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RACE WATCH
Carmichael throws sand in their faces
Eight races into the 2000 EA Sports Supercross Series, things looked pretty dismal for anyone not named Jeremy McGrath. The Yamaha rider had once again embarked on a reign of winning terror, topping six of the first eight events in such commanding fashion that the rest of the field was beaten down and demoralized even before the series reached the halfway mark.
Sure, new French import David Vuillemin got to the checkered flag first in San Diego and Phoenix, but one week later at Houston, McGrath was back on the gas and way out in front.
Then came Daytona.
It’s an anomaly on the barnstorming U.S. Supercross circuit in that it’s run outside, in daylight, with the track cut out of the tri-oval area of Bill France’s
legendary NASCAR Speedway. It’s a brutal mix of sand, heat and humidity that’s actually more of an Old School
National Championship motocross event than it is a Supercross. The 2000 version of the Gary Bailey-designed track held with that tradition.
Ricky Carmichael and Travis Pastrana love outdoor motocross. Carmichael, in fact, has been quite vocal about how much he favors sweeping natural-terrain tracks over the cutand-thrust of SX. Moreover, the two grew up racing in the oppressive heat and humidity of the east coast in the countless summertime amateur races which helped lead them into the factory 18-wheelers of professional motocross.
Heading into Daytona, both motoprodigies were prepared, and poised to accomplish something special. Carmichael’s Supercross season had started in modest fashion, the Florida native gaining speed and confidence as the weeks went by. And while McGrath grabbed all the headlines and glory, R.C. quietly went about his business of working toward his first major 250cc win. Then at Daytona, it all came right for the diminutive redhead. Grabbing a strong jump out of the gate, Carmichael ripped off a massive holeshot and immediately began putting Florida real estate between him and the best Supercross riders in the world. Lap after lap, Carmichael circulated the treacherous sandbox in commanding fashion. McGrath kept him honest up to the halfway point, but the six-time champion then began feeling the effects of the long, cruel laps and allowed Carmichael to motor away. When “Showtime” finally rolled across the finish line, Carmichael and his factory Kawasaki had managed to lap all the way up to fourth place. It was a commanding show of dominance.
Then there was Pastrana. The teenage whiz kid from Annapolis, Maryland, apparently adopted the Carmichael approach to the early stages of the AMA 125cc East Region Supercross season. Working closely with legendary five-time FIM 500cc World Champion Roger DeCoster, Pastrana-competing in only his fourth professional supercross race-has been growing more accustomed to his factory Suzuki surroundings. By the time the series rolled into Daytona, he was ready. Riding with typical wild abandonthrilling the fans along the way-Pastrana quickly cut to the front in the I25cc main event and set sail.
But just about when the race looked like a runaway, Pastrana misjudged an ominous-looking rolling jump and ended up on his head. Dazed, he got to his feet, picked up the RM, kicked it to life, and raged back to pass Ohio’s Brock Sellards for the lead. Bruised and battered, the former freestyle motocross star flashed beneath the checkered flag, making him a first-time winner in the rough-and-tumble world of American Supercross. From the looks of it, it won’t be his last.
—Eric Johnson
School for short-track, school for scandal?
One of dirt-track’s more enduring lessons is that the short-track race at Daytona’s Municipal Stadium that opens the AMA’s Grand National Series says next to nothing about what the rest of the season will bring.
This year that goes at least double, unless the race and the opening events are taken as parables, reflections on what may be a revolution, or a rebirth, of the national title chase.
Begin with the actual race itself. The winner was Terry Poovey, the Texas veteran who won there in 1997, was a close second in ’98, stayed home in ’99 and was as close to perfect this year as it’s possible to be.
Rotax-mounted Poovey won the fastest heat, which put him on the pole for the national, at which start he lost a couple of spots. The limestone track is notorious for being unpredictable, but Poovey’s choices of gear and tire and suspension were perfect. The track came to him, as they say, and he led 20 of the 25 laps to finish half a lap ahead of the field.
The field, meanwhile, provided the suspense and the surprise.
Reigning Grand National Champion Chris Carr had some equipment problems earlier in the week, soldiered on, won his heat but could do no better than fifth in the main.
The crowd’s favorite was three-time national champ Jay Springsteen, who started in the back of his heat, fought his way into second and hung on to make the show, in which he edged former teammate Carr for fourth, even though they both were trailing regulars Joe Kopp and Brett Landes, who were second and third.
The contrast to all this success was the failure of Rich King to make the show.
King was hired last year to replace retiring Scotty Parker on the HarleyDavidson team, and thus was the only factory rider entered. Plus, King is now riding machines built by Bill Werner, who’s tuned three other guys to 13 national titles.
But there King was, third in his
heat, from which only the winner advances, meaning that the only factory rider got to load up early.
That’s racing, as the saying goes, with the punchline here being that Werner and Parker generally didn’t make the show at Daytona, either.
For the parable side, we move back to Poovey. Back at his truck after the race, he was asked, “You got a program for the year?”
Poovey has won 11 nationals, been a pro for 25 years and was on the Honda team when that team was formed. “I’m working on it,” he said, proving that just because you’re a proven winner doesn’t mean you can get the backing it takes to compete for the title.
Make that titles, plural.
The AMA has been sanctioning, sponsoring, organizing and on occasion defending the national, production-based series for 65 or so years. The roadrace and dirt-track venues were separated 25 years ago, and since then, the dirt events-the miles, halfmiles, short-tracks and TTs-have been the sport’s step-children. Television has stayed away in droves, so to speak, and the original 2000 calendar had only one short-track, the Daytona event; one TT, the Peoria, Illinois, classic; and the rest were miles and half-miles.
The AMA has been aware of the decline and has come up with variations like the SuperTrackers and Sportster classes, and has attracted new sponsorship, notably from Progressive Insurance.
With this has come a revival. Daytona’s Bike Week includes dirt-track series-plural again-for vintage, kids, semi-pros as well as the national. Crowds have followed, to the extent that on the Friday night before the national, the crews were told not to sit in the stands because there weren’t any spare seats.
Great, eh? With this came the news that PACE, the promoters who revived Supercross and can play TV like a banjo, will sanction its own dirt-track series.
The rival series aren’t quite parallel, in that PACE has scooped up major events. The Sacramento and Del Mar Miles, for example, will run on their usual dates, but under a PACE flag instead of the AMA’s.
More important, while the AMA has the tradition, the AMA is limited by that tradition-homologated machines, weight and displacement limits, etc.and has a limited budget, that is, they can’t spend money to make money.
PACE can do exactly that, nor do the PACE guys care about production bikes or tradition. If PACE offers more money, TV exposure and fair racing, the racers will follow.
Or...? The AMA and affiliated teams, sponsors and promoters may rise to the challenge.
There could be a revolution.
There could be a revival. We could have pro wrestling vs. college baseball, or we could have the NFL vs. the AFL, or we could even see dirt-track stars who don’t need to keep their day jobs. Poovey, who has a wife and family, works for a Honda car dealership.
What we will have is an interesting season. -Allan Girdler
Another Roberts wins Daytona 600 Supersport
The Daytona 600 Supersport race is always a mad scramble of shifting positions on well-matched bikes, but the Erion Honda of Kurds Roberts was the most well-matched of all this year. Roberts led the race for nine laps from > Miguel Duhamel, Doug Chandler, Eric Bostrom, Nicky Hayden and Jamie Hacking. Then, as the lead group cut into lappers exiting the chicane, a chain-reaction crash dropped three
bikes into a sliding, smoking raft that was then hit by Josh Hayes.
After rapid clean-up work by a large crew, the race was restarted, minus the fallen riders, whose bikes (and some bodies) were too damaged to continue. Although American Honda’s Duhamel and factory Kawasaki rider Bostrom got away first, with Chandler right behind, Roberts soon pulled up to them. A tight, seven-rider group developed, and the leaders flattened their backs in an effort to pick up any extra top-end speed possible.
At the end, it was Roberts and Duhamel braking for the chicane for the last time. These two, neither wanting the inferior lead position, slowed so fast that it looked as though Chandler had hit the button on a nitrous bottle, and shot right past them. On the exit, Roberts calculated his draft exactly, easing past Chandler for the win while Duhamel had to be satisfied with a very close third.
After the race, Roberts said, ‘T wasn’t going to lead out of the chicane like I did last year.” In the 1999 event, he finished a close, drafting second to Duhamel, who has won this race five times. When Chandler was asked about his taking the lead going into the chicane, he replied, “That was my only chance. If I hadn’t done it, one of the other guys behind me would have done it.”
Roberts resembles his dad to an eerie degree-voice, movement, strong opinions and self-assurance almost to the point of rudeness. And he’s fast.
-Kevin Cameron
New talent on display in 750 Supersport
Daytona’s 750 Supersport may be a bit of an orphan event, almost a spec series even-the top 12 finishers were all on Suzukis. But that just puts more riders on even footing. Damon Buck> master set pole at 1:53.9, only to lose power 10 laps into the event. The race was filled with rapid-fire, high-speed action as eight riders drafted, then outdived each other into Turn 1, or tried to shake each other on the
banking. Later, the lead pair of Jimmy Moore on his Ricci Motorsport Suzuki and John Hopkins, riding for Team Valvoline EMGO Suzuki, pulled clear to face each other in a last-lap drafting battle. Moore had to decide whether to gamble on holding his small lead, or to fall back to second at the chicane. Hopkins, a 16year-old graduate of minibike parkinglot GPs, cooly drafted past Moore for the win. Arclight Suzuki rider Lee Aeree completed the top three.
-Kevin Cameron
Oliver returns strong, leaves a broken man
After taking two years off from the 250cc Grand Prix class to race Superbikes, veteran team owneroperator/racer Rich Oliver returned in force by winning the faster of two heats on a self-tuned, ’96-model Yamaha TZ. The other heat was won by none other than the ageless statesman of American roadracing, Randy Renfrow. He loves what he does, tries to quit, yet always comes back for “just one more race.”
Daytona is a mechanically demanding track, and it showed on the class veterans: Oliver, the all-time win ningest rider in the class, slowed and pitted after pulling away from the field at almost 2 seconds per lap; then, Ren frow broke a piston ring and stopped after battling with Englishman John McGuinness and `99 series champion Chuck Sorensen. McGuinness' superi or power was unable to shake Sorensen, but a red flag in the chicane brought everyone to the grid again.
The flag restarted the McGuin ness/Sorensen battle, with Michael Barnes, who seldom rides 250s, added to the mix. At the end, it was McGuinness first, Sorensen second, Barnes third. -Kevin Cameron When Pro Thunder was created, the intention was to make a race for all the machines not eligible for other classes. Initially, that meant aircooled Ducatis, the Buells and other Harleys, and Triumph Triples. In an effort to broaden its appeal, the class has been extended to liquid-cooled
Daytona Pro Thunder
Ducatis up to 800cc, but at this event, the real result was to chase away all but one of the long-stroke Triumphs that previously figured in the series.
As so often in the past, it was the Don Tilley-prepared Buell 1200, ridden by the versatile Shawn Higbee, that set the qualifying pace, almost a full second faster than the second qualifier, Shawn Conrad, on an HMC Ducati. Problems set all its good qualities at naught-almost every time I walked past Tilley’s garage, the engine was apart. Daytona is not an easy place for any bike because of the long periods at full throttle, but for air-cooled engines like this one, it is especially punishing.
Higbee’s start was perfect-smooth and level-and he built a lead until his bike slowed. Circulating on the apron, he then pulled in, seat and seatback shiny with oil. Conrad took over the lead while Advanced Motorsports Ducati’s Jeff Nash pushed through the field to an eventual second. Pat Mooney, riding a Robinson H-D Buell 1200, was a close third, showing that air cooling is not dead.
—Kevin Cameron
