Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

Cagiva's Randy Mamola displayed his tire-smoking slides to the Brazilian spectators before his antics led to a crash on lap 12 of the GP. Recently-crowned 500cc World Champion Eddie Lawson (3 ) leads Kevin Schwantz (34) en route to his seventh GP win of the season . World Championship Road Race Series: Final round . Lawson'dominates season finale . . By M ichael Scott Photos by Patrick Gosling GOIANIA, BRAZIL, SEPT. 17 Eddie Lawson finished th e 1988 season like a true cham pion , with a h ard- fought bu t convincin g victory in the Brazilian ' GP at Goiania. Riding a Marlboro Yamaha that was th e 'b est handling bike of th e da y on th e bumpy circuit . . 1 d B '1 · h d ff m m an . razu , e stav~ 0 a determmed cha}lenge m th e 10 early la~s from. Kevin Schwantz ~n the Pepsi Suzuki; th en - when Wayne Gardner' s Rothmans Honda joined the ?alt le - drew away rem orselessly. In th e end, he was 13 seconds ah ead, setting a new la p record o n th e fifth of 32 laps, while thirdpl aced Schwantz o nly ga ve up th e figh t with Gardner under the co mbined di sad vantages of a wildlywobbling Suzuki and some ro ug h riding from th e defeat ed Australian World Ch ampion. Niall Mackenzie on the HB H onda wa s fourth , a ft er a. stro ng rid e through from a poor start, under concerted attac k from the Gauloi ses Yamaha of Ch ristian Sarron, the Frenchman in pain both from a n an kle sp ra ined in a pr actice cras h, and a rib broken from a personal watercraft crash the week befor e. T he pair had .ou tdist~nced f~ststa rter Wayn~ Ramey, strlc ke.n Wlt~ bad wh eelspin problems with hi s Dunlop tires. But the rubber had a ' worse trick to pl ay on th e Californian, spoiling hi s perfect fini shing record thi s seaso n when he had to retire with a punc;ure. This left his Lu cky Strike teammat e Kevin Magee to take sixth, aft er p la ying ga mes with a fou r-bike group that saw so me close dicing. T he first to leave it was Randy Mamola , wh o had been thrilling th e smattering of spectators all weekend with hi s tire-sm oking dirt tra ck slidi ng techniques. H e did it o nce too often in th e race, and was thrown off over the high side. Pi er-Francesco Ch ili on the o ther HB H onda was seventh, Rob McEInea 's Pep si Suzuki eigh th, with the ail ing de Radigues ninth, th e last rider o n the sam e la p as Law son. Amon g a small number of nonfin ishers, Ron Haslam retired th e Elf 5 after a disastrous last race for th e French odd-ba ll ma chine. First his front brakes started binding, th en th e engine (a spa re, put in after a blowup in the morning) nipped up. H e carried on, riding with the cho ke out to richen th e mixture, only to be failed o n lap 19 when th e brakes seized up o nce and for all. H e was ahea d of McElnea until th en . . The 250cc race fizzled out as th e last sho wdown betw een cham pion sh ip riv al s Sito Pon s and Juan Garriga, when th e'latter was kn ocked down fro m sixth o verall to almost last in a second-la p incident inv ol vin g Ca rl os L av ad o and Martin Wimmer, with Wimmer falling off. As Garriga strov e heroicall y on hi s damaged Du cados Yamaha, comi n g through to finish fifth , Dominique Sarron and hi s Rothmans H onda won for the second year in succes sion. With La vado second, Po ns rode to a hard-pressed bu t safe third to tie up th e Wor ld Ch ampionship. The la p record went to Lu ca Cadalora, who sprinted away to a stro ng lead, only to crash after 14 lap s wh en Sarron started putting the pressure o n. Lavad o's second was hi s best result of th e year, achieved on a Yamaha whose performance was en livened with new cylinders, part of th eir effort to sup port Garriga's slim titl e h opes. They h ad also su p p lied Gauloises rid er j ean-Philfipe R uggia with a YZR, which he fell off twic e in practice, fin all y pr eferring to race his more familiar TZ production bike. But it was too little too la te, and wh en Wimmer's' cras h dropped Ga rriga out of conte nt io n for th e lead , the game was over, and th e titl e went to Pon s. 500cc practice The 2.37-m il e circu i t, loo p in g back and forth o n a ge ntle red-dirt hill side, has a relatively long straight and a selectio n of tri cky bends on risin g and falling ground. Of more sign ifica nce was th e surface: abrasive and very bumpy, wh ich brought out the wor st in the Honda's handling and in T eam Robert s' Dunlop tires . The latter were th e worst affected, because Gardner managed to secure pole position fro m Lawson in the last session; while Magee and Rainey lang uished on th e seco nd row. Brazi l's holiday atmosp here prevailed, alt ho ug h times w ere sign ifica nt ly faster th an last year, and instead of his usual fighting talk and p sychological warfare, Gardner said. " I think Eddie will win tom orrow , unless I ca n get awa y from th e start. The Honda really jumps around on th ese bumps, but you can see how much better th e Yamaha handles them. Of .co urse, I'll try and win.I wouldn 't enter o therwise. But it's not a bi g gru dge match o r anything. " Law son hung on to second, and said that timekeepers had mi ssed his . best la p. H e was in a mo od best described as " q u ietly con fident," but o n race morning, he discovered an alarm ing problem . " I tried it with a full tank for the first time this morning, and it pushed th e front real bad. We've m ad e a s us pen sio n adjustmen t that may he lp , otherwise th e first laps will be hard." Schwanti was running hard and fast on the Suzuki, which suited th e track well. " Lo ts of mid-speed acceleration, and bends up and down the hill. I beli eve I could win i t," he said. Then came Sarron, alread y with a pa infully broken rib from a perso n a l watercraft crash the week before, who th en low-sided into the dirt on a tricky left-bander over a brow tha t was to claim many more victims, spraining his ankle in the process. Last man on the front row was Chili, his normal cheerful frame of mind improved still futher by at last getting the best out of his V-four Honda, no matter how late in the season. The two Lucky Strike bikes led row two, but were in tire trouble that was more worrying than us ual, becau se Dunlop had flown in a large selection of tires, mainly based on a new mould first tested in Czechoslovakia, that was intended to solve their wheelspin problems . at any angle of lean. " T here's nowhere here where yo u really gas it when it's leaned hard over, " Rainey said. " It's more when you're a little bit more upright . . . and that's when you get high-sided," whi le Roberts, watching from, the

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