Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

, 250cc winner Luca Cadalora (6) is pursued by Loris Reggiani (13), Carlos Cardus (8) and R.einhold Roth (5). the fastest lap," but he fell sho rt of Lawson's ma rk. Magee dropped to six th , nea rl y caugh t at the end by the resurgent Gardne r, but fendin g him off by .211 second . Sarron was eig h th. a no ther five seconds back but com forta bly a head of Macken zie, who'd had problem s with top speed all week. T ent h went to Mo rill as with Ma mola fighting for 11th , he, too, well down o n top speed (according to the H onda radar gu n, the Cagiva was down 18 mph to Schwantz' Suzu ki). Two n on -fin ish ers were Dominque Sarro n, wh o sprained his right an kle in a cras h on the 23rd lap a nd Ch il i, who p ulled off on th e 13th lap with suspe nsio n problem s a nd a rapidly fading rear tire. 250cc Race On the rostrum, Lawson (left) celebrates his fourth 500cc World Championship with Schwantz (center) and Rainey (right). 14 end of th e stra ig h t. " I got o ut of the last corner real good and I out braked him go ing in ," Sch wantz said. "I was braki ng 50 yards farth er in than he was. They'd p u ll m e dow n the straight a nd I' d catch them in the first corner." To Schwantz' surprise, Lawson hu ng tough , and slowly the two pu lled away from Rain ey, whose rear tire had begun to deteriorate early in the race. O ver the last eight laps they pulled abou t a second a la p a way fro m Rain ey, who eventually finis hed 11.217 seconds beh ind the win ner. "My rear (tire) went away real early and 1 was slippi ng around so much out of the corn ers th at I couldn't stay with th e leaders," Rain ey sa id . "Eddie was go ing real good. I didn't expec t him to go that hard. H e just pulled away at th e end and I couldn' t keep u p ." . The on ly excitement Lawson had was a lap and a half from the end. A backmarker crashed righ t next to h im exi ting th e chicane, but it look ed wo rse than it was. " He high-sided right in front of me," La wson said. " I held a tight lin e and go t by him okay." Safely behind Rainey and in no da nger of being ch all en ged , Doohan rode home fou rth. H e knew he co uldn 't catch th e front-runners a nd also that he wouldn't be tested so he basically rode his ow n race. " No t much happened really ," he said afterwards. " It started slid ing from la p three. I d id 27s the who le race an d 28s at th e end." Dooharr said tha t he th ough t th a t Magee may have been having traction problems and Magee confirmed it, alt houg h from a diffe rent ca use, fro nt brakes that began to fai l in the openi ng 'laps. "T hey sta rte d giving tro uble af ter five laps," he said. " I cou ld have used th e car bo n brakes, but 1 hadn 't tested them here. " We had a really good fro nt tire, but th e poor braking pe rfor ma nce meant we couldn 't use it to the full ," Magee added. Because he was having suc h a hard time enterin g th e cor ne rs he was able to be caught, th en passed by Haslam o n the 22nd lap. Grad uall y, H aslam pulled away to finish fifth , hi s best result thi s year, despite botch ing th e start. " If yo u rev th em up too much o n the lin e th ey oi l up," he sai d. " T he n I had to pick th em off one a t a time. After I go t into fifth I just went for Loris Reggian i led 250cc qualifying, hi s best of 1:29.989 just a few ticks under the form er qualifying record of 1:29- set by Dominique ,20 Sarron last year. With th e front two ro ws of th e topnine riders a ll on th e same second in timed practi ce, the race promised to be more than the anticlimax some had pred icted , a nd wh en th e 28-rider field was green- ligh ted a t 2:00 p.m. th ose promises began to be fulfill ed. Off the start , Reinhold Roth got the jump leading a single-file pursui t pack of Cornu, Sh im izu, Cardus a nd Mart in Wimmer. But pos itio ns wou ld change quickl y a nd by the six th of 27 laps the expected lead ers bega n to assert th em sel ves wi th ot hers falling by the wayside. The first to drop off th e pace was Cornu. The Swiss ri der quickl y rea lized th at the af ternoon tempera ture of close to 90 deg rees was doin g th ings to his rear (ire th a t the morning sessio n hadn 't shown. Any cha nce he had for second in th e champ ionship quickly faded. " I am very disappointed. We made th e wrong ch oice ab ou t the tires ," . he said. " I could not o pe n properly in the co rners to get a good drive to follow the o the rs on th e straigh t." H e would finish ninth, over 21 seconds behind the race winner. Two rid ers wh o were making th e most empha tic progress were Cadalora and Pons. Cadalora had gotten away a bou t 10th with Pons a no ther severa l pl aces back. But b y the 10th lap Cadalora was in fourth behind . was two spots back, easily th e fastest rider o n th e track a n d making gr o und o n th e front -running q u intet, th e rear o f w hich wa s Shim izu. Ro th was dropped from the front a lap la ter, but he didn't mind. " It was not my plan to try a nd win a nd when I was in front 1 was not riding hard or ta king a ny risks," the West German rider said. "Some of the guys o vert oo k a nd my pit signals were telling m e m y advantage o ver J acq ues, '+3', '+5' and that was all that concerned me." Cadalora also made a mo ve on the l l th la p , moving up two spots to seco nd and taking o ver th e lead a la p la ter wi th Reggian i, Cardus , Roth and Sh im izu trailing and Pons a bo ut two seconds behi nd the leader. One more la p and Po ns was part of the grou p, but once he joined them he seemed to slow do wn , and altho ug h he was able to improve to fourth, he never serio us ly made a challenge for th e wi n . T ha t wo u ld go to Cadal ora. Cl ea rl y dow n o n p ower to th e H onda s, Cad al ora e ntered th e corners harder, lean ed over farther, a nd go t a bett er drive o ut th an the othe rs. And ' th ough th e H ondas would sta y close, th ey co uldn't ca tch th e you ng Italian a nd he wo uld take th e narro w wi n. ' ~ I tr y in eve ry co rner to the 'maximu m ," sa id Cadal ora. "T he re is a lot of bumpiness everywhe re and it is difficulL to con tro l th e bike for 27 laps to the maximum." . The battle for second was decided wi th just three laps to go . Reggiani had held it fro m th e 12th lap on, but Sh imizu slo wly worked h is way up, ga in ing o ne spot o n the 16th lap, a nd another o n th e 18th. With three laps to go he passed Reggiani to score ' his best pl acing of the year a nd cont in ue hi s late-season resurgence. Reggiani held o nto third about half a second back wi th a sim ilar gap to Pons in fou rth. " When I was in seco nd place, just behind Luca, 1 th ought I cou ld win because my bike was a lillie faster than the Yamaha," Reggiani began, " Bu t o n th e last lap, Sito came between us a nd I lost con tac t." Cardus was a lonely 56 seconds behind th e top four, bu t well a head of Roth. Carlos Lav ado, Helmut Bradl, Cornu and Brazilian Alexandre Barros filed out the top 10. • Results 500cc: 1. Kev in Schwantz (Su z); 2. Eddie Lawson (Han); 3. Wayne Rainey (Vam); 4. Michael Doohan (Han); 5. Ron Haslam (Suz); 6. Kevin Magee (Vam); 7. Wayne Gardner (Hon) ; 8. Christian Sarron (Yam); 9. Niall Mackenzie (Vam); 10.Adrien Morillas(Hon); 11. Randy Mamola (Cag); 12 . Rob McElnea (Han); 13 . Alessandro Valesi (Yam ): 14. Simon Buckmas- ter (Han); 15. Juan Manuel Malia (Han). RACE DISTANCE: 32 laps. 76 .086 miles AVERAGE SPEED: 97 .672 mph FASTEST LAP: Eddie Lawson. 1:26.98. 98.4 1 mph 25Occ: 1. Luca Cadalora (Vam); 2. Masahiro Sh im izu (Hon ); 3. Lor is Regg ian i (Hon ); 4 . Sito Pons (Hon); 5. Carlos cardus (Hon); 6. Reinhold Roth (Han); 7. Carlos Lavado (Apr); 8. Helmut Brad l (Han); 9. Jacq ues Corn u (Hon); 10 . Alexandra Barros (Yam); 11. Juan Garr ;ga (Yam); 12. Gary Cowan (Yam); 13. Jochen Schm id (Han); 14. Luis Lavado (Vam ~ 15. Manin W immer (Apr) . RACE DISTANCE: 27 laps. 64 .197 miles AVERAGE SPEED: 94 .479 mph FASTEST LAP: Luca Cadalora . 1:29.262. 95 .894 mph 500cc WORLD C'SHIP FINAL POINT STANDINGS: 1. Eddie Lawson (228); 2. Wayne Rainey (210.5); 3. Christian Sarron (165 .5); 4 . Kevin SchwanlZ(162.5); 5. Kevin Magee (138.5); 6. PierFrancesco Chil i (122); 7. Niall Mackenz ie (104); 8. Ron Haslam (86); 9. Michael Doohan (81); 10. Wayne Gardner (65). 2500c WORLD C'SH IP FINAL POINT STANDINGS: 1. Silo Pons (260); 2. Reinhold Roth (190); 3. Jacques Cornu (187); 4 . Carlos Cardus (161); 5. Luca Cadalora (126); 6. Masahiro Sh imizu (116); 7.-Jean -Phillipe Ruggia (110); 8. Juan Garriga (97); 9. Helmut Bradl (87); 10. Man;n Wimmer (62). .

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