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Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127272
e WIDlicr~d~o~_R_~_R_~_e&_ri_~_b_OO_d_IO _ e Kevin Schwantz (34) won his fourth 500cc Grand Prix of the season at Le Mans in France; the Texan beat Australian Wayne Gardner (10) by 2.4 seconds on the 2.75-mile track. Schwantzturns up theheat in Fra c ne By Michael Scott LE MANS, FRANCE,JULY22 he heat was on in Fran ce, and with the champion ship two-thirds ru n, winner Kevin Schwantz not only took five points from third-place Wayne Rainey, bu t also proved equal to the remai ning task for the rest of the year. "I have to go out and win every race from now on," he said. On e down , and five to go. Sch wantz's win on the shrieking and wheeIspinnin g Lucky Strike Suzuki was spectacular. So too was Wayne Gardner's second place, after leading in the earl y stages, and surviving a major moment on lap two tha t had him o££ both sides of th e track, spattering Schwantz with gravel , and almost taking out his Rothmans Honda teammate Michael Doohan. Gardner rode with typical go-for-it grit, his courage undiminished by the doubts he felt after his earlier foot injury, and proved too hard a nut to crack for third-place Rainey on the Marlboro Yamaha. Doohan was fourth, a steadfast but not yet lOQ-percent Eddie Lawson on the second Marlboro Yamaha fifth, resisting race-long pressure from slow starter Lucky Strike Suzuki's Niall Mackenzie, until troubled backmarker Ron Haslam split the pair towards the end. Neither of the French blue hopes fin ished, with both practice crasher Christian Sarron and Spa hero JeanPhillipe Ruggia succu mbing to Gauloises Yamaha mach ine problems - T 10 but Randy Mamola kept on pedalling on an overhea ted and underpowered Cagiva to take a po pular seventh. Carlos Cardus's 250 victory was no less impressive. The Spanish RepsolHonda rider led from start to finish , withstood a fierce attack from Marlboro Yamaha's John Kocinski, then won by miles as the American title leader's desperate e££orts took him over the edge, and he fell off, Cardus left Le Mans onl y seven points behi nd Kocinski, and the title race is on . Marlboro Yamaha Agostin i's Lu ca Cadalora rode to a fast but steady second, able to stay just out of reach of Lori s Reggiani, the Italian Aprilia rider proving that he is still among the best in the world. . Hans Spaan used all his skill and tactics to prevail over fellow Honda rider Doriano Rombono in the l25cc race, leaving title leader Stefan Prein to triumph over teenage hot-shot Loris Capirossi in a five-bike battle for third. Sidecar triple champion Steve Webster put his fourth title quest back on the rails after two non-finishes, he and passenger Gavin Simmons taking an easy victory over Egbert Streuer /Geral deHaas after his main rivals Alain Michel/Simon Birchall su ££ered their . second gearbox failure of the season. By the end of the day, the heat had reached danger point, and sid ecar passenger Julian TaiI£ord collapsed with heat fatigu e on the last lap . He fell from the sidecar (driver Barry Brin dley finished the lap, but was disqu alified from 11th). TaiI£ord was hospitalized for emergency treatment, 500cc Qualifyirtg At 2.75 miles, Le Mans is one of the sho rter tracks of the year. What makes it even less popular is its go-kart character, with two chicanes, and a full house of stop-and-go first or secondgear Ll-turns or double-right-angles. No track for a fast-comer merchant to show o££ his skills, but a place where hard chargers of every caliber run a consta nt risk of losing the front and! or rear wheels as they push their 160 bhp mons ters deep into slow bends under braking, then fire them out under maximum wheelspin, fighting to keep the front wheels from lifting. What's required is a quick-turning bike with a smooth but generous power cu rve. None of the current works candidates comply: the Yamaha has good power but lacks agility; the Honda's engine is good, but the slow and reluctant steering is' well-known; the Suzuki steers well, but its rush of power tends to light up the rear wheel, a big drawback on the way out of lowgear bends (or, as at Spa, in the wet). What does seem to help is pre-race practice, especiall y because it gives a chance to get the gearing just right to launch without spinning. Last year, Lawson pre-tested, and won the race on the ostensibly wildly unsuitable 1989 Honda. This year, Schwantz and Mack- enzie did so, and both put their Suzukis on the front row of the grid. For a third ra ce in succession, Schwantz dom inated practice, which was in tum dominated by the increasing ly oppressive and stressful weather. On each day, almost all the best times came in the morning, and the afternoon sessions were spent exploring the limits of overheated tires on overheated tarmac (up to 131 degrees). And overheated engines, as Mamola discovered: "We're waiting for a bigger radiator - with this one the engine's running at 75 degrees. On the dyno , it loses 30 percent of its power when it goes from 60 degrees to 70. It's like you've taken away one cylinder." Suzuki (among others ) had mastered this problem, seldom straying above 65, while Schwantz's testing gave him th luxury of running strings of laps insi the record. "We know the bikes are gonna sliding around," he said. "I've finding out where it slides, and workin on making it controllable, and makin sure the front end doesn 't let go." He and Mackenzie had some new suspension parts, including revise linkages, and a stiffer unit, as well new expansion chambers that improv top end power. Unfortunately, thes had arrived only after the test session and in the end Schwantz decided to sti with the old setup, on the grounds 0 familiari ty. Rainey made a similar choice, an