Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

Honda - has to be the"major dark horse in the 500cc field in 1989. Okay - time to own up here. I totally underestimated Wayne Rainey's worth as a GP rider in my last year's GP preview, and he proved me very wrong with his smooth and determined riding which quite overshadowed the efforts of his Aussie teammate on the Kenny Roberts Luck y Strike Yamaha team, Kevin Magee. I thought it would be the other way round, not least after young Magee scored a fine debut GP victory in the third race of the season at jarama - but after that his season went off and he has to strive to get on rostrums again in 1989. Too nice a bloke to be World Champion? No, but Kevin has to find a way of adapting to the life of the G P circus, and coming to terms with his team's continued use of Dunlop tires , before he can recapture that amazing form that seemed to mark him out as a future World Champion just a year ago. " But where Magee ultimately disappointed, Rainey shone last season. He registered his maiden G P victory at Donington with a flawless runaway win that, however, didn't bring the momentum in terms of results that it threatened. Wayne is now definitely one of the elite GP front-runners, a man capable of winning races and even titles provided he has the equipment to do it with; I now grovel in front of King Kenny for daring to suggest he could have made a poor choice and especially a bad move by casting out Randy Mamola in favor of Mr. Rainey. However - that won't stop me fro m questioning KR's continued trust in Dunlop to com e up wi th tires tha t will gi ve the Lu cky Strike tea m an edge over their fellow Yam aha tea ms, no t to mention Honda and Suzuki. T here's no do ubt that the Dunlops were a key factor in the fail ur e of the Roberts team to bu ild on their promise at the end of 1987, a time whe n ihey seemed to be on the verge of sup plant ing the Marlboro Ago team as top dog Yamaha sq uad. Had they used Michelins last season , I think th e result of the World Ch ampionship would have been very different. But that's then and thi s is now, and I'm really surprised that KR has decided to stick with Dunlops, especially since Peter Ingley, with whom " he struck up a very (:ood collaboration in '87, is no longer with them. Kevin Magee 26 T eaming up again with Ingley at Pirelli was apparently a serious considera tion for the Lu cky Strike team thi s sea so n, especi ally sin ce a move to Michelins would mean they wouldn't make the short-list of recipients of special works tires straight off, a factor whi ch presumably di ctated the decision to stick with Dunlop. Though th e ever innova tive Roberts is likely to allow his technical guru Mike Sinclair even more of a free hand to experiment with technical alternatives, especially bod y- " work, in 1989. The tires, however, remain a key factor here and may hold both Rain ey and Magee back. No such problems for Christian Sar ron , back for another season and once aga in sol e rid er on the Sonauto Gauloises Yam aha team now that Patrick Igoahas departed to the world of Superbikes (p ity, tha t, by the way). Christian's ph enomenal run o f po le positio ns last season wasn't quite matched by his results, an d he'll be tryi ng har d to win a t least on e race this year and im prove on hi s fou rth place in the '88 poi nt s table. Will he? Only if he reduces his crash rati o even more than last season, and with the hatted-up pace we're lik ely to see in '89 I think that's unlikely. So thi s may well be the swan son g for one of the nicest guys in Grand Prix raci ng., Yamaha factory plan s appar ently call Kevin Schwantz for a full season in 500cc GPs by their latest protege, ' Nobby' Fujiwara. The japanese ace, despite his excellent record in japan, looked a bit out of his depth on his European debut at Donington last year, and was certainly not as impressive as his predecessor Tadahiko T aira when he came to Europe for the first time. Taira's career in GP racing has been very up and down, though, and he's another who's never really fulfilled his promise, mostly becaus e his commitment to racing outs ide of japan has always been a littl e suspect. " Really , the only j apanese rider wh o ever really set out in GP s de termined to be World Champi on was Takazu mi Katayama - but loo k what he achieved I There are the riders in japan ca pable of makin g their mark in GPs, bu t some how th ey j us t can 't ma ke th a t jump in psych ol ogical and cu ltural terms that's needed to race successfully aboard. Taira apparent ly intends to do the odd GP aga in th is year - how n ice to be able to p ick and choose like that l Another outsider is Mike Dowson. T h is gr eatly underrated rid er , now verg ing on the Veteran class, has never had the breaks of his Au stralian compatriots like Magee and Doohan in terms of landing a works ride, but at last he'll have his chance a t Phillip Island this year and I expect him to make the 'most of it. Somehow, I think we'll be seeing more of Dowson in the future - mayb e in the rumored Swan's La ger Yam aha GP team Warren Willing is apparently putting togeth er - perhaps to run as an offshoot of T eam Rob erts , in 1990? . Mar co Gentile will be back for ano ther season on the unique four-cylinder Fior and hoping to be able to finis h races consisten tly thi s year, as well as narrow the ga p to the japanese V-Iours, Apart from him, we may see the new, sma ller Paton V-four in more CPs th is season aft er its impressive sho win g in last season 's European Champion ship, possibl y with Briti sh hopeful Steve Manley aboard. And then there's the usual , but diminishing, top-off group of privateer RS500 Hondas, wh ose rid ers are really goin g to find GP points hard to come by thi s season unless a massive ou tbrea k Freddie Spencer of unr eliability hits the works bikes! In turn , tha t will make "it eve n more expensi ve for them to take part in the non-European races. since they won't qual ify for IRTA's tra vel fun d. " Com e on , FIM - loo sen up thos e regu lations" to allo w 220.pou nd 500cc twins wh ich can be cost-effective for smaller team s and factories to develop, possible usin g 250cc bikes as a basis, and jack up the fou r-cylin der limit to 275 pounds o~ so, which will reduce costs and provide a worthwhile tradeoff between a small, light twin and a bigger, heavier four. I might also add a plea for organizers to be obliged to weigh the first three bikes in each race publicly in post-race scrutineering, and to ensure that they're empty of fuel , oil and water when they do so. There's no doubt that in the past couple of seasons som e bikes, especially in the 250cc clas s, have been underweight. This has been largely disguised by the amount of fuel on board when bikes have been weighed, but the situation has to be brought under control as it has in car racing, and for all to see, as well . Which brings us on to the 250s, a class which shows every sign of being even more cut-throat in 1989 than it was last year, when the title outcome.wasin doubt up -fill the very last race. Those two Spanish sluggers, Sito Pons and juan Garriga, will be back to fight it out again in '89, even though both were hotly tipped to move (back) up to the 500cc class this year. In Garriga's case, I think that's a real shame, because to my mind there's no question that "The Choirboy" has what it takes to become a real contender in the 500cc Class aboard a V-Iour Yamaha, and perhaps even Spain 's first-ever 500cc Niall Mackenzie World Champion. Sham e? Well , can you i magi ne th e aig h t o f G arri ga a nd Schwantz sitti ng It ou t under the brak es with each other aboard a pair of works V-fo ur. Even strong men would be reachi ng for the brandy . . . Spanish, of co urse. However, Yamaha have deferred their Spa n ish sta r's move up in capacity until 1990, and presumably mu st have had very important rea sons for doing so especially since at one time they were reall y struggling for a top rider on th e Marlboro team . That reason can only be a renewed interest in the 250cc class cro wn , presumably with the brand new bike wh ich is a sin gle-crank V-twin - a Ia H onda. How ever the y do it, it seems certain that the new 250 Yamaha will use fuel inj ection, thus ushering in a new era in GP racing. This, however, places a big question mark over Garriga's chances of winning the titl e he so narrowl y lost last season. If he's destined to spend the season sorti ng ou t such a radical new tech n ical development as EPI, hi s super b record of not on ly being the most tigerish and spec tacu lar - rider in any clas s in GP raci ng "today, but also one who remarkably enough scored points in every sing le race last season, may b e at risk . O ne of the big prob lems wit h fitt in g fuel in jection to two-strokes is that if the mixture control goes awry, they will seize - wh ereas a fou r-stroke would just ru n lean . just ask the Cag iva team how many cylin ders they 've rubbished so far on their single-cylinder EFI test engi ne. That aside, Garriga ha s to start the season as the favorite for the 250cc title , "if on ly becau se his great riva l Sito Pons is likely to run into the old problem of , finding it much harder to defend a title than to win one. However, I do feel many " of"my colleagues underrate the reigning World Champion. He's such a calm and controlled rider that he makes it all look so ruthlessly easy, whereas it's easier to admire Garriga because he so apparently rides to the outer limits of machine control without actually crashing. I think that each"in their own way is the other's equal , and while the Honda and Yamaha co n tin u e to be as evenl y matched as they were in the past, there will be precious little to choose between them in '89. Okay - so the Yamaha was slower last year than the Honda - but it also handled and braked awhole lot better, and that's why we had the cliffhanger title we did. The news that Sito and japanese youngster Masaru Shimizu will each have real works Hondas, rather than the same NSR250s as the other half-dozen lease-bike riders, is bound to tip the scales back in Sito's direction a little. Even more so when you consider that his technnical guru Antonio Cobas has now gained the confidence of the men at HRC enough to be consulted on the chassis design and development of the '89 Honda 250 (and 500?), which should "go a long way towards narrowing the handling differen tial versus the Yamaha. Either way, another thrilling season is on the cards here, with a number of other riders all in with a cha nce of upstaging the Spanish duet - even though Dominique Sarro n's promotion to the 500cc class has deprived Sito and Juan of their greatest potential rival. I discount Shimizu as a th reat , mostly becau se I feel his kamikaze styIe of racing is un lik ely to last out a full GP season at titl e-winning pitch - an d anyway, he doesn't thi nk eno ugh yet to be a GP ace. Katayama, for exa mple, was ag gressive and sma rt. " Som eone wh o en tir ely meets those requiremen ts is Honda 's new rider Loris Regg iani. T he Ital ian has to be considered a very strong threat for the title now lie's moved away from Aprilia and landed a n NSR250 rid e on an HRspo nsored bike whi ch will have the added advantage of being run under the Team Gallina umbrella. In terms of emotional and technical support this is likely to be a cru cial pi us for Loris. Anyon e who ever saw Reggiani race the Aprilia will agr ee the Honda deal is the best thing that could have happened to him. We just have to hope that the cru el lu ck and propensity for getting hurt as the result of other people's idiocies will finally desert him. A very strong challenge r for honors. " Of the o ther Honda NSR250 riders one has to question wh ether Carlos Cardus reall y ough t to find himself on a jap-" anese work s bike thi s season. I like the guy immensely, but he shows worryingly variable form and is prone to lapses in concen tra tio n that you just can 't afford at thi s level. Still, let's hope the Crashdus days are behind him a nd the worries of running his own team won 't be too distra cting. Reinhold Roth and jacques Co rn u are approac h ing the veteran stage now, but both still have som e good races left in them and may well win a race or two , but not a title, tho ug h the speed of Cornu 's Jo rg Moiler-tu ned bike was very imp ressive last year. Why doesn't H RC give him a consu lta ncy, to go with Cobas ' chassis wizardry ?I (Answer: The NMH syndrome - Not Made Here . ..) New comers H e lm u t Brad l (wh o

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