Willow Springs Formula USA race in April of 1990. David Sadowski (leading) was fresh off winning the Daytona 200, but now was in an epic duel with his Vance & Hines teammate Thomas Stevens. Coming up to turn eight for the last time the two were side by side. Stevens went in faster than he ever had before - it was the moment of truth. "He went in there so hot that I knew he was going to force me to do something I didn't want to do," Sadowski said. What “Ski” didn't want to do was to push that hard through the turn, but he wanted badly to beat his teammate, so push he did. The result was that both riders lost their front ends, the front wheels of both bikes sliding toward the outside of the turn. Stevens' slide was the most extreme. Blue smoke billowed from Stevens' front tire. "I felt the front end go, and at 130 mph there is not much you can do but hold on and hope it catches and doesn't throw you off. That was one of those situations where nine out of 10 times you crash," Stevens said. "I hope they caught that on the television cameras. That had to be one of the best double saves of all time," said Sadowski about the turn eight incident. Sadowski recovered from his near crash first, closed up on Stevens and drafted by him just before the checkered flag to take second, 4.6-seconds behind winner Scott Gray on a Carry Andrew-built Yoshimura Suzuki F-USA special. (Larry Lawrence photo)

The Ben Spies/Mat Mladin rivalry was said to be one of the most intense between teammates in the history of AMA road racing. While this is true, the one intra-squad rivalry that was perhaps even more intense was the one between Vance & Hines Yamaha riders David Sadowski and Thomas Stevens. To say there was no love loss between the two would be an understatement of epic proportions.

Both riders were aggressive, confident, and wanted to beat their own teammate worse than anything else. Another thing was that both were physically strong, Sadowski a rough and tumble hockey player and Stevens a frequent visitor to the weight room. The two were used to intimidating other riders.

I think I actually saw a few gray hairs pop out on Terry Vance’s perfectly groomed head when he watched Sadowski and Stevens take to the track. In all seriousness, I distinctly remember talking to Terry about how heated the racing was getting between his two riders and he told me that on more than one occasion he sat the two down and told them to cool it. Alas it didn’t work.

Perhaps the best remembered confrontation between “Ski” and Stevens came at the 1990 Brainerd 600 Supersport race. The two were battling for the lead going down to the wire. On the last lap, last turn neither rider was going to brake first. Cycle News Editor Paul Carruthers and I were standing on the turn. We both looked at each other in anticipation of what was coming. Neither of us said anything, but the tension was so thick in the air it was unbelievable.

Sure enough Sadowski and Stevens came charging in at a speed way higher than we’d ever seen. Stevens was the first to try to turn in at warp 10. He lost the front end and crashed, taking out Sadowski in the process. Scott Russell came along to see a big cloud of dust and said he just started laughing, figuring what had happened.

I would have loved to been a fly on the wall in the Vance & Hines rig after that race.

This photo is typical of how close the two raced all season in both Superbike and Supersport. It’s from the WERA Formula USA race at Willow Springs in the spring of 1990. Sadowski had just won the Daytona 200.

In the end the Vance & Hines team wasn’t big enough for the both of them. Sadowski was gone and Stevens remained with Vance & Hines in 1991 and went on to win that year’s AMA Superbike title.

To this day when people talk about intra-team rivalries my mind always goes back to 1990 – Sadowski and Stevens.