Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Wayne Ra in ey (2), Wayne Ga rdner (10), Eddie Lawson an d Mid Doohan (9) lead the 500cc Dutch GP through the kink. Texan Kevin Schwantz (34) ended up catching Wayne Ra iney (2) at the halfway mark in the GP and went on to capture his third win of the 1990 season. Sh antz tamsRainey cw e in Dutc hTT By Henny Ray Abrams ASSEt\;, HOLLAND,JUKE 30 eam Lucky Strike Suzuki's Kevin Schw anu passed championship rival Wayne Rainey on the Marlboro Roberts Yamaha at the halfway po int then held him off to win the 60th Dut ch T'T on a warm and sun ny da y at th e new ly-wide ned and resurfaced Circuit Va n Drenthe in norther n Hollan d, . Schw an tz, a win ner for the th ird tim e this year, go t off to a bad start, but slowly reeled Rainey in by mak ing better tim e th rough th e chica ne and a series of hi gh -speed kinks after the first turn. Though unabl e to repass Schwant z, Rainey hung tough - to the end, crossing the finish line just .636 of a second behind the T exan. Schwantz averaged 108.687 mph for the 22-lap, 82.644-mile race, the eight h round of the World Championship Series. T 10 " I did n't get th e best of starts, " Schwantz said. " I had a problem getting through the first three or fou r gu ys and almost got knocked dow n a couple of times." " I tried to make a break, " Ra iney said. " (O nce he go t past) he was getting out of the more important corners better tha n I was and that was whe re he got me." T hird, in his return to raci ng after his practice crash at the U.S. G P, was Rainey's teammate, four-time World Ch ampion Eddie Lawson , who ran a solitary race, still slightly bothered by hi s Laguna Seca heel injury. Roth mans Honda 's Michael Doohan was well back in fourth with a substantia l margin to Schwanu's teammate Niall Mackenzie. Former World Champion Wayne G ardn er also return ed a t Assen, thou gh with con siderably less lu ck. After a minor crash in qualifying, Gardner set fourth fastest time. But in the race th e float needl es stuck open in his right-side carburetors on the second lap, causing him to abandon th e race. Schwanu pi cked up three points on Rainey in the World Championship po int standings , and now trails 148124 after eigh t of 15 races. Doohan is third in points with 86 while Mackenzie, who missed the first two races, is fourth wit h 71. Marlb oro Roberts Yamah a's J ohn Kocins ki carne out on top of a sp iri ted 250cc ba ttle wit h hi s fourt h win of the year, a win made easier when Lu ca Cadalora crashed twice on th e fin al lap. Kocin ski, like Cadalora well down on top speed to the Hondas, fou ght to the front of what was a six-rider pack with j ust four laps to go. He bri efly gave the lead up, then held off Rep sol Honda's Carl os Cardus at the line. Kocin ski's margin o f victory was .976 of a second with Dutchman Wileo Zeelenberg a very po p ular third before 131,000 fans . Zeelenb erg's third place finish was a gu tty one considering the handicap of a hand injury su ffered at the Yugoslavian Grand Prix . Ajinomoto H on da 's Masahiro Shimizu was fourth with Austrian Andy Prein ing fifth on the injured Domin iq ue Sarron 's Rothmans Hon da. Kocin ski's World Cha mp ionsh ip poi nt standings lead gre w to 22 po in ts, 129-107; with Ca rdus holding second place. Cadalora, who fell while chasing Koci ns ki on ly to re-mount in sixth place befor e crashing again in the final chicane, falls into a th ird p lace tie with Zeelenberg with 93 po ints. " I stayed back for awhile because I didn 't want to waste my energy at the front," Kocins ki said. " But it too k me longer to get up there than I wa nte d. It was a real mess, everyo ne was bumpin g and banging int o each other and it was a real battl e to get clear and go after the leading bunch." Unlike mo st recent l25cc GP s, this o ne wa s a runaway with Italian Dorian o Romboni leading every lap on h is way to an eleven-plus second win, hi s second of the year. Second place wasn't as clear cu t, however. Seven rid ers fought for th e spo t, five different riders held it, and it changed hands each of the last three laps with T eam Semprucci's Bruno Casanova moving from fourth into second on the last lap to fin ish .258 seconds ahead of 11 Cob as-rnou nted Adi Stadler. The nex t four riders finish ed within a second of Stadl er and it would have been five if Dutchman H an s Spaan hadn' t drop ped out with four laps to go. West German Stefan Prein maintained hi s championshi p po in ts lead desp ite finishi ng sixth toda y. It helped tha t Luis Ca p irossi failed to fini sh a nd third best J orge Martinez managed on ly a fifth. With seven rounds to go , Prein lea ds Capirossi 90-83 with Martinez 12 points behind in th ird. The Fran co-British team of Alan Michel and Simon Birchall wo n th eir second sidecar race in a row, lead ing all but the first lap and holding off th e Swiss team of Rolf Biland and Kurt Waltisperg to win by half a second. The Dutch team of Egbert Streuer and Geral de Haas was third. Adding to Michel's fortune was th e mi sfortune of World Champion and current point leader Steve Webster of Great Britain. Webster lost his main sponsor, Brown Group Int., a building con cern, the week before Assen then went out on the fourth lap with clutch failure. Hi s DNF allowed Michel to close within 12 points, 106-94, at the halfway point of the sidecar season. Biland is third with 84 points. 500cc Qualiyi ng The venerable Circuit Van Drenthe wa s widen ed to accommodate car racing and completely resurfaced for 1990, modifications that shortened its len gth by 85 meters to 3.759 miles. Sch wan u had been the only rider to test th ere and it carne as no surprise th at he was fas t in every session and would be on th e pol e for the race. Sch wantz, like all of the riders, had nothing but praise for the trac k. " It used to be a big problem following somebody because you couldn't see the inside ofthe corne r," he said. " No w with the wider trac k you can mi ss the apex and not be in the grass." What Schwanu said he learned the most from hi s test here was: " H ow to use th e new, wider track. The first 25 to 30 laps I was leaving three to four feet on both sides. I get through the kinks faster. Corning onto th e backstra igh t there's a lot more widt h and I can run wider an d th at mak es time." Hi s best tim e, a 2:03.207 lap (109.83), was well under his old record of 2:09.85 and . 174 seconds ahead of Rainey, who was second quickest, Rainey's tim e also carne in the las t session and he admi tted being at a disadvantage for not having tested on the new track. Rainey also said he was trying three diff erent engines, incl ud ing one th at was brought for the Austrian GP th at didn 't work in Yugoslavia.. Like a number of othe r riders, Ra in ey spoke of a front end chatter pro blem caused by th e amount of grip the new surface provided. "S till ," he said. "It 's a one-line track. But with it bein g wider , we can go ou t there and race." H e also said he saw that Schwanu was getting th rough the ki nks faster and had slig h tly more top speed . " I reckon I'm goi ng to hang with hi m tomorrow, th ou gh ." Third and fourth fastest went to p resent and former World Ch ampions La wson and Gardner, both retu rn ing to racin g follow ing inj uries. Lawson was expected back at the Austrian GP three week s prior, but found his injured heel not fit eno ugh to allow for his return. Gardner, who was injured fiv e week s ear li er at the German GP, had set the Du tch round as his target dat e and met it. Neither was 100% fit and neither expected to win, but the y both qualified on the

• Cover