Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

My OWN RACE 40 Jaso n DiSalvo 4th Grave s Motorspo rts Yamaha's Jason DiSalvo spent the Superstock race adjusting his fading brake s. In and out the adjuste r we nt unt il, finally, near the end of the race they were adeq uate . He lost to uch with the leading trio in the final few laps, having to fend off Yoshimura Suzuki's Ben Spies, w ith whom he had a run-in. "He loo ked back, and I think when he looked back, he might have hit the kill switch or something or rolled off the gas," DiSalvo began . " I we nt hard right like as hard as I cou ld because I was going to run into the back of him. And I was kind of aimed tow ard s the end of the track, and I wen t to pull it back, and it just kind of got in a headshake , and then it dr ifte d ove r. It's kind of hard to explain [what happens] when you get the mom entu m going like that , such a hard tum and a hard turn to compensate . The headshake gets going, and it's rea lly hard to control. And I saw him kind of coming in the other dire ction. I was like, 'O h man, we're going to touc h.' And when we touc hed , it was just for a second , and then we kind of got off. I was try ing to push myself away from him." DiSalvo said Spies' hand gestu res suggested he was upset , but DiSalvo was in a race and kept going, "so I just passed him down into five and checked out and went for the win. I guess he was right ther e at the finish." Accord ing to DiSalvo, Spies co ntinued his harangue on the cool-do wn lap. "My apologies to Ben , but the re 's a lot of history there. We 've been scrapping for seven years." 11 Ben Spies 5t h Ben Spies' Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R I000 was lacking acce lera tion, the same proble m plaguing Mat Mladin and Aaron Yates. His bike was no match for the Ya maha RI of Graves Motorsports Y amaha's Jason DiSalvo , who he tucked in behind . "I got stuck beh ind DiSalvo, and he started making a bunch of mistakes , and I couldn't get around him becau se he only we ighs 90 pounds and his bike's so fast. Then on the last lap I passed him, and com ing out of thre e, my bike jumped out of gear, and I got it back in gea r, and I loo ked over my shoulder and saw him start cree ping up on my right side, and we wer e up to 16S by now, and he's six fee t away from me , and he just turned in and hit me on the straightaway as hard as he co uld. 1have no clue what he was thinking. I tried to catch him on the last lap, and I got hung up be hind the girl that's out there and almost ran him down and almost passed him." 95 Roger Lee Hayden 6th Kawasaki's Roger Lee Hayden knew on the first lap he wo uldn't be racing for the lead. He tried hard to make up time on the second lap, overshooting turn five and dropping from third to e ighth. "Just a prob lem w ith the bike and just kind of struggled with the tire and brakes and could never get it to stop ," he said. 'And I kept blowing turn five. and I kept moving my marker up. It's kind of frustrating because the pace was kind of slow I thought, and the pro blem just ke pt getting worse and worse and worse, and finally I just had to get into the mode to bring it home." 43 Jaso n Pridmore 8th "The race we nt good ," Star Suzuki School's Jason Pridmore said afte r finishing eighth . "I got a great start ; I got it off the line really well. I just didn't have any brakes. I had a mo ment in tu rn fIVe; I just couldn't get it sto ppe d. I ran wide and did a U-turn . Then I just got th is tremendous arm pump, w hich I neve r, eve r get, because I never hold on to the bars tight enough to get arm pump . Two laps from the end , I really made a charge to catch those guys, to catch Jake [Holde n] and Roger Lee [Hayden); I just didn't have the bra kes to do anything w ith the m. When I got do wn to the chicane, I tr ied to get it slowe d down. The thing step ped out on me , and off the trac k I went." 89 Scott Greenwood 10th For his first race on a 1000 cc machine fitted with slick tires, Scott Gree nwood was con tent . "N ot bad," he said about his sta nd-in ride on the Corona Extra EMSCO Media Suzuki. "First ou ting on that bike and with the team. I got a good launch but got cho pped off in turn one and fell back a couple spots. And then I made one little mistake e nte ring the chicane where I got an extra upshift and ran wide . Lost a co uple mo re spots . Got it all sorted, put my head down, picked off a couple of guys. Top 10 - I'm happy. It loo ked like I was closing on [Steve] Rapp; we kind of evened it out a litt le bit at the end . I was hop ing he was coming to me . I was trying everyth ing I had to catch up to him." Greenwood said the Corona Ext ra cr ew knew what to do to make him comfortable on the biggest and fastest motorcycle he 'd eve r raced . "We had a good startin g point, and then we made adjustments from there. It's a lot of work riding it because it's got so much powe r. It's a bit mo re work than a 600 obviously I was pretty com forta ble on it, but I was litt le bit worried w hen things sta rte d drop ping off how much they . were going to drop off and fall off. I don't have a lot of slick expe rience, so that's one of the things I was concerned with." 2 Jamie Hacking 25th Graves Motorsports Yam aha's Jami e H acking lost his cham pion ship lead, but it co uld have been worse. Enter ing th e first corn er on the sec- ond lap , he hit a false neutral on a downshift from fourth to third, send ing him freewheeling into the grave l trap. He kep t the bucking bike upright almost to a stop , but he tipped ove r when his front whee l hit the negatively raked gravel. The shifting problem first ar ose during a test at Barber Motorsports Park, and they thoug ht they had it fixed. "Sure enough, going into turn one I was already setti ng up Aaron [Gob ert) , and boom, boom , last one , nothing. It wouldn't do it. I tr ied to save it I tried to ride out as much as I could." Hacking was stuc k unde r the R-I for a mome nt, the n freed himself and tried to get going. He need ed help from the comer workers, he lp that wasn't immed iate ly fort hco m ing. "That was just to tally r idiculo us," he said. The corn er w o r ker acros s th e track waited too lo ng to co me over, and the one up the t rack, at t he entrance o f t urn one, "w as in no physical condit ion to eve n remotely get to me . So I mean the bike cou ld have be en on fire . I was caught in it." Hacking said the AMA admonished him for being abusive towa rds the corne r workers . "It's like, how do it look her e ? It's my life down here, stuck under the bike in the gravel tra p. The corner worker [across the track] didn't want to get out of the stand. It's like I'm being abusive to him. Hell, yeah , I'm being abusive. And they finally all get the re two laps later. It' s too late now. I've already gotten the thing out myself." Hacking finallygot going and finished a lap dow n in 25th place. Continued from poge 16 Erion Honda swingarms have been gusset ed , which is allowed in the rulebooks. But the q uest io n is per cen tages: How m uch of the sta ndard swingarm re mains? "I tried to explain that the stock part was in the re ," team owner Kevi n Erion said. He added that there was a part that was machined off that shouldn't have been and that some of the modifications were done to ease the changing of rear wheels. The change allows the spacers to be captured in the swingarm. Hondas finished 1-2-3, with Valvoline EMGO Suzuki's Vincent Haskovec filth. Th rough a spokesman, AMA roa d race manager Ron Barrick said the sw ingarms of the Hondas and Haskovec would be impou nded and take n back to the AMA headq uart e rs in Picker ington , Oh io, for evaluation and measurement. likely it w ill be done by AMA tec hnical manager Rob King, w ho wasn't at Road Ame rica. The realities of racing caught up with Ben Bostrom at Road Amer ica. His spare machine sported the number " IT' of Miguel Duhame l, who' d previously been sharing a spare machinewith Erion Honda's Jake Zem ke. With Duhamel in the thick of the championship hunt and Bostr om struggling,it was a move that was overdue. "In the thick of the cham pionship we shifted resources to Miguel," team manager Chuck Miller said. Duhamel immediately benefited from the arrival, finding the suspension and ignition mappings more to his liking. "Fortunate ly, everybody is professional , and Ben knows the drill." The Ap rilia assault on the AMA Chevrolet Superbike Championship likely won't start at Brai nerd Int ern atio nal Raceway as origi- nally hoped, according to team director David Lewis. "It looks like not unt il Laguna Seca," he said at Road America. Lewis, ltalica Racingowner Jeff Jensen, and crew chief Vic Fasola spent the week prior to Road Ame rica at Aprilia's headq uarters in Noale , Italy, talking to managers and tec hnicians and sourcing part s for the team 's RSV Factory race bikes. Lack of parts is what's keeping the bikes off the grid. The tea m is waiting on a shipment of part s from Italy, including 16.S-inch w heels. Anothe r prob lem is bodywork. Beca use it's a not a common motorcycle. there isn't a w ealth of choice, and the carbon fiber bodywork has to be built. The sou rces they 've approached have warned of four-we ek lea d times . "It's possible we 'll do Brainerd, but re alistically Laguna," Lewis said. Crew chief Vic Fasola continues developing the engine , rece ntly adding 13 horse power through the fuel mixture . Lewis said they were optimistic that by the end of the year the e ngine wou ld make 180 hp. "I'll be happy with 165," he said. Lew is said the team hopes to test in the next two weeks, most likely at a track in the south. Road Atlanta, Barber Motorsports Park and Jennings in northern Florida are the poss ible choices. "The guys [riders Mike Hale and Matt Wait] want to get ou t and ride ." Dunlop is the tire brand of choice , though ther e's no deal yet . "We're going to do something with Dunlop ," Lewis said. Dunlop provides a Con tinue d on p o ge 2'

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