Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

AMA Chev rolet Supe r blke Cha mpio nship Jake Zemke (98) was well out front in Sunday's Superbike race, but a red flag thwarted his efforts, and he was caught by Duhamel (17) after the restart. up until the 15th, when Duhamel, who'd been loitering with intent, made his move going into tum one. Zemke was sideways in one, and Duhamel went under him . " I thought he got maybe too hot, and then the rear end got sideways, and then he got into that drift mode, and hats off to him for making that comer," Duhamel said . Next Zemke overshot tum five, and the race was over. Duhamel rode a stand-up wheelie across the line to celebrate. " I love Road America," Duhamel said after his fifth win . " It's the track that we go to that lets the bike run . Actually, it takes you more than a minute to do a lap. It takes a full two minutes. It's a wonderful track it's a fast track, it's kind of Europeanish, mean ing that it's got some fast sweeping comers ." Mladin was away seventh and took his time getting to the front. Only sixth at the halfway point, he moved up to fifth on lap nine, fo urth on lap 10, then thi rd on 14, passing Ben Bostrom. "You're never happy with third, but I guess we have to be happy with it," Mladin said . "We really weren't in the race." In the first five laps , before the red nag , Mladin encountered a problem similar to what he'd had at Infineon Raceway. The team worked frantically to resolve it, but ran out of time. He m issed the warm-up lap and had to start on unscrubbed tires. "The first handful of corners were pretty hairy, especially the first couple of lefts," he said . Whether the problem was fixed or not was irrelevant. " It wouldn't have mattered if the bike was 100 percent," Mlad in said . "W e weren't going to win the races this weekend, unfortunately, not without someone having problems." Be n Bo stro m was one of many having problems, tires on both days, though for different reasons. He was fourth and fifth. H is brother Eric also had problems that led to tire wear. He was able to set a fast pa ce, but he was unable to sustain it. He left for Brainerd knowing the team had to find a solution to the way the suspension used up the tires. He was fifth and sixth. Yoshimura Suzuki's Aaron Yates was a burni ng seventh and a disappointed fourth. His gas cap carne loose on Saturday, showering him in gasoline and forcing him to pu ll Rarely has qualifyingbeen more an indicator of things to come than at Road America The Hondas were fast, blindinglyfast, and the others weren't. With three long, fullstick straightaways, useable cubic horsepower was the key to success, and the Hondas had it. American Ho nda's MiguelDuhamel led his teammates to a sweep of the top three spots, with Erion Honda's Jake Ze mke second and American Honda's Ben Bostrom third . Yoshimura Suzuki's Mat Mladinsat at the end of the front row, deaying the lack of power on his otherwise sterling Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-RI000 . Mladin held the lap record of 2: 15.159, but he pointed out that the fastest lap was his 2:14.7 at the end of last year's Sunday race . Neither was safe to the Ho nda onslaught. Duhame l was in the 2:135 on Friday and even faste r on Saturday, setting a new outright best of 2: 13.346 o n his last flying lap. "Yeste rday I took it - I woul dn't say easy - but I just tried to hit my lines and do a good lap, and it came out good," Duhame l said. "Obviously, I was a little surprised. ';<>.nd today I just did the same but a little bit more. I d idn't know who was going to corne up, but I felt that 13.9 might not be solid enough to get pole, so I just went out there and put a good lap together. I think as a racer's nature, it's very natural that you'll say that you did a great lap or the perfect lap, but it was de finitelygood enough. I'm really happy, and the CBR-I OOORR is working great." What most pleased Duhamel was that he felt good o n the motorcycle going into the first Superbi ke race , later on Saturday afternoon. "The thing is, my com fort level is pre tty high, so hopefully I'll be able to corne out with a win, obviously, now," he said. "The re 's only two ways to go , win or go backwards from what we've been doing all weekend." Zemke neve r found his co mfort level. 'W e wen t out there, same th ing as yesterday, just jumping on and off different bikes and trying different th ings and not really getting much time in on the bike," he said after clocking a 2: 13.707. "The only real lap I did was that last lap there . I th ink we 'll be okay. Uke I said, I was looking for something a little bit better, and we haven't found that yet. " American Honda's Ben Bostrom was third , abou t a second behind Zemke at 2: 14.704 and planning on watching the fron t-runners ahead . "Just try to hitch a rope to the back of these guys and leam some things," he said, adding that he didn't th ink he could stay with them. "These guys are flying right now. I'll definitely try to latch on the back and learn one or two things. As racing goes , it's a lot easier to follow." Mladin came fou rth on a clearly slower mo torcycle. The AMA trap speeds on Friday showed him down about 10 mp h, 13th fastest , and that was measured before the motorcycles reached top speed. ':t>Jte r you see that. there's no point looking," he said. "We're not going to be able to pass anybody in a straight line . I don't know what's going to happen. We're just going to have to suck it up and see. Someone asked me yesterday if I put a qualifying tire on, and I said, ' No .' They said, 'Why not?' I said, 'Because I can't do 13.9 let alone 13.3.''' Yosh's Aaron Yates led off the second row, just .0 14 o f a second be hind Mladin. Attack Kawasaki's Josh Hayes was top privateer in sixth and a few tenths better than Ducati Austin's Eric Bostrom. Eric had an eventful finalqualifying session, crashing when the fron t brakes failed late on his first out lap. The cause was warped front brake discs. Heading for the finalcomer, the uphill right hand tum 12, he grabbed twice then jumped off the F04 in the gravel trap . He remained in the pits until t he just past the halfway mark in the 40-minute session . When he we nt back out. he didn't co mplete a full lap, pitting for a rear tire change and going out wit h just over I I minutes remai ning. His first flyer was a 2:16.3B7, and he never improved. His best time came on Friday. Steve Cre vier filled out the second row on the Diablo Suzuki. Look at Zemke 's (98) lead . It d idn't last, as a red flag a llowed everyone else to catch up, and tire tro ubles slowed Zemke in the second part of the 14 JUNE 16,2004 • CYCLE N EWS 40th Anniversary

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