Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

Winner Anton Mang (4) holds off Dominque Sarron (3) and Sito Pons (2) during the 250cc Grand Prix; Sarron finished sec.ond with Pons fourth . Close to 180.000 fans packed the hillsides surrounding the Brno facility to watch the Czechoslovakian GP. two-plus seconds and would grow to five seconds for most of the race. " O nce I got the five seconds I thought I could hang onto it ," he would later say. Lawson led Taira in second with McElnea alone in fourth ahead of Mamola and Sarron. Spencer was seventh ahead of MacKenzie, but. suffering from lack of vision. "The first couple of laps were the worst because there were bikes all around me ," the former World Champion explained. " T he problem was under braking. Most of the time I'd brake early," Spencer was ahead of Cagiva's Didier de Radigues whose teammate Roche dropped out on th e third lap with a broken exhaustvalve. . Lawson would have his scariest moment of the day on the fifth lap. Coming onto the front straight his rear tire let go, sending his body flying. "My feet were in the air behind me and my head was on the tank , but it straightened itself out, " said Lawson. By the sixth of 24 laps Gardner's advantage was 4.13 seconds with Taira now past Lawson whose margin back to Mamola was 9.40 seconds. Sarron was fifth ahead of McElnea. .Lawson was riding cautiously unsure of the front end and waiting for the tire to get to optimum grip. Once it did, he would make a run for the front, although Gardner was long gone. On the eighth lap Mamola dropped from fourth to eighth behind Spencer, having overshot the final left-hand bend which serves as the pit entrance before the last corner, a right-hander onto the 650meter front straightaway. "It went into neutral when I was downshifting," Mamola began. "It was chattering so bad I could n' t see. I went o nto the pit lan e, turned aro u nd to come o n the track and as I did Fredd ie came by." A lap after Marnol a 's mishap, Lawson closed the ga p on the fading T ai ra and o n the 10th lap was into second. The order at thi s point was Gardner, Law son, T aira, Sarron, MacKenzie, McElnea, Mamola, and Spencer. Rothmans H onda 's Shunji Yatshush iro was ni nth with Roger Burnett 10th ahead of HB H onda's Pi er Francisco Chi li , de Radigues, and Elf's Ron Haslan on th e Elf H onda for th e first tim e in a GP instead of the NSR. H aslam , wh o'd been having bride problem s throu gh ou t pr acti ce, was saddled with a different problem. "T he ma in problem was something in th e ATAC (exha us t) system went out earl y on. I had to keep it abo ve 11,000 rpm. I also had no grip on the ba ck end. The brakes were o kay and tha t's th e main thing. It's a big improvement really," Haslam said. H e would continue o n to finish 14th. At th e half way ma r k Gardner was running hi gh 2:09s and holding a 5.5 second lead on La wson. Mamola was up to six th behind Taira, MacKenzie, and Sarron and ahead of McElnea who was having an off day just ahead of Spencer. " It was terrible. The rear tire was breaking loose going into the corner after four laps. Every time I'd get on th e gas the rear wanted to meet the front. It was br eaking away right where you wouldn't ex~ct it to at the apex," McElnea said. McElnea is feeling added pressure to perform because it is known that Giacomo Agostini, the Marlboro Yamaha team owner, has been actively pursuing Australian Kevin Magee to sign for next season. On lap 14 Spencer would overshoot the same corner as Mamola and drop well back. "I've never overshot a corner in a race before," he said afterwards. "I was happy to be where I was because I'd lost so much time. My arm still gives me some trouble but it gets better each time." Two laps later would mark the two -third point of the race with the field spreading out. Gardner was still plus-five with Lawson now three seconds clear of his teammate Taira who had about 12 seconds on the MacKenzie/Sarron/Mamola trio, A

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