Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/731940
CN III ARCHIVES BY LARRY LAWRENCE H arley-Davidson 883 Sportster racing pro- duced some of the closest, and most hard- fought battles in both road racing and flat track, but almost none more closely contested than that of Scott Zampach and Tripp Nobles' epic championship battle in what was then called the AMA Harley-Davidson Twin Sports Champion- ship in 1991. The two went back and forth all season atop the standings, with the pair winning all but a single round of the 11-race series. It all came down to a winner-take-all finale on the streets of Miami. Launched in 1990 in AMA Pro Road Racing, the spec Harley-Davidson 883 Series was at first scoffed at by many road racing purists, but it didn't take long for fans and the rest of the road racing paddock to warm up to the class. The evenly matched street bikes naturally made for big pack racing and placed a premium on a rider's late-race cunning, and sometimes bravado, to be able to come out on top. Never before had drafting, even on tracks not traditionally known for the technique, become so important. Over the years the 883 series, with its relative low cost and abundant factory and dealer support, produced some great road racers, riders like Mike Hale, the Bostrom and Wait brothers, Aaron Yates and Jake Zemke. The 1991 series kicked off at Daytona Interna- tional Speedway. In that race Nigel Gale held off Bartel's Harley-Davidson teammate Nobles by a half-second to win. Gale was champ of the series in 1989. Milwaukee's own Zampach took third on his Don Tilley-tuned 883 after a rough and tumble battle with another first-year Harley rider Kevin Rentzell of Chattanooga, Tennessee. On the cool down lap Gale stood up on his seat as he went by 5000 screaming hog fans at Harley Heaven near the chicane who were giving him a standing ovation. "That was quite a feeling," Gale said. "It was like a big football game; the crowd back there was really loud." Zampach won round two at Road Atlanta in on again, off again rain. In just one of their many episodes of clean and hard racing, Nobles tried to draft past Zampach coming out of gravity cavity on the last lap, but came up just short. The victory gave Zampach the series lead by a single point (35-34) over Nobles, Gale third with 33. At the wide-open and draft-friendly Brainerd International Raceway, the leading trio in the series put on a great show, swapping the lead back and forth numerous times per lap. This time it was Nobles making a break on the final lap and then riding as hard as he could to eke out a four- bike-length lead over Zampach and Gale coming into the final turn. Nobles' last-lap effort gave him his first win of the season, while Gale came in hot into the final turn and ran wide taking Zampach with him. The two dragged raced from off the track back on with Zampach clipping warning cones and having the power of the Tilley-tuned ZAMPACH AND NOBLES' CLASSIC '91 BATTLE P122 Soon-to-be champ Scott Zampach leads Tripp Nobles in the AMA Harley-Davidson Twin Sports Championship in 1991.