Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127267
subsequent seizure on Sa tu rday morn . ing, whi ch spo iled hi s fina l sessions. Pons ' Honda was n e-xt , two- tent hs down on Doohan. Then came Marna la, riding his Cagiva as if inspired by o ne of his favorite cir cuits. "This is one of the o n ly tracks all year where riding is mor e im po rtant than the machine," he gri nned. j ea n-Ph i lf ipc R ugg ia co m p leted row two , as dra matic as ever as he got his Yamaha twis ted in all sorts of kn o ts over the many bu mp s. Garriga 's Yamaha led row three from the Cagivas of Haslam and Ba rros, and the best of the five privateers. This time, it was It a lia n Marco P apa , putting hi s H o nda tripl e a he a d o f the more powerful Paton of Vinc e Scatola on the relentless Rijeka twists. 500cc Grand Prix Rainey too k h is usual ho lesho t, and led through th e first corner, wi th Dooh an and Mackenzie on his tai l. Schwan tz, however, was last. " I read the ligh ts well, got the bi ke moving, but when I fed in more clutch, it locked solid. Maybe th e pl a tes welded up I had no cl utc h from th en on. The engine bogged, and th ey a ll went by." /r HO the first bend , Pon s was slow , and a surprised Haslam hit him a glancing blow, and fell off straight in front of Mamola, knockin g off on e of his ha nd lebars. T he two Cagi vas went somersau lting off, with Mamola un hurt , bUI Haslam breaking his rig ht little finger for the thi rd time in six weeks. One lap la ter , teammate Barros locked his front wh eel on turn two, and went sliding into unprotected Armco barrier, lucky to be unhurt. H is bike caught fire. Exit th e Cagivas. By no w, Schwantz was scything th rou g h th e slower riders; w hi le Mackenzie passed Doohan on la p th ree. By the time they go t to the end of it, Sch wantz was th ird and clos ing, and Mackenzie let his teammate past.ยท But Rainey had been making good on his start, and had almost five seconds advantage, havin g a lready brok en the lap record the third tim e arou nd. " I kn ew I co uldn' t catch him ," Schwantz said. "So I tried to ma ke steady laps and keep the pr essure on, to see if he would make a mi stake. H e didn't. .. Rainey wasn 't having as mild a tim e as it appea red. " It' s easy to say wh en you win that it was easy, but it wasn 't. It was real slippery and I a lmost h it th e grou nd a few times." H e was 10 seconds ahead at the end, a worthy winner. . Macken zie was havin g the race of h is li fe, a nd staye d tu cked in behind Schwantz until half distance, actually held up by him at som e points, until the tir es went off, and Schwantz was able to show his class , " I had a signal plus eigh t over Doohan ," Mack enzie said. "So I was able to ride sa fely for a finish. It's th e first time I'v e been on the rostrum twice in o ne year." (He was third also in Germ an y). Beh ind the leaders, a fin e dice was developing between th e Hondas of Doohan , Chili and Pons, with the Austral ian lu cky 10 be holding the lead, Lucky, becau se on lap 15, Pons lost the front whee l and fell, right under Chili's wheels. The crash , a front -wheel slide, happened at precisely the point where Pons' B-grade Michelins woul d hav e been go ing off compa red wit h Doo han 's and Chili 's A-grade tires , a danger point the Spaniard had been complaining about all season. And it looked terrible, with Po ns knocked flying from a prone pos ition, an d Ch il i hi ttin g the dirt a little further on - but Pons was lucky to escape with four brok en ribs and bruises to his lungs, whi le Chili sustained a mi nor shoulder fracture. Doohan conti nued a la n,', wit h his own problems. " We lowered the gear ing 10 compe nsate for the han dling so I co uld steer more by spinn ing the rear wheel. It meant I was over-revving r u n ni ng 1-1 ,000 in som e pl aces. I though t it was going to blow up ." With Garri ga retiring early on, th e only ot her V-Iour 10 finish was Ruggia 's Yama ha, a distant fifth , and the last rider on the same lap as Rainey. Papa was sixth on h is three-cylinder H onda, on e lap adrift, whil e the remaining three triples were up 10 four laps down. Rainey o pe ned his cha mpio nsh ip lead 10 27 points again over Schwantz, with Doohan third and Mackenzie up 10 fourth. 250cc Qualifying Cadalo ra led th e wet first sessio n, then for the first tim e sin ce returni ng from the .:;OOcc class , Didier de Radigues hit th e front in the drying afternoon session. Day two was serious - dry bu t windy, and with Kocinski and Cada lora betw een rh em laying clai m to Rijeka as a Yam ah a track. The morning sessio n was best, a nd the brash Amer ican ended up less than twotenths a head of the taciturn Ital ian . Cada lora pronounced h imself "sa tisfied "; bur Kocins ki is never really sa tisfied, a nd when hi s mec hanic offered h im the risk of leanin g it off slight ly, he j umped at the cha nce of a few more mph for the cruicial run u p to the finish line from the last bend. T he risk did n ' t payoff - he seized in the first bend, bangin g his rig ht arm and finger hard wi tho u t breaking any thing, but deny ing that his perfectly motion less pos ition after the crash meant he was un conscious. Best of the battling Hondas in the end was He lmut Bradl, who held third p lace by four-hundredths from Ca rd us' late charge. This moved Ro th to the far end of row one , by th ree-tent hs, The Honda rider had new exhaus ts in Aus tria, but they didn 't seem to make much difference. Cornu 's Honda led ro w two, with tim es mor e sp read th an usual , and th e Swiss veteran more th an a second slo wer than Kocinski. De Radigues Aprilia was a lo ngsi de, th en Criville's Yamaha, and Wimmer's Aprilia. Sessio n-t hree cras hes el imi na ted bo th Wile o Zeelenberg an d Dominique Sarron. The Dutchman was perplexed by his fourth gea r high sider, at a speed wh ere a 250 wo uld normally be considered safe from such ant ics. Zeelen berg brok e his right arm at the wrist, while hi s bike carried on up a steady bank, to break its forks against the back of the Arm co lining the start-finish straight, a popular race-day viewing spo t. Sarron a lso high-sided spectac ularl y, and rebroke the bones in h is foot that he h ad bro ken in Germ an y. . Sarron's man ager recrui ted Austrian Ap rilia priva teer Andreas Prein ing (spo nsored by a po rnographic magazi ne), after sidestepping some opposition to th e bike change from the FIM Jury. The Austrian is bigger than Sarron, bu t could fit into a pair of Doo han's Rothmans-Honda leathers. Th ere was n o time to adjust th e machine, however, and he ended h is sale practi ce sessio n with a bad cra mp, after setting hi s fastest lap the fifth time aro u nd, placing 15th overall. Jorge Martinez also crashed, abandoning the 250s forthwith 10 concen trate on the l25s , while 35th fastest Italian Yamaha rider Jose Barresi was in disgrace with his crew for not trying hard enough, and they packed up and went ho me in disgust. This fateful Stefen Prein (7) lead s Domenico Romboni (20), Ari Stadler (ll ), Bruno Casanova (23) and Ralf Waldmann (31) during their intense 125cc GP battle;Prein won. move allowed 37th quali fier Darren Mi lner in. 250cc Grand Prix Rain was spotting as the 250s lined up, and continued on and off throughout the race. They started on slicks anyway, with Kocinski riding around Bradl to led into the firs t bend , u sin g all the extra track ma de availa ble by th e removal of the bales. H e also led the first half-l ap, bu t by the end of it, h e h ad been o ver po we red o n th e stra ig ht by the H ondas, and Cardus led from Bradl, Kocin ski, Cadalora, Roth and Wimmer. Criville was tagged o n a t the back, Cornu in h is wheel tracks. Co rnu gradually lost touch, bu t th e o thers stayed packed together, and yet a ga i n p rodu ced so me class ic 250 raci ng, at least as good as the fine dice in Austria the weeke nd before, The diff erent mach ines enco urage d a var iety of li nes th rough th e cont inuous curves of th e twist ing Yugoslavia circu it, with Kocinski braking early into the most co mp lex set of Esses, then diving inside halfway through. But the Honda handling didn 't appe ar mu ch of a di sadvantage, and its power was quite the o ppo site, and Card us had the lion 's share of leading. Others to see a clea r track ahead were Kocinski, severa l tim es, Roth, Cadalora and Bradl - but disaster was waiting, and struck o n lap 25 o ut of 28, as officials readied the red flags . T he race was the n sto p ped, a nd results taken from lap 23, at whi ch stage Cardus was six-hundred ths ahead of Kocinski , and just over tw o -ren ihs ahead of Wimm er, with Cada lora, Bradl , Roth and Criville in sha n order behind them . Corn u was eig hth, havin g seen the who le thing hap pen in front of him. A fierce four-bike battle behind them went to Carl os Lava do's Apr ilia , J o ch en Schmid 's p riva te Honda, Pr eining's borrowed works Honda, and Sh im izu's factor y-backed NSR. Kocinski extended his title over Cadalora, with Cardus closing up again in third. and the absent Zeelenberg now fourth. 125cc Grand Prix The first 125 race was short-lived but dramatic, with Italian H onda rider Gabriel Debb ia forced into the hay bales at the pi t-lane exit just yards after the start, then crashing amongst the back of the pack, Eleven bi kes went down, " like do mi noes ", as unwi lli ng participant Robin Appleyard said . After a da y's wor k of arguments including the sit-do wn strike , foll owed by five lap s of pre-race warm- up on the bale-less track, the race go t underway o ne-and-a-qu art er hours late, and wit h 27 starters, It was wort h waiting for. Bruno Casanova led from the start, but by the end of the lap Prein was in front, and pu lling-a train. Martinez was already out of the race, having blown his Cobas' engine in the warm-up, There were a succession of peo ple behind Pr ein, and now and th en in front of h im , incl udi ng Rombon i, Ari Stadler, a nd Ralf Waldmann, an d Fausto Gresi ni. Then, at th e en d, teenage title-lead er Loris Capirossi mad e his bid, leading at the bottom of th e hill with half a lap to go. Prein rode brilliantly, h owever, to cross the lin e side by side with the Italian . The O livetti-Longines timing eq ui p ment gave him the victory by three-hundredths of a second . Ca pirosi retained his title lead, cut to th ree poi n ts over Prei n , with Mart inez now third. Sidecar Grand Prix The first side car race here since 1980 ran to full distance, with no serious cras hes , and excelle-nt racing, in spite of the common assertion that three-wheelers would find no place to pass each other. In fact, Webster and Streuer both took turns leading, harried hard by Alain Michel, whose passen ger Sim on Birchall - had fall en out of the chair in morning warm-up, and had a wren ch ed shoulder. In the end, Michel led across the line by just five-hundredths, almost side by side with Streuer, and Webster j ust