Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/126482
E • ~ E o 00 (j") Suzukll winners W .. Cooley (low er Ieftlend Gl1teme Crosby (upper rightlend the ir Yoshimul1t Suzuki were only 40 seconds in front of the fectory Kewueki of Eddie Lewson (upper Ieftlend Gregg Hensford (lower rightl. Cooley and Crosby win Suzuka Eight Hours Photos by Hiroshi Hayana SUZUK A CITY, jA PAN , jULY 27 American Wes Cooley and New Zealander Graeme Crosby teamed on a Yoshimura Suzuki GSIOOOR to win the Suzuka Eight Hours World Championship Endurance Race in Japan by 40 14 seconds. O f 56 starters and 38 finishers , only the se c o n d -place team of American Eddie Lawson and Australian Gregg Hansford I (f actory Kawasa ki) covered t h e same diistance as t h e Winners , 200 Iaps. Th e ' third-place team of Frenchmen Marc . Fon t an an d H eyue Momeau (H on d a France RS1000) were three laps be. hi d th e t t lellng In op wo teams, comp . 197 laps of the diffic ult 6-kilometer, 14tum road co urse located in the middle of the Honda land amusement complex owned and operated by a sub . sidiary of Honda. The win by Coo ley and Crosby marked the second time in three years that j apanese engi ne wizard Pops Yoshimu ra has used Suzukis to humiliate the mighty Hon d a endura nce teams on Hond a 's home ground. Honda RSC (Racing Serv ice Center ) is located in the Suz uk a infield a nd used the track for racing m ach ine development. Cooley teamed wit h Mike Bald win on a Yoshim u ra Superbike in 1978 to win the Suzu ka race , but Cooley's 1979 effort with Ron Pierce on a Yoshimura Fo rmula machine ran into numerous mechanical problems. In this year's race Cooley rode a bike essentially simi - lar to the F1 Suzuki he used to win the Elkha,rt Lake AMA National Road Race injune, Honda's defea t didn't come by de fault , as the giant company new in a slew of Honda teams and backed them I . I' j up to su~p ymg sev~ private apanese teams wah loaner bikes and parts .for the race. In all , 31 of th~ 56 starling teams were on Hondas, eight of them .. wah ~,rect factory or RSC support. Honda's problems started even before the race . O ne ha lf of their reign . ing endurance champi~nship team from France never made It to Suzuka, since jean-Claude Chemarin fell off and was injured in Europe before the race in Ja pa n . His partner, Christian Leon was teamed up with G P star Virginio Ferrari for Suzuka, in spite of Ferrari injuri ng one foot in a street crash in Italy short ly before leaving for J a pan , Ferrari limped around the' pits with a cane, favoring one foot in a . specia l, protec tive', padded shoe. Then Leo n crashed d uring pra ctice , breaking his collarbone. American Ron Pierce crashed in qualifying when his RS1000's front brakes failed and the shift linkage hung up during the transition from fourth gear to third gea r for the entrance to a th ird·gear right. ha nd turn . The combinat ion of problems put Pierce and his machine into a retaining wall , the bike clearing away protective foam ba les and a llowing Pierce to crash unprotected into the wall . He suffered a broken shou lder and collarbone, with one vertebra compressed 3-4mm and three other vertebra left without any clearance between them . Pierce's accident followed the deci sion by Honda to put the team of Pierce and Freddie Spencer on a RS1000 instead of the American Superbike they brought to japan. Filled with endurancelegal carburetors, the American super· bike was just too slow . Bu t Pierce's crash left Spencer with out a partner, so Honda shifted Ferrari to joi n Spencer on the bike. Wes Cooley crashed in open practice a week before the race, when he pushed too hard at a hairpin turn entrance destroyi ng one Yoshimura Suzuki but escaping uninjured. Ame rica's fastest woman racer , Gina Bova ird , a lso crashed in ea rly practice , re -b reaking t he finger she ma ngled in her Da yton a 200 race a nd the other four finge rs, plus inju ring her left kn ee and a nkle. Bova ird's hand slowly turned blue in spite of ice pack treatment . After skip pi ng two days of practice, Bovaird tri ed rid ing again and fou nd that she could n' t hang onto the handlebars, leaving p artner Jo hn Ulrich of Cycle World to find another co-rider for his rented Moriwaki Kawasaki. He set tled on Yoshit a d a Hagiwara , a japanese rid er sponsored b y ' Pops Yoshi m u ra inJapan. Crosby qualified fastes t for Suzuka for the second straight year, turning 2:17.62 on the Yoshim ura Suzuki. Bu t Crosby bea t American Da vid Alda na's time on a Moriwaki Ka wasa ki (which Crosby rode at Su zuk a in 1979) by only 0 ,07 seconds, and had to work at it to do so . Aldana set his time in the first qualifying session , while Crosby rode in the second session. Using Aldana's time as a goal , Crosby turned a high 2: 17 lap , pitted , found that he still hadn't beaten Aldana , and then set out again ~o berzerk around on the faster Suzuki, The second try , Croz got his fast time and Aldana was bitterly disappointed . R ight beh ind Crosby and Aldana in q ualifying we re Eddie La wson and Gregg H ansfo rd on the factory Ka wa sa ki endura nce racer, emerging as the best-rnatcbed team and a serious threat for the race win. Lawson turned 2 : 18.25; H a nsford 2: 18.34. Freddie Spencer was right behind at 2: 18 .83, as was RSC test rider and home- track. favorite Kengo Kiyama at 2: 18. 95. Cooley qualified seventh a t 2: 19 . 17, wh ile AMA 750cc C ha mpion Richa rd Schlachter was eight h at 2: 19.4 6 on a nother Yoshimura Su zuki which he wou ld share with last -yea r's Suzu ka win ner, Mick Cole. Co le q ua lified at 2:22 .14 , Although he had reac hed 2:21 2 :22 lap times in practice, Alda na 's partner, Da vid Emde was inti midated by instructions from Moriwaki to take