Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

~ R RACE AMAlCCS EBC Endurance Challen eSeries: Round 8 DAD ~ The Christian Gardner-led Gold Hill. Racing team (3) proved to be unbeatable at the Mid-Qhio Sports Car Course; it was the team's first win of the season. Gol .Hill unsto a Ie at Mi -Ohio By Paul Carruthers Photos by George Roberts LEXINGTON, OH, AUG. 1 hey endured and they endured with speed. Few would argue the superiority that Gold Hill Racing displayed with its first win of the season at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. The Yamaha FZRI00-mounted duo of Christian Gardner and Linnley Clarke were ahead when the race was one of endurance, and they stayed ahectd following a red-flag that turned this endurance race into a sprint race. When all was said and done, Gardner and Clarke had completed 99 laps on the 2.4-mile road course at a redflag hampered average speed of 79.073 mph. Coincidentally, the Bould-er, Colorado-based team finished 4.492 seconds ahead of a team using their backup motorcycle, Class Racing/Gold Hill. Class Racing's Fritz Kling, Ray Yoder and Dean Mizdal used Gold HIll's spare bike to beat defending series champion Dutchman Racing, with Andrew Strou~ and Scott Zampach aboard the team's Suzuki GSXR1100. The top three teams T 20 all completed 99 laps in the three-hour event. Championship-leading Fastline/ MCM Racing's Tommy Lynch and Jeff Heino ended the day· in fourth, despite suffering through the first portion of the race with a slipping clutch on the team's Suzuki GSXR1100. The four-time winners coul.d smile nonetheless after increasing their championship lead, thanks to the miserable day Team America was forced to endure. The team of Andy Deatherage and Michael Barnes was in trouble from the start, with Barnes crashing the bike at the IS-minute mark when the throttle stuck on the Honda CBR900. The team lost several laps while retrieving the bike, and then Barnes crashed again later in the race, ending any realistic chances of a point-scoring effort. They finally finished 18th. Thus, Fastline/MCM now leads Team America by 16 points with two rounds remaining, 134-118. Dutchman is third with 97 points and Gold Hill moves into a solitary fourth place with 75 points. Keystone Racing, fifth today, rounds out the top five in the championship with 60 points. Hornblower Racing team owner Bill Hornblower had waited eight years to win his first endurance race, with the team fulfilling those aspirations at Road America on June 27. Well, Hornblower only had to wait until the next race before getting win number two. This GTU class win, Hornblower said, came courtesy of Jon Cornwell. The Canadian 250cc pilot was at the helm for the final sprint to the finish following the red flag, and he was able to move ahead of American Flyers and Himmelsbach Endurance to take the win; American Flyers and Himmelsbach Endurance finished second and third, respectively. Hornblower and Cornwell were joined or the team's Honda CBR600 by Chuck Downie. Hornblower's victory further secured their hold on second place in the championship, and they were able to close in on series leading Moto Liberty/Nankai. The duo of Danny Walker and Doug Carmichael could do no better than 13th after losing six laps while fixing. a cracked engine case on their Honda CBR600 early in the race. Moto Liberty /Nankai leads Hornblower Racing, 107-85 with two rounds remaining. IRC Racing, fourth today, holds down third in the series standings with 65 points, three clear of a tie between T.B.R. Racing, 28th today, and American Flyers, second today. The flag dropped at close to 12:30 p.m. under sunny skies with no threat of rain, a change from recent years when rain played a major role in the outcome of endurance races at Mid-Ohio. Gold Hill immediately showed their dominance over the field as they grabbed the lead and pulled clear with Gardner handling the first riding stint on the FZR1000. They led Team America,

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