Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

Schwantz and his Suzuki beat Rainey by over 15 seconds; the Texan seldom had both wheels pointing in the same direction on the wet track. forks since Irnola, " sa id Rob erts. " I brought in Am erican suspension expert Steve Simons, a nd we've made a lot of changes, but I'm hardl y likely to tell you abo ut the m , a m I?" It wa s all to cu re a front-end chatter prob lem that had been afflicting Rainey in pa rti cular (Magee uses a different front Du nlop, a nd has a different style, and in fact stayed with the stock Kayaba forks), but aga in th e weather meant th ey co uld hardl y kn ow wh eth er or not th e wor k had been successfu l. Suzuki had nothing new, while Cagi va had a truckload of new Pi rell i tires. They were again a n improvement, sa id Randy Marn ola, but still no good. "T hey 're no t: hooking up right; ' said Mamola. " I trie d a 17-inch rear, which has better traction in a straigh t line, bu t it has a shorter and wider contact patch th an the IS-in ch , and - it 's.n o t so good wh en you 're leaned _ over. " More rumors had aga in sugges ted that Mik e Baldwin wo u ld be joining th e Cagiva team to replace th e injured Ra ymond Roche, but instead th ey had brought alo ng their domestic test rider, Massimo Broccoli, for asecond ride. Rainey ended u p quickest in th e wet, fractionally ahead of Schwantz and almost two seconds better th an th ird quickest Magee. The two 'S7 Superbike r iva ls ex h ib i ted quite different styles, with Rainey loo king sm ooth and well con tro lle d, and Schwantz quite th e opposite, frequentl y ge tt i ng sidewa ys , a n d bouncing off th e curbs in th e chicanes. Magee al so looked smooth, but o ne trip across th e marbles at th e final ch icane showed he was also near the edge. . They were packed up close behind Magee: Lawson, Didier de Radigues, Gardner and Sarron all with in two tenths, wh ile wet weather specialist Mam ola wa s ra ther surprisingly more th an five seco nds down on the lead er, and in 11th. T hese wet ti mes were important for th e ra ce, bu t the afternoon's dry session settled th e grid positions. Again it was Rain ey in front, circulatin g s teadi ly a lmos t · two seconds inside Lawson's 19S6 lap record.' Wh en it started drizzling a little a t th e hair pin at the far end of the track, he pull ed in , and was wat ch ing th e last mi n ut es tick away by the end, but th en it was dry aga in. Rainey seemed certain to hang on to th e pole, but seconds before the sessio n ended, Gardner flash ed past on the Honda and moved to th e top by almost half a second for his second successive pole position of the se~son.liemade light of it. "I waited . to th e end because th e tra ck was damp before th at, but. I wa sn ' t making a big effort to be fastest," said th e Aus tralian. . Further X-rays had unearthed yet a no ther fracture in Gardner's left foot, making it six in all, and he wa s still riding in a lightweight cas t. Riding, he said dryly, was " painfu l." Sarron wa s third, and Lawson fourth, hi s progress slowed by missing a large ch unk of the seco nd sessio n after o ne of h is carburetors fell to bitsl Magee comp leted th e front row , saying: " My main concern has been to get th e bike set up for th e race, ra th er th an ge t on the pole." Li ke a ll th e Nurburg r ing firsttimers, Magee was pl eased to be on a varied circuit with good safe ty facilities. " I like it better every lap," he sa id, "bu t we' re pretty short on track time, and I still have some more to lear n ." . Once aga in , Niall Mackenzie wa s down on row two, after yet a no ther practi ce crash from h is Erv Kanem o to-tuned works HB H onda . " I fell th is morning in th e wet on a rea lly slow bend.·I cou ldn' t believe it, but wh en I look ed -la ter it seemed I migh t have hit a sli p pery seam in th e bitumen ." . Mackenzie had Sh unji Yatsushiro, Mamola and Schwantz beside him , th e Texan ad mittin g th at th e team' s lack of experi ence was a drawback: " We had .a bunch of problems in th e sec tion," said Schwantz, " li ke a gearbox that was all wrong. We also tried a new front radial th a t didn't su it my style. I couldn't mak e it steer - I'd try and flick it in late to get a good drive out, but I'd miss the a pe x because it didn 't ha ve the grip, so I was kind of shy of it. I sure hope it rains tomorro w." Rob McElnea headed th e third row, alo ngside de Radigues, H asla m , Pi er-Francesco Chili ' an d Patrick Igoa. Both de Radigu es and H asla m had fall en in the second practi ce sessio n. The Belgia n 's cra sh was another sim p le erro r of overen t h usias m; so wa s H a sl a m ' s, th ough of a ra ther differen t sort, a nd furtherm ore embarrassingly righ t in fro nt of th e pits. " We were bedding in so me new fro nt (bra ke) pads," said H asl am. " T he fro n t wheel came up under power at th e start of the pit stra igh t, bu t I must adm it that I dept it u p th ere for en tertain ment." A bad mistake, for when he came down th e fro n t wheel had stopped with th e tight brakes, and th e landing put h im off onto the grass, and shor tl y thereafter into a destructive cartwheeling cra sh . Schwantz's prayers for rain on race day came true, and the race began Championship leader Eddie Lawson rode a safe race to finish fourth while exte nding his lead over eighth-place Wayne Gardner to 2 0 points. on time with light but steady drizzl e keeping th e track surface good and wet. Rainey led Law son, Chili, Sarron and Schwan tz into the fir st bend, only to be simu lta neo usly overtaken by both Sarron a nd Lawson a t the far h airpin , th en Schwan tz a nd Magee as they climbed th e hill aga in, with Laws on n ow in th e lea d . Gardner was down in l Oth, after ge tting so mewha t sidewa ys on th e · start line, and th en being faced with a wall of spray as he los t all advan tage of pole posit ion. Nex t time around, Sarron a nd · Schwantz h ad bo th go tten past La wso n, a nd Magee had joined th em before a nother h alf-l a p w a s com p leted. Afte rwards, L a wson ex p la in ed ' why he had n 't put u p a fight. "The wa y some of th ose guys were going, I was pretty sure they'd be falling · off before too long. In any case, I tol d my pit crew on ly to signal whe re Gardner was . . . I' m on ly worried ab out him. And he was way beh ind. " By la p three, Schwantz was in front, an d pro ceeded to give all th e other riders a demonstration of wet weather brinkmansh ip tha t told of a de pth of talent h ardly as ye t su spected . H e sel dom had both wheels pointing in the same direction, and was on some occasions even hanging th e back whee l out under b rak in g . It lo oked mu ch m ore impressive (or at least more ris ky) than Mamola's runaway wins in th e we t la st yea r, and it wo u ld be interesting to measu re the p air together on simil ar bikes. And it was certainly enough to ens ure that he held fir st place from lap three until th e end, lap 30. . There wa s still some sor ti ng o u t to be done beh ind Schwan tz, with Magee leaning on Sarron, Ra iney · doi ng th e same to Lawson, with Chili hard o n h is heels. A short way beh ind, . de Radigues was clear of Gardner , who had slithered his way u p to eig ht h, past Yatsushiro and Macken zie, a nother who was playing ' ·it safe after hi s practi ce get-off. By lap fo ur,' Rainey was up to fourth, a nd he closed on teammate Magee, finally sli pp ing pas t him under braking on lap eigh t, by which time the leaders were already lapping th e backma rk er s. One lap later , Rain ey got past Sarron as well , and soon he was within th ree seconds of Schwan tz, and closing frac tio nally until th e T exan got th e messag e from his pit two laps la ter, and started stre tchi ng his lead again . Rainey's challen ge ended on lap IS, when th e . rain redoubled in intensity, and his seco nd small slip saw him right up on the top of the curbi ng, and dangerously clo se to th e grass. "I th ought I could do it here," said Rainey. "But I guess Schwantz didn 't mak e a ny mi stak es, and I did." Mamola was behind all this. H e'd been as high as seven th earl ier on, but his wet weather tires weren 't up to the pace, and o ne near- crash at the top of the hill had put him back among th e privateers, soon to pull ou t of a h opeless race. . All this ti me, Magee had been dogging Sarro n's whee l tracks, a nd o ne hoped th e cras h -pro ne Frenc hman wo uldn 't bring both of the m down. In stead, two la ps later, it was Magee who fell , the back end stepping out irrevocably as he p ut th e power on after the fir st chica ne. " I was stay ing w ith Sarron quit e. easily," sai d Magee, "and I thought I' d take it easy for a whil e, and try and pass him later on. That may have been my mistak e. Instead of gi ving it 100 percent co nce nt ra tio n , I was on 99 pe rcen t." The en gine was still runnin g when Magee's bike stopped, and he was u nhurt, if covered with mu d. " I kne w I had to get. th ere before th e marshalls," said Magee, and he had th e bike o n its wheels a nd was poking aro u nd for firs t gear as the officia ls go t th ere. Wh eel spinning in th e mud, he go t back on th e trac k still in fourth place just ahead of Lawson, but was passed almost at once by the American. Actually , Magee sta rted to close on Lawson, but th en gave up the chase to settle for th e points. " The cras h had push ed the radiator back a nd it was fouling .the th rottle li n kage, so it wa s jamm ing ope n at around halfthrottle," he exp lained. " I thought I'd better p lay it sa fe." H e wa s safe ly. ah ead of de Radigues, who had passed Chili o n lap 12, and himself seemed quite secure in sixth. Ch ili had Gardner so me seven seconds beh ind him, and Mackenzie a similar dis tance beyond th at, while McElnea and Ya tsu shiro followed. Earlier, Igoa had picked t hem o ff a n d was closi ng on Gardner, onl y to run straight at th e chicane o n lap 10, rejoining th e race in 12th. Prior to th at, H aslam had been pushing h is Elf 5 through th e group stro ngly before reti ri ng with main bearing failure on lap six. T he re was a little mor e exci temen t to come fro m this grou p, with Ch ili reporting an improvem ent in his tires later in th e race, whereupon he go t past de Rad igues again . McElnea ran into trouble with his chain j umping off the sp roc kets. " I don't hav e access to th e same number of gears as Kevin, and the only way we could get the gearing right was II

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