Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

~ ROAD RACE World Championship Road Race Series: Round I the 18th Jap ) [ decided to stay behi nd him, out of the wind and then see who ,~ou ld get the best of the last two laps. . Two laps from the end Pons got into a fast uphill left too hot and Magee passed him going up th e hill that followed . From then it was a mailer of ho lding him oH, whi ch he did successfully. " I thought I m ight be able lO get hi m on the last lap ," Pons said, " But he varied h is line and blocked me." After ho lding sixth from the fifth to the 21st lap , Chili was bumped back 'a pl ace by Taira who 'd comp leted the first lap in 17th p lace. . " I mad e a bad tire choice and it was sliding a lot from the seven th lap o n. With the correc t tire I cou ld have run with Pon s and Magee," Chili said. Ru ggia would fin ish eig hth in his first 500cc Grand Prix well ahead of Itoh. Garriga , in hi s first race on the YZR500, rook 10th o n the Du cado s Yam ah a. ~ Du tchman Hans Spaan (2) won the firs t round of the 125cc World Championship on his Honda, beating Stefa n Prei n. Pen tax Ho nda Racing's Shinichi Itoh was eighth fastest, one of 10 j apan ese factory four-cyli nde rs in the field. • Two-time 250cc World Ch ampion Pons was on the th ird row, n inth fastest in h is first 500cc Gran d Prix since 1985 after the most inten sive 0 ((season testing program of any of the rid ers. But like the ot hers, he was short o n track ti me at Suzuka. · . " We cou ld use ano ther week of dry practice," he said, adding that all the practi ce in th e world couldn' t simulate a race. " I kn ow the tir es are go ing to go off. I've never ridden one of these wh en that 's happened. That 's wh en it all starts." T he Yam ahas of Taira , Gauloises Blondes Yam aha 's Christian Sarron, and Nescafe Racing Team Yam ah a 's Kun io Machii sat next to Pons, in great contrast to last year. A year ago Taira was on the po le and Sarron was in the hunt. Now Sarron was struggling wit h a cracked bone in his left hand which he'd re-injured in a practice crash, as well as making the adjustment to Dun lop tires. " Bot h jean- P hilippe R u g g ia , myse lf and (Juan) Garriga are trying lO find a good way to ride the Dunlops. We have some di££iculty to make good times. I can't control the slide, " Sarron said. H e added that he wo uld be taki ng the G P easy to try to understan d more about th e tires and avoid hurti ng himself further . Mam ola was 17th o n the gr id, also trying lO learn as mu ch in as lilli e time as he could about the Cagiva V590. Becau se of a chronic parts supply probl em , three of Cagiva's four tests had been cance lled. T yp icall y, his fastest lap tim es would come just as the session was ending and he was gelling up to speed. H is teammates, Haslam and Barros, were 23rd and 24th, respectively. 8 500cc GP Su nday morning broke bright and chilly, the tem perature in the 40s with a gus ty wind that wouldn 't die. The mercury rose slightly by the 2:10 p .m. starting time , but it was still cold and tire choice wou ld be more of a problem than tire wear. The wea ther would also dictate the pace a nd the mo rn in g warm-up times suggested it wo uld be a few seconds slower than q ua lifying. When th e green ligh t flashed Ra in ey sped away, somet hing he perfected last year. The difference was, that wh ere hi s Dunlops would go away after a few laps last year all owing his purs uers to catch him, the Michelin s remain fair ly cons isten t and i ns tea d o f th e gap nar ro win g, it would expa nd . By the sixth lap he had plus-seven seconds on seco nd pl ace, now Gardner with Sch wan tz th ird and Doohan and La wso n already out. Doohan later said tha t from the second lap o n the front brake lever was comi ng back lO the bars. " On that lap I brak ed at the end of the straight and it was n't stopping," he said. " 1 let th e brake oH and ha d ano ther go, bu t by th en I was gelling into the corne r too hard an d had to brake too much . The wors t th ing about the cras h was taking Eddie ou t , " When Lawson returned to the pits he asked Roberts what had happened. " He sai d: 'I couldn 't have lost the front,' I sai d, 'You didn 't.' He didn't know what hap pened," Roberts said. Initially diagnosed as having a chi pped ankle, Lawson was later said to have a bruise on the end of hi s fibu la, a minor injury tha t wou ldn't keep him from training for the USG P at Laguna Seca, Rainey's fifth lap was his fastest, his 2:11.354 about half a second un der the race la p record, bu t we ll o ff h is qual ifyin g tim e. "T he wind and track tem perature had a lot to do with it," he said. Still he was able lO pull away at abo ut half a second a lap, obliviou s to th e struggle behind him. Schwan tz was second until th e .Iifth lap when Gardner took o ver, holdin g it until the lOth lap wh en th e T exan go t him back. The differen ce between the two machines, Gardner thought, was in the straights. " T he H on da was definitely fast," he said. " Kevin was getting around the corn ers a little better. I could relax a bit in the corne rs and wait for the straights." Pons was finding the same thing in h is ba ttl e wi th Magee for fourth, altho ug h he was able to comer more effectively than Magee because of his tires. But since he hadn 't do ne a lo t of laps o n an y one tire he was "trying to mak e sure th ey lasted until the end of the race." Magee held fourth until the 12th lap wh en th e Span iard went th rough. A distan ce beh ind was Chil i, wh o held fifth from th e fifth lap on ah ead of a fight for sixth am ong Itoh, Ru ggia and Taira. Ru ggia's teammate Sarron pulled ou t o n the sevent h lap with clutch problems.. " [ expec ted an a ttack from Chili and I was ama zed wh en I saw Pons," Magee said. As the race wor e down it was obvio us tha t o n ly m isfortun e cou ld slow Ra in ey, a nd it didn 't. H e slowed hi mself seeing h is margin d windle at the end after runnin g the last five lap s in the I4s and 15s. "The last lap of the race I was thi nking, 'just get it to the checkered £lag,''' Rainey said in a post-race interview, He admitted that he tho ught the race would be closer sayi ng, "Everybody was close in qualifying. I didn't know who was going to be up for the race." The race for second was decided o n the 19th of 22 laps . whe n Ga rd ner repassed Schwantz. Schwantz had tried everything lO keep him beh in d, though wit hou t success. " 1 gave him a hea d fake one ti me," Schwa n tz sa id. " [ co u ld see him comi ng and I thought I'll try th is. H e came by anyway ." Sc h wa ntz h ad o ne la st m ov e planned, the one tha t landed him o n the grou nd . " T he only place I cou ld pass him was under braking and I came into th e chicane carrying more speed than him. Then he cut across in fro nt of me in the seco nd part and I couldn' t slo w down eno ug h to avoid clipping his back wh eel," Schwantz said. Schwantz' teammate, Magee, had better Iuck in stalking Pons. . " 1 got by him again (on the 15th lap)," Magee began, " but I cou ld n' t get away, so wh en he passed me (o n 250cc Qualifying Accord ing lO Yamaha Marlboro Rober ts technician Warren Willing, o ne of the factory's ai ms in developing th is year'sYZR250 was to make it mor e reliable than last year's breakdownprone mach ine, wit ho u t losin g any speed. During testin g it was hard to say if they' d achieved their mission or not. "We've broken a lot of them since we began testin g," Kocinski sai d. " So far we haven 't had any pro blem thi s weekend ." Yam ahas were fastest after every dry session , but it was Ca da lo ra th at topp ed th e sheets until th e third practice. Earl y in the 40-mi nu te sessio n, Kocin ski recorded the o nly lap in th e 2: l 4s and o n hi s final flying Jap brok e hi s o wn qual ifying record with a 2:14.273 (97.6 13 mph ) lap , almost two-and-a-half seconds under hi s old mark. And he did it despite an unfamiliarity with the Mich elin tir es he was using for the first tim e. ''I' m still learning .the ropes of th e Michel in s," he said. "M aybe there's ano ther tir e that's worth a second," he said. Cadal ora was 'nearl y a second behind his fell ow Marlboro Yama ha rid er whose tim e. he ' tho ug h t was unrepresenta tive of wha t would be the race pace. " 1don 't know if j ohn (Kocinski) can do that tim e in th e race, but he is certai n ly very fast," Cada lora said. Sarron was th ird fastest, h is 2:15.340 faster than the time he pos ted last year o n a 500. Clearly he was happy to be back o n a 250, though he wouldn 't ru le o ut a return lO the 500s a t some point. "Last year I qua lified 18th , this year I' m on the fro nt line," he said. " We ha ve a lillie problem this morning wi th the engi ne. If it was not rai ning this afte rnoon we cou ld go faster." Spa niard Ca rd us was fourth o n the front row o n h is Repsol Honda , a seco nd sessio n 2: 15.3 75 j u st. 035 seconds behind Sarron and .229 beuer than Lu cky Str ike Elf 's Cornu. Aside from Kocinski , who was .911 seconds faster than anyon e, the next eig h t riders were all o n the same second wi th a number of them j apanese rid ers w ith ex te ns ive kn owl edge o f th e . circu it. Wh ether th ey could use it in , the race remained to be seen. 250cc GP Cardus go t th e jump on the 37-rider field leading a tightly-packed bunch around for th e first lap. Cadalor a was awa y eighth with Kocinski about four bikes back. Heading up a curling lefthand turn less than halfway into the first lap , Cadalora made the mistake

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