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RACE WATCH
MotoGP: Stars-and-Stripes-studded field
The 2003 MotoGP season had been heavily hyped, for many reasons. This year had all the hallmarks of the greatest Grand Prix season of all time.
We had the greatest ever number of factories-with Japanese stalwarts Honda, Suzuki and Yamaha joined by Kawasaki; and now-and-then Italians Aprilia joined by none other than World Superbike series big-timers Ducati.
We had the pick of the Superbike riders, too-winners of the last three SBK titles, Australian rodeo-merchant Troy Bayliss and the superbly and casually self-contained Texan, reigning champ Colin Edwards.
We had world champions galore. The last-named brought the total to 10 in a line-up of 24-Rossi and deadly rival Biaggi with four apiece, plus Loris Capirossi (3), and Kenny Roberts Jr. (1), then Daijiro Kato, Olivier Jacque and Marco Melandri with a 250cc crown each; not to forget 2001 World Supersport Champion Andrew Pitt.
But to many hankering after the great days of Roberts and Spencer, Lawson,
Rainey and Schwantz, the best news of all was the return of the U.S. From just one American rider in 2000 (title-winner Roberts Jr.), there were now four. And at an impressive level.=
Old hand Roberts is joined at Suzuki by ex-AMA Formula Xtreme and 750cc Supersport champ John Flopkins, after a daring and impressive 2002 debut season on the last of the 500cc two-strokes. Both are from California, Roberts from Modesto and Hopkins born to English parents in Ramona.
Edwards is an old Roberts rival from 250cc GP days back home. Now the Texan pops up, ready to resume battle, after slotting comfortably in to take over the Cosworth-powered three-cylinder Aprilia. His other mission is revenge against Honda, who failed to come up with a factory ride after he had won the WSB title a second time for them last year.
The coveted best saddle in the stable went to a new kid instead. After a rather messy contract battle, nearly joining Yamaha then escaping at the last moment, bright rising star Nicky Hayden got the plum job in Honda’s official Repsol-backed HRC squad. From the AMA Superbike Championship and Freddie Spencer’s Las Vegas riding college, wide-eyed Nicky teams up with golden boy Rossi.
At this point, the U.S. contingent might mean more to MotoGP than to the States. The series is on a big roll after the four-strokes arrived last year, instantly consigning the reedy 500cc two-
strokes to history with their massive power and bellowing tail-pipes. Organizers are now planning a return to the > USA, with high hopes of a USGP next year, after the last race at Laguna Seca foundered in 1994.
But the quality quartet might help it all catch on. Given the breaks. And the equipment.
At the start of the year, their prospects were mixed. Hayden had the best bike anyone could want-a tough call for a first-timer, learning a new bike, new tracks and also how to live a long, long way from Kentucky, on the fortnightly GP grind. Among other things, the GP rookie will be a target for several other Honda riders (including Biaggi) on production versions of the mighty V-Five, who would give their souls to get a full factory bike like the young American’s.
But Nicky has top backing (Mick Doohan as well as Spencer in his corner), a top team and a golden opportunity to show the depth of his talent.
Edwards was already a surprise package, challengingly fast on the Aprilia in tests. Last year, the bike was an unhappy marriage of bountiful Formula Onestyle Cosworth horsepower in a motorcycle chassis having a great deal of trouble getting it down to the road. Edwards, crucially, came with Michelin tires, by far the class leaders, as well as a methodical and purposeful game plan. And was fast out of the box. Colin is also a canny racer, and we can expect the unexpected from a proven champion.
The Suzuki pair are less well-favored. Since winning the 500cc title with Roberts in 2000, the smallest of the> three main racing factories has been on one of its periodic slumps. The GSV-R V-Four four-stroke last year was a latecomer, playing catch-up. This year, the factory has produced a much more purposeful all-new Mk2 version, but it still lacks horsepower. They are inevitably in development rather than racing mode, at least at the start of the year.
Suzuka-first of 16 rounds-was the first chance for them to mark their cards.
The race delivered only part of the promised excitement, as well as a reminder of the deadly potential of a sport that should never be taken lightheartedly. Rossi won the race, as usual, with newly Honda-mounted rival Biaggi second. The Ducatis made a storming start, with Capirossi leading the first four laps and finishing third, with Bayliss fifth.
But the result was overshadowed when factory Honda rider Kato was fatally injured in a mysterious and disturbing high-speed crash early in the 21-lapper. The 26-year-old, who was one of the 10 former champions, was hospitalized in a coma with head, neck and chest injuries, and died two weeks later. His accident not only drew further attention to the dangers of the classic Suzuka circuit (which had already hurt Marco Melandri and new Yamaha man Alex Barros), but also to the extraordinary new levels of performance of the 990cc four-strokes.
The MotoGP class has made bike racing faster and more serious, as well as more appealing. The 2003 season is still set to be a landmark. And the four U.S. riders are playing a welcome role in a turning point in motorcycle racing history. Maybe next year, a leading role once again. -Michael Scott
Seriously Supermoto!
Once in a while, the Cycle World offices live up to their reputation as the epicenter of motorcycling. Usually, this is due to the arrival of some long-awaited model (and no, we’re not talking about Leeann Tweeden), but lately it’s been for another reason (and no, we’re not talking about the star-studded minibike races on our back-lot dirt ovaleven if Baja master Johnny Campbell did join us last week).
The real reason has to do with Road Test Editor Don Canet’s SuperTT American Racing Series.
Over the past six years, the man we affectionately call “Fuh” (you figure it out) has seen his stateside supermotard races grow from grass-roots gatherings with a couple of dozen competitors to high-profile “events” with grids full of major> league talent. The STTARS membership roster reads like a Who ’s Who of motorcycle racing: Doug Chandler, Anthony Gobert, Nicky Hayden, Joe Kopp, Eddie Lawson, Larry Pegram, Kevin Schwantz.. .the list goes on.
Following round one of the 2003 series held in conjunction with the AMA Superbike Championship at California Speedway, you can add a few other famous names to that list: Jeremy McGrath, Mike Metzger, Scott Russell and Jeff Ward, to name four.
It’s not every day that surfing legend Christian Fletcher calls CW stoked about a motorcycle race he saw over the weekend, but that’s the kind of motorcycle race it was. The .6-mile temporary circuit was laid out in a parking lot in the infield of the superspeedway and was ringed with spectators a half-dozen deep, all of whom were treated to the most intense racing imaginable. Better yet, unlike the action on the roadrace track, where riders blasted through corner or two and then disappeared from view, spectators could actually watch the race unfold here, just like at a stadium Supercross.
Hold that thought, because the reason seven-time SX Champion McGrath played hooky from the Pontiac, Michi-
gan, round of his farewell tour to compete at California Speedway was because during Daytona Bike Week this past March, the AMA announced that it would sanction a 2003 Supermoto National Championship. Not wanting to dive in head first, the AMA scheduled just six rounds this year, five of which will serve as qualifiers for a winner-takeall finale to be held in conjunction with the annual awards banquet in Las Vegas this November. There will be two classes-the Red Bull Supermoto division for bikes displacing up to 450cc, and the KTM Supermoto Unlimited division for those larger-with the races to be broadcast on the Outdoor Life Network.
While the California Speedway event wasn’t part of the AMA series, it did give competitors a chance to toe the Supermoto waters. For some, like McGrath, it was their first-ever taste of this form of motorsport. Not that he didn’t take to it like a fish to water.
“I can’t believe you can lean a dirtbike that far over!” McGrath, 31, exclaimed after his heat race. “Coming into this weekend, I didn’t know what to expect, so Fm stoked that I’m doing as well as I am. This form of racing means a lot to KTM, so it’s good to have my name associated with it.”
Riding a Hot Wheels-sponsored KTM 525 SX, Mac Daddy finished second in his heat race, then led 19 laps of the 20-lap Moto-Connection Open Pro final. Coming around to take the white flag, McGrath encountered a slowing Russell, and Ward seized the opportunity to dive underneath on his Honda CRF450R.
Wardy became the only rider to win championships in every one of the AMA’s Motocross and Supercross classes before turning his attention to automobiles in the Indy Racing League in the late ’90s. A regular front-runner in the ABC-TV “Superbikers” events that spawned Supermoto, he said this event bore little resemblance.
“The track here is mostly pavement with just one dirt turn and a jump, whereas Carlsbad was mostly dirt with a short roadrace section,” Ward recalled. “Not that I really remember-that was 20 years ago!”
It certainly didn’t look like it had been two decades since the 41-year-old had raced a dirtbike on asphalt, especially after he won his heat race, topped McGrath, Schwantz and a host of STTARS regulars in Superpole qualifying, and then stalked and passed McGrath to win the main.
Schwantz’s weekend unfortunately ended in the hospital with a broken left hand after freestyle motocrosser Mike Cinqmars took him out in a first-turn melee. Cinqmar’s fellow FMXer Metzger-he of backflip fame-fared better, winning the Middleweight main before finishing fourth in Open Pro, right in front of former AMA 750cc Supersport Champion Richard Alexander.
Among the other notable entrants were former world motocross champ Brad Lackey, former Carlsbad USGP winner Marty Moates, former AMA 125cc motocross champion Micky Dymond, former 250cc GP front-runner Al Salaverria, former U.S. Speedway Champion Charlie Venegas, reigning Formula USA Grand National Champion Matt Wait and helmet-painter extraordinaire Troy Lee, who rides nearly as well as the stars whose helmets he paints.
The CW editorial staff was out in full force, too, as Off-Road Editor Jimmy Lewis rode the magazine’s long-term
Honda CRF450R to ninth in Open Pro and 11th in Middleweight in his Supermoto debut. (He also cherry-picked his way to the Novice-class win, but asked me not to mention that.) Assistant Editor Mark Cernicky finished second to Schwantz in his Open-class heat race on his CRF, then recovered from earlyrace incidents to post sixthand Déplace finishes in the Middleweight and Open mains. And Publisher Larry Little and Marketing Director Corey Eastman took turns on a Honda XR400, notching back-of-the-pack finishes in the Lightweight and Sportsman classes.
But hey, at least they were out there:
I tried to race, but DNFed after the rear wheel hub on the Husqvarna Fd borrowed from Canet disintegrated. Serves me right for riding while he was working... -Brian Catterson
Four Score: Four winners in four GNCCs
You can sense the growth of the AMA Grand National Cross Country Series by looking at the top of the results charts each weekend. Where the GNCCs were once the domain of one or two riders who chose to focus their efforts on it, and who had sponsors that would help them, today about a dozen riders are armed with the skills, support and desire to bag the title. The GNCC Championship has become the premier off-road series, which means a lot of riders and teams are fighting hard to get it.
Here’s proof: The last two seasons of GNCC racing have both produced four different winners in the first four races. What’s more, in 2003, the four winners> represented four different brands in the winner’s circle.
Earning those wins is harder than ever, too. Witness Team Pro Circuit/ Thor/Kawasaki’s Fred Andrews, who persevered through sickness to win round four of the series in Union, South Carolina. Early in the 3-hour race, Andrews was battling hard to get into second and catch a fleeing Mike Lafferty. Lafferty, the AMA National Enduro Champ and winner of the second round of the series in Georgia, had crashed in the first turn but miraculously passed every rider in front of him to take the lead. With an hour to go, however, his early crash and blistering pace caught up to him, which let Andrews move into the point position with two 12-mile laps remaining.
Andrews had the spot, but was showing signs of fatigue. And then came AmPro Yamaha’s Jason Raines, last season’s hero who had watched the title slip from his grasp when he broke his leg. Raines has been slow in finding last year’s form, but judging by the way he was charging through the rugged South Carolina terrain, he was ready to win again.
Andrews, though, wasn’t about to give in. “When he caught me, I had nothing left,” said Andrews. “But you never give up. I wouldn’t ever try to hurt somebody, but I was not going to give up the lead.” He didn’t give it up, and just minutes after his green number-3 KX250 came across the line first, he nearly collapsed from exhaustion. Andrews had dug down as deep as he could to win the race, and he had to, because with this level of competition, anything less won’t do.
The rider who has dug down deepest so far is Am Pro Yamaha’s Barry Hawk, a seven-time GNCC Champion on AT Vs, who has made a very successful transition to bikes. Hawk won the toughest race of them all, maybe the toughest race ever, at the season-opening Hurricane GNCC in Palatka, Florida. Day after day of heavy rain had turned the track into a swamp, and most riders were hardpressed to even finish. With the track covered in 3-foot deep black Florida water, the Pennsylvania-based Hawk rode smart, never got stuck and won his thirdcareer GNCC overall. He followed that up with a phenomenal last-lap charge the next weekend in Georgia. While Lafferty had already pulled a big lead on another muddy, deeply-rutted course, Hawk caught and passed both Andrews and defending champ Rodney Smith to salvage a second-place finish.
Smith, Andrews and Lafferty had all DNFed round one in the Florida rain, but Lafferty got his revenge in Georgia, and it was Smith’s turn at round three in Morganton, North Carolina. Battling all day with his FMF Suzuki teammates Steve Hatch and Mike Kiedrowski, Smith made the right moves down the stretch to pull a lead. He needed every inch of it to hold off Hawk, who put in another amazing last-lap charge to latch onto the champ’s rear fender and finish just 2 seconds behind in second place.
A bent brake rotor kept Hawk off the podium at the Big Buck, but he still holds a solid points lead over his teammate Raines, who is still waiting for that first win of the season. Judging by his steady improvement at the first few rounds, a Raines win may be just around the corner. Although you can say that about just about anyone else out there, too. -Jason Weigandt
