Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

Test: Cagiva VS88 GP road racer Randy's red rocket By A lan Cathcart/Photos by Phil Masters The 1988 500cc GP road race season will be remembered not only for Eddie Lawson 's final Yam aha-mounted World Championship title, but as the year the hard-trying Cagiva team finally got on the rostrum at a G P . Not only was Ii f Cazi b h t. at a rrst or grva , U! a first for a non-Japanese bike 10 since th e 1982 French GP and Sanvenero's solitary 500cc GP victory, a race won by Michel Frutsci and the Italian bik e after th e top riders boycotted the event. W i~h a genuine ace rider finally o n th e books in Randy Mamola, the Castiglioni brother s' patriotic It al ian sq uad ach ieved th eir target for th e seaso n in the Belgian GP at Spa, albeit in the wet wh en Randy's undoubted prowess on a slippery trac k was able to o verco me the team's sole remaining handica p: th eir still -develo pi ng Pirelli tires. The 1987 debut of Ca giva 's redesigned narrow-an gle twin- crank 58degree cra nkcase reed valve V4, the V587, p romised great th ings. Riders Did ier de Rad igues and Raymond Roch e adv an ced steadily up th e top 10 finish ing order as the GP season progressed, with a fourth, two fifth and two sixth places by th e end of the year as evidence of the Itali an stall io n' s gro wi ng co mpeti tivity. · Only a fru strating lack of reliab ilit y co upled with the need for a rider of genuine rac e-w inning p otential seemed to sta nd in th e way of th e eigh t-yea r-o ld Ca giva dream of finally getting ~n ter~s .with the Japanese works bikes. Signing Mamola resolved one-half of tha t equation: only time cou ld tell if th e other had been also. But then the Castiglionis threw a wrench in the works by' signi ng an exclusive contract to race on Pirelli tires in 1988. It was a brave, but ultimately costly gamble, spurred by the undoubted edg e th at Dunlops had gi ven Kenn y Rob erts' Lucky Strike Yamaha team by the end of '87. Pirelli even hired Dunlop's chief boffin , Peter Ingley, to spea rhead their return to GP bike raci ng for the first time in three decades, but in spite of some remarkable response times - the company produced a newreartireovernigh tforthe Ita lia n G P at Im ola, for exam p le - th e gamble failed. H aving started fro m zero , it was obvious ly hard, if not impossib le for Pi relli to get o n th e pa ce ri gh t aw a y, a n d t ho ug h th ey produced a front tire by midseaso n that was superior to an ything else on the track, half the races had already been run by th en and problem s co ntin ued with developing a sui table rear tir e. Still, th at front tire ena b le d Randy to mo u nt so me displays of drifting in th e fin al GPs that left even seasoned GP o bservers breathless with admiration, as well as thrill ing the crowds - well , at least until he overdid it in Brazil and high-sided out of the race. Occupational hazard, I guess .. . The Pirelli factor served to disguise the tru e mettle of the updated version of the V4 Cagiva, the V588, . but the tire s had nothing to do with the team 's di smal earl y season perfo rm ances till they got th eir act toge ther and started buildin g a bike that would run strong' and hard to the finish. Chiefly responsibl e for the transformation that occurred after th e disasters of Suzuka (b ike wouldn't run properly due to poor fuel and ignition problems, tires unrideable), Laguna Seca (Ra ndy crashed due to gearbox spro cket comi ng loose), J ar am a and J erez (tires) was mega- experienced GP mech anic G eorge Vukmanovich , wh o effectively took charge of th e race team 's o pera tio ns and forged a close collaboratio n with chief engineer Ezio Maschero ni , th e V4 engine's designer, formerl y the man behind Walter Villa 's quartet of World Championship titl es a decade ago on the two-stroke H arl eys, and before that th e builder of the hottest Aermacc hi four-stroke singles on .the GP trail. . Little George proved to be the key to unlocking the vast reserves of accu mu la ted knowledge and expe rie nce that are co n ta ined in th e Cagiva race shop - now housed in a large new building in the lakeside facto ry, built as a potent expression of th e Castiglio nis' long-term com - mitment to 500cc GP racing. The Cagiva/H-D / Aermacchi heritage has endowed the Italian team 'w ith th e sort of unrivaled experience in their class that enabled the Spanish Derbi team to spring a surprise on Honda in the inaugural I25cc singlecylinder World Championship this season, but until the advent of the Randy & 'Geo rge Show, a lack of internal organization and the sort of hard-nosed development needed to win ·G Ps nowadays left that huge potential untapped. . . Vukmanovich's no b.s. approach, finely honed in a decade of GP racing not only with Mamola but as head wrench of Spencer's H onda team, sat ill at ease originally with the more rel axed attitudes of GP raci ng, Italian-style. After a mid-season showdo wn, they did it George's way - and it paid off not only with that third place in Belgium but with what was unquestionably an even finer performance, . Randy's superb, tiresmo king fourth in th e next race in Yu goslavia. Ther eafter, tire a n d niggling mechanical problems prevented any futher progress, but the point had been mad e: Randy's red rocket had become, as they say in the boxing world, a contender. In those circu mstances, I was more eager than usual to ' test the '88 version of the Cagiva 500, having been fortunate enough to follow the team 's progression from backmarker to front-runner in recent seasons from the unique standpoint of having test-ridden each of their machines over the past four years.

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