Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

- Round 4 /5 AMA SUPERBIKE away a litt le bit, so then it was a bit of an emergency t hat I get by Be n. He was r iding good , an d so that was hard to d o . I tried about 10 times, an d I was only succe ssful o nce , going into the c hica ne on the bra kes." By the 18th lap Duham e l had caught Zemke, the Erion ride r sl iding bo t h wheels with his tires completely shot. Duham e l didn't waste a ny time getting around Zemke, and he even had a no tion of being able to make a run at Mlad in. T he n he made a mistake that cost him a ny slight chance he may have had . "I ca ug ht up t o Jake pretty qu ickly, and he looke d like he was just tryi ng to get home," Duham el said . " My bike was working be tt e r for sure. It was working really good. Then I was just trying to put in some good laps to get away from Jake a littl e bit . I was just focused on do ing my th ing, a nd I saw Mat coming back to me a My 1SS May 1 -2,2004 AMA Chev rolet Super blke Cha mpionship little bit . You can't blame a guy who's got a IO-se co nd lea d to slack off a bit , but still my pace was goo d . I just wanted to see if I could do so mething. Coming out of the chicane, I hit a false neu t ra l, and then I slammed it into second like a complete amateur and stretched my chain out. Then the chain was jum ping on the sprocket fo r the rest of the race, so I didn't want to thro w away a hard-earned second. Mat was too far away anyhow. My guys wo rked so hard, I think they tore that bike do w n four times already, an d they got it right. I'm pumped for tomorrow," Zemke persevered wi th his tire misfortunes, staying ahead of Ben Bostrom by 9.5 seconds to finish third. "For a couple o f laps I could hang with Mat [Mladi nl, but after t hat , co uld feel them going, right in the m iddle o f the corner, at the apex," Zemke explained. " Not OWN RACE Ben Bostrom - RACE I 4th American Honda's Ben Bostrom suffered tire woes in the opening race, th e fourth-fastest qualifier holding o n to finish fourth after scrapping with teammate Miguel Duhamel ea rly on. "I wrecked the tire in 10 laps," Bostrom said. "There 's nothing else to say. It was 10 laps. We had a long way to go. We [he and Duhamel] had iden tical tires . Endurance ... I didn't put any endurance on them, but other peo ple had, so I was , W,h , it sho uld be okay.' We'r e not usually too hard on tires , but we were today. Usually the heat will allow the tire to go longer. When the track's cold, it te ars the tire . I don't know why our tire went off so soon. Th e wo rst part about it, on the right-h and side , the lappers had more co rne r speed than me . So I'd pass on the left , and I was probably In the ir way o n th e right-handers . I'd flick it in there, and they 'd actua lly go aro und the corner like at least S mph quicker than I was going. It was crazy. 'I'm lapping you, but you'r e faster than me .' It was crazy." 32 Eric Bostrom 5th Eric Bostrom's struggles at Infineon continued through the first race on Saturday, the Michelin-shod Ducatl Austin rider ending up fifth, but some 30 seconds behind race winne r Mat Mladin. "Everyth ing was working fine on the throttle, but I just wasn't comfortabie getting the bike turned, and that's holding me back right now," Bostrom said. "When you're talking abo ut a couple tenths in each turn, it adds up and essentially takes you out of the hunt. We thought we had a good direc tion, but we didn't totally achieve wha t we wanted to . We've got some ideas, though . Ifwe can get the front end happy then I know we 'll be there. We 've got half the puzzle solved , and now we just need the other half." 41 Josh Hayes 6th Battered and bruised from a practice crash, Josh Hayes still rode his Attac k Kawasaki to sixth place, easily his best result of the season . "The team is pretty happy to finish a race in one try," Hayes said. "Sixth place isn't too bad. We really felt like we should have been able to run with Eric [Bostrom, who was fifth]. The bike was capable , but I'm beat up from that fall earlier in the weekend. I'm really tired, and at the end of the race I was pretty much spent. I took a pretty good lick to the back and both arms . My hand was going numb during the race. I don't know if I relaxed or just rode through it, but with 10 laps to go , it just went away. I just watched the gap and cruised my way home." 3S3 David Stanton 7th Infineon local David Stanton was th rilled with his seventh-place finish on the Arclight Suzuki. "I'm really happy," Stanton said. "My goal was to finish top 10, so to finish seventh is excellent. Chuck Warren provides me the bike, and I can just co me out here and have fun. He basicallyprov ides the bike and the tools , and we 36 MAY 12, 2004 • CYCLE NEWS swit ched to Dunlop tires this year, which is absolutely the best thing he 's eve r done, because I'm rea lly happy w ith the tires. I just come in here and do my thing. I'm pitted with my friend who I usually do the club race s with, and I go out and time him with his Superstock practice and vice ver sa wh en he comes in. We help each other out, and It's a lot of fun. There are so me things we can change for tomorrow. It wasn't perfect by a long shot, so I'll mull it over tonight and try a couple of different things tomorrow in pract ice. If they work, I think I can maybe do better tomorrow. Hopefully I can improve, but I'd be thrilled to again finish in the , top 10." 72 Larry Pegram 8th Larry Pegram rod e his Y amaha RI to eighth in Satu rday 's National, but he was far fro m happy after a change in fork setup left him farthe r beh ind tha n he wo uld have liked. "It was shitty," Pegram said. "I put these new forks on th is wee kend and trying to get them dialed in, and they're just off. I should have canned them and we nt back to the stock forks , but 1want to get them wo rking. I don't have any test time , so I have to test at the racetrack. The bike was good, the tires were good, but the fork sucked. I'm going to try and make some more adjustments to them. They're brand new, and I know they 're better than the stock ones ; I just have to get them dialed in. We 're just off with them right now. Ifwe get the for ks right, we'll be a lot better tomorrow. We just put 'e m on this weekend." 199 Geoff May 9th Preito Racing's Geoff May struggled a bit with his setup on Saturday, finally finishing ninth after a rathe r lonely race . "It was tiring," May said. "It's a very physical track , and we've been beh ind the eight ball as far as setup goes. I missed a few sessions because of some mechan ical issues, and we've been trying to fight back and find a setup here. The bike was so far out of whack out there. It was okay to go fast, but I just had major chatter everywhere. It was pushing the front and tucking and plowing all over the place, and it just wore me out really quick." 20 Aaron Yates 10th In what was his return to racing following his one-event suspension for his much-publicized Daytona 200 troubles, things didn't go smoothly for Yoshimura Suzuki's Aaron Yates, though he doesn't appear to have lost any of his speed during his off time . Yates was in the top group when he ran off in the chicane . Then he pitted when he thought he had an oil leak. He would return to the track and work his way through the field to a 10th-place finish. "I knew midturn speed, the thing was sliding in," Yates said. "I couldn't just throw it in and turn it because the rear was just never biting and gripping. Then I was running down the back straight , back shifting, and my foot slipped off the peg. It was real slippery like I was getting oil on it. At the same time the thing's sliding around, so I went straight. I went around, and looked down and saw I had some misty oil on my foot. I tried to do a lap or two, and I had Eric [Bostrom] In my sight and was trying to close up on him. He was kind of walking away. I couldn't really go any faster than I:40-so meth ing. I was thinking I must be getting oil on the tire the way the thing just started spinning up and I had no grip. So I came in and changed the tire . They wiped my foot off and too k off. It was allgood then. I was a minute or something back." 40th Anniversar y

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