Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

"' t-. ~ V ,.0 o .-,l u o The Danny Hamel/Paul OstOO duo scored the win with just 17 seconds to spare. Hamel, Ostbo steal the show at Las Vegas 300 By Anne Van Beveren Photos by Tom Van Beveren TONOPAH, NY, SEPT. 19 . fter six hours and almost 230 miles of hard-on-the gas racing, the battle for overall honors at the Las Vegas 300 was decided in the last 11 miles. The two top teams, separated by no more than four-and-a-half minutes during the course of the race, were just 17 seconds apart as the final sprint began. Kawasaki's Larry Roeseler was out in front aboard the Team Greenbacked Kawasaki KX500 he shared with Ty Davis, when rival KX500 pilots Danny Hamel and Paul Ostbo made their final move. . "When I passed the alternate pit I saw Hamel standing there and I figured he was probably going to get on the bike," said Roeseler. "I knew what I had .to do and I rode as hard as I could all the way in." With 11 miles to go and a I7-second deficit, Hamel also knew what was needed. "It was 11 miles of do or die,'~ said Hamel. "I knew how much time I had to make up. It was all or nothing right there and I rode like a man possessed." Stopwatches clicked pn as Roeseler crossed the finish just before 2:00 p.m. with a total elapsed time of four hours and 50 minutes. . They clicked again as Hamel stormed in just over half a minute later and, when the starting times were adjusted, Hamel had done the impossible. The 20-year-old had put half a A 32 minute on the veteran desert ace in the final stretch of the course and had snatched the overall win and the Open Pro purse by just 17 seconds. "It doesn't get much closer than this," said Hamel. Ostbo, who overalled the event last year with Greg Zitterkopf, credited the win to careful planning. "You get a real young partner - the best partner in the world, you give him the bike and he wins it for you," Ostbo joked. "That's all it takes." This year's race, the fourth event in the five-round Grand Slam Championship Series organized by Best in the Desert's Casey Folks, drew 113 teams to the historic mining town of Tonopah, 200 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The racers were greeted by sunny, mild weather with highs around 80 degrees, and rain two days before the race brought a welcome respite from the usual end-of-summer dust. The course was laid out in a figure eight, with a 36-mile loop to the east followed by a 40-mile loop towards the west. Most teams split the figure eight in half, with each rider tackling the same loop-three times to make up the 228-mile total, but Hamel and Ostbo rode one complete figure eight each and then split the final circuit. Ostbo described the course as " ... unbelievable." "It was beautiful. You just can't Ty Davis and partner Larry Roeseler .had the win snatched aWay in the last 11 miles. touch Casey (Folk's) courses," said Ostbo. "There's nothing that difficult but there's so much difference in the terrain. You remember these courses forever." The Roeseler/Davis Kawasaki was on the front row of the time-adjusted starting grid and left the line promptly at eight a.m. The other racers followed, two bikes at a time every 30 seconds. Hamel powered off row three and made the most of the· dust-free early running. "It .was an excellent course and we couldn't have done any better with the rain and everything," said Hamel. "It made· things awesome." Hamel passed all of the earlier starters during the first half of the figure eight. He entered the pits with Davis hard on his heels but was a minute ahead on adjusted time, as Roeseler took over for the second half of the loop. Hamel stretched the lead still further on the easterly loop and handed over to Ostbo almost two minutes ahead on adjusted time.. Rapid opening loops were also turned in by the 250cc Pro Kawasaki team of Greg Zitterkopf. and Dan Richardson, who were less than six minutes back on adjusted time in third overall at the first pit, and by Over30 Pros Scot Harden and Jack Johnson, who were running fourth on a KTM. The Kawasaki team of John Braasch and Jeff Kawell was making strides in the 125cc Pro division. "We had to take one of the power-valves out yesterday and we didn't think it was going to run at all, but Kawell passed the other two (125cc teams) on the first loop," said Braasch. "The bike ran so well, we're thinking about taking one of the power-valves out for the Baja 1000." Other bids for victory had not started with nearly as much promise. Open Pro Destry Abbott, who shared a KTM with Daryl Folks, suffered a flat just seven miles into his first loop. Over30 Pros Lee P·earson and Danny Anderson discovered a rear brake that didn't work and a kill switch that worked too well during their opening loop, and Over-30 Amateur Bill McVay, who planned to solo the 230 miles, was losing ground before his race began. "My brake broke at the starting line and I had to go back to the pit," McVay explained. "By the time I got back, everybody was gone. I was the last one out by 15 minutes." The trials continued as the second loop of the figure-eight course got underway. Open Pro brothers Mark and Jeff Lundgreen lost time after their Yamaha went down in a comer. "A rock punctured the I had to push the bike around the mountain and back to the pits, then we had to change the clutch," said Mark Lundgreen. Dan Worley, who paired with Brian SChmuckle on an Over-30 Honda, rode his half of the figure eight on a flat tire that had to be zip-tied to the rim, and the ZitterkopfiRichardson charge was slowed when Richardson parted company with the bike just five miles into the second half of loop two. "I crashed in all the rocky, tight, virgin stuff going out and I got run over by my own motorcycle," said Richardson. "My confidence was pretty shaken up and the bars were bent way back." Problems also hit the front of the pad< when Davis got a flat less than 10 miles into the second loop. "I was right on Ostbo's tire going through a canyon when it happened," said Davis. "It was survival on the roads after that." Despite a helping hand from Hamel, the team lost a minute and a half changing the wheel at the midway pit, and Roeseler was· four-and-a-half minutes off the time-adjusted lead when he set out into the second half of the loop. Roeseler's experience from the first circuit gave him a leg up on Ostbo and he closed in rapidly. Hard riding and a lucky break did the rest. "It was a pretty intense loop," said Roeseler. "I caught him and passed him about six miles before the end of the loop. I got pretty lucky because I . caught him right where we jumped on a big wide road. You couldn't pass anywhere else." cases.

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