Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

There were fo ur winners in fou r races at th e season-opening SF X Are na c ross round in Des Moines, Iowa, November 34, Josh D e m ut h (Kaw) and Jeff Gibson (l-ion) won th e Friday and Satu rday 125cc class es , respect ively, and defending champi on B u d d y Antunez (Suz) and Heath V o ss (Hon) won the Friday and Saturda y 250 cc classes, respective ly. open the floo dgates for further moves by the other factories next season. Part of the rea son is money. Running a brace of fo ur-st ro ke S uperbikes is (ac cording to many) a more exp en sive bu siness than com peting wit h custo mer bikes in 500 cc GP . and w ith very little poss ibility of get ti ng anyt hing like th e same sponsorship back again to offset it. For th e s ix t h year in a r ow , Dou g Du bach (Yam) took top hon or s at the White Brot hers Vet World Ch ampi onship at Glen Helen Raceway in San Bernardi no, Cali fornia , No vember 4 -5. D ubac h wo n both mo to s for the overall win. fol lowed by Terry Fowler (Yam) and Erik Kehoe (Yam). IRL racecar driver and former National and Supercro ss Champion Jeff Ward co mpe ted. Also at the event, the Edi son D ye Life t ime Ach ieve ment Award was give n to four -time World M X Champion Torsten Hallman. One man who would know all abo ut th e relative merits of World S uperbike v s . Grand Pri x is J a n Witteveen , race dire ctor of Aprilia, who also denied that Cosworth was assisti ng Aprilia w ith the design of what is rumored to be a V-four. "W e w ill be developing a four- stroke for GPs, but it will be our own proje ct. " Wit· teveen said in an inte rview with Gordon Ritc hie . " W e pr efer to do it ourselves . The format of the engine is secret at the moment. I cannot te ll you . But all the pos sibilities allowed by the rules are co mpet itive . The two cylinder has advantages and disadvantages. Six has other advantages and other disadvantages. But both can be co mpe titive . Mayb e at different circu its one will be bett er than the other, but for t he season anyone sho uld be competitive . It w ill be qu it e interesting to see wha t each of th e man ufacturers will be d o ing , and we will see in a co uple of years w ho made the righ t product." On the su bject of whe ther or not t he new fo ur-s t ro ke s will unb alanc e w ha t has bee n a demonstr ably even power-sharing co-operat ive in GP s t his season, W it teveen was equally positive. " I don't th ink so, because the two-s troke version will remain competitive. It is not so that the four-st rok e bike next year or in two years wi ll blow the tw o-st ro ke away fro m t he circu it. Especially in 2002 and 2003 the two-s tro kes w ill stil l be co mpe ti tive . I think the advent of four-strokes w ill make thin gs more co mpetitive, not less so . " Recent conventional wisdom has it that W orl d Superbike will soo ner or late r simply disappear, but for Witteveen this is by no mean s a defini te course of action . " I don' t think so . It w ill depen d at bit on the prom ot er , but mainly all the co mpetitors have their own image and Superbike has its own space and its own story. So it will not disappear. It w ill be different, like it is also today, diffe rent from GP s. GP s are high tech , and Superbike or Supersport is lower tech , because they are rela ted to the production machines. " The subjec t of The final ro und of th e Co mpetition Accessories Pro Extreme Trials Series was held in Disney , Oklahoma, November 4-5, and the winner of bot h days o f co mpetition w a s former W o rl d Trial s Champ io n Tommy Ahvala (Gas Gas). On Satu rday, A hvala sco red the win over Ryon Bell (Mo n) and Raymond Peters LJ n --.J American Ho nd a M o t o r Co .. In c . announced thi s w eek t he promotio n of Chuck Miller to Ma nage r, M otorcycle Racing Teams. M iller was prev iously the Assistant M anager, M o torcycle Sport s. In this new capacity, M iller will co ntinue to report to G ary Mathe rs , Manage r , M ot orcycl e Sports. "We are very happy that Ch uck M iller will direct our rac ing teams," said G ary Christopher, Senio r The top individual rider at this year's Six Days was Austr alian Stefan Merriman who edged out Finland's Mika Ahola for top honors. Merriman competed in the 400cc Four-Stroke class on a Husqvarna. The "To p Am erican " was Russ Pearson who finished 44th overall. The Yamaha rider narrowly beat out Destry Abbott as the top U,S, rider · Abbott finished 45th overall. The top -finishing U.S, Club team was the Gerrit Hamilton Memori· al team, made up of Jason Dahners, Brian Bennett and Brian Sperle. Of th e 39 Am erica n riders that started the event, 10 of them earned gold medals, J 4 silvers and seven bronzes. Of special note, long-time ISDE rider Jeff Fredette finished out the Spanish Six Days with a silver medal, mak ing i\ 20 ISDE fini shes out of 20 starts for "Mr. Six Days." Class winners incl uded Finland' s Juha Salminen ( 125cc ) and Mika Ahola (250 cc Two-Strok e), and Australia 's Stefan Merrim an (400cc Four-Stroke) and Sweden's Anders Ericksson (50Occ FourStrok e). Sunday 's final motocro ss special tests were officially cancelled due to dusty conditions. A few motos were held, but did not count toward the riders' who rode final score. ue I r e _ S • NOVEMB ER 1 5, 2000 1 " L- C I '-..J (I U o o o o , -' b r> I C G o rr-.

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