Robbie Petersen, Rich Oliver and Chuck Graves spray champagne from the podium after the Willow Springs round of the WERA Formula USA race in 1991. Oliver and Petersen, riding Marlboro/Roberts Yamaha GP bikes, passed early leader Willow specialist Graves, to sweep to the top two spots with Oliver taking the victory.
Robbie Petersen, Rich Oliver and Chuck Graves spray champagne from the podium after the Willow Springs round of the WERA Formula USA race in 1991. (Larry Lawrence photo)
Rider Files 
I guess I didn’t realize at the time just how much talent and $$$ were involved with the Forumla USA deal. If only we had them now. Do you exactly why it didn’t succeed.
LikeLike
OOPS! Do you know exactly why it didn’t succeed?
LikeLike
John
A lot of reasons. To me the biggest reason was that what made F-USA so attractive to fans were the run-what-you-brung rules of the series. There were all kinds of methanol, punched out, turbo-charged, monster machines with names like the Methanol Monster, Big Papa and so on. It was crazy, but safety concerns (mostly with the volatile fuels being used) and speeds approaching 200 mph on tracks not designed for it cause WERA to final put a clamp on the rules. Plus a lot of fans came out to watch the Marlboro GP bikes and Philip Morris put a fair amount of money promoting the events. When they went away and the rules were changed the series deflated.
Another thing in my mind was that the people who ran WERA really were club racing people at heart. It was more about having a good time and providing a fun friendly atmosphere for the racers. To really step it up and run a professional racing series took a lot of the fun out of what they were doing and cost a lot of money.
Larry
LikeLike
Right on Larry! I knew you had an answer! None the less, would it not be cool to have F-USA today?
LikeLike
For sure it would great for the fans and factories to have an alternative in road racing right now.
LikeLike