Daytona 200

Daytona 200

DAYTONA '82

Honda Picks 12-lap Tires and Crosby Soldiers on to Win the 52-lap Race for Yamaha

John Ulrich

The Daytona 200 was barely 10 laps old when Freddie Spencer realized he was in trouble. He had led and been passed and led again, running in a clump with Mike Baldwin on another V-Four Honda and Kenny Roberts on a works YZR500 Yamaha. Now Roberts had coasted to a halt with a seized engine, leaving Spencer and Baldwin and their identical Hondas up front. Eddie Lawson and the KR500 were third, slowly being left behind. Freddie could win this race.

Except that accelerating off corners, Freddie felt a vibration from the rear end—a stutter, he’d call it later—and sometimes he could sense more than hear what seemed to be stones hitting his bike’s tail section, underneath the seat. Looking over at Baldwin’s bike on the back straightaway, Freddie saw the white of tire carcass cord gleaming where there should have been only dull black rubber.

Baldwin’s Michelin rear tire was overheating and losing its slick tread, great chunks of rubber flying off until the tire really wasn’t round anymore.

The tire on Baldwin’s bike was identical in type, model and compound to the rear tire on Freddie’s bike, and it only took Freddie an instant to connect what he saw with what he felt, the chunking tire and the strange sensations coming from underneath the seat of his racebike.

Freddie pulled alongside Baldwin going into the chicane and pointed, but Baldwin already knew something was wrong. He pitted, surprising his crew, keeping the engine running and yelling out from underneath his helmet, describing the vibrations to Udo Geitl, pitmen running around the bike, looking, then spotting the tire cord and grabbing Udo’s arm to pull him back to see. Udo was back at Baldwin’s helmet instantly, frantically yelling over the noise for Baldwin to shut off the engine and get off the bike. He did, the Honda men attacked the rear end, the wheel was replaced, the motorcycle refueled and Baldwin sent out again. Then it was Freddie’s turn on lap 12, the stop taking less time, 78 seconds from stop to start. In the meantime, Eddie Lawson cruised around in first place, well ahead, collecting lap money and building his lead.

The tire problems weren’t a total surprise to Honda. Midway through speed week they approached Dunlop for tires, and were rebuffed. Dunlop had tested with Honda at Daytona in January, the best lap time turned by Freddie on the VFour being 2:05 on race tires built to go a full 52-lap, 200-mi. race with rubber to spare.

But then Honda brought in a crew from Michelin, and with the French tires Freddie went 2:03s, five laps at a time. The Dunlop men couldn’t imagine a 200-mi. tire working better than their own, and they took their KR106 16-in. front and KR106 4.00/8.00 18-in. rear to Yamaha and Suzuki for Kenny Roberts and Randy Mamola, respectively. Roberts and Mamola liked the tires in testing, and ran them in practice and qualifying and the race itself. Roberts qualified fastest with a lap in 2 min, 1.84 sec. Mamola was sixth on his fifth lap of qualifying, registering a 2:04.348 and then crashing in the first turn, unhurt except for a cut finger.

Baldwin was second fastest qualifier on his Honda at 2:02.259, Spencer a tick behind at 2:02.439, both on gumball Michelins. Lawson was fourth fastest on Goodyears at 2:03.022, New Zealander Graeme Crosby and the factory Yamaha 750 fifth at 2:03.266, again on Goodyears.

The concern in the Honda pits didn’t come from the qualifying times. It came from the high tread temperatures recorded in practice sets of more than the five laps required for qualifying. There were two tire choices in the Honda camp. The soft Michelins stuck very well, and on the inline Fours and Superbikes showed good wear and no overheating problems. But on the $1 million V-Fours, the combination of brutal acceleration off the corners and high weight sent tread temperatures soaring in the softer Michelins. The harder Michelins held a safe temperature but lacked traction.

In practice, Freddie ran three seconds a lap slower on the harder Michelins. It was a dilemma, and if the Dunlop men had been willing to cooperate after being spurned two months earlier, Freddie and Baldwin would have started the race on Dunlops.

They didn’t.

Roberto Pietri led the start on his inline Four with an aluminum Moriwaki frame—on hard Michelins—but before one lap was done Freddie and Baldwin and Roberts and Lawson were past and pulling; away. Mamola was already out, coming around the first turn low and inside and being knocked down by Crosby, who was outside and dove across, taking out Mamola’s front wheel. The collision was deliberate according to Mamola, unintentional according to Crosby and eyewitness Richard Schlachter, but it sent Schlachter and Marc Fontan off the track with the sliding Mamola and bike. Schlachter didn’t crash his Bob MacLean-owned TZ750, and started working his way through the dozens of riders between him and the leaders.

It went that way, Freddie and Baldwin and Roberts turning 2:03s and 2:04s and a few 2:02s, Lawson closer to the leading trio with 2:04s and 2:05s than fifth place was to him. Crosby was fifth for a long time, turning 2:05s and 2:06s riding a new OW31 750 assembled by the factory for Crosby to ride at Daytona under the banner of the Marlboro-sponsored race„ team organized by 14-time World Champion and 1974 Daytona winner Giacomo Agostini. On loan to Crosby from the factory team was mechanic Trevor Tilbury.

Crosby had worked past Pietri and away from a running battle with Wes Cooley (who qualified eighth fastest at 2:06.803 on the eight-valve Yoshimura GS1000 Suzuki). Cooley first raced with, then bit-by-bit left behind Pietri. Behind Pietri came two-time Daytona winner Dale Singleton, first privateer, riding his Beaulieu of America TZ750 and racing with Thadd Wolff (Escargot RG500 Suzuki) for eighth place. Schlachter was just behind and gaining fast by the ninth lap, turning 2:06s and 2:07s, when a fuel line—somehow routed too close to an exhaust pipe—overheated and collapsed flat on Roberts’ bike, cutting off the fuel supply to one cylinder, which promptly seized. Just about the time Roberts parked and Freddie and Baldwin rolled into the pits, Schlachter caught and passed a littleknown privateer named Doug Brauneck on his own TZ750. Brauneck had been trading 10th place with Canadian Steve Gervais, but when Schlachter came by, Brauneck hooked up and followed him past Wolff and Singleton, then passed Schlachter himself. He couldn’t make that pass stick, but stayed in front of Singleton for several laps. On Lap 13 Schlachter was fourth behind Lawson, Crosby and Cooley; Singleton had caught and passed Pietri, Brauneck hounded Pietri and led Wolff. Two more laps and Pietri had Singleton again, with Brauneck right on Singleton’s rear wheel, Wolff closing. Another lap and Singleton led Pietri and Brauneck.

In the meantime, the chain on Lawson’s Kawasaki was loose, clicking and rattling as it jumped the sprockets and slapped against the swing arm exiting the infield turns. Finally Lawson saw his gas sign and pitted, and the crew tightened the chain, but it was too late. The shock loading had damaged the transmission, the KR500 losing two gears. Lawson was out.

Cooley was finished too, his Suzuki losing a piston and a connecting rod. Crosby led, as he would for the rest of the race. Schlachter was second, Singleton third, Pietri fourth, Brauneck fourth, Gervais fifth, Nick Richichi sixth, Wolff seventh. Two rookie factory pilots motocrosser/ dirt-tracker/road-racer Steve Wise on an inline Honda with a steel frame and Jim Filice on a production TZ500, traded back and fourth for eighth place, Filice looking faster than his lap times in Turn One, Wise learning to deal with big power and clipons and running the hard Michelins.

Brauneck’s charge for glory ended with a crash entering the pits for gas—he came in too fast, swerved to avoid a patch of dirt while braking, and fell off.

Schlachter coasted to a stop in the chicane, seized, out of gas. His bike had missed a couple of times the previous lap, and Schlachter almost pulled in, but decided to wait until his pit crew gave him the gas sign and was ready for his second gas stop. He got the gas sign but didn’t make it back around.

Before Schlachter ran out of gas, Freddie Spencer worked his way back into contention, running fourth, then third, then second. He gained on Crosby despite two stops for new rear tires, the first at 12 laps, the second 14 laps later. At the second stop the Honda crew switched Freddie to the harder Michelins, but he still turned 2:03s and 2:04s, riding harder to get the same times, gaining, gaining, incredibly making up the 78 sec. lost in one stop and 27 of the 38 sec. lost in another.

Baldwin was making up time, too, but not as quickly, turning 2:04s and 2:05s. Soon Baldwin put Singleton back into fifth spot and had Pietri in his sights. He closed, reeling in Pietri, making up three seconds this lap, four seconds the next— and on the last lap had to pit for more fuel. The Honda crew had added just a gallon at Baldwin’s last pit stop, on lap 46, and now his charge to take third place burned the gas too quickly. Baldwin pitted and got back to speed quickly but Pietri was safe in third.

Crosby won by 11 seconds. Freddie was second, Pietri third, Baldwin fourth.

Dale Singleton was fifth, first privateer.

“The hardest thing was for me not to go with everybody at the start and charge for the lead,” said Crosby, fresh from spraying champagne in the winner’s circle.

“And at the end, especially with Freddie catching me, I thought, ‘Oh, I’ve got to be quick, but then I thought ‘No, just keep going because anything can happen.’ Something did happen and I just went straight through, no problems. The monoshock started to go off a bit towards the end. It was hopping in the corners, getting a bit difficult to ride. But it wasn’t too bad.”

RESULTS l. Graeme Crosby Yamaha 2. Freddie Spencer Honda 3. Roberto Pietri Honda 4. Mike Baldwin Honda 5. Dale Singleton Yamaha 6. Steve Gervais Yamaha 7. Steve Wise Honda 8. Thad Wolff Suzuki 9. Jim Filice Yamaha 10. Nick Richichi Yamaha 11. Bruce Hammer Suzuki 12. Gregg Smrz Yamaha 13. David Cheek Yamaha 14. Dave Schlosser Yamaha l5. Kurt Liebmann Yamaha