Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

Mike Baldwin won at Suzuka again. (Below) Australian Andrew Johnson chases Frenchman Guy Bertin. both riding works Hondas. Baldwin again at Suzuka SUZUKA CITY, JAPAN,JULY 29 American Mike Baldwin scored his third victory in Japan's prestigious Suzuka EightHour, a round of the World Championship Endurance Road Race series. Baldwin and partner Fred Merkel brought their works Honda RS750R across the finish line a full lap ahead of second place. 20 Beyond being part of lhe World Championship series, Suzuka is an important race because it attracts huge crowds of spectators - over 140,000 this year - and is contested by teams backed by all four Japanese motorcycle manufacturers. Baldwin and Merkel were always in the running after qualifying their factory V-4 fifth fastest and took the lead for good in the fifth hour after Frenchman Raymond Roche crashed his works Honda. Showing the consistency that has brought the Honda France team success in the past, the pairings of Guy Bertin/Domminique Sarron and Patrick Igoa/Gerrard Coudray were in the top half dozen for the first half, then steadily improved their placings as other teams fell by the wayside. In the finish, Bertin and Sarron bagged the runner-up spot, one lap down on Baldwin and Merkel, while Igoa and Coudray took third, to maintain their lead in the World Endurance Championship. Roche started from pole position after Australian Wayne Gardner qualified the machine with a lap of 2:21.97s, and led for the first 10 laps until overtaken by ew Zealander Graeme Crosby. Crosby crashed the Yoshimura Suzuki 750 he shared with Australian Len Willing during the three-lap warm-up period immediately before the start of the race. As other teams took to the grid, the Yoshimura team was desperately straightening handlebars and levers in the pit. Cro by did make the start, however, on the works-chassis-equipped, new GSX750-engined machine developed by Pops Yoshimura. Crosby had been fastest in practice -and crashed twice - up until the final qualifying ession, when Gardner managed to break the 2:22 mark, while Moriwaki Engineering's Hikaru Miyagi also managed to better Croz's 2:22.4s time by three tenths of a second. While Crosby and Roche played cat and mouse at the head of the field, Baldwin settled into third just ahead of the Moriwaki team's Honda CBX750 powered machine ridden by Miyagi's teammate 'Hutch' Yathishiro. While Roche stopped to hand over to Gardner, and Crosby refuelled and let Willing take over, Baldwin continued on and caught the two leading bikes. Meanwhile, Australia's Rob Phillis was already back in the pits after the private Kawasaki GPz750 powered bike he was sharing with Kork Ballington suffered mechanical problems Raymond Roche and his works Honda V-4 lead Yoshimura Suzuki GSX750; neither finished. after only half an hour. With Baldwin tailing him, Gardner was brought down in the chicane on the main straight by a slower rider. He said .Iater that he had almost stopped and when they bumped, the Honda "just fell over." Baldwin then took the lead and continued for everal more lap before handing over to Merkel. Gardner lost just 70 seconds having new brake and gear lever filled to the V-4 machine before returning to the fray. In a hard hour's riding, he managed to pull back 20 econds on Merkel and Willing, who were dicing for the lead. By this stage, Team Honda Australia's Andrew Johnson had moved into fourth spot after Miyagi had missed a shift and over-revved the Moriwaki Honda. But just a few minutes after taking over from Johnson, co-rider Mal Campbell crashed. After returning the bike to the pits, the team lost two laps making repairs and this cost them any chance of victory. Up until the crash, they had been on the same lap as the leaders. While Merkel and Willing were turning 2:28s laps, Gardner was clicking off 2:25s as he scrambled to make up ground. He handed over to Roche who maintained his position for the third hour. For the fourth hour, Crosby took over from Willing and Roche made up a lot of ground while the Yoshimura team refuelled the Suzuki. This resulted in Crosby going out and becoming involved in a dice for the lead with Roche - once again with Baldwin joining in after taking. over from Merkel. Then, after taking the lead, Crosby wa forced to retire with terminal mechanical problems. After driving out of the chicane onto the downhill straight, Crosby pulled over to the left-hand side of the track as he went past his pit crew and pointed at the engine. As if to verify his diagnosis, the Suzuki engine promptly blew, spreading oil down the track. Gardner took over from Roche again and had to catch Baldwin, who had taken over the leading Honda from Merkel. In another charge, Gardner bridged the gap and on his last lap before refuelling, passed the American on the start finish line. Then Roche went out. But after just a handful of laps, the Frenchman, who had looked so consistent up to that point, crashed. The bike was too badly damaged to continue. So Baldwin stretched away into the lead and the two French Honda teams moved up to second and third. From that point on, the race became a procession. By this time, nine of the top 10 bikes were Honda 750s, either V-4s or Graeme Crosby's air-cooled inline fours. A lone Yamaha, ridden by Shinichi Ueno and Hiroyuki Kawasaki was running fourth but in the final five minutes the Yamaha blew. Ueno toppedatthefinish lineand pushed over but had dropped to fifth place as the Moriwaki team's second bike grabbed fourth. Johnson and Campbell finished ixth,justahead of Canadian Rueben McMurter and American Ricky Orlando on a private Honda RS750R. McMurter and Orlando had qualified 16th fastest with McMurter riding. McM urter rode first in the race but had problems getting the bike started in the dead-engine LeMans start, finally getting off close to last. By the end of the first hour McMurter had worked up to 15th place; Orlando reached 10th by the end of the second hour; in the third hour the team stayed at lOth as the bike started to develop suspension problems. In the fourth hour they were 12th, reaching ninth in the fifth hour and gaining sixth in the sixth and seventh hours. At the finish they were bumped back one position by Johnson and Campbell. Americans John Long and David Emde finished 16th on a Japanese team's BMW after qualifying 53rd. During the race a float bowl plug fell out of one carburetor, and three laps were lost replacing the carbo With two minutes to go Emde pilled with the bike running on one cylinder; mechanics sent him back out to finish, but the extra pit stop cost the team 15th place - the last moneypaying po ition. "They told u it was a factory BMW," said Long after the race. "When we got there it was just a street BMW, lightly modified. It was a sleeved-down R80, with no cams." American BoTT rider Sherry Friduss teamed with Japanese Mari Igata on a private Honda. The pair qualified 47th but finished 26th, 22 laps behind Baldwin and Merkel. Americans Carry Andrew and Chris Steward teamed on another Japanese team's Honda. Andrew missed his airplane to Japan thanks to a huge traffic jam leaving Laguna Seca, and showed up in Japan two days late. Meanwhile, Steward had arrived in Japan alone, with no idea of how to get to the track or who to meet. He made it to the racetrack on Tuesday; Andrew, the Japanese team, and the bike made it to the track on Friday, and the pair had to try to jet the bike in qualifying. They made the field in 56th position and were running 24th at the end of the third hour. Before the start of the fourth hour Andrew ran off the track just after being lapped by Merkel, and crashed. David Aldana and Bruce Sass -

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