Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

(From left to right) Four-time World Ch ampion Eddie Lawson, first-time GP winner Michael Doohan, and championship runner-up Kevin Schwantz celebra te, Joh n Kocinski was unstoppable in Hungary as he won his sixth 250cc Grand Prix of the season. He is five points behind Carlos Cardus with on e round left, begun virtually fro m th e tim e the riders arrived at the track, about 10 miles outsi de of the Hungari an capital of Budapest. When free practice began on Thursday, the riders stayed out for the full hour, but on th eir first pit stops all had the same feeling: It 's okay to ride on , but not to race on. In addition to the surface problems , the riders also felt that the track layout didn't suit the brutal horsepower of th e mod em 500. It was a sto p-and-go circuit, th ey said, an d they were using second, thi rd, and fourth gea rs, mostly, using fifth gear on ly bri efly. Such tracks generally suit the quicksteering Suzuki, bu t it was the Honda of Ooohan that was fastest from th e first session to th e last, improving with every outing until achiev ing a pole pos itio n tim e of 1:43.971, averaging 85.375 mph. It was Doohan's second career po le (his first was last year a t J erez) and th e soft-spoken Australian was at a loss to explain it. " I think . . . I think . . . I don't know what to th ink," he began. "It's just coping with the bumps on the circuit a lot better. For some reason ' it's allowing me to put the gas on over the bu mps. I can't say I'm doing this or doing that. We just put some CR (motocross) suspension on it and went from there ." Despi te having set fast time , 000han 's opinion of the tra ck hadn 't cha nged. " It's not really a race track. There's a bridge there that they would peel you ore of if you hit it," he said, addi ng that, sinc e they were there, the rid ers had an obligation to the fans , the sponsors, and th e te lev is io n cont racts. Second-fast est Lawson (I :44.546) agreed with Doohan that the rid ers had an obilgation to race, but added that " if they want us to race next year they sho u ld definitely resurface the whol e track. "T he th ing is here you've got to hold th e bik e up with the spring, but damping is so criti cal - if you' re on e click out on rebound or compression you 're out of the ball park," he said . " But if we can get the front as good as we've got th e rear , we'll be in there." Just behind Lawson came Schwantz, denied h is eighth pole pos ition for two very good reasons. O ne was tha t he wasn' t concentrat ing as intently as normal because of the safety issues and, secondly, the quick-trigger Suzu ki was spinning even more . violently than usual due to the bumps. " I'm taking it easier than I normally do," Schwantz said. " I haven't had my head in practice the whole tim e. It's not really th e suspension, it' s the pow er the bike puts out. Seventy-five Lawson (I) leads Wayne Gardner (10) earl y in the 500cc GP. Lawson went on to finish second with Gardner, still nursing a sore wrist, finishing fourth, percent of the tim e the bike is spi nni ng here real hard in the second and th ird gear co rners . It 's been kin d of a struggle to get the bike to ride over the bumps so we're loo kin g for a happy medium ." Newl y-crow ned World Champion Rainey was a t the far end of the fron t ro w, relaxed that the championship was over and able to test some new engine parts in pr actice, a luxury he didn' t have du ring his championship drive . "The new engi ne is good in some parts, bu t it still needs som e work," he said. Rain ey was tryi ng a cylinder spec th at he'd used in the wet in Belgium to give more bottom end and more overrev, along with a lighter cra nk. Lawson had tried the cylinders in Brno, an d they have been modified since then for mo re overrev. " It 's quite a different situatio n than I've been in a ll year." Rainey said. " I still want to go out and win ." The second row was led ore by French veteran Sarron, com peting in hi s last European GP in a career that started in 1977. There was some worry that the 35-year-old Frenchman would , try to go ou t in a blaze of glory and suffer for it and he adm itted that he cou ldn't resist the temptation. Tenth fastest go ing in to the last session, he tu rn ed up the heat toward the end of qualifying and jumped to fifth with two smooth, yet quick laps . "All week everybody 's been telling me to take it easy, but in the last session I couldn't help trying a few fast laps," he said with a smi le. Next to Sarron was another rider who may have been in h is last European GP. With Cagiva pulling ou t, Mamola is looking for a ride, though the prospect s aren' t excee d ingly bright. But it didn't stop the team from continui ng its technical developm ent and the Cagiva sported a fairi ng tha t had two-inch long slots cut int o it to aid in coo ling and mak e it easier to change dir ection. Mamola has al so go ne to the Gardner-used brak e setup of one carbon, one steel. The team chose to use the conventional aluminum frame, however, because there wasn 't enough time to sort ou t th e suspension on the new carbon-fiber model. Seventh-fastest was Niall Mackenzie, stru ggling like all the others with th e bumps, but glad to be getting all th e best .Michelin tires from the start of practi ce. Mackenzie, though he missed th e first two races, is protecting fourth place in the championship, a finish th at would be a career-best and an asset in landing a rid e for next year. But he said he wasn ' t willing to take an y risks and it was also know n tha t he was su fferi ng from tom muscl es in his upper right ar m. T he rid er just behind Mackenzie in the points standings a lso happened to , be just behind him in qualifying. Gardner had a physical problem of his own - a broken scaphoid in his righ t hand - and th e constant braking and turning of the Hungaroring not on ly increased .the pain, but a lso increased the swelling which cut off circulation to his hand causing a loss of feeling. Any hope Gardner had for a' good fini sh was left on the Bmo circuit when he crashed twice in practi ce. " I can' t hang onto the thing around here," Gardner said. " Bmo is more like a motorway and you have tim e to rest. Here it 's a lot of work and a lot of hard braking. Two laps is a long hard way for my wr ist; 28 is goi ng to be a long job. " In addition, Gardner had received 27 micro-in jections into h is arm to con tro l the swell ing. Of the top rid ers, Gardner was' th e least cri tica l of the tra ck surface. " I don 't see the bumps as hazardou s as dan ger goes. I th ink Laguna Seca is a lot more hazardous to rider safety," he said, co nt in ui n g h is co ns ta n t criticism of the Monterey track. The third row was led off by Spaniard Garriga followed by Englishman Carl Fogarty on the RO C Honda, jean-Phillippe Ruggia and Campsa Honda 's Sito Pons . Fogarty found it amusing that he was in a riders meet ing discussing track safety when earlier this su mmer he'd raced to victory on the Isle of Man . Ru ggia said the race would be like a " body-bu ilding session" and Pon s found that he still wasn 't in the proper physical sha pe to be muscling a 500. Twenty -one riders would start the race. 500cc G P After five sigh ting laps the riders assembled on the gri d to discuss their opt ions. T hey'd found th e track in mu ch better shape tha n in the morning, mostly because it was dry and the sidecars had swept most of the oil-dry off. But it was that morning session that had changed Rainey's mind on the front brakes. On a wet track, using . In term ediates, Rainey had chosen the more appropriate iron discs in the morning warm-up. He left them on for the race, a decision that would prove his ul timate undoing. Ra iney jetted into the lead followed by Lawson , Schw an tz, Gardner and Ooo han. Positions shuffled th e first few laps ' and on the sixth th e race was set, Rainey was in front turning laps in the low to mid I:45s and holding a two-second lead on Ooohan, wh o, in turn, was about four seconds in front of Lawson. Even then Rainey was ha ving trouble with th e front end pushing and was unable to p ut addi tional spa ce on Ooohan. Just behind th e leading trio , Gardner was try ing to hold back Schwantz, but his hand was going numb and he had to take it, off the , handlebar to shake life into it. Sarron led Mackenzie and Fogarty, but wou ld p u ll out when he real ized he'd made a bad choice on the rear tire. Schwantz dropped Gardner a spot on the lOth lap, moving into fourth, but wi th lit tl e hope o f catching Lawson . "We were stru ggling ear ly on and again at the end," Schwantz would later admit. At the halfway point in th e 28-lap race, Doohan out-raced Ra in ey to the first tum, taking advan tage of Rainey's

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