Cycle News

VOL. 51 ISSUE 35 SEPTEMBER 3, 2014 P103 record of 1:29.603 set by Doug Polen. Edwards said he planned on trying to split from the rest of the field early in the Superbike final, but that didn't happen. Edwards got an unusually poor start and was just barely in the top 10 by the end of the first lap. Leading early was Duhamel. It was the first time a Harley led a Superbike race, and then Picotte passed Duhamel down Mid-Ohio's straightaway, but it was Duhamel who outbraked Picotte and made a bold inside pass to retake the lead. The Harley and Duhamel officially led the first three laps of the race - much to the delight of the massive crowd. "It was like finding a long lost love," said Du- hamel of leading a race once again. "It was like, 'Hello, honey, I've missed you, but I'm back now.'" Picotte finally made his pass on Duhamel stick, and yet another Canadian took over the lead. Meanwhile, Edwards, making up for his poor start, had quickly worked his way up to third passing two and three riders at a time under braking. Edwards said of his move to the front, "When I saw how early everybody was braking for turn five [at the end of the straight] I knew I could get back in the race." Edwards and Picotte spent the next few laps swapping the lead back and forth. By the halfway point in the race it was Picotte leading a tightly packed group of riders that included Edwards, Corser, Jamie James, Duhamel and Tiger Sohwa. Mike Smith was a couple of clicks back from the lead group followed by Dale Quarterley. Steve Cre- vier and Thomas Stevens diced just inside the top 10. Already out of the race were Kawasaki team- mates Fred Merkel (electrical) and Tripp Nobles (suffering from his Loudon crash) and Scott Gray with mechanical problems on his Ducati. Lap 15 was a dramatic point in the race. Du- hamel was in the pits, victim of a broken bolt on his shifter. The Harley crew quickly made repairs but Duhamel was nearly a lap down to the lead- ers. Then Corser's Ducati quit and the Australian rolled to a stop. Five laps later Picotte's bike also conked out. Ferracci did not specify what went wrong with the Ducati 955's, but he did say that he had made some changes trying to find more horsepower, since the bikes had to carry more weight with the new AMA rule, and that it had backfired on him. The Smokin' Joe's Honda team wasn't fairing much better. Smith was just beginning to make a move to the front when he crashed at the Key- hole. Teammate Kevin Magee was in and out of the pits much of the race with an electrical prob- lem on his Honda. The latter part of the race featured a duel be- tween the Vance & Hines Yamaha teammates. James led a few laps but it was Edwards leading the majority of the time. Kawasaki's Sohwa joined the Yamaha riders to make it a three-way battle before the Japanese rider slowed with tire prob- lems late in the race. At the end it was Edwards by 1.5 seconds over James. Sohwa was another four seconds back. Dale Quarterley looked to have fourth in hand but a missed shift allowed Crevier to slip past. Stevens ran a great race but in the closing laps his bike seemed to lose horsepower. Mike Hale, on one of his earliest Superbike rides for Smokin' Joe's, finished seventh after getting by Scott Doohan with 10 laps to go. Doohan, riding in the U.S. for the first time, finished eighth on the Weathertight Ducati. Doohan said the bike was bottoming out early in the race when the fuel tank was full. Tom Kipp and Brad Hazen rounded out the top 10. Edwards was ecstatic after the race. "My mem- ories of winning on the 250s are still very vivid, but it seems like such a long time ago. I'd almost forgotten how good of a feeling winning is." CN Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives

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