Double Dip!
Double Dip!
RACE WATCH
TWIN WINS, TIMES TWO
JON F. THOMPSON
IF RACING IS HIGH-STAKES, HIGH-SPEED POKER and the pot is victory lane, then the Cycle World-sponsored Los Angeles Superbike Weekend was won by a pair of aces. Mike Hale and Jay Springsteen were the gamblers holding the winning cards, Hale in the pavement parlor. Springer in the dirt-track den.
No poker player’s bluff here, though: just inside straights of careful preparation and hard work, and full houses of ballsy riding. That’s what it took to win during this weekend dubbed “the Daytona of the West” by its promoters.
In terms of both the AMA Superbike Championship and the AMA Grand National Championship, it was, at least in the minds of some, the first real race on the 1995 calender.
Sure, Daytona counts. Well, sort of counts. But the top roadrace points gatherers there this year, Scott Russell and Carl Fogarty, are oft'to the World Superbike wars, effectively walking away from their Daytona points. And of the dirt-track portion, none other than Scott Parker, he of the perennially hard Daytona luck, says, “You don’t gotta make Daytona to win the championship. This (the Pomona Half-Mile) is the first real race for us.”
Daytona, and Daytona of the West? Though each offers interesting smorgasbords of competition with good fan access, the two venues could hardly be more different.
Daytona flat-track is held on a quarter-mile oval in a municipal stadium that is used for football and track-and-field events. Only the 600 Singles run there.
Pomona’s flat-track facility is the Los Angeles County Fairplex horse track, a beautiful and lightening-fast five-eighths-mile cushion course where the 750 Harley and Honda VTwins rock and roll, alternately drafting and slingshoting each other at up to 125 mph, then powersliding through the course’s tight corners.
The contrasts between the two roadraces are even greater. Daytona may be the best-known racing facility in the world, a huge, 2.5-mile tri-oval containing an infield roadcourse that gives onto 32-degree banking. Utter the word “Daytona,” everybody knows just what you're talking about.
Pomona, meanwhile, isn’t exactly a permanent facility, but it isn’t exactly temporary, either. Its front straight consists of most of Pomona’s fast and famed NHRA dragstrip. The rest of the track is laid out in a parking lot. Its primary use is as a training facility for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. This is where L.A. County’s armed minions learn how to chase miscreants.
The track is not maintained with racing in mind. It is bumpy, lined in Turn 3 with six-inch concrete curbs, and elsewhere by nothing much. Race West, the weekend’s promoter, ringed the track with chainlink fence and installed straw bales, air fence and tire barriers at obvious danger points. During Saturday practice, though, Donald Jacks lost his Suzuki on the entrance to Turn 7. The bike cannoned through the bales, slid under the fence and came to rest adjacent to a grandstand. An empty one, fortunately. Jacks received minor injuries.
Race West was quick to take additional safety measures, and the track was greatly improved from last year, when racers talked of striking instead of racing here. There's more runoff room now, and a new gravel trap. The bumps, however, remain. and so (10 problems like slippery sealer on the fast Turn 9 horseshoe, and, during practice, water percolating up through the asphalt from rain-sodden ground at the entrance to Turn 3.
Al! this made life miserable for rid ers and wrenches trying to adjust mo torcycles-and riding styles-to Po mona's pavement.
Said Kawasaki's Steve Crevier, when asked about finding the correct setup, "If you could tell me that, we'd both be doin' alright."
Larry Pegram, pulling double-duty øn the half-mile and the road course, was less sanguine. "Last year, it was rough," he said. "This year, it's rough and slippery. It isn't unsafe. it's just treacherous. It needs a good resurfac ifl(~
Rob Muzzy, who operates the Muzzy's Kawasaki team, had a better idea: "Next year. I'm gonna prepare a KLR (650cc Kawasaki dual-purpose bike with long-travel suspension) for this eVent. I'm serious."
And, still serious, lie added, This is a poor excuse for a racetrack, hut I think they're doing the best with what they've got. There just isn't very much to work with."
When Saturday qualifying was over, though. it was Muzzy rider Pas cal Picotte who had coped best, with a lap of I :23.89g. Jamie James. aboard his Vance & Hines Yamaha YZF75O was next. Hale was third on his Honda RC45, and Suzuki-mount ed Fred Merkel was fourth. with the front row bunched inside seven-tenths of a second.
Said Picotte of his qualifying effort. “We can drop a second between now and Sunday." Then he added, ominously, “The bumps arc hard on my shoulder (injured in a Daytona crash) during braking, and it'll be harder Sunday."
Only James seemed truly happyw ith his times and w ith the track-saying, “This will be a good show for the fans, and it's a good concept."
Kawasaki, Suzuki. Yamaha and Honda also occupied the second row, with GSX-R-mounted Thomas Stevens saying of his sixth-fastest time. “It's a big change from where we were last year. We're real happy.”
To find Ducatis, you had to step back to the third row. Takahiro Sohwa was fastest of these with a lap time of 1:25.921, Mike Smith next, and then, completing the Fa s t by Fer race i trio. Freddie Spencer. On the outside of the row sat Dale Quarterley aboard an independent Ducati 916.
Said Team Manager Larry Fcrracci of his new-for-this-year 916 Superbikes, “We're still trying to find the right combination. We've got a lot of new equipment and a lot of new riders. When you pick up speed during practice, is it the setup or is it the rider getting used to the bike? I've got to hand it to Ducati. winning a world championship with these bikes...."Z
The Harleys? Unchanged since Daytona except for a new 2-into-2 crossover exhaust system said to boost low-rpm power, they were right behind the Ducatis, with Chris Carr on the inside of row four, slightly faster than teammate Doug Chandler, still suffering from the effects of his Daytona high-side, which tore chest muscles, broke his shoulder and chipped bones ill t\V() places. A plate and seven screws were required for repairs. Be C~111SC of continuing discomfort, (handier chose not to start Sunday~s final.
While most riders were astride fain i 1 i a r e q u i p m cut, Mike Hale had something new to contend with. His tool for setting third-fastest time was a brand-new RC45, which arrived at the team race shop in Gardena, California, on the Monday before the race, a bike basically identical to that of team-leader Miguel Duhamel. Said mechanic Bob Weindorf, “It was just bags of parts and a 28-page parts list.” Weindorf and chief mechanic Merlyn Plumlce finished assembling the bike Wednesday night and found it 23 pounds lighter than the bike Hale raced at Daytona. That lightness wasn't the only measure of Honda Racing Corp.’s seriousness about the RC45’s competitiveness and its commitment to its young star.
The bike came with a new swingarm, a different exhaust system, a different engine-management system, new Showa suspension instead of the Penske rear and Oh lins front used at Daytona, and a simplified wiring harness with built-in leads for data acquisition and the quick-shifter. Even the Brembo brakes were built to HRC specs. “To order parts for them, we don't call Italy, we call Japan,” Weindorf said.
With Superbike qualifying finalized Saturday afternoon, racing attention was turned to the Pomona dirt-track, where 1 1.()()() spectators turned up to watch what would become a page in racing’s history books.
Jay Springsteen, relaxed and confident, started the night out right by setting fast qualifying time, the only rider to turn a 29-second lap. It was a hint of things to come. Springsteen showed just how comfortable he was on this track by winning the 883 Sportster class. And he wasn't through. To the absolute delight of the crowd, he also won the Grand National final, starting from the front row, racing with Will Davis and Scott Parker for the first dozen laps or so, and then riding off into the distance, opening a gap back to second-placer Steve Mordicad of 2.2 seconds by the time the checkered Hag flew. Parker finished third. Afterwards, an emotional Springsteen, whose last Grand National win came in September of 1985. could only stammer, "I'm so happy 1 don’t know what to say!”
Sunday morning, attention shifted back to roadracing-and to another dirt-tracker.
Mike Hale started the 600 Supersport event, one of a flock of weekend support races, from well back in the pack-his qualifying time was 1 1th fastest. He compensated by getting a terrific launch from his Honda CBR600F3, and immediately was behind Pascal Picotte, the leader aboard a Kawasaki ZX-6R, with Smokin' Joes teammate Duhamel in third. So far, so good, until lap five, when a crash brought a red flag, thrown so that course workers could sweep up oil and rearrange straw bales. The restart saw the same 1-2-3 train, but that lasted only until the second lap. when Picotte fell in Turn 9. This gave Hale a lead he stretched to 4.6 seconds by the checkered flag, with a flying Pegram passing Duhamel for second, and then crashing in the last corner of the last lap by tucking his bike’s front tire.
“He just kept looking back, he probably got a cramp from doing that,” Duhamel said later. No cramps for Hale, though, whose 600 win set the stage for the Superbike main event.
That started with Picotte again jumping out into the lead, followed by Spencer, Sohwa and Hale. Missing in action, already, was Duhamel-he fell on the first lap. remounted and rejoined the 30-bike field at its tail-end to put on a demon ride to finish 1 1th. By lap five, the Ducatis had faded-Spencer with brake problems-and Picotte looked gone. To everyone but Hale.
He said later. “1 saw that Pascal was having a little trouble, so 1 put my head down and went on by.”
Picotte was indeed in trouble. He was in intense discomfort from his Daytona injury. He continued to ride extremely well, however, and was passed by fellow Team Muzzy pilot Steve Crevier only in the final laps of the race.
Said Crevier, “I almost left it too late-I just couldn't pass my own teammate.”
Pass he did, however, and that’s the way it ended, with Hale, and his crew, ecstatic, celebrating the young Texan’s first-ever Superbike win. Said mechanic Weindorf, “We just put the bike together the way the book said." And chief mechanic Plumlce playfully chimed in, “The very last page of the book said, ‘Go directly to winner’s circle."'
Waiting for Hale and company there was none other than Springsteen, the weekend’s other twin winner, joyously yelling at Hale, “Double-dip! Dirttrackers rule!”
The modest Hale shared the moment with Springsteen, yelling back, “I take after the master."
Maybe so. But it's clear that Pomona, “the Daytona of the West,” doesn't take after Daytona, the original, at least not yet. Plenty of support races and good accommodations for fans, but, unfortunately, a marginal (though improving) facility and a very thin number of race-goers.
Promoter Bill Marcel, of Race West Productions, put the total weekend spectator count at 32,600, up from last year’s count of 28,000.
“We're really disappointed, quite frankly,” he said, “this seems like such a natural. We were shooting for a minimum of 40,000."
That seems a reasonable goal, given that 29 million-plus reside in greater Los Angeles, that Southern California is the backyard not only of great motorcycling enthusiasm, but also of all four Japanese importers, and that barring Willow Springs Raceway, a comfortless club track far out in the desert, Southern California has no full-time roadracing facility.
What's the problem? What's the future? Marcel doesn't know. He said. “Maybe next year, if we can figure out the resources. We're evaluating that now. We’re trying to figure out how to do it." D¡
