Team Cycle World Attack Performance Yoshimura Suzuki’s season finale at Barber Motorsports Park didn’t end as well as it began. But, as with life, nothing comes without hurdles, and bridging the distance between ourselves and America’s fastest men on two wheels was never going to be easy.

To back up a bit, what better way to start off the weekend than with a mini-adventure? I set off Tuesday from the Atlanta airport on my trusty Specialized 29’er bound for Georgia’s Silver Comet Trail, an old-rail-line-turned-cycling-trail that runs all the way to the Alabama border. A late start limited me to just 75 miles on the now-paved line. That left a big day in the saddle for Day 2. Just how big I didn’t know. In the Bostrom handbook, planning an adventure defeats the purpose.

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Not so many years ago, racetracks were pretty much reserved for, well, racers. Not anymore.

This past week, following the season-ending AMA Pro Road Racing doubleheader at Barber Motorsports Park, I took a refresher course at the Schwantz School. With just one exception—me—none of the 27 students at this particular school had ever taken the checkers on a racetrack, and more than half had never been on the business side of the crash fence. One newer rider signed up because the school is the only track-based program recognized by the Motorcycle Safety Foundation.

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Class II winner Bradford Wilmarth, whose biggest setback was a leaking fuel tank on his 1913 Excelsior Twin that was easily repaired in Tennessee.

Cannonball 2010 is in the books. The cool breeze of the Pacific Ocean was a very welcome sensation to the 30-plus intrepid men and women who spent the last 16 days traversing our great nation on cantankerous machines from another time, often in blistering heat. The talk in Kitty Hawk was that maybe 25 percent of the old bikes would survive the test. To see almost three times that percentage of starters on the Santa Monica Pier this past Sunday was truly a testament to human willpower and tenacity. It was a lot of fun, but it wasn’t just a joyride. One of the toughest days in the last week was Flagstaff to Laughlin, where Cannonballers found frost on their seats in the morning, and 105-degree-plus temperatures as they climbed a steep pass toward the Nevada border. There were more than a few magneto failures that afternoon. Torrential rains a couple days earlier while riding into Gallup, New Mexico, left everyone soggy, and some on the edge of hypothermia. Sleep deprivation was par for the course, and nerves wound tighter and tighter in the last few stages, as ears strained to hear any unfamiliar, unwanted click, whine or growl that might spell disaster.

Meticulous preparation paid off for overall, and Class II winner Bradford Wilmarth, whose biggest setback was a leaking fuel tank on his 1913 Excelsior Twin, easily repaired in Tennessee. Class I winner and crowd favorite Katrin Boehner putt-putted across the U.S. with amazing regularity on her 1907 J.A.P. single (the oldest bike on the run), but her husband Dieter Eckel’s fork snapped cleanly in two at speed in Arizona, sending him to the tarmac, and on the last day he seized a piston in his backup machine. Rick McMaken (#40) came in on top in Class III on his 1915 Harley Davidson Twin. Frank Westfall, on his 1914 Henderson, joked that he was going to turn around and ride home to New York. Every finisher has a great story to tell, but one of the best has to be Alan Travis with his 1914 Excelsior board-tracker. The bike was raced a couple times in the early 1900’s, then mothballed for 90-some years. He started in Kitty Hawk with about 500 miles on the original engine, and the old machine didn’t let him down once in 3294 miles. Erwin “Cannon Ball” Baker would certainly approve. Congratulations to all the hearty souls who can now check off that “cross-country on a pre-1916 motorcycle” box. (more…)

Go ahead and keep sticking things in our tires; the Stop & Go Tire Plugger will have us back on the road in 15 minutes.

Among the things that make me believe in a higher power with a playful sense of humor is the frequency with which roofing nails, sheetmetal screws, horseshoe nails, really big staples, small brads, nice brass screws, petrified thorns from the Crucifixion, inflation needles, self-tapping screws, bolts, stalactites, baby narwhal tusks and jagged chunks of who-knows-what wind up embedded in my rear motorcycle tire. In all the years I’ve driven four-wheeled vehicles, I think I’ve had one holed tire. On motorcycles, though, with their rear tires offering up a way smaller and harder-to-hit rounded target, foreign object debris puncture remains the leading cause of death. Why is that? I can only conclude it’s because nature loves a challenge, and because the man, woman or children Upstairs like to fool with those of us brazen enough to interface the world on two wheels even more than they do normal people. There is nothing random about it.

No longer willing to be a victim after the most recent (sheetmetal) screw in my new Dunlop Qualifier (which only recently replaced the previous screwed Dunlop), I cast about for a good tire repair kit and came upon Stop & Go International Inc. Every time I’ve been rescued at roadside, it’s been with that kind of rubbery rope patch you fold in two and shove in the hole, then trim—then roll down the road with a hairy mole poking out of your tire which will probably get you home but not exactly filled with confidence. And while the tire manufacturers say never patch anything! (and who can blame them?), the underbreath mumble is that if you must patch a tire, do it from the inside with a permanent mushroom plug. Well, if you’re going to all the trouble to get the tire off the bead, you’re probably going to go ahead and replace it. Stop & Go offers a better way. With its kit, you insert the good mushroom plug from outside; the tire never leaves the rim.

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When our Associate Editor packs up the steel shoe, it won’t be long before it’s Crying Time.

by Mark Cernicky and the Buckaroos

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Winning at home in front of a partisan crowd is perhaps a racer’s most satisfying achievement. But it also must be one of the most pressure-filled situations that these athletes experience; especially when the race pits nation vs. nation for international bragging rights. 

For the 21st time in 64 years, Team USA secured the Chamberlin trophy at the Red Bull FIM Motocross of Nations at Thunder Valley in Lakewood, Colorado. Various hiccups along the way for the team, consisting of 2010 Supercross and Motocross champ Ryan Dungey, Andrew Short and Lites Motocross champion Trey Canard, saw them trailing Team Germany prior to that final race. 

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Rain threatened the final races of the 2010 AMA Pro Road Racing season on Sunday at Barber Motorsports Park, but the inclement weather failed to dampen the on-track competition.

Blake Young, on pole in American SuperBike, fought off heavy challenges from fellow Suzuki rider John Hopkins and Ducati-mounted Larry Pegram to win his third race of the season. Regarding his long absence from the series with a broken back, Young said, “It was pretty hard for me to get the phone call and be told that I was going to sit out for the next three months. This is what I love to do.”

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Photo by Tim White

Eric Bostrom was officially credited with 12th place in Saturday’s AMA Pro American SuperBike race at Barber Motorsports Park. The Team Cycle World Attack Performance Yoshimura Suzuki rider was running fifth on the final lap of the race when he was rear-ended by Jordan Suzuki’s Brett McCormick in Turn 13. Both riders crashed. McCormick was able to remount and finish 10th.

Bostrom suffered a deep, bloody laceration on his left thigh. According to the track medical staff, the wound was approximately 20-25 centimeters in length. There were no other visible injuries, and Bostrom never lost consciousness. On Saturday evening, Bostrom underwent a three-hour surgery at Trinity Medical Center in Birmingham, Alabama, to clean and close the cut, which required 102 stitches. He is expected to be released on Sunday and return to California on Monday.

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Team Cycle World Attack Performance Yoshimura Suzuki is back in action this weekend after skipping the penultimate round of the AMA Pro Road Racing series at New Jersey Motorsports Park.

Most of the damage done to the team’s “A” GSX-R1000 in rider Eric Bostrom’s high-speed, lap-two tumble at Virginia International Raceway this past August was fixed before the Attack Performance semi headed toward Barber Motorsports Park, where the truck sat for the past few weeks. But there was still quite a bit of work for crew chief Richard Stanboli and mechanics Dan Schwartz, Jim “JJ” Matter and Todd Fenton to finish before practice began on Friday.

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No fewer than five titles are up for grabs this weekend at Barber Motorsports Park in all four AMA Pro Road Racing classes—American SuperBike, Daytona SportBike, SuperSport (both Young Gun and Top Gun) and Vance & Hines XR1200. This season-ending event is a doubleheader, with races scheduled for both Saturday and Sunday. Practice and qualifying began on Friday.

In SuperBike, Josh Hayes has a 22-point lead over Rockstar Makita Suzuki’s Tommy Hayden. Hayes recently re-upped for two more years with Graves Yamaha. Hayden has not yet announced his plans for the 2011 season. Same goes for his teammate, Blake Young, who posted a pair of fourth-place finishes at New Jersey Motorsports Park after missing much of the season with a broken back. Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca winner Ben Bostrom will not race at Barber. The Pat Clark Motorsports rider suffered broken ribs when he crashed his Yamaha YZF-R1 at NJMP.

Speaking of SuperBikes, Dunlop introduced a new tire compound in New Jersey. Previously, the three choices for the K106 front were 6704 (soft), 6680 (medium) and 6671 (hard). The new compound, 6775, replaces 6671. “The step from medium to hard was too big,” said Dunlop’s Sebastian Mincone, who called the new compound a “medium-plus.” The hard option has been eliminated.

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New father and Monster Energy Pro Circuit rider Tyla Rattray finished 2nd overall in the Lucas Oil Motocross Lites Class championship this season, but that doesn’t mean it’s time for him and mechanic Vince Bereni to kick back and rest. Oh no.  Tyla’s newborn daughter, Brooke, was a little fussy at first but after some minor adjustments, the two had her responding cleanly to full bottle, with a nice blankie for soaking up the whoops. Brooke was born August 28th–Tyla’s competition number–and he finished first that day at the RockStar Energy Southwick National in Southwick, MA. Meanwhile, Bereni’s got his own problem child to maintain: He married our Art Director, Marla, July 31. Good luck and Godspeed!

AMA roadracing paddock regulars got a jolt earlier this year when former racer Jim Allen announced that he was retiring on April 1—no joke!—after 31 years of service with Dunlop Motorcycle Tires. The encyclopedic Allen had worked for Dunlop in a number of racing-related capacities; his official title at the time of his retirement was Senior Manager Motorcycle Road Racing.

Allen’s successor is Sebastian Mincone. He joined Dunlop in February, 2008, as manager, motorcycle road racing, having transferred to Buffalo, New York, from Birmingham, England, where he was sales and product manager for the European motorcycle motorsport division. Mincone has worked in various series, including Grand Prix and World Superbike. He began his career with Dunlop in 2002. 

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Well, we may have beat Suzuki to the punch by obtaining spy images of the all-new 2011 GSX-R600/750, but we thought you would like to see the design sketch that was released to us after the fact. Last week, Suzuki was caught testing in the California desert and Cycle World was lucky enough to obtain an image of the bike, confirming what was quickly becoming one of the worst-kept secrets of the new model year.

 As you can see from the design sketch and also from the photo, the GSX-R looks much slimmer with sharper styling and completely new bodywork. Stay tuned in the next couple weeks as we expect to get official photos, specifications and details on availability from Suzuki.

Things to do when you’re bored in Costa Mesa, California: Stop by the new Troy Lee Designs store in the Lab “anti-mall”, just down Bristol Street from the mega pro-mall South Coast Plaza. Sunday, Sept. 19, marked the official Grand Opening, and everybody who is somebody or once was somebody was on hand to wish the famed helmet painter/racer well.

Photos by Steven Soto

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