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eROA RACE D e World Cham~ionship Road Race Series: Round 4 The Spanish 500cc GP gets underway with Wayne Rainey (1) leading Mid Doohan (3), John Kociriski (19) and the rest. Rainey ( 1) and Kocinski ( 19) battled, but it was Kocinski who came out on top. Doohan just fine in Spain By Henny Ray Abrams JEREZ, SPAIN, MAY 12 0th mans Honda's Michael Doohan called the 500cc title the "American Championship" and he 'wan ts nothing more than to win it. And to prove it he went ou t an d won the Spanish Gra nd Prix before 220,000 su n-drenched fans who packed the hillsides of the demanding Jerez circuit in sou th ern Spain, and .took R 14 over the lead in th e 500cc World Championship. " It was good to get it out of the way," the 25-year-old Australian said after win ni ng his second career Grand Prix. "I saw Wayne' s (Rainey) tires goi ng off, bu t I was concentrating on my tires. I pushed a while, bu t o nce through I tried to conserve them." Rainey's 'tro ubles didn 't end with Doohan , though. His upstart teammat e John Kocinski du eled with him most of the race, taki ng over second for th ree laps midrace then aga in for the final three to take second - his best career 500cc fin ish - 9.920seconds beh ind Doohan. Rainey was three and a half seconds beh ind Kocinski, but well in front of the popular fourthp lace Spaniard Juan Garriga of the Ducados Yam ah a team and Son au to Yamaha's Jean-Philippe Ruggia in fifth. What slowed the World Champion was a front tire problem he'd never seen before. "We had an air pocket that bled over the right side of th e sidewall. It was a problem in right-handers, which is most of the track," th e 30-year-old Californian said . "I could 'still push it with the weight on the front, then the rear slid around. I was almost on the ground a few times in the slow corn ers and thought it would be stupid to do it in the slow turns." Kocinski .was ha ppy with his second place finish , especially in view of his last race crash in the USGP at Laguna . Seca. "It was a real long race and I was just glad to finish," he said . " Gettin g 17 po ints is a whole lot better than crashing." The 23-year-old Modesto, California, resident said he couldn't tell for su re where Doohan was getting ' away from him because , he said : "It's on ly my fourth ride. I'm just concen trating on what I'm doing. All my concentra tion is on staying up and gett ing a resu lt." After th e fourth round of the World Championship, Doohan leads Rainey, 71-70. Kocinski is fourth ~ith 45 points, one beh ind Lucky Strike Suzu ki's Kevin Schwan tz who had a day to'forget. Never really in the hunt, Schwantz was a fadi ng fourth when " the engine suddenly lost pow er," on the II th lap. He contin ued on for one more lap before p ulli ng in to find he'd burned a hole th rou gh the top of a piston. Sixth place went to Eddie Lawson who 'd ru n as high as fourth before being slowed with an ailing en gine. His crew suspected it to be a power valve probl em. " It 's too bad because fourth place was ou rs for sure and then ~ th e mo tor seemed to quit," the 31-yearold four-time World Champion said. Behind Lawson ca me another form er World Champion battling a sick motorcycle, Wayne Gardner on th e Ro thmans Honda, with Belgian Didier de Radigues just behind on the Lu cky Strike Suzuki. Frenchman Adri an Morillas was ninth on the Sonauto Yamaha after a race-long battle with Doug Chandler, lOth on th e unsponsored Roberts Yamaha. Because he never got the setup right in practice, Chandler was fighting his machine almost from the start. "I had a pretty good three laps, then it wore me out," th e 25-year-old .Californ ian said. " I didn't have too much sidegrip and I was constantly fighting it. I couldn't hold onto it. At the end I didn't have th e power to brake into the corner." Doohan set a new race record of 52 minutes, 42.650 seconds for the 74-mile race a t an average speed of 86.522 mph. An in dication of how quickly the tires went off was the fastest lap of the race: It went to Rainey on the second go around and was a 1:47.15 (87.681 mph) over half a second better than Doohan's best of th e previous year. Doohan's best was on the fourt h lap. Rothman Honda's Luca Cadal ora's perfect season cam e to an end at J erez, though not without a struggle. The 27-year-old Italian was one of four riders to lead the 24-lap 250cc Grand Prix, but across the line he was second best. HB Honda's Helmut Bradl beat him to it by .451 seconds after Cadalora, running second a t th e tim e, nearl y crashed on th e fin al lap. It was Bradl 's first GP win after coming 'close on several occasion s and he was overwh elmed by it. " It's in describable," the 20-year-old German said. "I can't believe it. I' m the first over the line for the first time in my life. I risked more on the last lap than an y race before and thought that if I had any chance to win the champio nship, I'd have to win this race." Cadalora made no apo logies for his finish: " It's th e right thing that he wins this race," he began. " Many times I try to win, I'm near crash and it was too much to do in this race. I try to win but it is impossible." Third, for the second race in a row, was Loris Reggiani on the everimproving Aprilia. Reggiani twice led before falli ng back to third late in the race when his rear tire went completely off. "After 10 laps the tire started to go away and the last five laps was terrible," he said. H RC' s Masahiro Shimizu was fourth, just ahead of the Aprilia' of Pier-Fra ncesco Chili. Spaniard Carlos Cardus was sixth on the Repsol Honda after running off the track on the second lap trying to avoid the falling Wileo Zeelenberg. Brad l completed the 62.91·mile race in a record 44 minutes, 22.22 seconds, averaging 85.12 mph. He also seta new lap record of 1.50.002 on the final lap. Cadalora still holds a commanding points lead over Cardus, 77-55, with Bradl third at 54 and Reggiani fourth with 48. The titl e chase in the 125cc class is cons iderably closer with the top three riders within five points of each other after today's race. Hero Sport Honda's Noboru Ueda won the race, but onl y after race-leader Ezio Gianola suffered a piston failure on his Derbi with less