Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

From th e third lap on, his sixth place went un challenged to the flag, but he . stressed that he expec ts mor e from himself and the team in races to com e: " With these guys (Cagiva) you can change things o vernight. There are no committ ee meetings. I'v e never had so many people 100% behind me," he said, adding that he'd be getting some new motor parts for the upcoming Australian GP. just ahea d of Lawson, Ga rd ner was a lso riding a lo ne having to d rop off the pace wh en hi s right wrist began to th rob from the pain. "I was losing stre ngth in my wrist and I cou ldn 't handle the throttle and brake wh en it swelled up, " Gardner said. " After my cras h in practice a nd thinking about my wrist I decided to take fifth today. At least we pi cked up some points." . Aside from h is wrist, Gardner suffered fuel delivery problems tha t made hi m thin k he was ru nn ing out of gas on the front straightaway. By the 10t h lap it was obvious that it was a four-rider race with Doohan in th e lead a head of Ra in ey and Koci nski, who in turn led Schwantz by less tha n a second. . From the sixth lap on Kocinski was having trouble seeing. The problem , he explained, was that as he began to sweat th e inside of his visor misted up. " It 's like somebody sprayed Windex on it," he said. " I co uldn 't see th e brake marker, I co u ld n' t see nothing. I didn 't want to do anything stupid." . Eventually, Kocinski would relinquish third to Sch wan tz, but he hung tough and it took a concerted effort on the part of the T exan to get past. T he pa ce was in the lo w 2:12s, a second or more off th e qualifying pace, but quickening as th e race progressed. "I was getting pretty upset and th in king that I wouldn 't be o n the rostrum," Schwantz said. "The biggest th ing was th e front end. It was hopping around q ui te a bi t in the fast corners. I had to ma ke up fo r the to p spee d th ese guys had o n me by coming out of the corners harder. " H is fastest lap , a 2:11.307, wo uld com e o n the 16th wh en he bega n to mak e his move to the front. O n th e 17th lap he passed Kocinski, Rainey a lap later, and Doohan, for the lead , on the 19th . "I was able. to wat ch th e other g uys to see wher e I co uld mak e tim e o n them," Schwantz said. " I managed to find so me little things with corne ring lin es that I could do to ride ro und th e problems - going in deeper, leanin g th e bike o ver for a short time, then pi cking it u p to ge t a good dr ive and make up for the spee d difference." Rainey saw Schwan tz's pass as a sort of wa ke-up ca ll. " We were do ing a nice comfo rtable pace then I saw Kevin (Sch wantz) and Doohan go by and I though t th ey were sitting o n me to see wh ere I was strong and weak ," Raineysaid, but he was un abl e to stop them. . "T he gea rbox and front forks were changed, a lo ng with the rear suspen sion and ride height. Basically, we had a new bik e toda y." Schwantz held the lead sta rting the fina l lap wi th Doohan o utbraking h im go ing into turn one as Rainey and Kocinski trai led. Doo han appeared to be protesti ng the inside line, th ough Schwantz was actuall y tighter to th e apex. with Ra iney making more of a n arc in the corn ers. Going into the lefthand Spoon Curve, Schwantz slipped by on the in sid and held th e lead for the run up to th e fourth -gear left-h and kink. " It's an important bend becau se the drive you get from there to the chicane can rnak e a lot of difference;" Schwantz said. It's a lso the sam e corn er that Doohan took Lawson out of last year's japanese GP when he go t sucked int o the draft. This year he wou ld aga in ' try to mak e his move th ere. But wh en Doohan went up the inside of Schwantz, hi s momentum carried him across th e tra ck and up th e cu r b a llo wi ng Schwantz to keep the lead. At that point all the T exan had to do wa s protec t th e inside going into the chicane and the race would be his. " I got into th e fast left too fast," Doohan said. "A nd I nearly ended up third." Instead he would finish his first race at Suzuka and take second, only .204-ofa-second behind Schwantz with Rainey .149-of-a-second behind Doohan and Kocinski another .203 behind Rainey. No boru Veda (56) p u lled awa y from Fausto Gresini to score the 125cc win. Sch wan tz (34) bolted into the lead at the start of the first 500cc GP of the seaso n. Doug Chandler bettered his lap times with each lap on his wa y to finishing lIth. Schwantz fastest - wet and dtY-_ _ hro ug h two wet qualifying session s Kevin Sch wantz (right) was easily the fastest ri der, but a rare burst of su nsh ine on Saturday afternoon dried the track and meant the pole po sition would be decided in the final, and only dry , 4O-minu te sessio n. No ma tter to the 26-yearold T exan . T houg h he didn 't come close to Rainey's qualifyin g record of two min utes, 9.5899 seconds, Schwa ntz took h is first j a panese G P pole wit h a ti!lle of 2:11.948 (99.33 m ph) late in the dry session, " I' m a little su rprised," Schwa ntz sai d. "I was concerned tha t with on ly one dry session and the way we're deve lo ping the new bike that we might struggle a bit." T he biggest problem, he found, was a front end that wanted to move around in the corners a t both ends of the track, Schwantz was bothered most by: "The first turn (a double-apex, third-and-secondgear left ) and Spoon (a second-gear right-hander that sees the riders downshiftin g from fifth gear ). It was too soft a front fork sprin g and when I pitched it in it wa nted to hop aro und. T here were a coup le of pl aces wh ere the rear en d moved around, but itdidn 't seem worse th an anyo ne else's." Everyon e was ada p ting to the new FIM weight m inim um , the Suzuki hardest hit having to add 33 pou nds. " We tr ied the same settings as las t year, bu t it j ust was n' t poss ible," Schwant z said. "The biggest thi ng is getting everything set up ri ght. " - ' To get th e heavier Suzuki sto p ped, Schwantz had the excl us ive use of a new set of AP six-piston ca lipers to clamp do wn on the carbon brakes whic h Schwantz was usin g wit h vented covers. "1£ the tem perature is nice and cool, the pace cou ld be eq ual to q ualifying, or maybe faster," Schwantz said. T Gardner, Lawson and Garriga were the next three finishers, a ll we ll separated wi th Campsa Honda 's Sito Pons eig h th , Aji nomoto Honda 's J apa nese 500cc Champ ion Kenic hiro Iwah ashi a close n inth, and Alexa ndre Barros 10th o n th e ' second Cagiva a head of Chandler. Sonauto Mob il I Yam ah a' s Adrien Morillas was 12th, his teammat e J eanPhi lippe Ru ggia having cras hed o n the 14th lap wi th th e Lu cky Strike Suzukis of Kevin Magee and Didier de Radi gu es 13th and l-lth, respectively. Magee was o n a 1990 model bike o n wh at will likely be h is o nly a ppear- ance this year fo r the team . De Radigu es was slowed by a front tire prob lem almost from the outset. " What happen ed today is that they were ready to race in th e dry a littl e better than I was," Ra iney remarked, adding that his machine was undergeared and overrevving at the end of the straights. " It was revved out and wanted to come around when I shut it off," he said . " 1£ I tri ed not to get off th e corne r too hard it was o kay, but I'd los e co rne r speed . I wa s struggl ing the whole time." It would hav e been hard for the 250cc race to match the 500s, but it nearly 7

• Cover