Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

~ ~ III ~ < II: lD < ~ II: > Z Z w J: > lD ~ -Ill m ....... ll. 00 0 ~ 0 J: ~ ~ C\l >....... ~ ~ With Randy Mamola leading. the 500CC peck nlces away from the starting grid in front of a massive Belgian crowd. Poor crowd control and thefts in the pits marred the event. which Freddie Spencer won. ' World Championship Road Race Series: Round 9 Spencer closes on L~wson with Spa win By Henny Ray Abrams SPA-FRANCORCHAMPS, BELGIUM, JULY 8 World Champion Freddie Spencer breathed life back into the 500cc GP title chase by returning, again, to the Honda NS500 threecylinder and leading Randy Mamola andRaymond Roche to a Honda sweep of the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa while point leader Eddie Lawson of Team Marl- 10 boro Yamaha was relegated to fourth by tire problems. Just a week ago, Lawson's grip on the title seemed secure, but his point lead was cut from 27 to 20 points over Spencer with just three races remaining. Lawson has 107 points, Spencer 87, and Mamola is third with 81. In 250cc GP action, fast qualifier Manfred Herweh of West Germany took the lead on the ninth of 16 laps and beat Spain's Sito Pons by half a second for his second victory of the year. Championship point leader Christian Sarron of France stayed at the top of the standings with a third place finish. For Team Marlboro Roberts the weekend could generously be called a disaster. Engine and tire problems put teammates Wayne Rainey and Alan Carter at 20th and 35th - out of 36 spots - on the grid after qualifying. Carter was away well last and although he was credited with the second fastest lap of the race, he could only manage a 23rd. Rainey was off to a good start and worked his way up to 16th before retiring on the seventh lap when his engine began to overheat. The French Krauser-Antar team of Alain Michel and Jean-Marc Fresc took advantage of World Cham pions Rolf Biland and Kurt Waltisperg's tenth lap DNF to score their first win of the year in the Sidecar class. The West German Schwarzel-Huber Yamaha chair came in second with third going to Great Britai~!s,S~~ Abbott and Shaun Smith. Championship leaders Egbert Streuer and Bernard Schnieders dropped out on ~he second lap, but held their lead in the point standings. When the riders arrived for Wednesday's free practice session they found the track mostly covered with a thin layer of mud from construction around the 6.94-mile circuit. The sidecars went out first and came back looking like they had been in a tough enduro. They cleaned the track some but not much for the 80s and 2505 and when it was the 5OO's turn ~he . rains came making the track unrideable. Street cleaning machines were brought in from Brussels, some 90 miles away, and improved the track greatly, but there was still a one-line groove on most of the track that the riders were following. The track condition was but one area in the general decline of the Belgium race. Although some improvements had been made - mostly in the interestof Formula One cars - the paddock condi tions were disgraceful. Last year, in direct defiance of FIM rules, paddock passes were being sold. Not thjs year, though, because once you paid your general admission price you were allowed to freely wander into the pits and paddock area. During qualifying one spectator was asleep on the pit wall as was one corner marshal. When Spencer came in once during Saturday's afternoon practice session, he was asked to get off his motorcycle by fans so that they could take pictures of it. While Mamola's me,chanics watched his progress from t!)¢ g~fdrailalAl'lg,lthelfront sUil)ghot. fans moved his machine stands away and took turns having their pictures taken on his spare bike. But that wasn't the worst of it. Spencer had the license plate bracket and plate ripped clear off his motorhome. West Germany's Martin Wimmer had his briefcase with all of his money and passport stolen. Two mechan ics had their toolchests ripped off. But one thief didn't get away so easily. After breaking the window on British rider Steve Parrish's trailer he reached in to steal some jackets only. to be met by Parrish's mechanic. The first reports were that the would-be thief's arm was broken, but the mechanic would only say that he "gave it a good whack." Spencer and Wimmer attended a meeting of the organizers and the FIM until late Saturday evening and on Sunday crowd control was very slightly improved. Another improvement for Spa was the weather. Brilliant cloudless skies poured sunny 80-degree weather onto the area for the race weekend, allowing riders and tuners -some consistency in qualifying. In the 250cc class, Manfred Herweh, on the Real, had a surprising cushion of 1.07 seconds over second fastest Guy Bertin on the MBA with former World Champion Toni Mang third on the HB, a mixture of a Kawasaki frame set-up with a longstroke Yamaha engine. Rainey's tired TZ250L was having a hard time getting up the long uphill after the front straightaway and front end chatter killed his drive in and out of the corners. Carter spread a crank on his Yamaha and was forced to the backup bike. After a rebuild, he was back on the number one bike only to seize it in the morning warm-up session the day of the race. The 250cc GP quickly became four-rider battle with Herweh leading Sarron, Bertin and Pons. World Champion Carlos Lavado was near the front, but an ignition failure melted a piston causing a seizure and subsequent spill. Behind the gang of four were Thierry Espie. Lavado's Venemotos teammate Ivan Palazzese and Mang. The racing was what's become expected in the 250cc class with constant shu ££ling among the leaders. Lap six read Bertin, Sarron, Herweh and Pons and on t~e very next lap the order was reversed. Sarron took the lead at the halfway point, but a lap later it was Herweh's for good. Pons would .~etl Pflst Sarron £Or second a World Champion Fast Freddie Spencer won again. with Palazzese taking fourth with three laps to go and Bertin finishing fifth. After the race Rainey explained his problems. "On the first lap it was about 75-degrees centigrade. Then it went up to 80-85-90 so I pulled over.' At 85 they start melting. It was hot at die end of the straights and I started looking for cool air. It would only pull fifth gear on the straights and it was blubbering and missing in the low gear corners. I didn't want to melt it in sixth gear wide open." Once again the question in the 500ccclass would be whether Spencer would run the three-cylinder or the four-cylinder Honda. On Friday the three stayed'on the truck with Spencer finishing the day almost a second better than Mamola. Roche was third fastest ahead of Lawson. Saturday morning there were three Hondas with the number "I" on them; two fours and a three. His best time on the four would have held up for the pole position, but he went OUI for five lap.s on the three and was easily fastest. Lawson found over two seconds and moved into second with Mamola third. The final practice session saw Spencer and Haslam try both bikes. In his four laps on the three Spencer lowered the standard to 2 minutes, 31.66 seconds, averaging 102.14 mph. Lawson went in the other direction with tire and carburetion problems. He didn't get a full lap in at speed and. crashed uninjured late in the sessIon. "I was exiting the chicane on the top of the hill and I lost the front end. Too hard a compound. Much too hard. The front end was pushing and I started to pull, in the 'pits but I thought maybe I needed more laps on it. It \urned under and slid for about 30 feel and I thought 'please don't fall down.' Then it fell down. I think we need two more practice sessions," said· Lawson. Mamola was having trouble with a sticking throttle and a cracked ATAC box, but thoughtlhere would be "no problem going faster in the race. We were trying some damping changes to keep the rear end up because when you accelerate it gets light in the front." After leaving the FIM meeting at, 9:30 Saturday night, Spencer and chief road race technician ETV Kanemoto'discussed for 20 minutes which bike they would race. "We're going with the three," said Spencer. "The problem with thejour is w~agl!t. It.doesn'llM3ntitGl.sto~ or.

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