Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

fou rth p lace behi nd Kocinsk i, but p icked h imself u p and re-joined the race t wo spots Iro rn the back of the 32-rider field. T he accident ca used a couple or mi no r mecha nica l problems, tho ugh he charged on 10 a LOth-place Iirrish. . The I25cc GP was al most as exci ti ng as the 250cc race with four ri ders goi ng for the lead, but three laps fro m the end the top two riders, Jorge Ma rti nez and Ma urizio Vita li, fell in separate accidents hand in g the lead, and win , 10 Ital ian Dorian Ro mbo ni o n the Moto Club Crostolo Ho nda. It was the first 125cc race tha t Ro m bon i has fini shed th is year. Second wen t to West German Dirk Raudi es, also Hon da-mou nt ed, with AGV Pil eri Cors e's Loris Capirossi third. Romboni avera ged 90.17 mph for the 23-lap, 64.92-m ile race, winn ing by 3.274 seconds. The Sidecar GP victory went 10 World Champi on Steve Webster and Gavin Simmons, who took th e lead halfway through the 23-la p race a nd went on 10 win by 16.803 seco nds. Seco nd place went 10 the Sw iss Gudel brothers, Pau l a nd Char ly, with th ird going 10 Brits SIeve Abb ott a nd Shaun Smith. Webs ler in creased hi s cha m p io nship lead to 33 points, 74-4 1, ove r th e Biland/Waltisperg team who finis hed 10th today. The assa u lt o n the 500cc class had co me on two fronts. One was a n FIM com m unique that said for the 1991 seaso n t he 500cc fou r-cy l inder mach ines wou ld have a minim u m weight li m it of 130 kilogra ms (286 pounds) a n d beginn in g i n 1992 unleaded gasoline would have 10 be u sed . T h e we ight p ro posa l was, acco rd ing 10 the FIM, in the int erest of safety and the Iuel proposal was a reac tion 10 environmenta l groups. The seco nd barrage ca me from Ho nd a who said they wo uld co ns ider dro pping o ut or the 500cc class if a pro pos al they'd earlier sub mitted 10 the FIM wasn ' t accepted. T hei r proposa l ca lled fo r 375cc machines o r Vario us cylinder d ispl acements wit h weight limit s tha t wou ld give them all a power to weight ratio o r abou t 11.05 hor sepo wer to kilogram. Honda also said tha t if the proposa l was acce p ted they wou ld manufacture thre e-cylinder machines for sa le a t a cos t of $62,0 00. O t h er packages, including parts kits, were mentioned. Honda said they would campaign a th ree-cylin der 375cc machine in the World Championship, if it was accepted. The immed ia te reaction was that, since H onda a lready had a threecyli nder developed, it was a bit selfserving. They co un tered by sayi ng that t ei r propo sal all o wed lor fo u rcylinder machines, th erefore not obsoleting the cu rrent G P bikes. Bu t a nu m ber of vari ous techn icia ns o n va rious team s said it wo uld take a t least a year for a nyo ne to develop a new eng ine. And, they serio us ly doubted if Ho nda wo uld pull o ut if th ey didn 't get their way. In a ny case, it stimulated dialogu e which was desperat ely needed and more will certainly co me in the future. Members of the FIM pl an to travel 10 Japan in mi d-June for meet ings with the factories 10 d iscu ss further ways the class ca n be im pro ved, bo th in size and safety, and a new tech nica l com mission has been set u p wi thi n IR T A to deal with the FIM. 500cc Qualifying Inj uries a nd a lack of avail ab le eq ui p me nt ha ve so depleted th e 500cc e e 0 O'l O'l • ....... ~ G(') .."'" Way ne Gardner broke nine bones in fo ur toes on h is right foo t in practice. class tha t o nly 2 1 rid ers entered th e West German race. Two mor e would be el im in at ed - o ne fai li ng 10 preq ua li fy o n Thursda y a nd o ne failing to q ua lify - so th at the event ua l size of the fie ld was 19 rid ers. And th at was before Gardner 's crash in free practice. The 30-year-o ld Australia n was sti ll hu rti ng from the ri bs he'd cracked in a practice cras h at th e previous week's Ita lia n G P. "Every time I'd go Ior the brak e it Ielt lik e a n electric shock'! t takes your wi nd away, " he said. As a resu lt, he continued, " I was co ncentrating more on th e physical h urtin g tha n rid ing th e bik e. I cou ldn't n ick it in left-toright. I got around the corner (turn two, a sweeping third-gear left-bander ) and I gav e it too m uch throttle. I wobb led, ran sho rt or breath and strength, fell orr and the bike ra n ove r my foot . My roo t Ielt lik e a bag or crisps crunching up." Gardner suffered nine frac tures of roll!' toes o n his right roo t, excluding his litt le toe. Ins tead of an operation th ey were pu t in to a lig n ment and kept in traction with a n elabora te metal and ru bber band brace held in p lace wit h plaster. His p lan is 10 return fo r the Dutc h TT a t Assen at the end or June. "A ny c ha n ce fo r a sho t at the cha m p io nship is gone," Gardner said. Schwantz was th e fastest in free practice and he wo ul d remain a top th e leaderboard for th e Iour official pr acti ce sessio ns. H is were the most co ns iste nt tim es of a ny of the rid ers, varyi ng lillie more tha n a half a seco nd ove r the four sessio ns, proving that the testing his team had done here ea rly in May had pa id of f. Surprisingly, it was Schwantz's first pole position of th e year. Last year he was o n the pol e to ti meso "The track su its the bik e well ," he said, after cloc kin g a new la p record of 1:38.609 in the third sessio n. H is tim e didn 't improve in the fourth and fin al sessio n, but there was a good reason . " T he big th in g is to try a nd make the set u p so I ca n d o 25 good, co nsistent laps. I don 't wa nt the front pushing or the back end spi nni ng." The Suzuki team had been ha vin g problem s curing a rear su spe ns io n p ro ble m on Sc h wa ntz's bike that ca used a n excess of wheelspi n . Fina lly, they tried a stiffer spring on the rea r shock and it wo rked. "The bike seemed to move too m uch m id -corner," Schwan tz said " It wou ld spi n too much and wh eelie, No w we ....... (Fro m left to right) Wa yne Rai ney, Kevin Sch wa ntz and Niall Mackenzie; Germany marked Schwan tz's firs t win an d Macken zie's Iirst trip to the rostru m in 1990. ha ve the back sell led. This a fternoon we ra n 25 laps at race speed and I was satisfied with the results." After Gardner 's cra sh, one of the first th in gs H onda did was make sure that their number two rider , Doo han , go t Gardner's a llo tme nt of the " good " Mich el ins . For a cha nge, the 24-year o ld Austra lia n wo u ld have them fro m th e Iirst session o n ins tead of havin g to quali fy for them, " II j us t g ives you co nfidence," he sai d. "T he A-tires you can ride harder. T hey slide th e sa me. You ca n push it through the stage where they sta rt 10 slide. Du rin g Frida y's af ternoon sessio n, Doohan pushed it too far, nearly h ighsidi ng in t he sa me corner wh ere Gardn er had cras hed . H is best ti me wo ul d come in th e fin a l sess io n , I:38.803 whic h was .618seconds slower than Schwantz. Rain ey crashed la te in th e last prac tice session i n th e transitio n bel ween a fo urth-gea r, left-righ t combina tio n where rid ers approach 140 m p h. He was try ing to force hi s second bik e throug h the transition at a speed it wasn 't ca pa ble of a nd he paid the price, though he was luck y to ge l away with the mi nor injuries he suf fered. "T he bike d idn't reel good," he said, his left hand pa rtia lly wrapped in plaster includi ng his lill ie finger. " I shou ldn 't have tried 10 do somethi ng that it wa sn't goi ng to do . II was th e worst it felt all week. II wasn 't th e bike 's fault." In selling h is YZR500 u p, Rain ey ha d been havin g two prob lem s with the fro nt en d. One was that th e for ks were flex ing a nd th e seco nd wa s brakes. H e found that he was warp ing d iscs a fte r o n ly th ree laps so he cha nged to the carbo n di scs which he doesn 't like as much as the iro n ones. Fourth fastest, and making hi s first appearance on the front row o r the four-man 500cc gr id, was Chi li , despi te having suffered one of the mor e bizarr e in cid ents in recent memory. During Frida y's second p ract ice, Chi li hit hi s knee so hard on the ground tha t he d isloca ted seven verte brae in hi s lo wer back. He rod e back to th e p its witho ut being able to cha nge gea rs and wh en he stopped he wasn 't able to move fro m a crouch . A ro ll of toilet pa per was set o n the tank for him 10 rest hi s ch in o il and he was rolled on the ma chine to th e medi cal clinic where th e vert ebr ae were massaged into place. H e also had wat er on the elbow which had to be drained over the course of the weekend. Still , he was fourth fastest a fter the third session whi ch ea rn ed him a set of th e "good " Mich elins for th e fina l sessio n a nd the race. He made the best of it, knoc kin g .7 of a seocnd off his tim e to finish wi th a 1:39.239. The other rider to get the best Mich elins was Niall Mackenzie, who go t them for th e first tim e. The 28year-o ld SCOI al so im proved hi s times with the new rubber , though they pr esented a new problem of overworkin g the suspe nsion wit h their grip. And they had o nly one sessio n, the fourth, to sort it a ll o u t. Next 10 Macken zie on the second row was Pons, the top Mich elin rider not 10 ge t th e good tires a nd, clea r!y, not p leased by it. " Fo r me it is a very bad system," he began. " Yo u must go fast when the bi ke is no t good. It 's a n unsafe system. In the las t session (a h er Ch il i had galien the good tires) I raced with Doohan and Chi li. In all the co rners, m id-co rner, they wo uld sta rt to go forward a nd I wo uld go sideways." Pon s also said he was just beginning to regai n hi s confide nce after his cras h at J erez. His [in al time was a 1:39.977 whi ch was two seconds raster than his second sessio n ti me, but bar ely more tha n half a second bet ter th an his pr evious best. • Regardless, it was beuer th an a full second faster tha n Sarro n, ridi ng with a n injured shou lder to the seventh spot o n th e gri d just ahead o r hi s younger teammate Rugg ia. The th ird Dunlop pi lot, Garriga, was ninth fastest a nd led off the third row ahea d of Ca giva teamsters Mamola a nd Alexandre Barros. The Cagiva team was a lread y withou t Ro n Haslam whose hand inj uries hadn 't improved enough to allow h im to ride. 500cc Grand Prix Of all th e developmen ts bo th on a nd off the race track, the most shocking was the wea ther. Two years ago, no one co uld practice a t all unt il Saturday ' because of fog and the race was run in the rain . T his year was th e opposite. Brilliant su nsh in e blessed the track set in th e Eifel Moun tains of west-central West Germany , not far from the French and Belgi an borders, with race day warm, tho ugh sligh tly windy. Doohan led the charge through turn o ne follow ed by Schwantz, Chili, Sarron, Pons, Ra iney, and Ruggia. But by the end of the first lap .Schwantz was in charge and sailing alone unaware of the excitement behind Iiim. On the the third lap, in the loop

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