Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

ROAD RACE AMA 25ÖCC Grand PrixSeries: Final round Texan Colin Edwasrds (45) leads Robbie Petersen (16) and the rest of the 250cc pack on the opening lap of the final. Edwards caps championship season By Henny Ray Abrams _ COLLEGE STATION, TX, OCT. 11 outhwest Motorsports' Colin Edwards finished the season as he'd started it, winning a race from the front and re-affirming his future as one of the brightest of the rising stars. The win, the 18-year-old Texan's fifth of the nine-race season, didn't come with out a fight, defending National Champion Jimmy Filice urging his under powered Commonwealth Honda into second after pressing Yamaha *mounted Edwards most of the race at Texas World Speedway and even leading a few times. "It feels great," Edwards, who lives about 70 miles from the track in Conroe, Texas, said. "I came here feeling more pressure than in any other race. I felt comfortable at first, then I thought that my tires were going away. They weren't. I was pushing too hard. I settled down, relaxed and started taking my own lines, instead of trying to go twice as fast, and I brought my times down." Though Filice was close most of the race, trouble with a backmarker on the 19th of 28 laps caused him to lose touch with Edwards. The margin of victory was 9.267 seconds at the end of the 50.4 mile race which Edwards won in record time. He completed the race in 32 min utes, 13.787 seconds at an average speed of 93.826 mph, both new records. "We've been struggling all weekend. Ed (Toomey) pulled something out of the hat so that I could stay in their draft," Filice said. "In the race, I could stay in his draft, but I couldn't get by. I got caught by a slower rider in the infield almost crashed and there was no hope." Edwards' teammate Chris D'Aluisio was a distant third after losing touch with the leaders at the very start. "I just couldn't get up with those guys," said D'Aluisio, who moved into second in the championship. Del Amo Yamaha's Robbie. Petersen, in his first race smce breaking his left cpl- larbone at Willow Sprmgs a month ago, finished a sore, but contented fourth. Petersen had only decided a week earlier to make the trip to Texas. Moto Liberty's Doug Carmichael fin ished a distant fifth. The top two spots in the champi onship went to the Southwest Motorsports team, Edwards winning with 138, D'Aluisio second with 103. Filice moved into third with 101, with Otsuka Racmg's Kenny Roberts Jr. finish ing fourth with 98 points, after being forced to sit the race out with a hand injury suffered in a practice spill (see qualifymg box). Edwards didn't disappoint the host of friends and family attending the race, bursting out at the start to take the lead from Petersen, Filice, Otsuka Racing's Rich Oliver and Camerica Games Rick Tripodi. Filice moved mto second on the sec ond lap and he and Edwards began to I pull away from the pack. Petersen held third in front of D'Aluisio with Canadian Jon Cornwell moving into fifth. Like the fight for the front, this trio would take their battle down to the wire. By the fourth lap, attrition began to set in, Tripodi pulling in after boiling all the water out of his Aprilia and seizing it. Soon after, Two Brothers Racing's Rick Kirk pulled in after he noticed his engine temperature rising. "I'd seized on Friday and Saturday and didn't want to do it again," Kirk, who was suffering from the flu, said. Oliver pulled into the pits a lap later after the carbureto * on his lower cylinder had ingested a rubber seal that separates the radiator from the fairing. The rubber went through the carburetor, probably breaking the reed off, before Oliver pulled in and the seal was removed. He re-joined the race and finished ninth. Filice took the lead on the seventh lap setting Edwards up coming out of turn two and passing him going into turn three. "I could outbrake him and drive around him on the outside," Filice explained. "My bike was geared a lot higher for the race, than practice," Edwards explained of his Mike Rockwell-tuned Yamaha. "I could catch up to him, no problem. We changed gearing this morn ing to get more top speed. If we hadn't done that, I couldn't have been as strong on the front straight."״ The biggest problem for Edwards was the track surface, a problem that had less ened somewhat over the course of the weekend after being hazardous following an oil incident on Friday. "Usually you could ride it and have everything pushing with it and sliding," Edwards said. "Here, it would step out with really no warning." The pair had built up a six second lead on third place by the seventh lap, the fight now down to three riders after N2 Racing's Jim Sabin, who'd been at the back of the fight for third, crashed at the apex of a left-hand carousel, unhurt. A lap later and Edwards was back in front, a spot he would hold for two laps, relinquishing it for a lap, the 11th, before taking it back on the 12th. "We made radical changes in jetting and I still couldn't draft past him. I could run up on him and be near him onto the tri-oval," Filice said. Halfway in and Edwards had his D'Aluisio takes pole L ooking at the 250cc Grand Prix qualifying times makes you wonder about progress. Southwest Motorsports Chris D'Aluisio earned the pole position, but his time, 1:09.566 mins., was slower than Kenny Roberts Jr.'s lap record of 1:09.020 from the spring race. And most of the blame, it was discovered, could be put to the surface. Prior to the 250cc GP practice, the engine on one of the Supertwins entries expired, dripping oil and fordng a coating of oil-dri to absorb it Plus, since there's very little grass growing on the dusty drcuit, the track is constantly covered in a fine dirt, making it even slipperier. "The track surface is bad," D'Aluisio said after his pole-setting performance. "There's no rubber down. That and we didn't have much time to practice. I still worry about off-line passing. "The settings we used last year aren't working. The lack of grip is causing a lot of trouble," D'Aluisio said of his Dave Harold-prepared Yamaha. Aside from setting the suspension, the team was undecided on gearing. "That depends a lot on the wind. Yesterday there was a headwind on the front straight Today it's a tailwind. It usually changes during the day." Second fastest was Jonathan Cornwell, the Mobile Welding/Shoei/McBride Cycles- sponsored Canadian less than two-tenths behind D'Aluisio and of the same opinion about the grip. "It got a little bit grippy yesterday, but it wasn't exactly what you would call stellar. When 1 was out in the endurance race, it wasn't so bad, but this morning when I went out it was way scary. We're trying to get it to stick," Cornwell said. Trying to get it to run. It's always been one of our downfalls that it hasn't run strong on top. You can only ride so far, so fast before it ends up killing you. "In the really fast comers you can't see where the pavement is. You've got to make a guess and I don't like making guesses," Cornwell added. Edwards was third fastest in front of almost a hometown crowd, happy with the way he went out of the box and mostly concerned with passing. "Tum one is the only place you can make up time and on the exit onto the straight," he said "Its real hard to pass." Dallas resident Jim Sabin, of N2 Racing, was fourth fastest, his best qualifying per formance of the year which he put to finally getting his machine running. "It's been a handful all year. I׳ve been txuiing it myself and riding all year. I've been here twice since the last AMA race but I'm pretty much using the same setup as tfie first AMA race," the Texan said. As he had been all season, Filice was fighting for more top speed and not having much luck. "I'm getting through the infield real good, but Rich Oliver came by me about 15 mph faster on the front straight. The big tracks really show up the lack of power that much more," the Commonwealth Racing Honda rider said. "It's frustrating sometimes when I work so much through the infield and they pass me on the straight. We've got something we're going to try so we should be able to run with them at the start, then we'll see what happens." Robbie Petersen was sixth fastest on the Del Amo Yamaha, the Zimbabwean riding for the first time since breaking his left collarbone in an endurance race a month ago at Willow Springs. Otsuka Racing's Rich Oliver was seventh, Moto Liberty Danny Walker was eighth, with Oliver's teammate Kenny Roberts Jr. ninth after crashing. Roberts Jr. crashed in the fast tum one sweeper after getting out of shape when he hit oil. "I ran off the track at about 100 mph and went about 300 yards. At one point I thought it was over, but I was jumping a ditch," Roberts Jr. said. ،׳It threw me over the handlebars and into the grass." Roberts' crash went unseen by corner workers and it wasn't until he was discovered by Two Brothers Racing's Rick Kirk that he received any medical attention. Kirk had seized his Honda RS250 Honda going into tum one and had coasted past the first tum, spotting Roberts Jr. as he rode down the banking. "It would've taken a long time to get out where I was," Roberts Jr. said. A trip to the hospital revealed a small fracture in the top of his left hand which was placed in a light cast. He considered racing, but changed his mind after Sunday morn ing's warm-up.

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