Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

eROAD RACE e World Championship Road Race Series: Round 3 The restarted 250cc Grand Prix gets going at Laguna Sea International Raceway under cloudy skies. Cadalora stays perfect at Laguna Seca By Henny Ray Abrams Photos by Ken Faught and Abrams MONTEREY, CA, APR. 21 earl y perfect is the only way to des cr ib e Rothman s H ond a ' s Lu ca Cadalora 's season. Two pole positions, three fastest laps, three victories, and th e third here at Laguna Seca International Ra ceway was the most convinci ng. The 27-year-old Italian won th e red£lag inter rupted 250cc race on an intermittently sunny and cloud-filled day at the U.S. Gr and Prix and he did it in style. He won the first leg, sto pped after 15 lap s by a o ne-bike accident, and he won th e seco nd leg with a daring last lap pa ss and, therefor e, the overa ll, th ou gh fina l pl acin gs were decided o n combined times, not finishes, from the two legs. On aggregate time, Cadalor a was 6.074 seconds better than Dutchman Wil eo Zeelenber g o n th e Sa mso nSharp Honda with a resurgent Loris . Reggiani third overa ll on the Un limit ed Aprili a , n earl y nin e secon ds behind Zeelenber g. Zeel enberg fin ished second in both legs, Reggiani fourth and third. Fourth went to' Spa n iard Carlos Cardus on the Repsol H onda after su ££ering a rear brake failure in the first leg and comp lain ing of a botched star t by th e o££icials in the second leg. Fifth went to HRC's Masahiro Shimizu of j ap an. The top American was form er U.S. GP winner jimmy Fili ce, who fini shed N 10 16th o n th e Compagnucci-b ack ed Ga llina Yam ah a. Filice struggled with engine problems all weekend and it was no different in th e race. "The harder I tri ed, the worse it went," he said. . Cadalora comp leted the combined 30-lap, 65.88-m ile race in 45 minutes, 7.590 seconds at an average speed of 87.594 mph. With hi s thi rd win in a row , Cadalo ra strengthe ns hi s cham pions h i p position with 60 points to an equal 45 for.Zeelenberg an d Card us. Not since the late j arno Saa ri nen achieved the feat in 1973 has a rid er won th e first three 250cc GPs in a row. The race had been red-flagged wh en Briton Kevin Mit chell fell on th e 16th lap betw een the double-rights, turns three a nd four, hi s bik e coming to rest on the track. Mit chell was un injured, but race o££icials stopped the race to remove th e bike, a decision tha t dr ew mixed reviews. " I think if the service of the circ u it was quicker to take o££ the bi ke, it 's not necessary to sto p the race, " Cada lor a said. " Bu t in thi s condi tio n it is okay. It was a cri tical moment for me because I was ju st tryin g to pass slower rid ers." . " I cou ld see easy the bike. I had a good lin e o n th e left side of the track," . Zeelenberg said . Scoring was revert ed to the end of th e 15th lap with Cadalora holding a 5.689-second advantage on Zeelenberg. That meant that he need only finish within th at margin of Zeelenberg in the second leg, should Zeelenberg win , to secure the victory, but on the last lap he decided to attack. " Nor ma ll y I want to stay and keep second place," Cadalora said of his po siti on for mu ch of the second leg. " But o n the last lap I had o ne chance to win the race, so I tried. " Cadalora drafted pas t Zeelenb erg o n the run up the hill to the Corkscrew. Of the two races, the seco nd was clearl y the bett er, th ough the overall ou tcome was never in doubt. Cadalora made sure of that with hi s domination 'of the firs t 15 laps. Not the best of starters, Cadalora was an un characteristi c second after the first lap , trailing Zeelenberg and ahead of champio ns hip rival Cardus, Reggiani, HB Honda's Doriano Romboni, Val esi Racing's Pier-Francesco Chili, a nd Shimizu. HB Honda's Helmut Bradl compl eted the first lap in last place after running o ver th e fallen Marlboro T eam Agost in i Yamaha of Paolo Ca soli under th e Dunlop Bridge between turns three and four. Casoli was uninjured, but didn't cont inue. Bradl lost hi s right footpeg and bent his brak e shifter in the accident, but wou ld soldier on to a 12th pl ace fini sh. Cadalor a put his Erv Kanernotoprepped NSR -Honda out front on the second lap and gradually began pulling awa y from Cardus and Zeelenberg. By the fifth lap, he had close to a twosecond lead whi ch he was able to stretch at close to half a seco nd a lap. Earlier in the race weekend he'd complained that the surface was slip pery, a comment borne o ut by the slower times than in previous years. For the race, he'd fitted a softer front tire. Cardus led a pa ck of four in pursuit until the eig ht h lap when Zeelenberg moved past. Reg giani was a steady th ird with Chili an early fourth before fading behind Shimizu. In th e fin al third o f th e race, Zeelenberg was able to gain over two and hal£ seconds on Cardus who never was able to shake Reggiani. The reason, Cardus explained after the red £lag, was a broken rear brake caliper. All alone in fifth was Shimizu with Austrian Andy Preining sixth on a production Aprilia backed by O.K.M ., an Austrian men 's erotic magazine. Chili finished in Preining's shadow with Wimmer a lonely eighth followed at a distance by jochen Schmid on the Zwafink Honda. Between races, Kanemoto covered Cadalora's front tire with a tire warmer and replaced the rear. The team had gotten only two of that compound front and had used the other in Friday's practice forcing them to go the distance on the second tire. They also disassembled and checked the clutch. The fastest lap of the race, to that point, had been the 14th, with Cadalora's 1:28.912 under his qualifying tim e. No one would go faster in the second leg. The grid for the second leg was determined by first leg finishes with Cadalora on the pole joined on the . front row by Zeelenberg, Card us, Reggiani, and Shimizu. Thirty-one of the original 34 starters made the restar t. Zeelenberg again led the pack into tum one followed by Reggiani, Cadalora, Chili and Wimmer. Cardus, farther back, would later say he thought the rest of . the front row jumped the start and that he was expecting the start to be red-flagged at the end of the first lap, but it wasn't. (After the race none of the top three finishers agreed with Cardus about the botched start). . Cadalora slipped under Zeelenberg braking for the final turn II on the third lap with Zeelenberg taking it back a few turns later and Cadalora back on top in the Corkscrew. Reggiani was a close third with Chili leading Cardus, Shimizu, Bradl and Alex Criville on the Marlboro 11 Cobas Honda on the fifth lap. Cadalora was riding cautiously, protecting his margin, and not wanting to make a mistake. " For me it's very difficult to ride carefully," Cadalora said. "Sometimes if you want to go slower it 's more dangerous because your co ncentra tio n is lower." On the ninth lap of the second leg, 24th overall, Zeelenberg drafted into the lead going up the turn seven hill with Cadalora not letting him get away and Reggiani holding a close third. Two laps later, the lead duo was over two seconds ahead of Reggiani who, in turn, had close to 6.5 seconds on Cardus, himself holding o££ Shimizu, and Bradl, with Wimmer another six seconds back. . Chili was forced to drop out on the 26th lap when he dislodged two vertebrae in his back. He 'd done the same thing aboard a 500 in last year 's West German GP and, like there, he had to be lifted off the machine when he rolled -int o his tent. Doctors were summoned and screams could be heard inside the tent as he was tended to. The last lap began with Zeelenberg in the lead and ended with Cadalora in front after his pass leading to the Corkscrew. Reggiani would' finish third ah ead of Cardus, Bradl , Shimizu, Wimmer, Criville, and Preining. " I tried going in front after thinking about the advantage from the first 'rnanche' and thought, 'Okay, wait,' " Cadalora said . Zeelenberg found it easier to follow Cadalora in ' the second leg knowing that he wasn't running at full throttle. "Luca already made easy 29s in the first leg," said Zeelenberg, whose best lap of 1:29.054 came on the 27th lap. " The

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