Copyright 2002, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

By David Swarts

After several years campaigning the WERA National Challenge and National Endurance series, Arclight Suzuki moved up to be one of American Suzuki’s top teams in Formula USA in 2000. Since that time, Arclight has captured the Formula USA 600cc Sportbike Championship in 2000 and 2001 with rider Lee Acree. In 2002, Arclight planned to chase the Formula USA 600cc Sportbike and Unlimited Superbike Championships and compete in selected rounds of the AMA Superstock Championship with Pirelli-equipped Suzukis. But when Arclight Suzuki’s Acree led the AMA Superstock Championship after four rounds, including wins at Sears Point and Road Atlanta, plans changed and Arclight Suzuki set off on a wild ride.

“Lee and I discussed it,” Arclight Suzuki co-owner and Crew Chief Chuck Warren told Roadracingworld.com at the final AMA round at VIR. “When we realized there were no conflicts and we realized that we might be able to do it, Lee approached me with the idea that he wanted to know if we might be able to do it; he would like to go after it. We looked at the schedule and decided that we would go after it. Now that we’ve done two series like this, by the time it’s all done we will have done 18 race weekends. I don’t believe we will ever do it again.

“It’s taken an incredible toll on everybody — the riders, the crew, myself, Susan (Warren, Chuck’s wife and team co-owner). It’s just completely wiped us out.”

With the Arclight race shop in Concord, California, near San Francisco, and back-to-back race weekends, most in the Eastern half of the United States, Warren and his crew were forced to run their team from the road. “It’s been very difficult,” said Warren. “We knew that going into this and did our best to get as many spare motors built ahead of time so that we could carry the motors with us. Jimmy (Williams, Acree’s lead mechanic) and Peter (Hively, Craig Connell’s lead mechanic) spent a great deal of time getting prepared for the trip to make sure we had all the resources we need — all the spares, all the parts on the truck — so that we could work out of the truck for weeks on end without going home. At the end of these road trips, it starts to get pretty thin. We’re down to the very last of our parts and the last of our brakes and last of everything. So we’re looking forward to going home and restocking.”

To some, Arclight Suzuki’s Peterbilt, tandem-axle straight truck, equipped with a 24-foot box, looks big. But considering the truck has to carry six motorcycles, pit vehicles, tool boxes, spare wheel, tires, fuel, spare parts and enough supplies to run a constant string of National events, the truck filled up quickly. “You’d be surprised at how much stuff we can actually carry inside the truck, but we do have every nook and cranny stuffed with virtually everything we can think of,” said Warren. “We left on each of these road trips with multiple sets of everything we had — clip-ons, foot peg assemblies, pipes and everything we could get on. We came with multiple sets of bodywork, and we are starting to get low. I just had to order more bodywork. It’s at the painter being painted now, and it will be shipped to us at Pocono. That’s pretty much it.

“There have been several occasions when we have been very low on parts, and I’ve had to order ahead through Suzuki, have Suzuki send the parts to Susan and then she would bring them back when she flew to meet us at the next round. That’s how we’ve been stocking the truck for the most part when we’re short on parts.” In between most race weekends, Susan Warren has flown home to Concord where she works full-time as a registered nurse in an intensive care unit.

“We’ve been able to stay with Lee and Laurie (Acree) and stay with (Arclight WERA National rider) Scott Harwell (at their homes in North Carolina), and that gives everyone an opportunity to get away from the track and regroup. Peter and I have been driving the truck everywhere, so there are long stretches of time where we spend weeks on end living out of a room smaller than most people’s bathroom (the sleeper cab of the truck). It wears on you, no doubt about it.

“We’ve done two, nine-week stretches this season. In the first nine-week stretch, I believe we raced seven times in nine weeks. This time we’re going to race six times in nine weeks. So we’ve done 13 race weekends in 18 weeks. It’s a lot. I wouldn’t recommend it. We’ve been joking among ourselves, ‘I don’t know what the hell we were thinking, but we’ll never do it again.'”

Acree finished third in the 2002 AMA Superstock Championship, 20 points behind repeating Champion Jimmy Moore, while teammate Connell finished 11th in the AMA series. With one round of the Formula USA National Road Race Series remaining at Daytona International Speedway October 17-20, Connell holds commanding leads in both the 600cc Sportbike and Unlimited Superbike title chases with Acree fourth and seventh, respectively.