Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

AMA Chevro let Superbike Champio nship My 17 OWN RACE M iguel Duham el 4t h He'd been quiet for it most of the year, but no more: Something has to be done about his clutch. "First of allthe start was just horrible ,"Duhamel said. "Y ou can't start in ninth or whatever it was back there with allthose guys. Youcan't do that. But the time I got through it and those guys. I'm really frustrated with that. It's unacceptable . We need to address that. I've been okay with that since the beginning of the year. That's not going to happen no more. That clutch is going to work better, or there will be hell to pay for sure. Youcan't win the championship doing this stuff." Duhamel was passed by teammate Ben Bostrom on the fifth lap and chased him until lap 38 of 48. "When Ben [Bostrom] came by, it was a good thing. Ben was on me. I didn't put up a big fight. When he got by me, I was like, ' All right, you promise me you're on me, and you promise me you can go faster obviously,' and he did. So actually Ben brought me up to Aaron [Yates] ," Duhamel hammered away at Yates to the bitter end , making a hard run to the nag but finishing .032 of a second back. "Ialmost ran into him, actually." 1 SS Ben Bostrom 5t h Ben Bostrom's season of discontent continued at PPIR.This time it was a sud- because w e don't hav e enough track t ime t o go out and put full ra ce distance on a t ire . I ex pe ct e d Eric to be st rong , I d idn't know for how lo ng he wo uld be strong ." Bos trom sai d , "The bike was just a lot more balanced t his m o rn ing. It was our firs t ch ance in several rac es t o ru n w ith t he pace of the leaders. " His lead was ov e r a seco nd on t he fifth lap , an d he ke pt ad ding to it . T he large st it go t was 3.167 seconds o n t he 14th of 48 laps. T he n it sta rted to sh rin k. Z em ke 's la p times were bette r t han Bostrom 's as he closed in. By t he 20th lap it w as under two seconds a nd und er a second thre e laps lat e r. The gap w as .20 2 of a second on lap 30 with Zemke making h is first serious push for the lead . The next lap th e d ifferenc e w as . 104 of a second . It w as Zemke's best cha nce , a nd he couldn' t capitalize , e ve n though Zemke no tic ed Bostrom getting th e worst o f t he lapped riders. "O ur t im es w e re pretty quick out there, and Ja ke just kept reeling me in, " Bostrom sa id . " T his is a really lo ng rac e to have that much pressure on you for th at long." Zemke wasn't making e xcuses abo ut not bei ng a ble t o run down Bostrom . The lead grew again, over a second w it h three lap s to run, ending at 1. 135 seconds . " My hat 's o ff to Eric," Zemke sa id . " He ro d e a great rac e today, and I'm happy to roll out of here and gai n a litt le bit more point s in the championsh ip, a nd we'll ta ke that on to Road Am e r ica ." Bostrom said that PP IR w as " t he firs t race th at we re ally felt w e ha d a sh o t at winni ng s ince Daytona, even though ye sterda y w as a little bit rough on us . " Yo u've got to be pretty hard-headed to go ou t there a nd ride hard fo r 48 laps . You've got to be pretty stubborn . I guess I a m. " Making th e technical breakthrough was as im po rt a nt as t he victory. It sets the team in the righ t direct ion as th e se co nd half of th e season approaches . " I th ink that we defi nitely figured some things out t his weekend , but I know t ha t w e' re not qu ite t he re yet," he said . " I th ink we just go t a better ba la nc e with th e bike . We w e re sta rt ing to get too much weight on the front , a nd I t h ink it w as plowing the fro nt e nd . And now we're st arting to ge t it m ore le ve le d out, an d the thing's startin g to w o r k evenly. I' m sta rting to be able t o r id e t he bi ke a littl e bit ha rd e r a nd take it clo se r t o it s limits. But I t h in k t he re 's still so m e o th e r are as t hat we've go t t o break t hro ugh an d ge t 18 JUNE 2, 2004 • CYCLE NEWS den and inexplicable back spasms behind his ribs that hit near the halfway point. "Something started pullingin there and then each lap pulling worse and worse and worse and then pretty soon like a piano wire back there. Never had that before . The whole time you're out there, all you can think is :Am I riding funny?' Obviously, I'm not riding as fast as I should be riding because this bike should be leading this race . Maybe something's funny. You're out there, and you're trying to change your style. You're trying anything." There was a shortness of breath and inability to move his left side without shooting pain. Somehow he managed to hang on for fifth, II seconds behind Duhamel after chasing Yates from laps five to 14. "By the time I was catching Aaron [Yates] and I go, 'O h crap,' and I caught Aaron, and I was junk. And so I don't understand. Then I just tried to stay out there . I'm like, 'God , I'm not going to quit with IS laps to go.' Pretty soon I can't hang onto the bike. What are you going to do? The bike was great." 41 Josh Hayes 7th Attack Kawasaki'sjosh Hayes attacked too hard. At least that was the opinion of the AMA, which docked him a stop -and-go for jumping the start. When he came in on the third lap, he went from fifth to 14th. "I apparently jumped the start," Hayes said. "I didn't think Igot out of the box, but they say I did. I'm pretty disappointed . There're a couple of guys that we could have run a pretty strong pace with and got some of those factory guys." Hayes had to come from 14th. Whomever he caught seemed to be in a group. "My bike would start overheating whenever Igot behind those groups and couldn't get any air. I was all over the place trying to find some air and shiftingat 8000 rpm trying to not rev this thing." Once he got through them, he made it up to seventh on the 25th lap. In the final few laps he was lapped, a humbling experience. "I was pretty hurt to get a blue nag," he said. "I wanted to get out of the way, let those guys go and jump in behind them and continue with my deal. I had nothing to gain, and they had a lot to lose." 12 Ricky Orlando 8th Coloradan Ricky Orlando couldn't match his sixth-place finish at Daytona, but he was happy to come eighth on a nearly stock motorcycle. Orlando parked the Suzuki GSX-RI000 he rode at Daytona in favor of a Kawasaki ZX-I 0 that he bought a month ago. The Kawasaki has a Hindle pipe, performance brake lines and an Ohlins rear shock. They haven't removed the head, and they don't have aftermarket wheels. "For as stock as the bike is, I'm pretty happy with the result, finishing in the top 10," Orlando said. When he got back from Daytona, he bought the Kawasaki. The Sun Racing team did a couple of club races. This was their third race on the bike, "so we have a lot of development left to do on it. Hopefullywe 'll get some parts and get some information. Youcan see the potential of the bike the way it is." 1 Mat Mladin 6th All season, Yoshimura Suzuki's Mat Mladinhas said that his Suzuki GSXRI000 is down on acceleration . The stock airbox and single throttle body injectors have robbed the big Suzuki ofthe horsepower it had last year. At PPIR, he couldn't get off the corners with the Hondas and Ducati. When he tried , he burned up his rear tire, which is what happened in the National. He held off Erion Honda's jake Zemke until the eighth lap, then chased him until there was nothing left in the tire. On the 38th lap he'd have to pit for a new one , ending any chance of being on the podium. "The bike just doesn't accelerate compared to what we're racing. I mean at the end of that back straight for about 15 laps behind jake [Zemke], I was making up that much ground going into that corne r and into the right-hander. I'd pull up into the back of him, follow him around and we 'd get to [tum three], and he'd pull all that time, and I'd start over again. There's only so long you can do that for. It burns things up." Mladinsaid the team was prepared to change tires, as they 'd been at Barber Motorsports Park. "We were prepared for it. We we re hoping we wouldn't have to, but we were prepared for it." 40th Anniversary

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