Copyright 2002, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

By David Swarts

Graves Motorsports Yamaha’s Chuck Graves had another dominant day at Willow Springs International Raceway Sunday, collecting four WSMC race wins on his Dunlop-equipped Yamahas including the premiere Toyota Cup Unlimited Road Race (formerly known as Formula One Grand Prix). Graves’ day, however, also had its downside.

The highlight of Graves’ day came in winning the 12-lap Toyota Cup race. Riding a Yamaha YZF-R1/R7 hybrid, Graves passed quick starter Jeremy Toye early-on and started to pull away on the first lap. Toye pushed too hard to catch Graves on lap two and lowsided his Lee’s Cycle Suzuki GSX-R1000 at over 140 mph in turn eight. Luckily, Toye escaped uninjured and his Suzuki GSX-R1000, surprisingly, was only lightly damaged.

Toye’s misfortune allowed Graves to kick his lap times back from low-1:22s to high-1:22s and still win the race by over 20 seconds.

Running second after Toye’s fall, Concept Five’s 17-year-old Jason Perez was leading Jack Pfeifer and Vincent Haskovec by two seconds on lap four. Unfortunately, Perez dropped out of the race when his World Superbike-spec Ducati 998RS developed mechanical trouble.

For the final eight laps of the main event, SGI Racing’s Haskovec, riding his AMA Superstock-spec GSX-R750, battled with Team Orthopedics’ Pfeifer, riding a GSX-R1000 Superbike, over second place. The deciding moment came in the run from the final corner to the checkered flag when Pfeifer was unable to beat Haskovec to the line.

In addition to taking second in the Toyota Cup race, Haskovec won in GTO on Saturday, in 750cc Superstock on Sunday and collected a runner-up finish in L&L Motorsports 750cc Superbike behind Toye.

With wins in Graves Motorsports 650cc Superbike and 750cc Superbike already to his credit before his crash, Toye returned later in the day to win the 750cc Modified Production event.

Pfeifer also took a third in 600cc Modified Production and fourth in 600cc Supersport while dialing in his new Suzuki GSX-R600.

Graves collected more first-place trophies in Performance Machine Open Superbike, Roadracingworld.com 600cc Supersport and Open Superstock, but Graves did not win the 650cc Superbike contest and was actually disqualified from the race.

According to Perez, he was attempting to pass race leader Graves on the inside of Turn Three on the second lap of the 650cc Superbike race, Graves did not see him, the two made contact, locked bars, Graves did not crash but went off track, Perez stayed on track and was able to continue in the race.

According to Graves and third-place-at-the-time Toye, Perez was in the process of crashing and the contact with Graves was the only thing that kept Perez on the track.

Graves got back on track, continued to start/finish, stopped to discuss the incident with WSMC officials, then re-joined the six-lap race despite being at least one lap down, and began to race with the leaders again, particularly Perez.

“He was looking back at me in Turn Two. You don’t look back at someone as fast as you’re going in Turn Two,” said Perez. “He was trying to mess with me to keep me from catching Toye.”

“I thought, ‘What the hell? I might as well race with them (leaders),'” said Graves, who denied purposely obstructing Perez. According to WSMC Race Director Danny Farnsworth, Graves was officially disqualified from the race for stopping on the track at start/finish to talk to officials rather than on pit lane.

Perez and Graves said that they talked later in the day and there were no hard feelings.

Perez won a total of four races on three different motorcycles Sunday including the Pacific Track Time Heavyweight Twins sprint, in his first ride on a Supersport-spec Honda RC51; 600cc Modified Production and WSMC Formula Two Grand Prix, on his Suzuki GSX-R600; and California Race Tire Services Formula Twins on retired racer Richard Headley’s Ducati Superbike.

Dave Behrend, Tony Meiring’s factory Kawasaki mechanic, rode his Dunlop-equipped Honda CBR929RR to sixth in the red-flag-shortened 651cc-Open Novice race. Behrend, who started 23rd, said he was actually third and looking to pass for second when the red flag came out and scoring was reverted to the last lap, placing him sixth. It was Behrend’s third road race ever.