Larry Lawrence | August 10, 2016
In the 1980s and ‘90s there was a rivalry between club road racing organizations Western/Eastern Roadracers’ Association (WERA) and the Championship Cup Series (CCS). Even though many road racers competed in both sanctioning bodies, there were enough riders who pursued championships in one or the other that distinct lines could be drawn. WERA was the older, bigger and more established organization, but CCS had the advantage of being affiliated with the AMA and riders who won titles with CCS had the bragging rights of being AMA champs. CCS faithful looked down at WERA guys, while WERA riders would retort by calling the CCS “Chump Cup” racing.
In the 1980s and early ‘90s endurance road racing was the premier championships in both clubs. AMA Pro Racing had the lock on being the king of the hill in sprint road racing, but endurance racing was big during this period and winning the WERA National Endurance Championship was a prestigious title. CCS began its own national endurance series in 1985, with its races evolving into shorter events such as two or three-hour races, versus WERA’s six, eight and even 24-hour races.
As the two endurance championship ran simultaneously, the obvious question was which series had better teams? In WERA the big dog was Team Hammer, a squad, which by the early ‘90s had dominated WERA National Endurance racing for the better part of a decade.
At times CCS teams raced WERA events and vice versa. But the encounters proved inconclusive, since endurance racing has so many variables.
Maybe they were tired of the chatter, maybe they wanted to prove that they were indeed the best endurance squad in America – whatever the reason, in 1993 WERA’s top squad Team Hammer (by then racing as Team Suzuki Endurance) decided to race the Daytona round of the AMA/CCS EBC Brakes Endurance Challenge. Daytona Bike Week would feature two rounds, the normal three-hour endurance event during the CCS weekend and then during the AMA Pro weekend a 90-Minute AMA/CCS Team Challenge featuring only the big-bore GTO teams. It was the direction of even shorter endurance races the CCS Series was trending towards to help fit them in AMA Pro weekends.
The goal for Team Suzuki Endurance was to win both races and leaving Daytona Beach having proved once and for all exactly who the best endurance squad in the country was. They likely would have pulled off the double, but for a simple mechanical problem late in the three-hour while leading. Yet in spite of the problem in the longer race, Team Suzuki managed to leave Daytona having solidly bolstered the case for the WERA Series, by placing two teams on the podium in AMA/CCS 90-Minute Team Challenge.
The CCS Series was loaded with talent that year. Two Brothers Honda entered the fray for the first time and with riders Rick Kirk and Tommy Lynch, racing a tricked out Honda CBR900RR, they’d won the opening round of the ’93 championship in Phoenix. Then there was Dutchman Racing, the top team in the CCS series over the previous couple of seasons, with Ray Yoder and Phil Kress; the ’92 AMA/CCS Champs Fastline/MCM with Scott Zampach and Michael Barnes and a slew of other fast squads such as Team America, N2 Racing and Team Yamaha Endurance.
In the three-hour race Team Suzuki Endurance featured WERA standouts Kurt Hall and Michael Martin racing a relatively stock Keith Perry-built Suzuki GSX-R1100. That was one of the main differences of the bikes of the two series. With its shorter events the CCS squads normally ran pumped up big-bore bikes to get the maximum speed, while WERA’s longer races put the emphasis on reliability, thus the more stock machines.
In the three-hour Team Suzuki Endurance was leading late in the race with Two Brothers and Fastline giving chase. With less than a half-hour to go Team Suzuki’s Hall suddenly slowed and then pulled into the pits pointing down at the left side of the bike. “The footpeg bracket worked loose,” Hall explained. “and when I went shift on the banking it jammed my foot on the track.”
The team made hasty repairs, but soon Martin was pushing the bike back after just going a little way down pit road. The shift linkage had broken. The team ended up finishing sixth. It must have been frustrating for them after coming so close to winning.
That left the 90-Minute Team Challenge during Friday of Daytona 200 weekend.
Even though with their mostly stock machine they’d be at a disadvantage in the shorter race, Team Suzuki Endurance was determined to leave with a victory. They also entered a second squad in the competition with Steve Patterson and Chuck Graves.
The battle for the race victory was being waged between the Two Brothers Racing Honda, the Fastline/MCM Suzuki and Team Suzuki Endurance’s main squad.
The huge speed advantage reportedly held by the monstrous Fastline/MCM Suzuki, which had been tested by Sport Rider at 195 mph on a remote public road, was not evident. The three leading machines seemed to have almost identical top speeds around the fabled Daytona banking.
Two Brothers had the speed, but the team’s Bridgestone tires were not lasting under the stresses of Daytona International Speedway. On lap 11 Kirk pulled the Honda in for a new rear tire and was back in the fray just inside the top ten. They would have to put again with tire problems, dropping them from contention.
Now Fastline and Team Suzuki ran nose to tail. Hall later explained he drafted on the Fastline bike to save gas.
Team Suzuki pitted on lap 22, gas and rider only, no tire change. The controls were taken over by Martin who would finish the race. Suzuki’s stop was quicker than Fastline’s. When David Sadowski – replacing Scott Zampach who was dirt tracking his Harley 883 – took the seat he was 16 seconds behind Team Suzuki. There was 40 minutes remaining in the race.
“I didn’t really know where we stood when I took over,” said Martin. “I just decided to set a comfortable pace (2:00 range) that would not burn up the tires.”
As it turned out that was the strategy that would win the race.
Sadowski shaved a few seconds off the margin and got to within 12 seconds of Team Suzuki, when suddenly Sadowski felt a vibration in the bike and quickly pitted.
“I’ve already had the experience of blowing a tire here at top speed,” said Sadowski, who crashed on the front straight in 1991 with a blown tire. “I’m a little leery of these open bikes at Daytona, you can only ask so much of the tie manufactures, so I pulled in. It turned out to be a mistake.”
After the unscheduled tire change Fastline/MCM’s already slim chance to catch Team Suzuki dimmed to nil. Team Suzuki’s Martin cruised home to victory with an average speed of 106.766 mph in the 90-minute event. Fastline took second and Team Suzuki Endurance II with Patterson and Graves rounded out the podium.
Team Suzuki Endurance left the CCS Series having made its point with two teams on the podium.
“A lot of people think that the AMA series is the ultimate, but we have two WERA teams in the winner’s circle,” said Team Suzuki II’s Graves.