Cycle News

VOL. 51 ISSUE 25 JUNE 24, 2014 P117 place for years and was anxious to test his skills on the course. During that Friday Oliver took to Grattan. He ran near Andy Fenwick's track record (1:25.05). The Marlboro Roberts team elected not to use nitrous oxide injection at Grattan. The team tested a new system that injected a higher volume of nitrous but the result was two seized motors. "This track places a premium on handling so I think we'll be O.K. here without the extra horsepower," Oliver said. Oliver won the first qualifying heat race on a wet track over Grattan specialist Fritz Kling, who was racing a Carry Andrew, Yoshimura-built, American Eagle Racing Suzuki GSXR1100 Superbike. Valvo- line Suzuki rider Mike Smith, who would ultimately go on to be the series champion, won the other heat. It was raining hard for the start of the final. Most of the field on full rains. Smith got off the line first and led into turn one. Oliver got a great start and was second most of the way down the front straight before Kling moved by him just before turn one. By the third lap Oliver moved up to second and the Smith/Oliver/Kling trio separated themselves from the rest of the field. Smith's big Suzuki GSXR1100's usual accelera- tion advantage over Oliver's 250 Yamaha was ne- gated by the wet conditions. Oliver made a move around Smith on lap five going around the outside in turn five, a tight downhill right-hander. Smith challenged and led again but it was apparent that Oliver's Marlboro machine was handling much bet- ter in the rain. Oliver would later say he hardly slid his bike at all, Smith on the other hand was doing all he could do to keep the heavier Valvoline Suzuki on two wheels. To illustrate the treacherous conditions, Andy Fenwick was beginning to steadily work his way up to the front when he to fell victim to the wet track. "I was feeling good and looking to gain on a rider (Pe- tersen) ahead of me. I was concentrating so hard on Petersen, I lost track of how fast I was going into the bowl and I dumped it," said the rider who held the Grattan track record at the time. By lap six Oliver had put himself in the lead for good. Not only was his machine working well in the wet, Oliver was just plain outriding the com- petition. His entrance speed into the turns were much faster than anyone else, in fact it was so much faster that it looked like he might crash at any moment, yet he later said he was in total con- trol. Despite a badly bruised foot from a practice crash, Oliver's teammate Petersen was also tak- ing full advantage of his Marlboro Yamaha's agility in the wet. Petersen had worked his way up from a long way back to move by Kling and Smith to take second. No sooner had he done that when his bike started missing. At first the miss was spo- radic but it quickly worsened and Petersen was lucky to nurse the bike home to sixth place. Kling put his American Eagle Racing (Yoshimu- ra) Suzuki in second over Smith. Late in the fi- nal laps Kling turned in the fastest lap of the race (1:41.09) in pursuit of Oliver, but he would later say that Oliver was riding too consistently to catch him. The gap got as close as seven seconds, but by the end Oliver was a comfortable 11 seconds ahead. "The only problem I had during the race was my visor fogging," said a jubilant Oliver. "I messed around with the vent settings and finally got it cleared up. Once my vision was corrected I had no problems. Bruce Maus really had the bike set- up just right for the conditions. It feels good to finally win one." Oliver tried valiantly to stay with the big F-USA machines the rest of the season. The next year he would be the rider to beat with a 500cc GP machine, but on a rainy July Sunday in Michigan, Oliver chalked one up for the little underdogs of the world and beat the big F-USA bullies at their own game. CN OLIVER BEATS GOLIATH Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives

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