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Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127131
Kurt Nicoll's 2-4 finishes were good for second overall and left him second in the standings after one round. David Thorpe started off his quest for a third 500cc World Championship w ith a pair of wins. w hich put him 10 points ~ut front. at Sittendorf. • World Championship SOOcc MX Series: Round 1 . Thorpe storms to Austrian GP ,o·pener win By A lex Hodgkinson . SI1TENDORF, AUSTRIA, APR. 17 David T h orp e signalled to the world that he is determined to regain the 500cc World Championship, 'wh ich he lost last year du e to a broken arm and had p revious ly held in 1985 and '86, with a doublemoto win at the opening round of the Grand Prix sea. t Sitt d f son a 1 en or . 12 Thorpes victory immediate ly gives him a 10-po in t advantage over fell ow Englishman Kurt Nicoll, who was second overall after finishing second in th e first rnoto then collid- . ing with Belgian Dirk Geukens in moto two for a fourth -p lace finish. G eukens was third overall with a pair of fifths and is tied for third in the standings at 22 points with Italian Mich ele Magarotto, who finished 3-9. . American Bi ll ~ Li les scored 20 pomts with 3-11 finishes and holds fifth in the standings. After retiring from the first race with a flat tire, Sweden's Hakan Carlqvist showed that at 34 years -ofage he is not too old as he .took the runner-up position in round two. Without consulting the rid ers, th e organization went out before the first rnoto and watered the start straight and first two corners while leaving the rest of the track a dust bowl. "Incredible," declared Nicoll. "The one part of the track which . should never hav e been wat ered th ey ~ avesoakedandtherest~hi ch.needs has .been left. There IS g~mg to be a big crash, I Just hope I m not in it." And Ni coll's prediction cam e true. The field drifted out on the first sweeping right-hander and ripped out all the stakes marking th e track, then under braking for th e sharp, left -handed second turn, leader Magarotto went sideways in front of Am eri can Goat Breker. " I just couldn 't avoid him, but th e contact knocked him back straigh t and I went down ," said Breker. France's Jacky Vimond touched Breke r and was catapul ted into the fence , and was taken to th e hospital with a possible broken leg . Leif Persson was unable to avoid Vimond and Mark Banks p lo ughed into the Frenchman's Yamaha. Erik Geboers, Kar l Su lzer and Guy Van Gee l were also taken down. Thorpe just managed to avoid the wayward Yamaha and almost crashed into NicolI. Claudio De Carli took up the cha llen ge of Magarotto before droppi ng back with front fork problems for an event ual seven th . Andy It Nicholls, Thorpe and Nicoll wer e establishing their dominance after th e race had settled down with riders feeling their way in the horrendously dusty conditions. . T horpe said, " T he w hole track was bad, but the Kinigadner Hill was the worst of all. I had to go off the ideal line if I was behind anyone just to see the ground in front of m y fro nt wheeL " T horpe demoted Nicholls fro m second on the eighth of 22 laps, and two laps later he set abou t passing Magarotto. " I was con cen tratin g onestablishing a rhythm unti l then ," said Thorpe, " bu t 'when my father signalled me that Nicoll was co ming I decided to get in front and clear off. Seeing Kurt's name on the board is like showing a red rag to a bull for me." As soon as he had pulled o ut a hea lthy lead Thorpe settled down to riding co m fortably to the flag for the first 20 points of the yea r. Nicoll a lso passed Magarotto to finish second, Ni cholls was fourth and Geukens rounded out th e top five for th e moto. " I decided not to get involved in try ing to overstretch mys elf wh en David (T horpe ) and Kurt (Nico ll) came past," said Ni cholls. " I ca u gh t Magarotto on the last lap b ut th en 1 got into a tank-slapper on th e big hill a nd there was no more time to recatch him." Carlqvist's ch a nce s .o f figurin g prominently had gone as ear ly as the third lap wh en he pulled out with a large gash in th e rear tire from one of the numerous stones on the track. He had already had problems with track-marking tape in h is rear brake, b ut wa s n evertheless making his way u p to the top 10 at the time. Liles threw away seventh place on lap one when he went down in the muddy turn .a t the bottom of the course and had to co me through to I I th by the moto's end. Geboers also fell in th is corn er o n lap two and could ma nage no better than 14th behind Kees Van der Ven, who m ade n o secret of his feelings abo ut the track. " I didn't make a good start , and that's what this place is a ll abou t," said Van der Ven . " I got up to 10th at one stage, but then I had to be careful for fou r hips as a stone made my fro nt brak e ineffective. But the track is a disgr ace. Three years ago the riders demanded ' cha nges and they were made, b u t since then no th in g has been do ne again and the track is worse than ever. n is solid rock a t places. " T h e second race started with Geukens in the lead. Magarotto was second ahead o f Liles, Nicoll, J o Martens, Thorpe, Carlqvist and Persson. Persson was soon in trouble with a cracked gas tank and Breker moved forward rapidly to join th e top seven. O n lap five it was Nicoll's turn to slip off in a stony corner as T h orpe launched an attack on Magaro tto w hi le Liles m oved .in o n the leadin g Ge ukens. With Thorpe, who soon passed Ma~rotto, closing fast, Liles stormed Into the lead but hi s attempts to stay clear of .the Englishma n led to him overdoing things and crashing. ' . " I thought I wou ld try to race David head-on, but I got into a big tank-slapper and went down," Liles said. , T horpe was sudden ly alone with G eukens ch asing as Nicoll started to rapidly close in on Magarotto while Liles and Breker tried to hold off Carlq vist, w ho had made a small m istake a n d dropped to th e back of th e pack. Breker was n ot happy with his bike, having had little time to prepare it before th e ra ce a nd had dropped to a di stant eighth before going out. "The bike just isn't set up yet, and I nearly killed m yself trying to stay on the leaderboard," said Breker. Magarotto, thinking he had a rear flat , had pulled in for a wh eel change only to discover that the poor han dling was due to a fading shock, but the stop dropped him way back. T h at left Liles fourth ahead of Carlqvist, while Nicoll was closing fast on Geukens. With six laps to race Nicoll dove inside G eu kens at the end of the start straight, but Geukens, having no t seen h is rival, di d n't shut off a n d crashed in to Nicoll 's rear wheel. Both went down and it was too la te . for ei ther to regain their pl aces. With Thorpe safe m th e lead Carlqvist pounced on Liles with th ree laps rem aining to establish the final leaderb oard order of T horpe, Carlq- . • vist, Liles, Nicoll and G eu kens. Results OVERALL: 1. David Thorp e (Han) 1- 1; 2. Kun Nicoll (Kaw) 2-4; 3. Dirk Geukens (Kaw) 5-5 ; 4. Michele Mag arono (Kaw) 3-9; 5. Franco Rossi (Kaw) 6·7; 6: Billy Liles (Kaw ) 11·3 ; 7. Andy Nicholls (Han) 4- 12; 8. Mark Banks (Han) 9-8; 9. Er ic Geboers (Hon) 14-6; 10. Kees Van der Van (KTM) 13-10. POINT STANDINGS: 1. Thorpe (40); 2. Nicoll (30); 3. (TIE) Geukens/Magarono (22); 5. Liles (20); 6. Rossi (19); 7. (TIE) Carlqvisl/N icholis (17); 9. Mark Banks (15 ); 10. Geboers (12).