Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

~ ROAD RACE World Championship Road Race Series:Round 4 E The 500cc GP start saw Michael Doohan (9) lead Wayne Ra in ey (2), Wa yne Gardner (10) and the rest of the pack. Kevin Schwantz (34) leads the restarted 500cc GP race ; Gardner (10), eventual winner R ainey (2) and Doohan (9) give chase. " When my mec ha nics showed me tha t Luca (Cada lora) was ou t it kin da blew m y mi nd. " Koci nski said. "I was talking to th em last n ight a nd I said m y dream was that he would drop out. I was out of the groove fo r two laps. " Kocin ski, who 's won the last th ree races, averaged 98.622 m ph in wi nning the 65.02-mile race in 39 minutes, 33.533 seconds. The sidecar race was the last of the day and it was a good o ne. Four chairs vied for the lead ea rly before the Krauser Elf team o f Alain Michel and Simo n Birchall pu lled out to a [our- second lead. But o n the last of 26 laps, their gearbox broke dropping them to 14Lh and handin g th e win La Rolf Biland and Kurt Waltisperg. The Webster! Simo ns team was seco nd. 5.452 seconds back with Egbert Streuer and passen ger G ilbert de Haas third. Webster, who was tied with Michel for the points lead co m ing into the Ita lian race, ta kes sa le possession or'lhe to p SpOL with 54 points. Michel is second with 39 and Biland third with 35. In a race run o n Sa turday , Spa niard j or ge " Aspar" Martin ez put hi s JJ Cobas in"th e lead on th e 10th of 26 laps to win th e l 25cc race by 2.632 seconds ove r West German Dieter Raudies, Italian L oris Ca pirossi wa s th ird, Dutchman H ans Spaan fourth on the Sharp-Samson Honda , a nd j apan ese rider Keiji Takada fifth o n the Takesh ima H onda. Mar tinez moved ahead o f T akada by onepoint 40-39 in th e point sta nd ings while Raudies holds third with 36. After last year's fiasco , when the top riders boycotted the race when it rained, th e track was resurfaced and slightly shortened by removing a ki nk at the end of the from straightaway. The riders were u nanimo us in thei r praise and all expected tha t if it rai ned, there would be no prob lem raci ng. They were right. "T he track's smooth a nd has a lo t of gr ip," Rainey said . " I particularly like the left-banders. It seems like all the dirt tracks I rod e." ) Schwantz agreed . "T he tra ck was mad e easier for us. You don't have to worry ab out th e surface cha nging six or eigh t or 10 tim es." 500ce Qualifying It's Rainey again in Italian GP By Henny R a y Abrams MISANO, ITALY, M 20 AY eam Yamaha Marlboro Roberts' Wa yne Ra iney won th e rain interrupted 500cc race a t the 68th Grand Pr ix of Italy on th e Santam onica Circuit in Misan o Adr ia tico to extend hi s po ints lead in a World Championsh ip race th at many have conceded to him a lrea dy. His Yamaha Marlboro Rob erts team: mate j ohn Kocinski handily won the 250cc race a nd took over the cham pion sh ip points lead due to th e non-finish of Tea m Yamaha Marlboro Agostini 's Luca Cad a lora. Cadalora, who had led th e titl e chase coming into hi s home co unt ry's race, sp lit an exha ust pipe ear ly on leaving the crowd of 75,500 ex tremely disappo inted. It was the second tim e this seaso n tha t the Roberts: team has swep t both races and it sure ly won 't be th e last. " It seems like we raced a lo ng tim e," Ra iney said after winni ng with th e best aggregate time for the two-l eg race. Ra in ey had wo n the first leg: stopped T 14 due to rai n on the 25th of 36 lap s, by 2.552 seconds over T eam Luckv Strike Suzu ki 's Kevin Sch wa n tz. The Australian duo o f Rothmans Honda teammat es, Mick Doohan a nd a n inju red Wayne Gardne r, were th ird a nd fourth with Span ia rd Sito Pons fifth on the Campsa H onda . After a mandato ry 30-m in u te delay, th e second 12-lap race was sta rted with most riders choosing in termedi a te front tires a nd cut slicks o n the rear. Doohan was th e exce pt io n, electi ng to use a slick on th e back. "Everybody ou t there knew what they had to do ," Rainey sai d la ter, " Kevin (Schwamz) had to "beat me by 2.552 seconds," whi ch he did n 't do a nd the win , hi s th ird in fou r races th is year , went to Rainey. In winn in g the 36-lap, 78.Q1 2-mil e race in 46 minutes, 21.150 seconds. Rainey ave raged 10 1.002 mph . H is win n ing marg in o ver Schwanrz o n co mb ined time was 2.12 1 seconds . Sc hwa ntz, w ho n a r rowl y bea t Gardner in the second leg, was second overall, wit h Doohan third overall, afte r finis hi ng a close fourth in th e Second leg. Gardner was a combi ned fourth ahead of Team L uckv Stri ke Suzu ki's N iall Mackenzie wh oimproved a spot to fifth overa ll with a superb -ride in the second race to drop Pons to sixth.: Cagiva 's Randy Mam ola did the same, finish ing seventh overa ll a fter an eig ht h place fin ish in the first leg, Rainey's points lead over Gardner increased to 27 poi nts, 77-50, with Schwantz movin g imo th ird wi th 47 and Doohan fourt h wi th 45: T hough the 250cc GP sta rted in dry conditions , it began to rai n nearl y as hard as it had in th e 500cc race, but it was never sto pped. No t that it would have mattered to Kocinski. H e set a bli sterin g early pace, pulling a way a t a lmost a second a lap until the ra in for ced him to slo w slig h tly near the halfway point. Still, he had enough of a lead to win by 14.41 seconds over HB H onda 's Helmut Bradl with Sha rpSamso n's Wileo Zeelenberg third. "Are we in th e lead ?" Kocinski asked, referri ng to the champ ions hip, as he clim bed off his mac hi ne before mounting the rostru m . And th e answer was that , yes, he was , 62-54 over Cadalora after the fourth of 15 races. Rainey was fastest after Friday's two sessio ns before bein g dropped to second in th e thi rd sess io n, o n Saturda y " morning, by Sc h wa ntz. Not to be outdone, he came back a nd kn ocked more th an half a second off hi s previou s best time to clock a new qualifying record of 1:16.019 a t a n average speed of 102.648 m ph. Since the track was slig h tly shorte r, all fast times wo uld be new records, th ough Rainey would have set a record o n th e o ld length du e to the new su rface and the year's progress. R ain ey cou ld n' t pinpoint wha t exa~tly dropped hi s times in the last sessio n. " I think th e combi natio n is th e biggest difference in lap tim es, Whep the bik e is working you can go through th ere faster than the other guys. You can run it ou t o f the co rners and up on the rprn s," he said. His bigger questi on was which bike to use. He turned eq ua l lap times with both , though they had different engine spec ifica tio ns . As it turned out , he would have no choice. He seized his race b ike' s engine in Sunday morning 's practi ce session. .cI " By lead in g the World Cha m pionship a fter four races, Rainey is guaranteed th e "A-grade" Mich elin s for th e rest qf £l th e season. Schwantz made so me sus pension changes in the fin al sessio n o n ly to be fru strated. He co u ldn 't co me within a second of hi s third sessio n tim e of

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