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ondas finished one-two in the wet-dry Lockhart-Phillips USA formula Xtreme race at Road America, but it nearly wasn't so.
The class that Jake Zemke and Miguel Duhamel have dominated for two years got a much-needed jolt of energy from the journeyman Michael Barnes. Riding the Team M'l EMGO SUZUId in
place of the injured Vincent Haskovec, the Floridian led four laps in the mIIIIIIe
of the race and threatened to take second until the final lap. when his dre was
completely shot. The lack of traction allowed Zemke to make the pass. but by
then he was too far behind teammate Duhamel to mount a charge.
Duhamel took the win, his second of the year, and certainly the more nervewracking. The win at the Daytona 200 seemed leisurely by comparison.
The race had begun on a wet but drying track. A dry line would form, but it
became the enemy of the treaded rain tires. Duhamel kept looking for puddles
to cool down the heating rear tire, and it worked - but he had to be careful. He'd
fallen in the earlier Superbike race after hitting a freshly painted curb and had to
dodge curbs and slick tar patches for 10 laps.
While chasing Barnes, he saw Barnes' rear tire deteriorating.
"I was seeing him out there spinning it up," Duhamel said. "He had great gearing coming out of the corners. The downside of that, though, is it just chewed up
the tire pretty quick."
Duhamel said his own tires "were good. I was still saving it in case somebody
did a different setup than me and came close, Icould have a last-lap hurrah going.
Thankfully, we didn't need it. After, it was pretty easy. Just sailing out there and
just trying to stay out of trouble."
The margin of victory was I0.130 seconds.
More importantly, he took back six championship points from Zemke.
Duhamel earned the maximum number of 38, adding one each for the pole position and most laps led to the winner's 36. With three rounds remaining, he has
205 to Zemke's 212.
Zemke aided his own cause on the final lap. Like Duhamel, he could see that
H
By HENNY RAy ABRAMS
PHOTO BY BRIAN J. NELSON
AND TOM RILES
Iffy conditions no problem for
Miguel Duhamel
Barnes was struggling.
"Barney was spinning up pretty bad, and he was coming back to me pretty
quick," Zemke said. "Luckily for me, he was shooting bb's in the shape of rubber at me, and I was able to go by him going into turn eight there on the last lap."
Zemke's overriding concern was the championship.
"I just wanted to make sure we came home in one piece and got some good
points coming out of here," he said.
Barnes had joined the team two weeks ago at Pikes Peak International
Raceway after a mostly idle 2 1/2 months since Daytona. He admitted to being
out of shape but still acquitted himself well. This weekend, now in team'
leathers, Barnes was closer to his fighting fonn.
"I had visions of standing on top of the podium for a little bit," Barnes said
of his midrace charge, "and then my soft [Pirelli] tire started to come into play
a little bit. That's all it was. I just chose too soft a compound. My gearing was
good, and that did wear out the tire a little bit extra."
Barnes never gave up.
"I was right in Jake's [Zemke] draft right at the line," Barnes said. "I
thought that I might get him, but I just didn't get enough of a tow and couldn't
slingshot around him."
The gap was .107 of a second.
"We definitely learned a lot here, and for my second race with the team, I'm
just ecstatic to gain some points," Barnes said.
Attack Kawasaki's Ben Attard led the first lap before falling back to a lonely
fourth.
Next came MPTRacing.com's Danny Eslick, also by himself on his Suzuki, as
was the sixth-placed Erion Honda of Alex Gobert.
Seventh went to Mike Hale, the Texan making his return to AMA racing after
being away since the end of 2002. He'll contest the rest
of the 2005 series on an ex-Erion Honda CBR600RR
backed by Rockwall Honda.
Kneedraggers.com's Robert Jensen was eighth. eN
ROAD AMERICA
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