Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Round 15/16 AMA SUPERBIKE My 98 5ep. 4-5 , 2004 ~ AMA Chevrolet Superbike Championship OWN RACE Jake Zemke 4-4 Erion Honda 's jake Ze mke slipped and slid to a pair of fou rths. Traction was at a premium on Saturday and even more elusive on Sunday. Dunlop had only one viable multicompound Superbike tire , so it wasn't the tire . It was how the motorcycl e used the tire. "This whole weekend, we 've been struggling quite a bit and we just couldn't get a handle on it," Zemk e said. "The biggest problem I had was grip. I just couldn't get any grip. Same thing as yesterday. We were okay for about five laps «: and that was it. As soon as the tire started to drop off, we were done. Side grip, accele rat ion, I'd be losing both ends just tipping it into the corners, tipping it in easy, too. As soon as I'd get the bike to full-lean angle, I'd just lose both ends." Saturd ay's extended red-flag delay gave the te am time to make wholesale adjustments , none of which worked. "The bike on the first start was really, really bad, and the restart helped us quite a bit. We changed just about everything on the bike. We changed linkage, shock - you name it, we changed it. The second start, it took me a lap or two to feel the thing out to see what it was going to do , because the other one was pretty sketchy. The new setup after the re-start was working quite well. And it worked quite well for five or six laps unt il the tire was toasted and then after that it was a st ruggle to get home." 20 Aaron Yates 5-DNF just before the start of the race , Yoshimura Suzuki's Aaron Ya found out his teammate Mat tes Mladin was running slightlydifferent gearing. Mladin's gearing prop elled him to the win; Yates' gearing too k him to fifth. "We got some really goo d starts , and I just got to the back straightaway and guys just start ed com ing by me," Y ates said as his Suzuki GSX-R I000 hit the revlimite r. "I was doing alii could do. I got into a really good pace there. Every lap I was clicking off a tenth her e, a tenth there. I was running low 24s for most of the race, and Ben [Bostr om] and jake [Zem ke], they wer e just hanging right there. It' s like I could get up on them at tu rn seven , then spend the whole rest of the lap catching them back." Y ates wanted to try Mladin's gearing but would have to wait for Sunday morning's warmup. The gearing was a little bett er on Sunday - but there were other problems. "I noticed on the war mup lap, the thing might have felt a litt le soft driving out of turn seven. Then again, it was the warm up .....;;:-- .....;::~J lap, and I was kind of cru ising, and we were sitting there on the start. We were hanging the re for a while on the red light. I started rolling a little and I got it stopped . I tho ught for sure I was all right, becau se I always try to line up as far in the back side of the box as I can. So I got stoppe d. When I did everyt hing like I did yeste rday, the bike just didn't jump out like it did yeste rday. Then we got pulled on some of the hillsover there. And it just seemed to be down a little on acceleration , and then when we hit turn seven, and also when we got in the higher rpm 's, I thought maybe the fuel pump or something was going. It just lost power, and the next lap arou nd I saw they give me the freakin' stop-and-go, so I come in. I didn't think I was going to be able to go back out; I was trying to decide if I shou ld go do the stop-and-go or just go to the pits, so I decided to do the sto p-and-go , just to make sure that they don't do it next week." 32 Eric Bostrom DNF-DNS Ducati Austin's Eric Bostrom had a short Saturday and an even shorter Sunday. In turn two of the first lap of Saturday's Supe rbike race, the rear of his Ducati F04 snapped around and threw him to the ground, the impact absorbed by his right shou lder. "Definitely something happened. I'm not sure what. We didn't get the start that I wanted to get , and then I got a good drive out of one and I wen t by a few guys, and I got on the brakes , and I don't know if I was just out in the mar bles or w hat. I didn't have any prob lem with the front tire . I was kind of trying to get around josh [Hayes] on the outside, but I wasn' t forcing the pass. I was just going to see if it came to me , because [it was the] first turn and no reason to push too hard . And then the back just came around and I tried to stand up the bike, and it didn't help. The thing went all the way aroun d." Before Bostrom saw a docto r on Satu rday night , he was ske ptical abo ut his chances of riding. "I don't know, man, I don't know. It' s kind of a different kind of injury, because there's some equipment in there and I don't know how badly it distu rbe d things. I know that in the past, dislocating your shou lder, it's a bummer, but it doesn't really slow you down that bad. I definitely hope I wake up tomorrow and feel better." A Saturday night doctor's visit revealed a broken rib and an injured sho ulder. He was ruled out of Sunday's race. 41 Josh Hayes DNF-5th Attack Kawasaki's josh Hayes nearly highsided In qualifying and did go over the to p in the race . "The rear had been sliding arou nd quite a bit on the e ntrance, and every time I changed direction, it kicked the rear out that direction," he said. "It kicked it out , and I picked up the throttle a litt le bit to get the bike to get some momentum forward, rather than just sliding. I guess it was still slidinga little too much. And whenever I touched the throttle, it spun up a little more and th rew me over the top ." Hayes's ZX- IOR bounced around, landing on the racing line and spewing fuel onto the track . The race was red-flagged. The clean-up took 36 SEPTEMBER 15,2004 • CYCLE NEWS over an hour and IS minutes. O n Sunday, he ran a solitary race to fifth, unchallenged and unchallenging. "I wasn't too bummed about that at all. I was just watching the laps clicking away," he said. "I kept expect ing Aaron [Yates] to come back. He got the stop-and-go, so I figured he'd be coming back, and then the gap to ward the end was still pretty big, so I just cruised around. I was pretty tired. This bike's a little easier to maneuver than my Superstock bike. That helped me through the race . I just tried to focus on hitting my marks the best I could and tr ied to run decent laps and protect me a good gap." Hayes was happy to equal his season-best fifth, but the absen ce of top riders meant it had less meaning. "With Eric [Bostrom] not being there and Aaro n being out of the race , it' s not quite the same. For sure, we want to get up there and beat those guys. I might have taken another shot at jake [Zemke] today. 1heard he was struggling a litt le bit in the back. I just didn't have it in me to run like I did yesterday, and it took me a couple of laps to get rolling." 14 Shawn Higbee 9-11 There were six riders chasing Hooters Suzuki's john Haner in Saturday's Superbike final, and Shawn Higbee was one of them . The Millennium Technologies/KWS Motorsports rider was in the mix, ending up in ninth place, just behind Geoff May and Eric Wood, with a gap to the pursuing Opie Caylor. "I felt like I ran pretty cons istent ," Higbee said. "Before the restart , I was struggling with the bike being stable . During the red flag, we changed the steering dampe r, and that made it better. We might try different gearing tomorrow. I was bumped up against the limiter a couple of times. " There was another battle on Sunday with many of the same riders and a few others. On the final lap, there we re changes In front of him, but Higbee held on to his 11th -place spot . "Probably one of the better races I've had all year," Higbee said after finishing . 14S of a second out of 10th and just .009 in front of 12th. "Head to head, competitionwise - it was really good . I was trying to outsmart them . I figured Eric Wood would do some crazy divebomb move , and he did, into six, and it upset May. I saw that was an opportu nity, so I set up May out of seven . He whee lied , had a bad drive, and I got by him down the back straight . What I didn't expect was for May to charge back so hard going into 10. After I saw that co ming, he's rea lly com ing hard. I doubt he 's going to make a good comer ther e. I tried to slow do wn in 10, stay left on the exit and then set him up under the bridge. And that worked to get by [Lee] Acree , but May was just a litt le bit ahea d." 134 Marty Craggill 26-8 Third gear wasn't right on Marty Craggill' s Corona Extra EBSCO Media Suzuki GSX-RI000 for most of the weekend. He discover ed it Satu rday morni ng and there was noth ing he could do ; the te am didn't have a spare engine. The prob lem was more severe on Saturday, when he missed the final fou r laps before the red flag. Start ing that far down, he came back to finish 26th. On Sunday, he was in a pack 01 five riders , but he didn't know it . "I thought there was only two of us," he said. "I thoug ht it was only Geoff [May]." With what he thought was one rider to worry about , he was biding his time, dealing with the third-gear hiccups. "I'd lose two seconds on him or so, or a seco nd and a half, and no one came by, and I saw noth ing on my pit board and figured it was just us, and the n I'd get a couple of goo d laps together where I could change gears properly and I'd catch up again, and I thought, 'There's no one there." The n, hallway th ro ugh the race, Craggill missed a shift, hit his laceshield on his windscreen, and his nose started bleeding. "My lap time s dropped. Watery eyes . Now I've got a sore nose." Then May started going a bit quicker. On ce Craggill's eyes cleared up, he got going again. "Start ed getting gears again and caught up to [May] again. I got him into six; I got everyone into six." Craggill held off May by . 120 of a second. "It was a good race, but I'm just not fit enough . I'm a lot fitt er than I was, but nowh er e where 1need to be . We were catching [Larry] Pegram but still way too far behind." 199 Geoff May 7-10 Prieto Racing's Geoff May finished seventh and 10th in the two races but was still able to consolidate his position as top privateer by moving into fifth in the point sta ndings, ahead of the absent Eric Bostr om of the D ucati Austin team. Both races were strug- gles, with many of the same riders engaged in the battle. "I definitely had to earn that one," Maysaid alter finishing seventh on Saturday, just be hind Hoo ters Suzuki's john Haner and in front of Haner 's team mate Eric Wood . "Eric Wood de finitelydidn't give that one up to me. I just kept my head down the whole time. Those guys were leavingme on the back straightaway, but luckilyI could make it up on the brakes." On Sunday, May made the wrong tire choice. "I went with a harder one and it was worse, it just didn't have the side grip. Lee [Acree] and I were just riding sideways and not going forward. I thought I was racing with Marty [Craggill] the whole way. I looked one time and didn't see anything. O n the last lap, Enc [Wood] came up the inside of me in [turn] six, and blew way wide and almost ran me off the track . It allowed [Shawn] Higbee to come up the inside of me in seven , and I saw him there and just leaned on into his bike, got on the gas hard. I was in the middle of a fight, and I wasn't worried about anything else but beating everyone there." 40th Anniversary

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