Kevin Schwantz (34) and Wayne Rainey (6) battle at Road America in 1987. The rivalry between Schwantz /Rainey and Suzuki/Honda was intense. Schwantz won most of the battles, but it was Rainey who ultimately walked away with the title. (Larry Lawrence photo)
One of the proudest moments in American road racing came at Brainerd International Raceway on June 10, 1990. That is when Doug Chandler showed the world just how good of a racer he was. Chandler’s turned in an awesome performance in the U.S. round of the World Superbike Championship where he won the pole and one of the rounds. But for an oil leak on his Muzzy Kawasaki in the first race, when he was pulling away with a nearly three-second lead, Chandler would have dominated both races.
Doug Chandler celebrates his World Superbike win at Brainerd, sharing the podium with Stephane Mertens (left) and Terry Rymer. (Larry Lawrence photo)
Just thinking about that weekend in Brainerd still gives me goose bumps. There was a huge crowd numbering close to 40,000, the biggest ever to see a motorcycle race at Brainerd. Chandler and his fellow Americans proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Superbike racing in the United States was world class. Chandler made American pride at Brainerd swell when he won the pole by qualifying at a record 1:42.158 (105.719 mph) on his Kawasaki ZX-7 Superbike. U.S riders dominated qualifying with seven of the top ten riders being from the States. They included World Superbike regular Fred Merkel (2nd), Scott Russell (4th), David Sadowski (5th), Jamie James (6th), Thomas Stevens (8th), and Randy Renfrow (10th).
Doug Chandler gets focused before the start of the World Superbike race at Brainerd in 1990. (Larry Lawrence photo)
In race one Chandler chased down leader Raymond Roche on the factory Ducati bringing Stephane Mertens on a Honda with him. A few laps later Chandler built his lead over Mertens to 2.7 seconds. Unfortunately an oil leak developed on Chandler’s Kawasaki and his rear tire was being sprinkled with the oily mist from the leak. That slowed Chandler’s pace by three seconds and Roche and Mertens zipped past. Mertens crossed the finish line leading for the first time at the checkered flag. Roche came home 2.1 seconds later and Chandler limped in his Kawasaki to third, almost being caught by fourth place Terry Rymer (who had worked up from 23rd place on the first lap) on the final lap.
The second race was a battle of survival. Brainerd’s tarmac was really heating up at this point of the sunny summer day and recently resurfaced corners went soft. This made for some spectacular slides coming out of turns. Chandler’s flat-track experience really began to pay off in the conditions.
“It felt a lot like a dirt track surface,” he said. “The long wheelbase of the Kawasaki made it easy for me to stay on the gas and get the back end kicked out pretty far. Only once did I get it a little too sideways. I was looking back behind me in a turn to see where Mertens was and I wasn’t paying much attention, got hard on the gas and was almost staring Mertens in the face with the bike completely crossed up.”
With five laps to go Chandler drafted into the lead past Yamaha’s Terry Rymer on Brainerd’s long front straight. While he was in the pack Chandler’s bike began to overheat. “I think it was because my radiators weren’t getting enough air, because I was always behind someone. As soon as I got out front the engine cooled off.” Chandler explained.
Chandler went on to win perhaps the biggest roadrace of his life by 2.6 seconds. He was greeted by a cheering mob at the winners’ podium, and stood proud at the playing of the national anthem.
Doug Chandler wheelies his Muzzy Kawasaki out of a turn at Brainerd International Raceway en route to winning an American round of the World Superbike Championship in 1990. (Larry Lawrence photo)
Mertens echoed the sentiments of many of the series regulars after the race. “If I would have wanted to really push it, I think I could have stayed with Chandler, I don’t know. He was here for one race, I have the entire series to think about. Still there is no doubt that he was very good rider, and his machine was very fast.”
Chandler proved his Brainerd win was no fluke. Later that summer he and the Muzzy crew went to Sugo for the Japanese World Superbike round, where Chandler won again.
The Brainerd and Sugo victories served as a launching pad for Chandler. He was in high demand and it put him into a position of having to decide where to go.
“Kawasaki really wanted myself and Rob [Muzzy] to do World Superbike,” Chandler remembers. “And then Kenny [Roberts] came with his GP offer. I look back on it and figure I might have been able to win the World Superbike Championship in 1991, but like I told Kawasaki then, a MotoGP offer may only come along once in a lifetime and when it’s there you’d better take it.”
So Chandler turned his back on a much better shot at a world title, to pursue motorcycle road racing at it highest
Hall of Famer Doug Chandler.
level. After riding in the GPs for four seasons Chandler returned to American and eventually won two more AMA Superbike titles.
To this day he looks back with a lot of satisfaction on his 1990 World Superbike victories.
“I already knew AMA Superbike racing was on par with World Superbike,” he said. “I think my wins at Brainerd and Sugo really helped the rest of the world see that.”
I’m loving this website I found out about today. Great photos of customs and cafe bikes.
What in the hell happened to Supermoto? It seemed like just yesterday when the old AMA Pro Racing (the one actually owned by the AMA, not the new DMG version) held a press conference at Daytona International Speedway announcing the launch of the AMA Supermoto Championship. The series had good buzz for a few years and before you knew it was gone, off the radar of just about every motorcycle website save for the Supermoto sanctioning body itself and maybe Cycle News.
Doug Henry leads before a big crowd at a 2005 AMA Supermoto event in Waterford, Mich. (Larry Lawrence photo)
The series has practically disappeared and probably only gets any support these days because of its inclusion in the X-Games.
Andy Leisner announces the formation of the AMA Supermoto Championship in 2003 at Daytona. (Larry Lawrence photo)
Quick… anyone know who won the most recent round of what is now called the XTRM AMA Supermoto Championship in Las Vegas? Do you think you could even attempt to answer that without doing a web search, where it still may take some time to find? The answer by the way is Derek Costella. No offense, but I’d never heard of Derek and I follow motorcycle racing about as closely as anyone.
It’s not Derek’s fault that no one knows who he is of course, that’s the job of the sanctioning body and the promoters to make stars out of these riders, but frankly Supermoto may be too far gone to make a star out of anyone.
I talked to Andy Leisner not long ago to ask him his thoughts on the downfall of the series. Leisner was a Vice President at AMA Pro Racing and was largely responsible for the exciting launch of AMA Supermoto in 2003. Leisner cited the lack of sponsorship (Red Bull was series sponsor in the early years and did a ton of promotion for the series), non-existent TV package and the lack of an energetic and hard-working point person to manage the series.
“Chris Bradley and a fair number of support staff spent almost all their time working on Supermoto in those early days,” Leisner said. “Chris was young, enthusiastic and just plowed forward and made things happen. I mean he was setting up races in the middle of downtown in places like Columbus (Ohio), Dallas, Las Vegas and Reno. Can you imagine the red tape he had to deal with to get those races coordinated? It was a tremendous undertaking and after Chris left the AMA no one ever really stepped in and had the passion and the energy to work the series like he did.”
The biggest crowd ever to watch a Supermoto race was at Reno in 2005. Here Jurgen Kunzel and Mark Burkhart battle in that event. Note the crowd in the background. (Larry Lawrence photo)
In addition Leisner agreed that the more technical the tracks got – with large dirt and man-made jumps – the less it attracted road racers and flat trackers to compete against motocross racers who were used to going large on jumps. So the early days of having Kevin Schwantz, Aaron Yates, Ben Bostrom, Joe Kopp, Nicky Hayden, Jake Johnson and other top road racers and flat trackers going up against motocross racers like Jeff Ward, Kurt Nicoll, Doug Henry and Mark Burkhart quickly went by the wayside.
Also in the early days of Supermoto, big-name riders like Doug Chandler, Jeremy McGrath, Travis Pastrana regularly raced the series. Those riders attract fans and media attention no matter what they race, that wasn’t the case when the series matured. Within a year or two Supermoto specialists like Mark Burkhart, Ben Carlson and Jurgen Kunzel emerged and got so good that the McGraths, Pastranas and Chandlers of the world could no longer be expected to win. And as good as they were fans had a tough time warming up to the new generation of Supermoto stars.
A big blow came when the sport lost one of its two premier riders (Jeff Ward being the other) when Doug Henry was paralyzed in a regional event. Then Carey Hart’s younger brother, Anthony Hart, died in a Supermoto practice session in Connecticut. Suddenly the lax safety measures of the sport were exposed and the fun series suddenly turned a lot more serious.
Finally the venues that were successful went away because of the complications involved running them. The biggest crowd ever to see an AMA Supermoto race was certainly at the AMA Red Bull Supermoto-A-Go-Go in Reno in October of 2005. Police estimated the crowd at 40,000. The catch was no one paid to see the race since it was free. Nevertheless the Reno race marked a high-water mark for AMA Supermoto and provided a template for how the series should proceed.
Supermoto in America is not dead, but it’s on life support. Somehow the current promoter needs to figure a way to parlay the popularity of the X-Games and take the series back to the streets of cities and towns summer and fall events. If the fans get to watch for free, so what? They’ll buy tons from concessions and it will provide added value to any municipality’s annual festival and sponsors.
I saw photos from the most recent round in Las Vegas and it made me sad. There were no fans. Let’s hope the series can be revived someday. It still has the potential to get everyone excited like they were back during the origin of the sport in the 1970s when the ABC Wide World of Sports Superbikers first hit TV screens, and like they were when the series was re-launched as a national championship in 2003.
Ben Spies testing at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2008. (Larry Lawrence photo)
Being an Indianapolis native, the most exciting time of the racing year for me has become when the Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix comes to town. I was looking at the calender today and noticed the race is just a month away. Last year was terrible because of the remnants of Hurricane Ike ruined the proceedings.
I’m hoping that the weather is kind this year and the race can catch the excitement again that it had going into last year’s event.
I didn’t get photos at last year’s race, but here’s one of Ben Spies during tire tests weeks prior to the race last summer.
Jake Johnson, riding a SuperTrapp Harley-Davidson, broke through to earn his first AMA Grand National Twins victory in six years Saturday night in Hagerstown, Md. The championship is tight first through fourth in the standings separated by on 12 points. Jared Mees leads the GNC Twins over Sammy Halbert, Kenny Coolbeth and Chris Carr.
Eraldo Ferracci and Doug Polen at the 1990 Daytona tire tests. (Larry Lawrence photo)
Eraldo Ferracci and Doug Polen get acquainted at the Dunlop tire tests at Daytona International Speedway in January of 1990. Polen had just joined Ducati after two years of racing in Japan for Yoshimura Suzuki. He and Ferracci would go on to become one of the most successful pairings of the 1990s, winning two World Superbike titles and one in AMA Superbike.
Bonnie Knott talks to Jim Knipp after the two battled in a WERA Formula One race. (Larry Lawrence photo)
This is a classic from the archives. Boonie Knott (left) talks to Jim Knipp after the two battled in a WERA Formula One race at Indianapolis Raceway Park in April of 1985. Knott was on a Suzuki RG500 GP machine, while Knipp rode a Yamaha YZ500. The two obliterated the field and had their own personal battle. Riding full-on GP bikes at IRP had to be an eye opener, as the expression on Knott’s face shows.
I don’t recall, but I probably used some smart aleck headline in my story like “Knott Nips Knipp” or “Knipp Can’t Undo Knott”. Gary van Voorhis, with Cycle News at the time, told me there was a club racer in the South by the name of Michael Tuck. He’d always hoped that Jim Knipp would have raced Tuck with the resulting headline that would read something like – “It’s Knipp and Tuck at Road Atlanta”.
Mat Mladin's Suzuki Superbike catches air at Road Atlanta in 2007. (Larry Lawrence photo)
Here’s a shot I took of Mat Mladin two years ago at Road Atlanta. I like this photo not just because both wheels of his Yoshimura Suzuki are off the ground, but to me it shows how hard Mladin flogs his Superbike around a track. You didn’t even have to look up to know it was him; you could “hear” Mladin coming. His bike’s engine was always singing a few octaves higher than the others.
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