Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

00 00 O"l ,.....; (Left to right) Lawson, Gardner and Mamola celebrate their 2 -1 -3 finish in the 500cc GP; it was only Mamola's second point-scoring ride in 1988. 26 Lawson had on ly to stay on two wheels to ge t second , and Mamol a in he ri ted thi rd . T he last few la ps o f the ra ce h e rode d own the p it straigh taway in front of the gra ndstands tucked in a nd leaned over, wavi ng to the crowd. Behind Mamol a, de Radigues led a res urgent Schwa ntz with Rainey struggling to keep in touch . H aslam was in fron t of Chil i with McE lnea n inth a n d R othma n s H onda ' s Sh u nji Yatsu shiro 10th . With two laps to go, everyo ne moved u p a spot whe n Schwantz Crashed exi ting the esses at th e top of the course. " I go t in th ere, flicked 'er in , got on th e ga s, and it snap ped rea l qu ick on me," Schwantz recalled. " Whe n it came back around it went down. The tire was a little harder than th e o the rs a nd in th e lefts I co uld n't do a nythin g with it. Once it got warm it started working better." Mc Eln ea would pass Hasl am toward th e end of th e race; his last ' lap being hi s fastest. H e ended up sixth, his best finish since joining Suzuki this year and, clearly, he was happy. " I could've done with more cuts in my -tire," Mc~lnea said. " Wayne and Eddie had more cuts down the center. It freaked me out at the start; I'd open the throttle and it was just floating. As a bit of water went away it came good. I was still getting decent times without getting silly in the ,woods. It's like 'IT tacti cs. You go slow at Bra y Hill and speed up afterwards." . At the finish, Gardner's margin was 30.11 second with Lawson a comfo rta ble 10.67 ahead of Ma mola , who was so excited ab out the p lacing ' tha t h e al mos t lo st th ird to de Rad igues by wh eel ying th rough th e gea rs and around th e bend o n th e front strai gh taway. Officially, h e fin ish ed .83 second ahead of de Rad igues with Rainey another 1:56 seco nds behind. " I'm not used to these condi tio ns, " a n obvious ly disappo inted Ra in ey said. " I wa s never rea lly in the h unt. It 's mor e me than eq uip me n t. My o nly advan tage was th rough th e bu s sto p (a t th e rear chicane)." T eam ow ner ' Kenn y Rob erts no ticed th at whe n it go t dry th e front tire was pushing. "T he rea r 'was a p roblem . H e wanted to do a ra in tire, but he never has raced in these conditio ns," he said. Rainey had briefl y moved into fourth, but de Radigues passed him going into th e chi cane to secu re fourth in front of 75,000 o f his fell ow co u n tryme n. " Mine was the worst," of the trio o f motorcycles competiting for th ird , de Radigues believed. " It was way too rich. Schwantz' was the best. It was very, very slippery and m y bike was not running th at well. " For Ma rnola, the result was ' a catharsis. He explained that he 'd seized four times .iand broken a crankshaft during qualifying and spent the night before th e race, "T rying to guess what lap it would seize on." "T he new reeds were too stiff and weren't letting enough fuel through so we were burning holes in pistons," Mamola added. " We ended up using the old style engine in th e new b ike. T he b ig gest difficulty was passing th e o ther guys. If on ly the thi ng wo u ld' ve started I would've been better off. It wo u ld've been no p roblem for ine to race with those guys. I cou ldn 't believe how good the intermedia tes worked. I cou ld see the rai n was lightening up. It got to a point tha t there was a dry line." Not as happy withhis tire choice was La wson. " Last week the rear was too soft, " he sai d. "This week it was too hard. The fron t was good. But I still wo uldn't have won. As long as we ca n keep this going we'll be okay." Fro m the tu rmoil of just a few weeks past, Gardner has ado p ted a di fferent mindset. ''I'm very o pe nminded about th is year ," he said. "T he bike's not as good as I want it to be, but it 's better. It has lots of power, but it understeers wide on power. It doesn 't seem to track right. In th e tight stuff it 's not so bad, the fast stuff is the problem. Gardner felt he had Sarron well in hand and even anticipated his final move, " I thought he 'd get me at the hairpin (So urce) and I had him blocked. I didn't want to push it hard there. " ' ' The 250s faced a light drizzle and wet track when they were waved off for their 15-lap, 64.7-mile race, but it didn't stop Rothmans Honda's Dominique Sarron from jettin~ into th e lead. He was followed in a sm~le file procession by Cornu, Garriga, Manfred Herweh , Pons , Mang, Masahiro Shimizu, Wimmer; Ivan Palazzesse, and Reggiani. Garriga was first acr oss the str ipe on th e third lap with Sarron second, ' Pons third, Cornu fourth , a nd Mang fifth. That's how th e first part of the race would be scored as Reggiani and Wimmer crashed tow ard the end of th e fourth lap. The race was delayed for an hour with th e weather still unsettled, but windy, wit h temperatures in the low 50s. The track was mostly dry so slic ks were th e tir e of choice. Mang led the res tart from Sarron, Carlos Cardus, Cornu and Reinhold Roth. Sarron crash ed unhurt on the fourth la p with Shimizu, in fo tirth at the time, crashing on the eighth lap. By then th e two pairs of Pons/ Mang and Roth/Cornu had almost a one-mile lead on Marlboro Yamaha 's "L uca Cadalora a nd Garriga who, although he won the first leg, was suffering an ignition failure in the second that refused to allow him from revving over 11,000 rpm. With two of th e 12 hips remaining in the second leg , Mang was in front of Pons with Cornu and Roth about 40 hards back. Cadalora was a distant, but unchallenged fifth, by having finished 20th in thefirst leg due to a bad tire choice was no threat for a podium placing. Palazzesse was sixth ahead of Gauloises Blondes' Jean-Philippe Ruggia with Cardus eighth and Lavado ninth. Palazzesse lost the front end going up the hill after the front straight, crashing spectacularly, exploding a number of hay ba les and bringing an ambulance onto the track, not far from the racing line.

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