Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

It:CKfTTS COltllll" The 500cc GP gets underway with Mayer (36) leading Gardner (4). Haslam (5). McElnea (8) and Lawson (2). World Championship Road Race Series: Round 9 Gardner mows 'em down· in British GP By Henny Ray Abrams SILVERSTONE. ENGLAND, AUGUST 3-4 Rothmans Honda's Wayne Gardner convincingly won the 500cc British Motorcycle Grand Prix leading every lap of the race run in a cold and windswept down pour on the 2.93-mile airport circuit at Silverstone. Gardner, the 26-year-old Australian rode his NSR500 , . . V-four.Honda to a mne:second ~ICto~y. a~~d ~f t~e surpnsmg Belgian DIdier, ..t:. Radi~es on the ~ollstar NS5~~~-cylmderChev~lher Honda. wltil' pomts leader Eddie Lawson thir~cm. he Marlboro Yamaha. Lawson Sl\~male Rob McElnea ~as fourth! wuh Team Lucky Scnke Roberts~RandyMamola a courageous fifth !ifter cracking his shoulder in praeuce ~e ~y bef~re the rac~. . ~ combmau~n of m.tense pam a~d ~Iding; for 45 mmutes.m a cold. dnvmgramsentMamolamtoshockaIter th~ race and he had to be on a salll'~e dnp bottle. for over. an hour. HIs teammate Mlk~ BaldwI!1 suffered ~om a wrong geann.g chOICe and VISIOn problems ~o fl~lsh I~th. With hIs third WID of th~ year. Gardn~r took ov.er secon.d m the champIOnship pom.t Standin~s from Mamola. Lawson still leads With 109. Gardner has 93 and M;~.mola~' There are two f(;lUnds remammg m the II round ~enes.. . .. Sconng hiS ftrst Grand Pnx wm ever, Rothmans Honda's Dominique S~rron survived a race-long battle wHh Alan ~arter to take the. 250cc W.lD. Carter, m hIS home GP, pHched h~s Cobas down the. track w.hlle runnmg econd on the .fmallap an Woodcote Corner. the fmal corner of the race. Venemotos Yamaha's Carlos Lavado inherited second with Campsa Honda's SilO Pons third. Lavado continues 10 lead the title chase with 99 points to pons' 84. Rothmans Honda's Toni Man~, who DNF today: is a distant third with 57 while Sarron moves into fourth with 56.. . .A~stna~ August Aumger sco.red hIs first wm of the season by takmg his Bartol to a nine-second victory over Ducados-mounted Domenico Brigaglia in I25cc action. Third went to championship points leader Luca Cadalora on the Garelli. After ~ight rounds of 125 action. Cadalora leads Fausto Gresini, a DNF today. 86-74. Brigaglia takes sole possesion of third with 59 In on~ of two races held on Saturday, Ian McConnachie became the first British winner of a solo Grand Prix in 1986 by nipping World Champion Stefan Dor£Jinger at the finish of the 44-mile 80cc race. Finishing third to the Krauser-mounted duo was points leader Jorge Martinez on the Derbi just. 16 second ahead of teammate Manuel Herreros. Martinez has 82 points to Herreros' 67 with Dorflinger third and 65 and McConnachie now fourth with 46. Saturday's other event was the sidecar race and after taking the lead three laps from the end. the BarcJay team of Egbert Streuer and Bernard Schnieders went on to a 3.22-second win over rivals Steve Webster and Tony Hewitt. The Swiss team of Markus and Urs Eglofffinished third. With championship leaders Alain Michel and Jean-Marc Fresc dropping out on the eighth lap. Webster! Hewitt moved into first with 61 points to Streuer!Schnieders' 60. Michel! Frese holds down third with 54. For the 500s, Friday's first practice session would be the quickest because it was dry and the winds were calm. In the second session it rained and in Saturday's two sessions it was so windy that it blew riders over. Gardner earned his first Grand Prix pole position with a record-breaking 1:28.16 averaging 119.52 mph on the eightturn course. "We changed the cylmders to spread the powerband and it gives us more on top," Gardner said. The Aussie, who makes his home during the season in Wragby, Lincolnshire about 90 minutes northeast of Silverstone, added that he wanted to win in Britain, "because when I first came to race in Europe the people sort of adopted me. It would be a nice payback to Honda Great Britain who gave me a chance." Mamola was indeed sore. Going into the slowest corner on the track. Becketts; a 75 mph. second gear righthander. he fell on ~he raised edge bordering the inside of the turn. McElnea, who was right behind him, said that as Mamola was approaching the appex of the turn he looked back towards McElnea letting the front wheel drift toward the inside and taking him down. Mamola claimed it was the wind. but it happened so quickly that he may not have known what knocked him down. An X-ray showed a cracked right shoulder that had to be constantly iced leading to a no-sleep night. "There are a lot of right-hand corners here so pushing and pulling it should be no problem," Mamola said. ''It will be the pain of lifting it. If it rams, it's better for me." Third behind Gardner's 1:28.16and Mamola's 1:28.69 was Lawson at 1:29 flat. Lack of practice time kept him from sorting out the carburetion problems that plague the Yamahas, although he did get the wet-weather experience on Friday. With a 13point lead coming into the race, his biggest concern would be protecting it. "I have to think of the championship and I would be dumb to go and falloff in practice. If I get a poor start I'll just ride around and see what the others are doing. It depends on what the conditions are like." Fourth in qualifying was the Gauloises Blondes Yamaha of Christian Sarron, who was gradually trying to copy the hang-off riding style of the front-runners. "It is obvious that it i necessary to lean out more to go faster in cornering and this is why here at Silverstone I have tried to do thatduring practice," Sarron said. Baldwin qualified fifth with a 1:29.37 just ahead of McElnea's 1:29.43. McElnea was blown off his OW81B Yamaha in the 150 mph Abbey Curve totalling the machine durmg the final se sion. "Can you believe it blew me off," the 180 pound McElnea said. "The bike's a writeoff. I'll have to sell my motorhome and new trials bike to pay for the repairs," he joked. The rest of the eight-rider front row was Team Katayama Rothman's Raymond Roche on the injured Freddie Spencer's NSR500 V-four in seventh and Rothmans Honda Britain's Roger Burnett eighth. The cutoff for the 40-rider field was the 1:39.27 of Helmut Schutz. The rain started coming down early on race'day, but the most commonly heard paddock greeting was, "at least it's not windy." When the 5005 were given the green flag at 3:30 on the dark and rainy afternoon, Gardner shot into the lead - but the race was quickly red-flagged when Australian Paul Lewis whipped his Skoal Bandit Herron Suzuki down the road at Becketts breaking three bones in his foot on the first lap (he expects to be ready for next week's race in Sweden). Mamola, who had gotten a painkilling injection before the first start went back and was given two more before the second start, which was an hour later. He asked Vernon Cooper, Chairman of the ACU (Auto Cycle Union) Road Race Committee if he could get a push start from the edge of the track, but was denied. Instead he altered his starting procedure" "I cranked the steering damper way up and moved to the left side of the bike," he said. "I just jammed the damper into my stomach and pushed it that way, but I still got away bad" He was credited with 13th on the first lap as the leaders pulled away. It was Gardner leading Lawson, de Radigues, McElnea. Roche, Ron Haslam on the Elf Honda, Sarron, and Dutch rain specialist Boet' van Dulmen. Mamola was 10th at the end of the second lap with Baldwin 16th. "It was so misty out there I couldn't see anyway and I put gearmg on that was too tall," Baldwin said. "I couldn't pull out of the corners." Baldwin had exhausted his supply of dear faceshields durmg practice and raced with a dark shield. furthering limiting visibility. For Lawson the race strategy was set early. "About the third or fourth lap I got it sideways and almost crashed. I slowed way down and was way too careful," he said. By the fifth lap Gardner had an almost eight-second lead. Lawson was well ahead of de Radigues with Sarron third ahead of McElnea. Roche was sixth narrowly ahead of Haslam with Mamola eighth. Sarron's day was over three laps later with a spectacular crash exiting Woodcote on the front straightaway. "Because of the rain and bad visibility I didn't know who was in front of me," he said. "I dosed the gap very quickly on the two riders in front of me and as I wanted to pass oneof them, in fact it was de Radigues, I changed my line in Woodcote Corner, touched the inside white line and then I lost the front wheel. There was nothing I could do." Sarron. whose 1:44.86 lap tim would be bested only by Gardner,

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