Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
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CN III ARCHIVES BY LARRY LAWRENCE I n the 1980s and '90s there was a rivalry between club road racing organizations West- ern/Eastern Roadracers' Asso- ciation (WERA) and the Cham- pionship Cup Series (CCS). Even though many road racers competed in both sanctioning bodies, there were enough riders who pursued champion- ships in one or the other that distinct lines could be drawn. WERA was the older, bigger and more established organiza- tion, but CCS had the advan- tage of being affiliated with the AMA, and riders who won titles with CCS had the bragging rights of being AMA champs. CCS faithful looked down at WERA guys, while WERA rid- ers would retort by calling the CCS "Chump Cup" racing. In the 1980s and early '90s, endur- ance road racing was the premier cham- pionship in both clubs. AMA Pro Racing had the lock on being the king of the hill in sprint road racing, but endurance rac- ing was big during this period and winning the WERA National Endurance Championship was a prestigious title. CCS began its own national endurance series in 1985 with its races evolving into shorter events such as two- or three-hour races, versus WERA's six-, eight- and even 24-hour races. As the two endurance championships ran simulta- neously, the obvious question was which series had better teams? In WERA the big dog was Team Ham- mer, a squad which by the early '90s had dominated WERA National Endurance racing for the better part of a decade. At times CCS teams raced WERA events and vice versa. But the encounters proved inconclusive, since endurance racing has so many variables. Maybe they were tired of the chatter, maybe they wanted to prove that they were indeed the best en- durance squad in America, whatever the reason, in 1993 WERA's top squad Team Hammer (by then racing as Team Suzuki Endurance) decided to race the Daytona round of the AMA/CCS EBC Brakes Endurance Challenge. Daytona Bike Week would feature two rounds, the normal three-hour endur- ance event during the CCS weekend and then during the AMA Pro weekend, a 90-Minute AMA/CCS Team Challenge featur- ing only the big-bore GTO teams. It was the direction of even shorter endurance races the CCS Series was trending towards to help fit them in AMA Pro weekends. The goal for Team Suzuki Endur- ance was to win both races and leavet Daytona Beach having proved once and for all exactly who the best endurance squad in the country was. They likely would have pulled off the double, but for a simple mechanical problem late in the three-hour- race while leading. Yet in spite of the problem in the longer race, Team Suzuki managed to leave Daytona having solidly bolstered the case for the WERA Se- ries, by placing two teams on the podium in the AMA/ CCS 90-Minute Team Challenge. The CCS Series was loaded with talent that year. Two Brothers Honda entered the fray for the first time and with riders Rick Kirk and Tommy Lynch, racing a tricked-out Honda CBR900RR, they'd won the open- ing round of the '93 championship in Phoenix. Then there was Dutchman Racing, the top team in the CCS WERA VS. CCS ENDURANCE RACING P102 Kurt Hall and Michael Martin hold up the trophy for winning the 1993 AMA/CCS 90-Minute Team Challenge at Daytona.