Supercross

Supercross

DAYTONA'81

Suzuki Scores and Sun Stars

To the fastest team, goes the victory. To the innovators go more time on the old drawing board. To the best showman went the hearts of the crowd.

And that was Daytona's Supercross. The fastest team was Suzuki. That was no surprise. Daytona is fifth in the Supercross series and coming into the event Team Suzuki had won all four of the pre ceeding events, with two consecutive wins for Darrell Shultz and one each for team mates Mark Barnett and Kent Howerton. They've been doing it on works "Full Floater" 250s, under development for the previous year and by now tuned to the de mands of the choppy and twisting stadium tracks.

Daytona's course isn't like the others. It's outdoors and because the track is liter ally carved out of the speedway infield, it's got tricky bits and deep holes and double and triple jumps linked by long semi straights and even a bit of pavement, where the course crosses the road-racing pits. All bikes and all riders look to be on the edge all the time.

The Suzukis were less so than the oth ers. Supercross is run under fairgrounds rules, with heats and two semis and then a consolation, all to winnow the field for the final. Barnett won the first heat, Schultz got the second, new Suzuki teamster Denny Bentley took the fourth and only Yamaha's Danny Cantaloupi broke the string.

There was some interesting equipment, for example Jim Holley appeared on a water-cooled Can-Am that looked good until it retired with undisclosed bothers, and Honda and Kawasaki have done some revision to their works machines, but most of the innovation came from Yamaha. The team bikes were all new and perhaps too new.

Check the pictures of the machines used by Mike Bell, #1, and Brock Glover, #6. Notice thatone has the old-style tri angulated swing arm and nearly vertical monoshock while the other has a single plane arm and a tipped monoshock with linkage. Rising rate, the team confirmed, as are the single shocks on the rival bikes. To a lesser degree the five team Yamahas had different engines and forks as well, and while none of the systems was mark edly better or worse than the others, none of the Yamahas did terribly well, Can taloupi aside. For Yamaha, Daytona was a test.

Honda's Chuck Sun was the star. He got jammed in the first heat. Minus a clutch lever he ground his way through the pack, safely into the semi and almost directly into the main.

The fuse was lit. Sun rocketed into the lead of his semi. No sooner had he stretched out a safe lead than he went faster. Then he styled, crossed up over the jumps. front wheel up out of the .pit, berm to berm in the fast sections. Just as the announcer said something about wouldn't Sun feel foolish if he threw it away now, he came over the triple jump with legs behind him, bounced sideways and scraped the fence, dove into the pit barely behind the bike and got into the saddle just in time for a wheelie, pit to the next turn. Fantastic.

The first heat was tough, Sun said from victory lane, and he was so happy to have the bike fixed for the semi that he thought he'd ride for fun and loosen up.

After that, with all due respect, there was nothing left to do except watch Schultz ride in control to a win in the main event, trailed by Cantaloupi and Honda riders Jim Gibson and Donnie Hansen.

The Supercross drew 45,000 fans, the speedway said, a record. Thanks to Chuck Sun, they got their money's worth.