Clipboard
Clipboard
RACE WATCH
Rumors give way to racing
Rumors abound that the 250cc Grand Prix, Pro Thunder and new-for-’02 Superstock classes are on the verge of being done away with, but racing dines on rumors. Believe it when the AMA sends your entries back.
At Daytona, one class not touched by rumors of demise was 600cc Supersport, this year renamed just “Supersport.” Amid whisperings that the Kawasaki 600s were incredibly fast, Honda’s Nicky Hayden qualified on pole with a time of 1:53.351 that would have put him 10th on the Superbike grid. These 600s are the best bargain in racing. Behind him was the Kawasaki of his brother Tommy, then Australian Damon Buckmaster on a Graves Yamaha. As we’ve come to expect, the race was a dogfight among near-equals, making it seem that someday, everyone in the lead group will be forced to dive for the same spot on the final run to the flag, disintegrating the whole race into
a 100-mph raft of sparking bikes and smoking leather sliding up the road.
Crashes there were, but no raft. While the front-runners sliced and diced for 16 laps, Suzuki-mounted Aaron Yates moved up through the field, led into the Chicane, got a great drive and somehow pulled enough ground to hold on for the win ahead of Hayden (remarkably recovered from the previous day’s horrific Superbike qualifying crash). Next came Hayden’s Honda teammate Miguel Duhamel, Suzuki’s Jamie Hacking and last year’s winner Kurtis Roberts on a Honda.
The 750cc Supersport class has now become “Superstock,” and, due to a rules change, there was a Buell Firebolt entered, as well. Despite this and a few 600cc Kawasakis peppered about the grid, the class effectively remains a Suzuki GSX-R750-spec series for aspiring young riders. The lone Buell finished 26th. At the sharp end of the field, action was among Jimmy Moore, Jordan Szoke, Michael Barnes and Larry Pegram; at least it was after Steve Rapp’s Turn 1 high-side. Moore, even with his bike smoking late in the race, took the win, but only after Szoke drafted past from the chicane on the last lap, lost momentum as the two bikes came perilously near the wall, and was just bested at the line by Moore’s re-draft. >
“I can’t figure out how it happened,” was Moore’s response to his zillionthof-a-second win.
Three of 250cc GP racing’s senior men did not start the race-2001 champ Jim Filice because he’s now racing in Supersport; and Randy Renfrow and Rich Oliver because of injuries. Renfrow was seriously hurt on the warmup lap for the previous weekend’s Championship Cup Series race, suffering, among many other injuries, a broken knee, foot, several ribs and internal bleeding. Despite all this, the racing veteran insists, if he’s able, he’ll return to racing. Oliver, meanwhile, was walking around Friday night before the race with a cracked pelvis and missing the end of a finger, pondering whether he would ride in spite of these injuries. He did not.
This left the racing to the usual mix of Honda RS250s and Yamaha TZ250s, spiced up a bit by the presence of Aprilias. Chuck Sorensen was one of those Aprilia riders, and he ended up winning after Jason DiSalvo, trying to make a pass, dove underneath Sorensen to find a lapped rider in his path. He dodged inside, but the window closed and the two collided. Sorensen rode under the sliding pair and cruised to the win.
Buell Pro Thunder is a class repeatedly rules-adjusted to prevent its turning into yet another Ducati spec series like Battle of the Twins did before it. Triumph Triples came and went a few years ago, and now it’s mostly Ducatis and Buells. Liquid-cooled Ducati displacement has been trimmed down this year to 750cc from 800cc, while the limit for Buells is 1350cc. Don Tilley > has learned more than the world needs to know about getting amazing power from air-cooled pushrod Harley engines. Now come factory Buell entries as well, in the form of the new Firebolt XB9R. If the rules adjustments continue, who will win as Ducatis approach zero displacement and the Buells near infinity? Please, Harley, Erik Buell needs some technology...
In the end, the battle between Ducati high-rpm power and the fragile biginch push of the Buells was easily won by 748-mounted Kirk McCarthy, an Australian making his debut in the class, with Mike Ciccotto on an XB9R in second. Not the parity the rule-writers were looking for, but development and shorter straightaways may even the match. -Kevin Cameron
How to play the cards you’re dealt
Go ahead and try this at home kids, but remember, not even Hollywood can get away with a drama like the opening round of the AM As 2002 Grand National Championship.
Rick Winsett is 23, a Pennsylvania racer whose main sponsors are Mom and Dad, and who’s just earned his Expert dirt-track license. He showed up at Daytona Beach’s Municipal Stadium ready to
run his second, no kidding, GNC contest.
Daytona’s slippery limestone surface is always a crapshoot, but Winsett got> the gearing and tire pressures and lines right early on. He won one of the 12 scratch heats now used to establish the
starting order for the qualifying heats-it’s a long day for a short-track race. Other winners were defending AMA Champion Chris Carr, two-time Daytona winner Terry Poovey, established guys like Kenny Coolbeth and Dan Stanley, as well as fellow new kid John Nickens III. But the fastest man on the track at that point was Kevin Atherton, equipped with a liquidcooled Honda CRF450R. HarleyDavidson factory rider Rich King, meanwhile, didn’t make the main event. But that wasn’t the worst of it for him. At the Barberville, Florida, Hot Shoe round, King had his Rotax impounded and checked. It was found to be 546cc, well above the 505cc limit. The AMA said King would be suspended for four rounds, Harley-Davidson appealed and King was allowed to compete at Municipal Stadium. Later, the team withdrew the appeal, so King will sit out for four races. Team tuner Bill Werner is as embarrassed as he can be. He doesn’t dispute the legality of the engine, saying it was a plain, careless and, yes, stupid error, caused by someone grabbing the wrong engine off the shelf.
“The Hot Shoe series pays, what, $500 for a win?” Werner said. “We were using it as a tire test. We couldn’t be dumb enough to take a risk like that for a reward like that, when we’d have so much to lose. When you have three guys working 80-hour weeks for two months, you’re gonna have things like this happen.”
Anyway, it was at least a good beginning for Winsett, one that made the guys in the stands for the scratch heats-which is to say the dedicated fans-look at their program and ask each other, “Tell me again, who’s number 25?”
Winsett later made the national with a qualifying-heat win, and lined up against Atherton, Poovey, Stanley, Johnny Murphree, Kevin Varnes and fastestqualifier Joe Kopp.
Here’s where the card playing comes in. Winsett had a good start but wasn’t in front on the first lap, while Stanley got the holeshot. But then Atherton crashed and the race was stopped, costing Stanley his advantage and moving Atherton to the penalty line.
Second green light and Winsett nailed it, muscled his way into the lead...and kept it.
He wasn’t the fastest. Carr barely made the national and started dead-last, until Atherton joined him on the back row. Poovey started back in the pack.
Carr and Poovey picked off the competition, one at a time, one lap at a time. Their lap times were better, but they had more ground to cover, so to speak.
Poovey caught Winsett in the closing laps, got right on him, pulled alongside a couple of times, but couldn’t make it stick.
And that’s how it ended, Winsett parading with the checkered flag, Poovey second, Carr fifth and Atherton, dazzling machine or not, trailing in well off the pace, while one fan said to another, “Guess that’s the last time we have to ask who number 25 is.”
-Allan Girdler
Carmichael up to his old tricks
At first, Ricky Carmichael’s Honda debut this season was not smashing, except perhaps to his head. But visions of his early-season brainwhacking crash at Anaheim and resulting slow start have faded. The Florida native is back to the overpowering dominance he demonstrated in 2001, when he won 14 supercross races in a row, and the championships indoors and out.
The Daytona Supercross was win number five for Carmichael this season, and the characteristically sandy and punishing track was perfectly to his liking. RC’s biggest threat in the race appeared to be Travis Pastrana, but the Suzuki rider, still suffering the effects of the flu, pulled off the track midrace and collapsed from exhaustion and dehydration. After that, the race for the win was over and RC cruised like a guy with a very big lead, which he was.
It was a crushing victory, particularly so for Yamaha’s David Vuillemin, who had led the championship all season-a shoulder injury suffered while riding prior to Daytona meant the Frenchman had to watch from the sidelines as Carmichael took over the number-one spot.
Vuillemin raced hurt the following weekend in New Orleans and finished third, but Carmichael won again. That’s six, and it sure seems like there’s going to be more. -Mark Hoy er >
MotoGP to get 600 support
When the racing manufacturers’ association, the MSMA, introduced the idea of switching the top class of Grand Prix motorcycle racing from two-strokes to double-size four-strokes back in 1998, it pledged that the machines that had come to dominate purebred prototype racing (if not streetbike showrooms) would not die.
While the factory teams concentrated on the new four-strokes, they explained, relatively low-tech, low-cost, world-class two-stroke racing would continue, in the 250 and 125cc classes.
When GP bosses Dorna announced the name of the new four-stroke series last year-MotoGP-they reaffirmed the promise that the 250 and 125cc classes were safe until 2006, the end of their current deal with the federation.
Don’t count on it.
The 125s-what Kevin Schwantz used to call “the minibikes”-seem set to survive, albeit somewhat shoved off to the side in a special-interest niche for teenagers and other lesser GP denizens. Genuinely simple and cheap, as much as any pure racing machine can be, the little 125cc Singles are an important junior class in many countries in the world, especially Italy, Spain and Japan. They thrive, and have a life of their own.
But the 250s, for so long a mainstay of talented privateers and secondstring factory teams, is already under serious threat.
Some see the quarter-liter bikes turning their toes up much sooner than> 2006. They will be replaced with a class based around World Supersport 600s, but allowing a spate of racing modifications to make them a better fit for a GP support role.
The 250cc class is already dead at national level in both Britain and Australia, where GP-spec 250s have been dropped from the national curriculum. And, as mentioned before, rumors that the AMA 250cc GP class would be discontinued have been circulating.
But none of these national racing arenas matter as much as what happens in Spain. The 250s remain an important class in what has become the cradle of GP racing. But an all-new Spanish “Open Supersport” championship for 2002 has put the writing clearly on the wall.
The series is based, as the name suggests, on the existing World Championship Supersport class that runs as a support class at World Superbike races. But there are crucial differences-not least the fact that it is already unofficially dubbed MotoGP2. There is no longer any secret that this is a trial run for a class eventually intended to take over from the 250s in GPs.
The technical regulations are deliberately rather loose, and certainly a step closer to racer heaven than those prevailing at World Supersport level, where street 600s are allowed only minimal modifications and run on made-for-racing DOT “street” tires.
Just for a kick-off, the MotoGP2 bikes will be able to use slicks, along with upgraded brakes and full-race suspension and wheels. Chassis bracing is allowed, with the possibility of “silhouette” race chassis in the future, wherein stock-looking bodywork is draped over a full-race, one-off frame. Engines will also be more free, and more generous noise limits will allow more creative exhaust design to potentially unleash more power.
Nothing is yet set in stone, and this trial is as much to gauge public interest as to give race teams a taste of things to come.
During February’s Valencia Superbike tests, the Dutch Ten Kate team wheeled out a MotoGP2 test mule based upon the Honda CBR600F4Í that they campaign in the World Supersport series. Race-ready for the Spanish Championship, the bike marries a 135-horsepower motor (well up on the street bike’s 109, but only a little more than their already very potent WSS racer) with lightened and strengthened running gear.
“The times for standard World Supersport bikes are already within 2 seconds of the GP 250s, and with the mods to this bike, I think we can close the gap to within a few tenths,” said the > bike’s builder, Gerrit Ten Kate, adding that it had been an interesting and enjoyable exercise, because it meant they could directly address the main weaknesses of the stock CBR as a racebike.
“The stock suspension, heavy wheels and brakes can all be uprated-it makes it into a really good all-around racing machine,” he said.
Meanwhile, back at the GPs, the 250 teams have been suffering for the past couple of years from diminishing factory interest. Although Aprilia has supported the class strongly, Honda’s involvment has waned to just a pair of factory-spec machines (Daijiro Katoh won the title on one of them last season), while Yamaha offers limited support at arm’s length.
Can they be long for this world series?
Not if the manufacturers have anything to do with it, it seems.
-Michael Scott
Relax with Max
Max Biaggi’s on-track intensity is renowned, and his skills and will to win readily apparent-look no farther than his four 250cc World Championships and string of top-four finishes in the 500cc Grands Prix. We spent a few minutes with the Yamaha factory rider talking about what it takes to race at the sport’s highest level, and what it’s like to ride the new YZR-M1 MotoGP four-stoke.
Q: You have only raced two-strokes in your career, so what is your impression of the Ml ?
A: With almost lOOOcc, you expect > much more power than the 500, but it isn't that much, just a little bit more. Right now, the power's "connection" at the rear tire coming off the corner is not as good as the 500. But after the initial hit on the side of the tire, the Ml `s pow er is much more progressive and you get a constant spin. Then, it's much eas ier than the peaky two-stroke. This seems to work well with my style. But the biggest differences are that the bike is 33 pounds heavier, so changing di rection into the corner, decelerating into the corner, is harder on the arms-and also the amount of engine braking. On the 500 there is none, but on the Ml, when you downshift, it tries to lock the rear tire. Q.~ Given the choice, which would you race?
A: I would take the way of the future, the four-stroke. We are all used to 500cc GP two-strokes, so we must all learn new habits, new setups. This bike is something I want to become friendly with because, theoretically, the fourstroke is a little bit easier to ride. What we want to do is take the best parts of the two-stroke-the chassis, carbon brakes-and add in the four-stroke en gine. It should create an explosive com bination. Q: The GP world watches your every move at the racetrack, but what do you do in the winter? The rumors peg you as something of a party animal. A: First of all, I just don't like drink ing. Beer, red wine, alcohol.. .I'm not used to it, and I don't like it. During the winter, I have a schedule for fitness with one and a half months of intense work outs for muscles, strength. After that, I work more on cardio. Q. Which is more important in GP racing, strength or cardio? A: I think it's 70 percent cardio. For tunately, I'm fond of ruiming. Even dur ing the championship, I train every day between the races, but only cardio. I get my strength training from riding bikes. Q: Many regard 32 years of age as the peak of a GP rider's career, the time when skill, enthusiasm and experience all come together. Why are we seeing younger and younger champions, in cluding yourself? A: Sometimes, you are in the right place at the right moment and age does n't play so much a part. Of course, the peak of maturity for riders is around 30, that's for sure, so now I have everything. All the bullets are loaded in the gun! -Nick Ienatsch
