Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

Randy Mamola finished second. Lapped traffic on the last lap stalled his move for a win, and Mamola settled for showboating tor the fans. Wayne Gardner won 'the Dutch TT on the Rothmans Honda V-four when Eddie Lawson crashed. It was Gardner's second win of 1986. Mike Baldwin (11) had to get past Raymond Roche (7) before he could make a move on Rob McElnea for third place. He did it. - World Championship Road Race Series: RoundS Lawson crashes, Gardner wins Dutch TT By Peter Clifford ASSEN, HOLLAND, JUNE 28 The 500cc World Championship point standings were blown wide open when Australian Wayne Gardner won the Dutch TT at Assen on his Rothmans Honda and Eddie Lawson crashed the Marlboro Yamaha on the first lap. Second was Californian Randy Mamola and his Lucky Strike Yam- 2 aha teammate Mike Baldwin pipped Rob McElnea at the line to take third from the British Marlboro Yamaha rider. Typically, Lawson made no excuse for his first lap mistake where he fell at the same corner on which Freddie Spencer was brought down by Christian Sarron last year. "I was trying to go around some other guys and 1 ran out of road and got onto the grass. 1 tried to get going again but the marshals wouldn't let me." Texan Kevin Schwantz, who was making his Grand Prix debut, fell at 'the same corner as Lawson afrer being fourth going into the chicane at the end of lap one. Schwantz didn't intend to be fourth and had shot past McElnea and Didier de Radigues going into the chicane as though his Suzuki's throttles were sticking. He ran across the dirt but regained the circuit in seventh place only to fall half a lap later. He remounted and continued at the back of the field but pulled out once lapped by Gardner after half distance. Gardner didn't know that Lawson had crashed until the race was over. "I thought that he was behind me all the time," said Gardner. "I had a pit board early on saying 'Lawson out' but 1 could see a Marlboro bike behind me and 1 thought that was him instead of Rob (McElnea). 1 expected him to come past but 1 kept reading the lap boards and managed to keep a distance. 1 played the backmarkers to my advantage and put in an effort when the gap went down from three and a half seconds to under one. 1 got it back to thre~ and 1 knew 1could put in a quick one at the end if 1 had to." Ron Haslam led the field off the line and flew round the first lap to open quite a lead before Gardner settled if) and passed him during lap two. Haslam began to slip back with brake problems, being passed by Raymond Roche, McElnea, Mamola and Baldwin. He finally finished seventh ahead of Roger Burnett. McElnea and Mamola set out to chase Gardner and were closing but the Australian increased his pace and held them off. Mamola took second from McElnea pn lap seven and started to pull away, but though he got within a second of the leader, Gardner always seemed to have the answer. By lap 16 of the 20-lap race, the gap had grown to 3.3 seconds but MaJ!lola cut that back to 2.3 at the beginning of the last lap. Mamola was pulling a wheelie and waving to the crowd on the final lap, admitting that he could not catch Gardner. Later he said he could have beaten Gardner. "I thought 1 had it covered on the second to last lap but he got a better run through traffic . while 1 got held up and there was nothing 1could do. 1came up behind this backmarker in the fast section and 1 thought, 'If 1 get past him here I'm going to win the race,' but there was no way. If 1 had tried to'get past him 1 would have crashed." Though disappointed that he had not won, Mamola thought the result was a good end to a bad week. "My girlfriend had to go into the hospital for an operation here and that made it difficult for me to concentrate during practice. 1 was going back and forth to the hospital and 1only qualified sixth. The bike was not quite right; it was too rich;but if we lean it out it loses power. We were using the new big crank engine but we need to get the carburation sorted out. We don't go running down to Kel (Car- ruthers, crew chief of the Marlboro Yamaha team) and ask him what he is doing, just like he doesn't come around here. We try to sort our own things out." Halfway through the last lap McElnea had almost a full second advantage over Baldwin but lost out in the last few yards. The dejected Englishman said, "I looked behind me on the last lap and saw he was there so 1 knew 1 had to make the effort. 1 was held up a bit by Marco Papa butthat wasn'ta big problem. 1 went into the last chicane hard because 1 though he might try to come up the inside. When he didn't 1 thought 1 had made it but he must have come out of the turn better and he beat me to the line. ". McElnea ended the race with a large seagull stuck in his bike's fairing after hitting it with two laps to go. Baldwin admitted that it had been hard to catch McElnea after completing lap one in II th place. "I was catching up okay until I got behind Roche and Rob got away a little as it took me time to get by and 1 made a few small mistakes that cost me time. With eight laps to go I said to myself, 'I don't care how 1 am going to do it but I'm going to catch him.' 1 could see 1 was catching him all the time and then on the last lap he got balked by a backmarker and 1 thought about going up the inside because 1 had 10 miles-per-hour on him but there wasn't room and we would have touched for sure. 1 sat back and com~ ing into the chicane I just flicked it in there and hoped because 1 had been gaining on him before coming out and 1 hoped it would be enough." It was. Sarron finished fifth after making his usual bad start. "I did not ride that well. 1 had a poor morale after such a bad start because the best 1 thought 1could do was finish sixth or seventh." Roche finished sixth, the best of the three-cylinder Honda riders, and de Radigues was ninth on the Chevallier, a long way ahead of Juan Garriga on the Cagiva. Schwantz warmed up for the Grand Prix with a great second place ride in the supporting Formula One race run on Thursday evening. Riding a Suzuki RG500 Gamma, Schwantz passed the works Suzuki GSXR750 of Paul.Iddon on the last lap to finish behind the works Honda of World Champion Joey Dunlop. Schwantz can take a joke but when the British four-stroke Formula One Suzuki team started making fun or his scuffed leathers after he had fallen off the two-strokes twice in two da.,Ys . it irked him a little. ''I'll show them," he said and coming onto the last lap of the race Iddon was ahead in second place and Schwarltz just pushed a little harder. He cut past Iddon with only three

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