Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Daytona's Pace Car Confusion For the s€cond time in a row. the use of the pace car in the Daytona 200 played a dubious pan in the possible outcome of the iace. Five yqrs agot a slow-moving Pontiac Aztek caused a chain-reaction crash on the back straight that collected Yoshimura Suzuki's Aaron Yates and Jamie Hacking, and Erion Honda's Kurtis Roberts. This time, the pace car didn't cause any crashes, but two riders felt it denied them a chance to challente for the podium. On the 55th lap of the Daytona 200, Anthony Fania Jr was knocked off his Yamaha R6 by another rider in NASCAR Tum Four. Fania's bike was visible, but he wasn't, so race control called for the pace car to slow the 0eld- (Fania was visible shortly afte( making ob6cene Bestures. presumably at the rider who knocked him off, on the Spe€d Channel broadcast.) AMA road race manater Ron Barrick was driving the Honda Accord paae car. Barrick war in the car by himrelf, with- out the benelit of a spotter. on the back straight. When asked afterward why there was no spotter, as procedure dic- tates, Bardak said it was due to a short- age of personnel - an answer that was met with audible disbelief in the press- room. He also said that he was driving the aar beaause he has the most expe- rience and knows the procedures. Others questioned why he would be monitoring the race in a car, rather than in the tower, Arked whether he was in a position to make good decisions, he said: "That's a good question, I guess. Certainly it's a stressful situation, You're concerned about everything that's toint on. Yeah. There's definitely a lot to think about all at once. Yeah. But I think I'm still able to think about all the different scenarios that could occur." Another of the problems !Y?s that there wes no pace-car practice eaalier in $e week- Barrick said it hadn't been done for "three or four years." Barrick pulled out in front of Yamaha's Eric Bostrom and American Honda's Mitu€l Duhamel. thinking he was in front of the race leaders. Bost.om was in founh, strugglinS with front-brake prob- lems, and Duhamel was fifth, after cra5h- ing out ot the lead on the 44th lap while holding a l2-second lead and the. remounting, "Race control wanted to get the field under control as quickly as we could," Barrick said- Barrick was told tha! he wasn't in front of the leaders, that he was in front of the fourth- ard fifth-placed riders. "Which m€ant that the first three rid- ers were well back behind me," Barrick said, "and it would have meant - not knowint exactly how many riders were in betlveen. but I knew they were well back, and it would have probably meant brin8- int neart the entire field past the pace car And, of course, when they do that, then they're going to want to run at speed, otching back up, so then you are no longer controllin8 them with speed." ln fact, American Honda's lake Zemke was the race leader, and he was well back in the pack, Zemke was one of reveral riders with worldng knowledge of the pace-car procedure, rvhich had been explained in Wednesday's riders' meeting, "The situation with the Pace car, there's a memo that goe6 out," Zemke began, "and it's 'hce Car Procedure.' And basically, in that procedure, it says that when the flace car - if tfie pace car doesn't merSe out in front of the leader - which I kept lookinS for the pace ca.r, and never saw it - if it doesdt merBe out in front of the leadei that th€re's a passen- ger in the pace car, and that pasrenger will b€ wavint riders by until they get to the lead rider. The lead .ider's supposed to b€ behind the pace car. That never h+pened. The pace car pulled out in front of Miguel, and nobody ever waved anybody by, and that's kind of how racinS resumed, So what happens is, you end up 8efting ever,,body bunched up into a pack. well, the Ieaders - if ever,,thint goes according to plan, the leaders should have clear track, while the guys behind him, if they weren't ri8ht on his tail, are going to have to get throuth that lapped traffic. I had a l6-second lead Soint into the pace car, and the lirst completed lap after the pace car left the track, I had four seconds. So we lort 12 seconds riSht there. That was just an error on some- boq/'s part." Zemke said he didn't believe it ended up affecting the outcome of the race, which he won by 1,562 seconds over Erion Honda's Josh Hayes. Teammate Miguel Duhamel, who, because he waj behind the pace car, was nearly a lap behind, disagreed. "l wa5 deserving of everything I had, because I shouldn't have thrown the bike down with a lo-second lead, but I was hanging in there for the chance to go for a win or to fo. a podium and help Honda get the one-wvo-three," he sajd. "Then the pace car comes out and I'm thinkinS, Awesome, terriflc.'l'm flSurinS I'm 30 seconds behind Jake, end now l'm zero seconds, because I m going to be ritk in line. Then they pull out and they tet Eric [Bostrom] and me. l'm conlused. l've got no radio communication... everyone is confus€d, I thoutht I was P-2 for a s€cond. I thoutht ma/be something happened with those guys, they pit-stopped at the lvrong time widr the pace car. I'm still staying out there." "gecause of the complete incompe- tence of the AMA," Duhamel said, "and I do believe it is the AMA, trecause I believe they are running the r.ce. They took any chance I had of winning *ris race and threw it out the window. I could have been watching the 200 upslaiE and eatint hot dogs and the result would have been about the sarne - because o{ their incom- petence. l'm incompetent today, because with a l0-second lead, I cr.shed, but I 8ot up and dusted myself off and put rnys€lf back in this race. I was doinS it because the Suyr work hard and Honda deserves to be up on the podium." Earrick rEplied that he aould "under- stand dlat he [Duhamel] wouldn't have been happy with the situation, be

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