Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

eROADRACE e • World Championship Road Race Series: Round 3 j ohn Kocinski won the 250cc Sp anis h G P after a race-lon g duel wit h Ital y's champ ioriship lead er Luca Cadalora. Gardner ends drought with Spanish GP win By Michael Sco tt File photo by Paul Carruthers "T 14 JEREZ, SPAIN, MAY 6 hese gu ys are new to me. I've n ever really raced against Schwantz and Rainey before. Well , th e old man is back - it was ab out tim e I go t my finger ou t." With th ese words, Wayne Gardner returned to th e winner 's rostrum at j erez on Sunda y breaking a l3-month drought. The 30-year-old Australian Rothmans Honda rid er had sta lked champ ionship leader Wayne Rainey for 19 out of 29 laps of the Spanish GP, then pounced and pulled away to win his first Grand Prix since the Australian round in April of 1989. Rainey was second, his Marlboro Yamaha more than seven seconds behind after he gave up the fight in the clos ing stages , and Kevin Schwantz an unexpected third, riding with a plaster cast on his broken left wrist, but displaying all his usual slipping and sliding flair on the Lucky Strike Suzuki. Michael Doo han was fourth, his Rothmans Honda troubled with sliding tires after starting from p ol e position. But Dooh an had thecompensation of a new lap record. Gardn er 's victory ca me in th e absence of EddieLawson and Kevin Magee, and with Schwantz and Sito Pon s riding injured, but it was a fine win nonetheless, and it not onl y rekindled the gleam in th e form er World Champion's eye - it also gave a fillip to a cha mp ions hip battle that was threatening to becom e a tedi ous walk over for Wayne Rainey. Now it 's been proved that he's not in vincible - but he still has a 20-point lead. " I'm going to have to win a few more," said Gardner. The race, in blazing su ns hine, w as a lot more exciting than the small entry list suggested. But it didn 't match up . to the 250cc race, fought tooth and nai l until the very last bend between the Marlboro Yamahas of john Kocinski arid Luca Cadalora. This was the first confro nt a tion between the Italian and the American , on a track where Cadalora had the advantage of prior circuit knowledge - and it is surely significant that Kocin ski won it by a whisker, after a seemingly impossible last-bend passing maneuver, with Helmut Bradl' s HB Honda third. "T hat was the best race I ever had," said Kocinski la ter. But the race that had the 170,000stro ng crowd bellowing with excitemeni was th e I 25cc event. A blind man 'could have followed the progress of ultima te winner jorge Martinez from the roars, groans and firecrackers. JJ Cobas -mo unt ed Martinez held off a st ro ng ' cha ll enge fr om Honda mounted Austri an Stefan Prein with Itali an Fausto Gresini third. Steve Webster and Gavin Simmons won the sidecar race at record speed from U.S. GP winners Alain Miche l and Simon Birchall, with Rolf Biland/ Kurt Waltisperg third. 500cc Qualifying Doohan 's first GP pole position was set on a second-hand Mich elin - , admittedl y only slightly used. It was the tire fitt ed to Gardner's Honda when he crashed at Laguna Seca, and it lifted the likeable Queenslander not on ly ahead of Gardner on da y two of practice, but also past Rainey's firstsession time . " A few days ago , I'd have said it would be a bit cocky to talk about winning a race," he said on race eve. "Now I may chiinge my mind. This track is similar to some of the tight circuits in Oz, and I was able to do the tim e comfortably." He increased front-end rake to make the H onda's steeri ng mo re stable, but was lucky to escape unhurt from a second session crash at one of the twisting Spanish circuit's three slow hairpins, when h is foot was trapped be tween the back wheel and the - swingarm. Alan Carter, ridi ng a private Honda in the 250cc class, suffered a badly broken leg in a similar crash. Rainey en ded up second fastest , an d was puzzled tha t the bik e settings th at ' had won in America and j apan didn't work here. "T he bike feels in no way like it did befor e," he said. "Every new th ing I tried slowed me down. The on ly thing I haven 't tried is the gear box and settings I used here las t year. We' ll try them in morning warm-up. But Mick (Doohan) might be tough - I foll owed him, and he looked real smoo th. The on ly advan tage I have is that he has never led a G P." The attention paid to Doohan may have got to Gardner, but he didn't let it show. "It'll be good if he can also finish ahea d of Rainey," he said. " Because it clo ses up the points a bit." As to his own tim e: ''I'm quite sat isfied. I've tried everyth ing possible in setting the bik e up, I'm not too far off pole, and I wasn 't trying too hard." H e was only two tenths down, and with Lawson away and Schw antz still injured , this left the last p lace on th e front row to Sarron, who was another half-second adrift, and still struggling , with the sh ift to Dun lop tires. "T hey 're beginning to get better,' he allowed. The ra ce for the spare A-team Michelins was a touch more open, wi th Rainey having been given Lawson 's unused set, a nd Doohan ta king the first spare s. The n ext up was P ier- , Fra ncesco Chili , who immediately took almost a second off his previou s best tim e on th e colorful RO C-Honda. But he said the important thing was not tires, but a similar. geometry change to Doo han's. "T he fro nt was sliding so much in the first sessions I was lucky not to crash," Chili said. " We lowered the ride height at the rear and ra ked the front, and it is strange what a big effect it had. It's given me much more confi den ce." He ended up less than a tenth ah ead of Schwantz, riding wi th a short cast on hi s broken left wrist, although discard ing the kn ee brace he tried for the first sessions to ease the pressure under braking. "Braking is not the problem," he said. " I'm having tro ub le ho lding on under accelera tion, because I don't have a real strong grip. I reckon I'm a t abo ut 80 to 85 percent of my ability, but if I can hang on to th e leaders, and if anyo ne has an y problems, I may mak e the rostrum ." Almo st on e-and -a-ha lf seconds slower, Sito Pons had his own injury - torn ligamen ts in his shoulder from a practice cras h 'a week before. H e was riding visib ly cautiously, a hard job for a National hero at home in Spain, with an electroni c pulsi ng sho ulder pad under his leathers to ease the pain. Next came Niall Mackenzie, riding Magee's Suzuki, and at first finding the light fro nt end and vast and snappish power compared with his 250 and ' Superb ike machines of this year hard to deal with. In the first session, he lost it, and slid to earth, but a day later he was much happier. " I haven ' t rid den a 500 for almost eight mo nths, since Brazil last year," he said. "I just need more time to get used to the bike." Row three saw practice crashers Garriga and Ruggia 's wor ks Yama ha, then th e three Cagivas. New boy Alex Barr os was fastest, ah ea d of Ron Haslam. T he Bri ton was alrea dy riding wi th pain kill ing injections as a result of h is Lagu na wr ist inj ur ies, then he cras hed again, hurting both hands. He flew home the day before the race to get his right littl e finger pinned, to save it from am putation. Mamola 's Cagiva was one place down, bu t he was in terrible pain with his left-hand wrist injury. He with-

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