the comer. I was actually closer to Miguel's lines." STORY AND PHOTO BY HENNY RAY ABRAMS MONTEREY, CA, JULY 12 Y oshimura Suzuki's Ben Spies celebrated his 19th birthday a day late, the Texan running away from the Lockhart-Phillips USA Formula Xtreme to win his third race of the season - this one in record time on a blissfUlly sunny Saturday afternoon at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. The icing on the birthday cake was his ascendance to the top of the FX Championship standings. Corona Extra EBSCO Media Suzuki's Adam Fergusson was a distant second, 8.431 seconds back, with Attack Suzuki's Jason Pridmore another four seconds behind in third. Spies' race was the most straightforward. Away at the start, he quickly gapped the field and pulled away. Credit went to his tire choice, a hard Dunlop 902 rear that he didn't think anyone else had tried. "I was kind of worried about the first couple of laps how it was going to hook up," Spies said, "and that's actually when I actually broke away. I ®® Aaron Gobert 11th This was the first race for Yamaha's Aaron Gobert since breaking his right wrist in a Formula Xtreme highside at Road America at the beginning of June. "I came here on Wednesday and couldn't even pull the clutch in. Came here, practice, practice, practice. I did it about 300 times before I left for the motel that night, slept with the Game Ready [stimulator] on, woke up and the clutch was perfect." To compensate for the still-mending wrist, the team put a pad on the gas tank to take pressure off his arms, and Gobert had to use his legs more. "The problem with this place is it's all left-handers, and the right hand is the one on the left-handers that is taking all the weight when you're leaning in. I've got the right leg doing all that work." Gobert said he was excited from the moming warm-up to the parade lap but soon realized that 17 laps was just too much. He was catching the pack headed by Kawasaki's Tony Meiring with five or six laps to go, thinking he'd use the power of the Yamaha to make a pass. "Then went down into turn three, braked so hard that the left wrist just gave way. The pain was just too much. So I just kept trail-braking in there. Because it's so leaned over, in a way you can't do any upright braking. I've crashed there before. So I just finished the turn off in the dirt and got back on." The near crash convinced hIm to maintain to the end. "Things are good. I'm in a lot of pain now, but it'll be gone in an hour or two." was pretty surprised it never really came in. It was sliding around quite a bit, but it was real consistent, and I was able to go pretty quick on it." There was a brief bit of excitement when confusion over gear changes sent him off in the chicane, but otherwise his mission was flawless, as was his championship assault. Spies took the pole, led the most Ben Spies (11) led every inch of the Formula Xtreme event at Laguna. He now leads Damon Buckmaster by seven in the championship chase. Jake Zemke (98) finished seventh after running up front early, and Jamie Hacking (2) crashed out with Marty Craggill. stop-and-go penalty for jumping the start). Spies lowered the race by nearly nine seconds utes, 6.310 seconds, at speed of 90.9 mph. Jake record time to 25 minan average Zemke held the previous mark of 90.5 mph. Zemke finished seventh today after serving a stop-and-go penalty for jumping the start. He was on the second row when he saw Graves Motorsports Yamaha's Damon Buckmaster move. "Bucky [Buckmaster] was right in my line of vision, and when I saw something move, I moved," Zemke said. Zemke ran second in front of Fergusson before pulling in, his dirttrack. riding style confounding the Australian. Zemke goes deep into the corners and squares them off. "It doesn't really suit the way I ride," Fergusson said. For Fergusson to make a pass would have been really tricky, he said, so he waited until Zemke had to pit to take over second. By then, Spies was on his way to disappearing. Early in the race, Pridmore ran off laps and won the race, the 38 points vaulting him to the top of the points the track in the Corkscrew, then set out for Roger Lee Hayden. Roger Lee was in fourth place at that point, but Pridmore thought he was in third, and table after 7 of 10 rounds with 212 points, seven more than Graves Motorsports Yamaha's Damon Buck- he wanted the final podium spot, if not more. "I just seemed to have him cov- m.aster (eighth today after serving a ered in the second half of the track," cue I e n e _ S • JULY 23, 2003 21

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