Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

Eddie Lawson (1) leads Wayne Rainey (3 ). Michael Doohan (27) and Kevin Schwantz (34)jn the.500cc GP. World Championship Road Race Series: Round 6 Rainey nips Lawson in German thriller By Henny Ray Abrams HOCKENHEIM, WEST GERMANY, MAY 28 After following T eam Rothmans Honda 's Eddie Lawson for all but two of the 19 laps, T eam L ucky Strike Roberts ' Wayne Rainey p u t a lapp ed rider between himself an d the World Cham pion on th e final ' lap and held h im off for a e d " . narrow. 27- 0 f -a-secon WIn In th e West G erman GP at H ocken he im . An estima ted 120,000 fans witnessed wh at many co nsidered to be th e closes t da y of racing in GP history. T he com bi ned margins of victor y in the fou r sol o classes was 1.11 seconds. Lawson, Rainey and T eam Pepsi Suzuki's Kevin Schwan tz ran as a tri o, virtu ally inseparable, until Schwantz's Suzuki suffered a cran ksha ft failure with less than four laps to go. Lawson , riding th e revamped works H onda the best he ha s all year, had a A-second lead entering the stadium po rtion of th e 4.22-mile Hockenheimring on the next to last lap. But on th e fina l go -around, Lawson was virtually stopped by a ba ckmarker entering the first chicane a nd Rainey slipped past. Once in front th ere was no denying Rainey his second win of the season and a 13-point lead, 9 1-78, in the World Championship after six of the 15 scheduled rounds. "I ~?de as ~ard.as I co uld.th e who.1 e , ra ce, th e .}ub~lant . R ain ey sa id afterward s. I tned him everywhere and as it turned out that's where I wanted to get him. I'knew th a t once I got into the stadium th ere -was no wa y he could pass me." " Rainey averaged 122.542 mph for th e 19-1a p GP, and in the p rocess became the first two-time 500cc GP winner o f the year. Law son, wh o was so 'u pset over lo sing the rac e tha t he chose not to a ttend th e post-race press conference , sa id later in his motorh ome tha t he was " very di sappointed. I had a 04second lead and that sh ould've been _eno ugh. That lapped guy go t in front o f me in th e first chica ne and stopped. I think we co uld 've won it." Third p lace went to Lawson's Australian teamma te, Mi chael Doohan, who'd been in a fierce battle with Gau loises Yam ah a 's Christian ' Sarron a n d HB H onda ' s PierFrancesco Chili over fourth for much of the ra ce. Doohan held fourth over the other two for most of the race , then in herited th ird when Schwantz dropped ou t. Sarron moved past wi th a lap to go only to run out of gas on the fina l lap and drop to fifth behind Chili. The rest of the top 10 were Yamah a's Norihiko Fujiwara , Team Lucky Strike Robert s' Kevin Magee in his return to racing following his U.S . G P accident, Elf Honda's Dominique Sarron, Marlboro Yamaha 's 'Fred die Spencer, a nd Team Cabin Racing 's Rob McElnea. T ea m Cagiva's Randy Mamola was 12th after a race-long duel with Suzuki G ermany's Ern st Gs ch wender, who was aboard an exSchwantz Suzuki. On a day wh en all of the solo classes were decided on the final la p , Campsa Honda 's World Champion Sito Pons moved from sixth to first on th e fin al lap to win the 250cc race , . a race ove rshadowed by th e death of Aprilia's Ivan Palazzese foll owing a series of acciden ts and so me q uestionab le flag work by th e officials. The factory Hondas were clearly better than a ny th ing o n the tra ck and , six of the m ran in a pa ck for th e entire race with five different leaders and lead changes a lmos t every lap. Pons ran at the ba ck of the pa ck cros sing the finish line to start th e fin al to u r, th en drafted his wa y into the lead go ing into the final ch ica ne. HB Romer's Reinhold Roth was seco nd, .36-o f-a -seco nd ba ck , follow ed by Ajinomoto Honda 's Masahiro Sh im izu in his best career finish, HB Honda 's Helmut Bradl, T eam Lucky Strike Elf's Jacques Cornu, and Carl os Cardus, wh o finished in . sixth just 1.27 seconds behind his fellow Spaniard, Pons. , Pons holds a commanding 107-78 point lead over Jean -Philippe R uggia, seven th today, with nine races to go. The first attempt to run the race was finall y stopped on the third lap foll owing th e second la p crash involvi ng the 27-year-old Venezuelan Palazzese :and a few others . Palazzese and Italian Fab io Barch itta cras hed tryi ng to avoid the m uchslower Austrian Stefan Prei n ing, who'd seized h is Aprilia entering the stadium . Frenchman Bruno Bon - h uil, trailing closely, unavoidably hit Pa lazzese whose Apri lia caught fire. Italian Virginio Ferrari immediately stopped and ~ave Palazzes e a heart mass ag e to revrve him before medical personnel arrived to transport him by helicopter to a ho spital I in nearby Heidelberg. H e di ed en route of heart failure. Barch it ta was take n to th e same hospital in critica l co nditio n wi th in terna l injuries a nd Bonhuil suf fered a broken arm a nd leg. After the in cident, on ly a yellow flag was displayed, a llowing riders to race for a lmost another full lap before the rac e was stopped and, therefore, causing a delay in the medi cal treatment of the fa llen riders. However, race officials claim there was a red flag at the start finish line which the riders ignored. The first race of the day was the 80cc class, a very popular class in West Germany which is destined for extinction next year. As a form of protest, the riders displayed signs on the grid asking for its survival, a sentiment visi ble among the crowd. .And if they co uld guarantee racing as close as this one, it wo uld be difficult to make a case for its removal. Three riders diced the entire race for the lead wi th all three leading at one point on the last lap' and two actually bumping fairings on one of the fastest straigh ta ways of the race track. Derbi 's Manuel Herreros was first into the first chicane, Spaniard J orge Torrontegui was first in to the second chicane" and first coming into the stadium was West German Peter Oettl after his backstretch brush with H err eros. , When the flag fell after I I la ps (46.42 miles), it was the popular Wes t German Oett l by .13 of a second over , Herreros wit h Torrontegui only .68 of a second behind the win ner. Torron tegui leads H erreros in . points 50 to 30 after three rounds. Marlboro 11 Cobas ri der Alex Criville won the 125cc race , beating P ileri-Corse' s Ezio Gianola by a scant .35 of a second af ter the 59.05mile, 14-lap race. Derb i 's Julian Mira lles was third in a photo fin ish, .1 1 seconds behind Gianola. But the most excitement in the .125 class came from the woman who qualified second, Finland's Taru Rin ne on the Serv isco Man Honda . R in ne, j ust .75 of a second behind Gianola's polesetting time of 2:23.64, wa s running just behind the lead trio in fourth for most of the race before fad ing slightl y at the end to finish seventh. Still, it was the hi ghest a woman has p laced in Grand Prix racing. After the four solo races it was hard to imagine that the sidecars wou ld be as exciting, but th e top two teams made sure i t was. Steve Webster g uided partner Tony H ewi tt to victory with a .73 of a second margin .of victory over the Lucky Strike Sireuer/D e H a as team . Masato Kumano and Mar ku s Fahrni were a distant third. Aft er two rounds, Webster leads Kumano by 12 points, 40-28. 500cc Qualifying Because th e Thursday before qualifying was a German national holiday; flee p ractice was held on Wednesday . Bu t because of the timing most of the teams decided not to practice with on ly R o th man s Honda's Doohan taking part among the factory 500cc riders. So when qualifying opened on Friday morning it was the first time most of the riders were on the track and for a few, like Schwantz and Rainey, it was the first ti me they'd ever been on the circuit.

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