Vesrah Suzuki’s Mark Junge, Chris Ulrich and Tray Batey led the WERA 6-hour at Summit Point Raceway after three hours, and Batey set a new track motorcycle record in his opening stint on the team’s Suzuki GSX-R1000, at 1:15.681.

Title-chase rivals Team Pennzoil crashed 2 hours and 7 minutes into the race and rejoined at the 2 hour, 45-minute mark, and was back in 31st overall at the end of Hour 3.

Hour 3 Standings

1. Vesrah Suzuki, Heavyweight Superbike, 113 laps
2. Loudoun Motorsports, Heavyweight Superstock, 112 laps
3. Team Chaos, Mediumweight Superstock, 109 laps
4. Ridge Racing, Heavyweight Superstock, 109 laps
5. Army Of Darkness, Mediumweight Superbike, 109 laps

31. Team Pennzoil, Heavyweight Superbike, 84 laps

Copyright 2001, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

By David Swarts

According to Attack Suzuki owner Richard Stanboli, Jason Pridmore will return to racing at Pike’s Peak aboard both his GSX-R1000 Formula Xtreme bike and his GSX-R600 Supersport machine.

“Jason called me right from Dr. (Art) Ting’s office Wednesday (August 1) and said that he would 100% for sure be ready for Pike’s,” Stanboli told Roadracing World in an August 3 telephone interview.

Stanboli said that with Richie Alexander now concentrating on the 750cc Supersport class, Pridmore and Tom Kipp will each have a GSX-R1000 Formula Xtreme and GSX-R600 Supersport bike to race. But Stanboli is discouraging Kipp and Pridmore from riding the 600s saying, “They both like the track and want to go out and show something for next year, but I think that their best showcase will be in the Formula Xtreme race. On the 600 at Pike’s Peak, it’s all about working traffic and making hairball passes. It’s pretty easy for something bad to happen.”

Stanboli said that Pridmore would test at Willow Springs Tuesday, August 14 before the Pike’s Peak event to make sure everything is working right.

Note: This post, originally posted 7/24, contained an incorrect conversion of Lire to U.S. dollars. The conversion is corrected here.

Piaggio Holding SpA bought 20 percent of MV Agusta SpA in a July 24 agreement which may eventually lead to MV Augusta being integrated into Piaggio.

Piaggio, which is controlled by Morgan Grenfell Private Equity, recently bought Derbi.

MV Agusta built 23,000 motorcycles in 2000, with sales worth 240 billion Lire ($109,479,120 U.S.). Piaggo sold 480,000 vehicles under the Piaggio, Vespa and Gilera brand names in 2000, worth 2006 billion Lire ($915,062,978 U.S.).

According to a press release issued by MV Agusta, the agreement with Piaggio may be “representing the first step towards a possible further integration of the two companies which will allow from now on to put together two important and perfectly complementary and functional experiences in order to launch successful enterprises.”

With 5 of 6 hours in the books, Vesrah Suzuki led the WERA National Endurance Series race at Summit Point Raceway in Summit Point, West Virginia, and the race was red-flagged at 5:07 on the race clock due to lightning strikes in the area.

Team Pennzoil retired for good at about 4:30 on the race clock, possibly as a result of damage suffered in an earlier crash.

Provisional Hour 5 results follow:

1. Vesrah Suzuki, 200 laps
2. Loudoun Motorsports, 195 laps
3. Ridge Racing, 193 laps
4. Army of Darkness, 192 laps
5. Team Clinton Cycles, 191 laps

A runaway dump truck nearly ran over New Hampshire International Speedway Motorcycle Safety Director Jerry Wood last Wednesday, but AMA Superbike Champion Mat Mladin was not involved.

According to Wood, who is currently on crutches after blowing out a knee while trail-riding with one of his sons, he was working on his property in Maine when the dump truck’s parking brake failed and the truck rolled forward unexpectedly.

Wood, who was standing in front of the running dump truck, managed to jump mostly out of the way with his crutches but was hit on one elbow by the runaway truck.

The truck continued down a hill and into a ditch, where it stopped without hitting anything or anyone else.

At the time of the incident, Mladin was traveling via motorhome to his home in California, after attending the AMA Superbike National at Brainerd, and thus could not be implicated in any conspiracy involving the dump truck.

Despite Mladin’s alibi, several fans who had attended the June AMA National at Loudon immediately issued a statement blaming Mladin for the incident, alledging that the dump truck belonged to the America Mladin Association and was following Mladin’s orders when it came close to squashing Wood.

“I’d like to open a dialog with Mladin,” said Wood afterwards. “He has some valid points and I hope we can somehow reach an understanding and work together, putting aside our past disagreements. We just need to get beyond the personal attacks and name-calling, and work to make things better for everyone. All I want to do is advance motorcycle racing in the Northeast and make our track as good as it can be, and I am always open to constructive criticism.”

Special Editorial Note For The Humorless: Yes, this is satire, although the dump truck did nearly roll over Wood, and although Wood says he is genuinely interested in opening up a constructive dialog with Mladin and/or any other interested AMA riders.

Vesrah Suzuki led the first hour of the WERA National Endurance Series 6-hour at Summit Point Raceway Saturday. The race was red-flagged twice in the first hour, the first time for 10 minutes after just three laps had been completed, and the second time for 35 minutes to end the first hour.

At the end of hour one, Vesrah led Loudoun #1, Loudoun #2, Ridge Racing and Team Pennzoil, all with 17 laps.

In other endurance news, Jeff Nash replaced Brian Stokes on the Army of Darkness GSX-R600, after Stokes collided with another rider in practice and suffered a broken foot. Nash is at Summit Point to compete in the AMA Pro Thunder race held in conjunction with the WERA National.

From a press release issued today by Vesrah Suzuki:

Former Formula USA National Champion and multi-time WERA Endurance Champion Tray Batey has agreed to join Team Vesrah Suzuki for the remaining four rounds of the WERA National Endurance Series. Batey is filling in for the injured Glenn Szarek and will remain with the team when Szarek returns.

Batey’s long list of racing accomplishments include the 1996 Formula USA Championship, several WERA National Endurance Championships as a member of Team Suzuki Endurance and Arclight Suzuki and the 2000 TL1000 Suzuki Cup, WERA F1, Open Superstock and Heavyweight Twins titles. This season he has been competing in the Formula USA series on an Aprilia RSV1000 Mille.

Batey was contacted after Glenn Szarek was injured during a sprint race at Virginia International Raceway. Szarek sustained a serious concussion and his return date is still unknown although he is making a strong recovery. Team Vesrah Suzuki currently leads the WERA National Endurance championship by 5 points heading into this weekend’s round at Summit Point Raceway.

Valentino Rossi was fastest in practice for the Suzuka 8-Hour in Suzuka, Japan on Friday, turning a best time of 2:07.349 on a Honda RC51. Makoto Tamada was second-fastest at 2:07.597 on another RC51, followed by Suzuki’s Akira Ryo at 2:07.783 and Tamada’s teammate Tohru Ukawa at 2:07.894.

Leading Superbike teams include:
Tohru Ukawa/Daijiro Katoh/Makoto Tamada (Honda) with an average time of 2:07.812
Valentino Rossi/Colin Edwards/Shinichi Ito (Honda) with an average time of 2:08.240
Akira Ryo/Kagayama/Watanabe (Suzuki) with an average time of 2:08.335
Tadayuki Okada/Alex Barros/Manabu Kamada (Honda) with an average time of 2:08.353
Akira Yanagawa/Hito Izutsu (Kawasaki) with an average time of 2:08.512
Takeda/Yamaguchi (Honda) with an average time of 2:08.640
Noriyuki Haga/Anthony Gobert (Yamaha) with an average time of 2:09.106
T. Serizawa/Gregorio Lavilla/Ian MacPherson (Kawasaki) with an average time of 2:09.239

The leading SuperProduction teams were:
Deguchi/Giles/Kawase (Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R1000) with an average time of 2:10.211
Kitagawa/Arakaki/Toda (Suzuki GSX-R1000) with an average time of 2:10.416

Selected individual rider times follow:

Valentino Rossi, Honda RC51, 2:07.349
Akira Ryo, Suzuki GSX-R750, 2:07.783
Tohru Ukawa, Honda RC51, 2:07.894
Y. Kagayama, Suzuki GSX-R750, 2:07.983
Makoto Tamada, Honda RC51, 2:07.597
Tadayuki Okada, Honda RC51, 2:07.910
Daijiro Katoh, Honda RC51, 2:07.946
T. Yamaguchi, Honda RC51, 2:08.189
Alex Barros, Honda RC51, 2:08.327
Akira Yamagawa, Kawasaki ZX-7RR, 2:08.497
Hito Izutsu, Kawasaki ZX-7RR, 2:08.527
W. Yoshikawa, Yamaha YZF-R7, 2:08.573
T. Serizawa, Kawasaki ZX-7RR, 2:08.604
K. Kitagawa, Suzuki GSX-R1000, 2:08.608
Shinichi Ito, Honda RC51, 2:08.683
Colin Edwards, Honda RC51, 2:08.689
O. Deguchi, Suzuki GSX-R1000, 2:08.693
Gregorio Lavilla, Kawasaki ZX-7RR, 2:08.696
Naoki Matsudo, Yamaha YZF-R7, 2:08.709
M. Kamada, Honda RC51, 2:08.823
Anthony Gobert, Yamaha YZF-R7, 2:09.086
Y. Takeda, Honda RC51, 2:09.092
Noriyuki Haga, Yamaha YZF-R7, 2:09.127
A. Watanabe, Suzuki GSX-R750, 2:09.239
O. Nishijima, Kawasaki ZX-7RR, 2:09.711
Sean Giles, Suzuki GSX-R1000, 2:09.838
T. Arakaki, Suzuki GSX-R1000, 2:09.884
R. Tsuruta, Kawasaki ZX-7RR, 2:10.051
D. Sakai, Honda RC51, 2:10.118
Ian MacPherson, Kawasaki ZX-7RR, 2:10.418
T. Hamaguchi, Moriwaki Honda RC51, 2:10.604
M. Maruyama, Honda RC51, 2:10.662
Stephane Mertens, Suzuki GSX-R1000, 2:11.342
T. Honma, Yamaha YZF-R7, 2:11.598
K. Hasegawa, Honda RC51, 2:11.921
H. Kawase, Suzuki GSX-R1000, 2:12.104
T. Toda, Suzuki GSX-R1000, 2:12.756
Michael Barnes, Suzuki GSX-R1000, 2:14.025
K. Kosaka, Suzuki GSX-R1000m 2:14.528

Tony Bell, husband/tuner of road racer Vicky Jackson-Bell and co-owner of Spectrum Motorsports in Lake Forest, California, became a U.S. citizen on July 8, in Pomona, California.

Bell participated in a mass swearing-in, one of two held on the day, each producing 3500 new U.S. citizens originally from 93 foreign countries.

Bell, originally a British citizen, first came to U.S. 16 years ago as a legal alien, with a green card.

Bell’s son, Christopher, was born in the U.S. 8 years ago and holds dual citizenship. Vicky Jackson-Bell is a British citizen with a green card, and is in the process of gaining her U.S. citizenship as well.