Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

------... nI~I ~ ~ / -~----- i - r--1 I J track F ormula U SAlWrenchead.com National D irt Track Series Round 8 : Cal-Expo State Fairg round s Roadies: Larry Pegram (72F) and Nicky Hayden (69) were forced to qualify through a semi, but they both did, and Hayden went on to put in a spectac.u la r charge to fi nish sixth after start ing dead la st. Peg ra m was 14th. la st t im e t h at I ride that p a rt icul a r m otorcycl e ." Davi s wo uld be c re dited with 18th p la c e . Me ch an ic a ls drop ped Lync h o ut ea rly, as he c ha lke d up 17 th a fte r exitin g o n lap 14 . Ha yd en ra n 16 th by lap three. By lap five, he was 13 th . By the ha lfway point, he was 10 th . B ige low wa s als o o n the m o ve , starting way d own in 16 th b ut moving smartl y th rough th e fie ld, just a fe w ride rs a head o f Ha yden on a ny gi ve n lap . Around lap 12, it a ll ca me to a he a d as Ha yde n caught u p to a pack th at hel d Big elo w , S ch nabel, Roeder a nd Murphree , wh o had fallen off th e le a d p a ce. The g roup d ra fted ba ck and forth a round the ra c e tra c k , with Ha yd e n shuffling h is wa y to th e front o f it to ta ke th e s ixth s pot fo r good . Desp it e Kin g ' s lead pace , Ha yd en had c ut the fastest laps of anyone in th e main event all n ig h t. His wa s a ste llar performance to say th e least . " I' m pretty frust rat ed, " Ha yd en said . "We had someth ing wrong in th e tran s m is s ion at Springfi eld , and we th o ug ht that we had it fixed when we go t he re tonigh t. S ometh ing wa s wro n g , becaus e a ll n ight I m is s ed s h ifts . So then we sw itched bikes, a nd in the meantime we put a b ra c ket o n the s pare bike that was on th e other bike , a nd that m a y h a ve be e n wha t was c a us ing it. Then again , it could h av e bee n m e . O nce I got go ing , I just started catching guys a nd ra ci ng gu ys . I had fa st tim e in p ractice , a nd I ha d th e fa ste s t laps in the rac e. It 's h a rd t o sa y how Rich would have do ne if s o m e o ne wa s push ing him . And to be honest with yo u , I wa s kind o f gla d t ha t th e tr a ck w as a litt le rough be cause I thin k that those k ind of favo r m e. " Bigelow 's finish m arked his return to racing , albe it under th e Fo rm ula US A sanction. It was his first appeara nce s ince h is o ne -race AMA sus pe n- 12 OCTOBER 4 ,2000 ' cue I s ian fo r on-tra c k inc id ents th at ha d ta ken p la c e at the Sprin gfield Mile . Aft e r p u tti ng in a cool pe rfo rm a nc e for seventh p lace on the track, it was a see m ingly hu mb ler B ig el o w w ho cho se to com m e nt o n his recent s us pens ion a nd the le sson th at he had le a rned from it. "I had noth ing to lose bec aus e I wa s like 4 5 th in th e po ints , so I ju st we nt o ut there a nd ro de it ," Big e low s aid. "It wa s p retty rough at first, but it t urne d out a lot better tha n I thought it would . Th is was m y first ra c e since Springfie ld . T hat [s us pension] wa s somethi ng that had to hap p e n . Bru c e [Bob e r] h ad to make a s ta nd. T hey cou ldn ' t j ust le t th e s e incide n ts keep o n going . Th e y o nly sus p en d e d me fo r one race , b u t I re all y didn't feel like I was ready to go to Vernon [New Yo rk] e ither. I'm fifth in the champions h ip , an d I d id n't sh o w up. I h o p e t ha t p e opl e ca n respect that I d idn't j ust try a nd jump ba ck into it at Ve rn on like th is stuff wasn't my fault . I learned a b ig lesson from th is, and I am very sorry for wha t has ha p pe ne d . I've rea lized that I' m going to get to do thi s for a lo t more years , and I d on 't ne ed to be sla m mi ng into p e op le o u t there . We ' re not getti ng pa id mill io ns to d o this, a nd if yo u ha ve to stuff a g uy to ga in one po s ition , it's j ust not really worth it. If yo u ca n 't pa ss a g uy in one c o rn e r , t here a re going to b e a bout 4 0 m ore. I ho pe peop le will see a differen t m e out o n the racetrack, beca use there is going to ha ve to be a diffe rent m e o ut there . And there is . I'm go ing to tr eat everybo dy o n th e ra c etra c k like I want to be tr eated . I a p p re cia te t hat m o st of t he ride rs a ccepted m e b a c k tod ay a n d we re ta lking to me and not t re a ting m e like a pie ce of s h it. It was good to com e ba ck." Co olbe th , wh o had e lected to ride h is Ha rle y -D a vidson XR7 5 0 in s te a d of his Suzu ki TLl ODD, finished eighth, the victim o f o ne of h is fo rme r b ad habits . " I j u st got a reall y p o o r start ," Coolbe th sa id. "I wish that it had been 25 la ps, beca use I was just starting to get foc used wh e n the race was o ve r. T he light s eemed like it we nt rea lly qui ck at the line , to o . E ighth is not what I wanted here." Murphree wo uld ha ng on to finis h nin th, a ra t h e r fru s t ra t in g result in light of t he fact t ha t he wa s clearly capable of another po d ium spot o n a nother mile track this e ve ning . "I just couldn't c o m e to gr ips with the track as well as everybody e lse d id , " Murphre e sai d . "T hese roug h m iles have ta ken their to lls o n m e in the past, so I just go t o ff th e line a s good as I could a nd j us t kind of d rove around. I d ecided to ta ke what I could get. R ig ht a fte r the h a lfw a y , my bra ke s went a way com p letely - not th a t th a t screwed m e up too bad anywa y. I really wanted to win th is thing , seeing as ho w it 's re all y c lo se t o ho m e . If it wasn' t fo r Jim Varnes and Babe Dema y doing s u c h a good job Davis co ntinued. "Safety is the number-one issue. Everybody here in the pits has got a brain enough to know that the track is not right. It's just commo n sense. tt Other than perha ps the Springfield Mile, the Sacramento Mile has always been one of those "givens· on the pro dirt track racing calen dar every year, a place where the riders ca n come and expect that they will have a safe, well-groomed surface on which to ply their trade. But, the events that brought about the lengthy delay and subse quent poor trac k conditions at the Sacramento Mile disgruntled many of the sport's marquis riders, most of whom had elected to ma ke the long trip just to ride Sacra mento without the worry of a conflicting AMA race on the weekend. Afterward, thanks to the current "us vs. the m" climate at the top tier of professional dirt track ra c ing , it was c lea r that a ny mom entum that the Fo rmu la USA/Wrenchead .com National Dirt Track Series ma y have been building after successful events at Portland find Seattle was se riously checked · if not lost altogether. Upon arrival in the morning, the race teams were greeted with a track that looked as if it had been dug up like it was being prepared as a cushion. The usual "concrete" app ea rance was m issing . By 4:30 p.m., the dry , loose condition of the racet rack appe a red to have changed very littie despite the fact that the water truck an d the SFX tractor/trailer tra nsporters were attempting to pack the surface . Just after the rider's meeting, at around 5 p.m.. a tanker truck containing magnesi um chloride, a seal ing/moisture-retaining agent, was dispersed to make a lap of the track , and that' s when things took a tum for the worse. Instead of soaking into the surface , the mag nesium chloride simply puddled up on to p of it. Further compounding the problem was the fact that the solution smelled like petroleum a nd ap peared to be bearing some kind of oily res idue that made it extremely slippery to the touc h, raising the question as to whether or not there was so me thing other than magnesium chloride in the tank er.' Whatever the case , Formula USA officials were forced to dispatch their road graders to scrape the top layers of the su rface away v All the extra work delayed the program for over two and a half hours before the riders were forced to jump straight into timed qua lifying without the benefit of practice. The delays , combined with a perceived lack of communication, left several of the top riders extremely angry. "We haven 't been told anything," Fasth og.com rider Will Davis said. "Either they don't know what has been put down or... They put magnesium chloride down, but it is just standing on the trac k. If you go feel it, it's not just magn esium chloride. It feels like there is also some so rt of petroleum like diesel fuel or solvent, and it didn't get drained out of that tanker before the other shit was put in there. It doesn 't take a rocket scientist to see it or feel it. "Even before that stuff got dumped down, the track was terrible," e nevv s Davis was not the only Formula USA part-timer who was disappointed with the turn of eve nts, Mich igan team owner Tom Cummings had rolled his TCR rig to California so that his rider, road racer Nicky Ha yden, co uld ride the Sacra mento Mile before the upcoming Willow Springs AMA National Superbike finale. "This is very disappointing," Cummings said. "I don't know what they're doing to what has always been one of our best miles. The reaso n we're here is because this is such a great race track normally. Why they changed their strategy is beyond me. but it' s costing everybody money as we sit here and ta lk about it. I feel sO for the ,rry fans. It looks like a great crowd is turning out again here tonight to see this." Even reigning AMA Grand National Champion Chris Carr, whose decision to commit to the Formu la USA/Wrenchead .com National Dirt Track Series was probab ly viewed by AMA traditionalists as a whole- hearted endorsement, offered no words of sympathy for Formula USA. "I've been coming to the Sa cramento Mile since 1980 as a spe ctator and as a part icipant since' 1984 ,· Carr said . "One yea r we had a weathe r-related track that was pretty bad, but we had an excuse for that. There is no excuse for this track tonight. Somebody whose job it was to be in charge of hiring peop le to do racetracks for us failed misera bly, because this thing was bad from the time we drove ac ross it on the way in, and if anything, it is worse than it was when we got here." Once race offi cials finally deemed the track ready, a few se lect riders were asked to go out and test the surface . Competition Acces sories' Larry Pegram was one of them , and althoug h he ultimately deemed it capable of being ridden upon, he, too, was very critical of the situat ion. "It's ugly," Pegra m sa id. "It's raceable, but it's ugly. I'm no expert on how to pre pare a racetrack, but I could have done better tha n this. They definitely dropped the ball on this deal. That's not to say that the other organization hasn't dropped the ball 100 times, too, a nd you know how many times we forgive and forget. But I think that this, being a new deal, we need to set the precedent that we're not going to let this happ en from here on out. We need to make that clear. We ca n't just go a nd boycott them tonight. We've got to go ah ead and race , but we've got to make it clear that we're not going to continue to let this happen . We'r e going to go ahea d a nd race. But no more." As Pegram alluded, the show did go on, with the first heat race starting at nea rly 9 p.m. The ride rs then dealt with the hurried progra m, the event cuts and the shortened main event to put on an entertaining race for the sellout crowd.

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