Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

• U2 Duel to the finish in 500 Road Racing 2: World Championship-til Ago ran out of gas iC rii:I rii:I ...:I g ;.. g By Chris Carter ~ t"- IMOLA, ITA LY, MAY 19 A calculated by Giacomo - Agostini and gambleYamaha team the O) ~ c: ::l -, failed at the Italian Grand Prix, and it gave Gianfranco Bonera his first ever G rand Prix victory , and Agusta success in front of 120,000 fanatical Italian road rac ing fans . L ~1.V . Agostini's mistake was in the calculation of the fuel consu mption of the 500cc Yam ah a four. With just under two laps of the 36 lap race to go and Agostini ahead , th e two-stroke ran ou t of fuel. With four rou nds of the 12 round World Cham pionship Series n ow go ne, Agos tin i has o nly 15 poi nts, from his A ust rian Grand Prix success , to show for his efforts in the 500 class. But the backgro und to the 500 race at 1mola was itself sensational. Before the race, Yamaha and Suzuki asked the organizers t o reduce the length of the race from 36 to 30 laps. T he FlM jury considered their req ue st and agreed. Then, dra matically , a letter came early Sunday morning from the M.V. Agusta team saying that unless the race was run the full scheduled distance , they would withdraw. Wh ile the o rganizers pondered what to do, their m ind s we re mad e up when the Ch ief of Poli ce pointed out that he an d his m en co uld • not guarantee crowd control if the volatile customers were robbed of the awaited Yamaha vs, M.V . battle. The logic of this was apparent an d M.V . had won a pre- race battle t hat was in the end to give the m victory in th e race itself. T he 500 race was due to start at 4:30 p.m. but it was a full 10 m in u tes later before the warming-up lap had been completed and a throng of mechanics, friends, adm irers. press, ce l eb re ti e s , and t he like h ad condesce nde d to clear the gri d. The 500 I t is a hackneyed expression but you .. 36 could literally fee l the tension. What a front row. Agostini, Lansivo uri, Sheene, Read and Bonera, Anyone could win. But to prove that reputations count for nothing, it was privateer Adu Celsos Santos, who hu rtled through from the back of the grid to lead Sh een e away fro m the start. Ahead of the m lay a hundred and fourteen miles of racing. After three of those miles, the end of the first lap, five riders were ahead of the pack. The order was Sheene , Read, Bonera , Lansivouri and Agostini. A lap later and the order was exactly the same, except that where before there were two machines length between each of them, this time, there was just one: a proverbial covered-by-a-blanket contest. Watch ing the race o n close circuit televisio n, the co m mentator shrieked o u t a blow-by-b low acco unt to the buzzing crowd. Bonera had moved in to second place at Aqua I\linerale. T he crowd errupted. But that was nothing to the noise from the grandstand when the quintet ca me into sight at t he end of that t hird lap . Bone ra was ah ead . Behind h im came Sheene, Read, then Lansivouri an d Agostini side by side. By lap four, Bonera was well clear of Sheene with Lansivouri and Agostini st ill neck and neck. Where was Read? You co uld see the anger o n Phi l's face when he finally ca me in to sigh t. He had been up th e ove rshoot at the first chicane after try ing to go rou nd the outside of Bonera. It was a mistake that put hi m o ut of touch wi th the leaders and the 500 Road Raci ng Wo rld Champion co uld never get back on term s. Sheen e tried har d to stay wi th Bonera but t he J\I.V. rider was in brilliant fo rm and began to pull away. On t he six th lap , he set a new lap record of 2m.00.5s. but a lap later, Agostini equalled that record as he closed on Sheene. A lap later , Agostini was up to second just three seconds behind Bonera. It took Agostini until the 12 th lap to catch and pass Bonera, To do it, he sliced still more off the lap record. On lap 10, he did a 2m.00Is. lap but Sh een e hadn't given up the struggle . He hauled himself into battle with Agostini and Bonera, and set anoth er new record. in 1m .59 .95. Not only was this a 500e <: class record but the ab so lu te hest for the circuit , slicing a tenth of a second off Kenny Roberts' best time during the Imola 200 back in April. Lap 18 came, the halfway mark and Agostini and Bonera had pulled away from Sheene. Lansivouri trailed in third spot, lapping slower than Agostini, but co nsistently . Then came the next sensatio n. As the leaders came into sight to co m p le te their 20th lap, Sheene crashed at the entrance to the chicane and his Suzuki fo ur, went spinning crazily do wn the track for a good 50 yards, leaving the Eng lishman lyi ng prone o n the gro und. As he was rushed to a hospital, news came that Agostini had again broken the . record . With Bonera breathing down his neck, he had chopped another tenth of a second off Sheenes earlier lap and it was no surprise to hear th a t he had bettere d t ha t to 1m .5 9.5s. the fo llowing lap, as he struggled to p ull away fro m his shadow. Bonera wouldn't give up . The quiet, happy-go- lucky It alian newcomer had raced in fewer total events tha n Agostini races in a year, ye t o n th e 23rd lap, he an d Giacom o clipped ano the r te n th of a second off the lap rec or d , and a lap later Bonera produced a shattering I m .58.7s. lap to bring himself within a yard of Agostini. By now, all bu t the t hird an d fo u rt h men had been lapped by th e leading pair. Even Jack Findlay o n the o ther fo ur cy linder works Suzuki had fallen victi m to the Italian d uo. Still more records were to fall. Agostini lapped in Im.58.6s. on th e 30th lap , and on the 31st he we nt even qu ick er at Im .58 .3s. It was a lap th at no o ne co uld better b ut , more impo r tan tl y perhaps, it was the lap that d rained the last few pints of fuel from the Yam aha 's tank. As Agostini rushed on to this 35th lap , with Phi l Read, his arch ene my with in sight, the Yamaha coughed o nce and then droned to a standstill. At first, the crowd didn't know what to do or say. Then the Agos tini fans s tarted their lamen ts and Bonera fans whooped with delight. It was impossib le that Berona could have lapped his teammate Read, hut diplomatically the Italian eased off to win nearly, one and a half minu tes ahead of Lansivouri and over two minutes clear of Phil Read. Both Lansivouri and Read needed medical treatment before they could make. the victory rostru m and after th e gar landing ceremony, Lansivouri had to have a glucose injection in the first aid room . Th e 350 . In the 350 class the re were no M.Vs. Co un t Agus ta has decided th at th ey are no longer competitive and the Italian facto ry are concentrating thei r efforts on the 500 class. Perhaps it is a wise decision. because certainly no one could get a look at the in cr ed ible Giacomo Agosti n i on his ligh tweight 350 Yamaha. Ago won b y almost a minu t e from fellow Italian Mario Lega . Early leader, French man Michel Rouge rie, grabbed third p lace by less than t wo seconds from another It alian he ro, Walter V il l a . W it h Ha r ley-Davidso n th ird and fo urth , things are be ginning t o im prove for thi s rival to Yamah a sup remacy. T he 250 Wit h one It alian vict ory already the crowd. always fierce ly partisan . wan ted mor e. T he 250 race whi ch foll ow ed ob liged. T his ti me it was p opular Walt er V i lla who took the wa ter-co oled Harley -Dav idson to victory from Yama ha 's Brun o Kneub uhle r and Patrick Pons. Spaniard Angel Nieto gave the De rbi factory 25 0 a rar e o uting and , afte r ho ld ing secon d p lace for tw o lap s, dropped do wn the field and - fina lly re ti red wi th me ch anical proble ms on the fif th lap. Italian sensation Fosco Giansanti gave seve ral pho togra ph er s the frigh t o f th eir lives by attem pting to st ra igh t-line the chicane an d landin g o n his feet a fte r h ur tlin g over st raw bales and Armco into their midst. •

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