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RACE WATCH
Daytona Supersport wins to Turkington, DuHamel
Some of the fiercest action of Daytona Speedweek ’93 took place during supersport competition, with Team Yoshimura Suzuki’s Britt Turkington and Miguel DuHamel of the Muzzy Kawasaki team scoring impressive wins in the 750 and 600cc races.
Turkington’s 750-class win was his first-ever national-class victory, and the first 750cc supersport win for Suzuki since Miguel DuHamel rode a GSX-R750 to victory at Road Atlanta in 1990. Turkington, who qualified on the pole in both the 600 and 750cc events aboard Yoshimura-prepped, liquid-cooled GSX-R Suzukis, led the 750 race wire-to-wire, beating runnerup Muzzy Kawasaki’s Takahiro Sohwa by 1.5 seconds after lapped traffic cut away most of the 6-second lead he had built up by the race’s halfway point.
“I rode hard at the start to get a lead, but I guess I wasn’t as aggressive with the lappers as the other guys,” Turkington said.
Suzuki-mounted Gerald Rothman Jr. chased Sohwa home for third, followed by ZX-7-mounted Jason Pridmore and Kurt Hall aboard another GSX-R750.
After two events, Turkington leads Pridmore in the standings by 5 points,
65 to 60. Rothman is third with 54 points, while Sohwa lies fourth, a single point behind Rothman.
Daytona’s 600cc Supersport event was a barn-burner, with no less than five riders on three different brands > of machinery fighting for the lead throughout most of the race. Miguel DuHamel, riding the Muzzy-prepared 1993 Kawasaki ZX-6, racked up his second consecutive 600cc supersport win in as many races, putting to rest any doubt about the new ZX-6’s ontrack abilities.
GSX-R600-mounted Britt Turking ton, winner of the 750 event, holeshot the 600 final from his pole position and led the race until a red flag forced a re-start on lap four. Turkington nailed the re-start, though DuHamel soon drafted past on the banking and snatched the lead.
From there the race became a fiveman dice, with DuHamel, Turkington, ZX-6-mounted Steve Crevier and Commonwealth Honda teammates Mike Smith and reigning 600cc Supersport Champ Tom Kipp jockeying for position. The lead seemed to change every lap, with the riders streaking across the finish line five abreast on numerous occasions. With a few laps remaining, DuHamel began to pull away, forcing a race for second.
Kipp’s CBR600F2 got the best of the four-way scrap for second, with Crevier, Turkington and Smith rounding out the top five.
“I was saving the tires a bit,” DuHamel said during the post-race press conference, “because I knew it would be a sprint to the finish. I put my head down and was able to pull away.”
DuHamel leads Turkington by 10 points after two rounds, 70 to 60. Commonwealth Honda’s Randy Renfrow is third with 54 points, with teammate Smith and Suzuki’s Rothman fourth and fifth, with 52 and 51 points, respectively.
Kiedrowski takes Daytona Supercross
Mike Kiedrowski’s 1993 Daytona Supercross victory was more than simply the three-time outdoor national champion’s first-ever supercross win: It was also Team Kawasaki’s first win at Daytona since 1979, the year Jimmy Weinert took home Daytona gold. Kiedrowski’s win also broke Team Honda’s 10-year Daytona win streak, and also put an end to defending Supercross Champion Jeff Stanton’s four-year Speedweek victory streak.
Team Honda sensation Jeremy McGrath, who came to Daytona with the supercross points lead, led the start of the main event and began to carve out an early lead. Kiedrowski gated third, and after getting by Stanton-who would fall as far back as ninth with a broken shock linkage-he went after McGrath, who was beginning to tire on the extremely rough, Gary Bailey-designed course. Kiedrowski got by McGrath on lap eight, and beat him to the finish by more than 10 seconds.
After fading early-on, Stanton made a fine comeback, picking off riders at a steady pace and eventually finishing fourth, just behind Team Yamaha’s Damon Bradshaw. Suzuki’s Brian Swink gave Suzuki its highest finish of the day in 250cc competition, finishing fifth.
After eight rounds, McGrath leads the standings with 174 points. Bradshaw lies second with 161 points, though Kiedrowski is only a single point shy of Bradshaw’s tally. Stanton, with 152 points, lies fourth, and, as always, remains a threat for the title.
Ingram wins Camel Pro dirt-track opener
It was a David-beats-Goliath finish at the 1993 Camel Pro dirt-track opener in Daytona Beach, with privateers grabbing the top three spots over the dominant factory Harley-Davidson team of Chris Carr and Scotty Parker.
Fast qualifier Dan Ingram took the win in wire-to-wire fashion on his Honda-powered short-tracker, besting Rotax-mounted Terry Poovey and Rich King in a race that produced
plenty of grumbling among more heavily favored riders.
The grumbling resulted from the ultra-slick condition of Daytona’s Municipal Stadium racetrack, the result of heavy-duty track watering just prior to practice. Track conditions prior to the Camel Pro event were dry, slick and basically one-line; to expand the cushion and offer more passing possibilities, Daytona race management called in the water trucks. “It’s really snotty out there,” said one top-level rider during qualifying, “it’s even hard to go slow.”
Despite the resentment of some riders, the plan worked, at least in terms of offering increased passing possibilities and a higher degree of entertainment for the packed grandstands. Though Ingram led the final from start to finish, the action behind him was at times fast and furious, with some riders sliding wide-open along the haybales, others gingerly hugging the inside line.
And what of reigning Grand National Champion Chris Carr and Scott Parker? After winning their individual heat races, the pair ended up fifth and 12th, respectively. E2
