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VOL. 51 ISSUE 34 AUGUST 26, 2014 P117 through the 80-rider field to make it all the way back to third. With Schwantz heading off to race the Grands Prix, Polen was the de facto series leader going into round two at Road Atlanta in May. In that race Shobert and Polen got away early from Doug Chandler's SuperTrapp Honda, Mike Baldwin's Vance & Hines Suzuki and the rest of the field and then put it on cruise control. Both of the leaders had a strategy in mind to be second on the final lap to get the benefit of the draft on Road Atlanta's long back straightaway, but Polen never took the bait, in spite of the pace Shobert set - nearly three-seconds per lap slower than what they qualified. They made up for the grand touring mode however in a riveting final lap. Both Shobert and Polen went for broke coming up the hill to the bridge and final two turns. Polen's Yoshimura Suzuki was going way too hot into the bridge turn and he ran off into the red Georgia clay exiting the turn. Shobert had also pushed his factory Honda and got sideways, but thanks to Polen running through the dirt, he was able to hang on to victory. They left Road Atlanta with Shobert leading the series by a single point. Polen then got on a roll. At Loudon he earned his very first AMA Superbike victory and did it in convincing fashion. He led and had enough control of the race that he actually slowed to let Shobert pass him so he could see where Shobert was strong and where he might be vulnerable. When the leading duo hit lapped traffic, Po- len saw that as his cue and went back to the lead and pulled away to a 1.63-second margin of victory. He then came back and dominated at Road America, beating Shobert by nearly seven seconds. At that point Polen held a seven-point lead over Shobert with three rounds to go and was brimming with confidence. At Laguna it was Shobert's turn to shine. He beat Polen in both legs of the two-segment Superbike final. After Laguna, Polen led the series by just three points. Mid-Ohio was the pivotal race in that year's cham- pionship. There was controversy before the final when Shobert crashed his bike in Sunday morning practice and Honda received permission to use a new frame, something the AMA hadn't granted Yoshimura and Scott Gray at Road Atlanta. AMA officials said the difference was time. Honda came to the AMA and asked to use a new frame after the morning crash and had time to get it approved. At Road Atlanta Gray crashed in the Camel Challenge and Yoshimura simply showed up on the grid of the final with a new machine without approval. Re- gardless, the tension between the teams was high. Mid-Ohio proved to be the best battle of the season between Shobert and Polen. They swapped the lead several times. Polen again seemed a bit stronger in lapped traffic and got into the lead on the white flag lap, with Shobert tucked in his draft. It looked as if it would be a battle to the checkers, but Polen unchar- acteristically threw it away over the rise in turn 10 while leading. The Mid-Ohio result put Shobert into the lead by eight points. It would be two months before the series finale at Sears Point. There all Shobert had to do was finish third or better to win the title. Even if he won, Polen was going to need help at Sears. Suzuki had just the rider they needed to try to hamper Shobert as much as possible in Sears spe- cialist Scott Gray. Vance & Hines Suzuki also put an aggressive young David Sadowski on its machine. Friction between Suzuki and Honda was so high that speculation ran rampant that either Gray, Ski or both had been incentivized to try to punt Shobert into the weeds. As it turned out Gray would not be able to help. He crashed heavily (interestingly while running right next to Shobert) in the Camel Challenge and was too banged up to race the final. Polen won by over 35 seconds, but Shobert smartly ran second, with another Honda rider, Doug Chandler protecting his flank in third. And so it ended, somewhat anticlimactically with Shobert earning the AMA Superbike Championship by a scant four points over Polen. It was about as close as a championship could get with each of the contenders winning three rounds. And with that the careers of the two Texans went in different directions. Shobert's AMA title catapulted him to a Honda- backed GP ride the next season, where his racing ca- reer was unfortunately cut short after a freak accident in the post-race celebrations at Laguna Seca left him with a head injury that put him into retirement. Polen would go on to take an AMA and two World Superbike Championships in dominating fashion with Ducati. Both would ultimately become Hall of Famers. CN Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives

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