Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

By the n, the order of th e to p four was set, with Hacki ng a lone thi rd with 2.5 seconds on Aaron Gobert in fourth . '" didn't even look at the pit board the fi rst five laps, and the n Reg's [Hayden] bike broke, on lap four or something. Then I looked at the board and Istarted seei ng 'plus two, plus th ree , plus six, plus seve n,' and it was pretty easy after that ," Go bert said . Like his brother, Tommy Hayd en was already hitting bad luck. Follow ing Go be rt through the esses, Tomm y was hit by a piece of cu rb ing that Gobert had d islodged . " It's not like a bird flying at yo u o r you see it. I seen it and it hit me , a nd the re w as no re action at all," he said . 'f\t first I thought fo r su re it busted my ra diato r. A pe bble wi ll do t hat . 50 it start led me for a minute , but I tr ied to kee p my head do w n as much as I co uld. I w atc he d t he tempe rature for a co uple of laps and I it was good, but t he lap timer ke pt getting jammed in th e stee ring he ad . It w ou ld n't stee r. Sometimes it w o uld get locked ." Slowly he fe ll fart he r and far t her behind , finally los ing fourth to Lion Racing's jake Hold en o n the 14t h lap . "Bottom line , anyway, I wasn't on t he pace to win today," he said . "We fought it here for two days testing a nd fought it here again." T he fifth was Hold e n's best Supe rst o ck finish of th e year. " Everythi ng just w orked o ut pe rfec t," he said. Behind Tommy Hayden carne Graves Motorspo rts Yamaha's Damon Buckmaster. It was the first Superstock race Buckmaste r had started since crashing at Barbe r Moto rspo rts Park back in May. T he crash injured his left hand , and the injury hasn't fully healed. "Wh en the t ire s start br eaking tract io n a lot, the thing moves around really vio le ntly," he sa id. " I can 't ho ld it . It's too much o n my han d ." Ne xt was Att ac k Kawasaki's josh Hayes in e ight h. Hayes d ropped fro m seventh to I Ith afte r overshooti ng turn one o n th e ninth lap . He gained thr ee spo ts back by th e e nd . Valvoline EMGO Suzu ki's Steve Rapp was closing o n Hayes w ith Sta r Motorcycle School's jason Prid more well bac k in 10 th. eN VIRGIN IA IN TERN ATIO N AL RACEWAY ALTON, VIRGINIA RE SULTS: OCTOBER 9, 2004 (ROUND 1 1) REPSOl SUPERSTOCK: I. Jason Disalvo (Yam); 2. Ben Spies (Suz) ; 3, Jamie Hacking (Yarn); 4. Aaron Goben (Yam) ; S. Jaco b Holden (Suz): 6. Tommy Hayden (Kaw) : 7. Damo n Buckmaster (Yam); 8. Josh Hayes (Kaw) : 9. Steve Rapp (Suz); 10. Jaso n Pridmo re (502); I I. Scott Greenwood (Suz); 12. Alex Go be rt (Ho n); 13. James Ke rke r (Hon) ; 14. Montez Stewart (Yam); 15. Roland Williams (Suz); 16 . Sean Wray (Yam); 17. Jesse Janisch (Suz); 18. Vincent Haskovec (Suz): 19. Roger Lee Hayden (Kaw): 20. Jimmy Moore (Suz); 1 1. J.J. Roetlin (Suz); 22. Eric Wood (502 ). Tim e: 2" min., 16.80 3 sec . Distance : 17 la ps, 38.25 m iles. Average sp e ed: 93.026 m ph. Margin of victory: 7.093 sec . REPS O L SUPERSTOCK C 'SHIP PO INTS STANDINGS (After II of II rounds) : I. Aaron Go be rt (320/ 1 win): 2. Jamie Hac king (3 171 wins); 3. To mmy Hayde n 4 (3 13/2 wins ): 4. Jason Disalvo (3 1212 Wins): 5. Ben Spies (297/2 wins): 6. Roger Lee Hayde n (268); 7. Steve Rapp (244); 8. Josh Haye s (235); 9. Jaco b Ho lde n (232); 10. Alex Go bert (204); I I. Jason Pridmore ( 197): 12. Vincent Haskcvec ( 18 2): 13. Jo hn Hane r (16 7); 14. Eric Wood (154) ; IS. Damon Buc kmaste r (139) ; 16. J.J. Roetlin ( 134) : 17. Geoff May (97); 18. Jesse Janisch (90) ; 19. Jason Curt is (89) ; 20. Sco tt Greenwood (76) . 20 My OWN 59 Briefly.•. RACE Ja ke Holde n 5th Lion Racing's Jake Holden used his spare bike to t urn in his best-eve r Supe rstock performance. "We cras hed our A bike, and our B bike en ded up being the good bike to go on, " Holden said after beati ng Tommy Hayden for fifth. A few riding mistakes caused Holden to temporarily lose touc h with Hayden, but he was able to make a pass on the 14th of I7 laps. "He must have had trouble with his w indscreen. I think a rock hit it ." Holden didn't be lieve there was just one component of the weekend that led to his success, saying it was a combination of bike, tires and track . "I really like Virginia. It's a really smooth track, technical, lots of turns ." 22 Tommy Hayden 6th Tommy Hayden came to Virginia knowing two things: He knew he was tied with Jamie Hacking, five points back of Aaron Gobert, in the Superstock points standings, and he knew his motorcycle didn't like VIR "Fo r some reason , we really can't get that bike to go around . here very good, " he said. Hayden had qualified sixth, I.S seconds behind Jason DiSalvo. In the mix at the beginning, his race was irre parably damaged by the piece of curbing kicked up by Gobert's rear. 'f\t first I thought for sure it busted my radiator," he said. 'f\ pebble will do that. " The stone had destroyed his windscreen and unseated his lap timer. "It was dangling around, it was flying around , flying in the air and flying over on the side and flying down in here . I wo uld've reache d down and ripped it off, but I thought I might rip some thing important because it's kind of all the wires the re . So I just backed it down a little and just tried to stay somewhat reasonable. IfI had been winning or something I would have maybe chanced it a little bit more." At the end of the day, there were a few problems , "but I don't think they we re going to be the difference of me winning anyway. I think I wou ld've been a little bit closer, but I definitely wasn't going to have that 26 pace that Jason [DiSalvo] and Ben [Spies] had." 6 Damon Buckmaster 7th Graves Motorsports Yamaha's Damon Buckmaster qua lified his Superstock R-I at Road Atlanta ove r a month ago, but a longlinge ring w rist injury forced him out of the race. VIR marked his return to the class. He'd hoped to be able to help his tea mmat es in their championship run s, but he wasn't up to pace. Following Tommy Hayden early on, he thought. "You know, I'm going to play for the team her e. This is my job, and go put things into perspective, and I thought if Tommy makes a run for it, I'll keep going with him. It seemed like he was struggling. Seemed like he just couldn't get the power to the gro und ." Buckmaste r couldn't get around him, and then he started gett ing tired . "O nce that bike starts moving around a little bit, it start ed putting a little more pressure on my hand. I just wanted to be conservative and finish the race." 1 Josh Hayes 8th "I passed Tommy [Hayden] and Damon [Buckmaster] on the front straightaway, and I got down into one and grabbed the brakes and figured of all laps. That lap I get it up on the front wheel rea l big and I had to let go of the brake lever," Hayes said of his ninth-lap mishap. "So it just got me in there too hot. I end ed up going right off the edge of the track - really slow. I almost got it stopped enough to stay on the track . Just ran off - dam mit! And then I was just kind of riding around by myself. Then [Steve] Rapp ran off, so then I had somebody to chase, so I went after him a little bit there at the end. O therwise, I think I would've gotten the group I was with and probably put a little gap on them. I was feeling pretty comfortable at that point." 95 Roger Lee Hayden DNF Kawasaki's Roger Lee Hayden was in third place on the seco nd lap when trou ble began to hit. The shifter on his ZX- IOR was loosening and it would get worse. "I was kind of having problems w ith my shifter a little bit and finallyit broke, and that was the end of my race ," he said. "It was a bad deal, but that was the best I could have done. [jarnie] Hacking was right on me, breathing on me pretty hard. I knew I was messing him up because I was having problems shifting. A few laps before that, com ing down the hill, I was having trouble shifting because it was kind of moving around a bit. That's the way it goes . That's racing," OOOBER 20, 2004 • CYCL E NEWS 40th Anniversary Continued from page '7 AMAand a few riders. AMA road race manager Ron Barrick will inspect the final layout, as w ill a few as yet to be determined riders. Yoshimura Suzuki's Mat Mladin wasn't available to inspect the track since he flew home to Australia earlier in the week. Amer ican Honda's Miguel Duhamel wasn't expecte d to be available due to family commitme nts in Canada. When Tommy Hay den crashed in Satur day morn ing's Super sport practice, it broke a streak that wen t back two years . The last time he 'd fallen , either dur ing a race or a test, was during a test at VIR two years ago. "Igot a hole in my thu mb, but it's alright," he said. The last time before that crash was wh en he got caught up in the chicane exit me lee at Daytona 2002, and you co uld hardly blame that one on him. "Maybe I should crash more," he joked . Duhamel won $2250 for each Superbike win, a total of $4SOO from the $60,000 Superbike purse. There was another $ 1500 for winning the Formula Xtreme race, plus sizeable bo nuses from American Honda. Y ates ear ned $1900 for each of his seconds, with Ben Bostrom taking$3300 for his pair of thirds. There was a lot for Reg is Laconi to take in. A week re moved fro m finishing second to Fila Ducati tea mmate James Toseland in the final round of the World Superb ike Championship at Magny-Cours, France, the Fre nchman was at his first American track other than Mazda Raceway LagunaSeca. "I like always to be in America," Laconi said. "I like for Laguna Seca. I'm always happy to be there ." But there was much to learn. The re was the track , a different, though similar, mo torcycle. and Michelin tires, far different from the Pirellishe used this year. The re were two 30-minute Superb ike pract ice sessions prior to the lo ne 25minute qua lifying session in which he came e ighth . "I don't know enough of this bike with this tire. It was quite hard. All the pract ice , we have to change a litt le bit and go step by ste p to be sure that we don't make also som ething w ro ng. Beca use we have not the time in 30 minutes to change somethi ng on the bike, a big thing on the bike ." Laconi said the re was more work to do in the morning warmup. The track, he said, was almost Europ ean. exce pt fo r the curb ing. Laco ni caught his knee on the cur b in qualifying and it nearly knocked him orr the Ducati. "Now it' s okay.When I touch, I say I'm afraid about the knee because make big pain, but now it' s looking okay, just a little bit more big, but it w ill be okay." The e ngine on the F04 uses a standard , heavier crankshaft, rather than the lighter World Superbike vers ion. Laconi brought a bunch of parts from his race bike, including the thumb rear brake. "It is very similar," he said. He'd hoped to ride in Friday's promoter 's pract ice but wasn't allowed because of his factory status. Laconi predicted that his pace would increase right up to the final lap of race two . "Is not only Continued on page 22

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