Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

can run him down here," he said , confidently. Kocinski stuffed h is way past a host of h is elders in tum II to end the opening lap and quickly set his sights on Schwantz, By the third lap, the Arkansas native was on the Texan 's rear wheel and in tum II he dove up the inside and made his pass. At the end of the fourth lap, Little John was 2.93 seconds beh ind his teamma te. A lap later he was 3.4 seconds dow n, and moments later he was out, exiti ng in a sprawl of arms and legs as he suffered his firs t beating at th e hands of a 500. Schwan tz was balked by both man and machine as th e two parted com- pany right in front of hi m. " I ha d to decide wh ich way to go; th e dirt or between hi m and the bike," Schwantz said. " It was kin d of a panic situation." Doohan was now the man on the move, after getting squeezed out by the charging Kocinski in tum II at the end of the ope ning lap. "John (Kocinski) came by in II , and Wayne (Gardner) and Eddie (Lawson) came pas t when I was pushed wide," Doo han said. The Australian quickl y moved past first Gardner, an d then La wson as he bega n his ru n at Schwa ntz w ho, although he was wearing a speciallypai nted cam ouflage helmet in honor of those who fought in th e Gulf War , Rainey- steals IWle in lastsession The 500cc GP pack makes its way ou t of turn th ree and und er the bridge, with Wayne Rainey already leading Kevin Sch wan u and the rest of the field. Wayne Gardner's (5) Honda paints a black stripe in Laguna's turn 10 as he tries to keep J.P. Ruggia (8), Eddie Lawson (7) and Alexandre Barro s (12) behind hi m.. 1'R.l'i"",",~"''' than Iiis teamnlate: " I'm tired of all tliis bad luck," Kocinski said. "Something' s always stritcing us down. I wem out in the last session with new pistons, did seven break -in laps and a coup le not too hard. Then I went hare for two laps and did a 27 flat on old tires. I stopped, put th e new tires on and when I got down the bottom here it just wem 'brrrr, brrrr.' t thought it was going tel quit. After that I was in and out of the pits for the rest of the session." Third quickest was Team Lucky Strike Suzuki's Kevin Schwantz, who was unable to better his time set on Friday, a 1:26.582. "I think it'll probably be a dose race," Schwanu said. "It's 35 laps and I need to have an easy bike to ride. I've got a few things to try in the morning and hopefully we can run up front. If we can't, I'll finish as good as I can and take the points and go to Europe." Schwantz hasn't been able to win a race -at Laguna Seca despite eight years of trying: " It 's just a challenge at this point," he said. "This is my n inth year and I haven 't won here - I' ll jus t keep trying. There's no jinx. " The fourth and final rider on the front row was Rothmans Honda's Michael Doohan, the first Michelin man at 1:27.095. Doohan and the rest of the Michelin users were having trouble finding a front tire with a compound soft enough to heat up, and he was experimenting with ha nd-cut patterns design ed to get heat into the from tire. " We've still got some changes to make, bu t cons istency- w ise w~'re no t too bad." Doohan, whose Rothmans team, unlike the Marlboro Yamaha and Lucky Stri ke Suzuki teams, didn't have a pre-season test here. said . " We didn't really have time to do the changes we needed to so there wasn't m uch point in com ing in - I just stayed out there putting laps on the tires. I'm sure I can go faster tomorrow. It'll be tough to win here, but I'U give it my best shot," Doohan said his biggest problem was holdin g a tight line around Lagu na . "We've been making progress, but when we start going a bit q uicker it (the problem) comes back. I may try gearing it down to get it to slide coming ou t of th e corners." Doohan, like the rest of the fron t row, was using carbon-fiber front brake disc . s "I would have liked to have tried steel here - I' m running out of brakes in . two with the carbons." Leading the second row was Cagiva's Eddie Lawson, another Michelin user having problems getting traction, most notably with the front tire. Lawson turned a 1:27.141 in the second session to secure the fifth fastest time. Doohan's teammate Wayne Gardner (1:27.513) was sixth, Cagiva's Alexandre Barros (1:27.684) seventh with Sonauto Yamaha's Adri an Mori llas (1:28.045), Ducados Yamaha 's J uan Garriga (1:28.150), and Sonauto Yamaha's Jean- Philippe Ruggia (1:28.276) rounding out the top 10 qualifiers. Arneri~s Dollg Chandler; Rich Ol iver and Robbie Petersen q ualified ~I,il, 14th and 15th, respectively. couldn 't hide. O n the 21st lap . he snuck by an d q uick ly left Schwa ntz behind, ending any drama over second p lace. "I didn't have it workin g good enough to beat Mi ck (Do o ha n)," Schwantz said . "It just wasn ' t quite right, I tried to stay with h im, but the front end was chattering so I decided to settle in and see what ha ppened." At that point, all attention focused on the battle for fourth place. The spot was held initially by Lawson with Gardner in tow. Ruggia, though, was battlin g thro ugh and gaining consid· · erable ground on th e pair. G oing a lmost unnot iced in a ll this was Barros, who had ended the first lap in 10th place. By .lap I I the four were togeth er, with Gardner now lead in g La wson, Ruggia and Barros. On the 14th lap, Ru ggia got by La wson and five laps later did the same to Gardn er. On ce past, Ruggia opened u p a cus hion tha t he would hold to th e fin ish line. Barros th en asserted himself, passing both th e former Worl d Cha mpions in front of him. Gardner then started a steady fade that saw him fin ish some 7

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