Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

wanted to win this race. It's the most important race of my life," he said, after various officials, and at least one .police officer, had kissed his hand on the podium. In winning his fourth of five Grands Prix this year, Cadalora completed the 30-lap, '65-mile race in 39 minutes, 29.951 seconds at an average speed of 98.77 mph. He now leads Bradl 97-71 with 10 races remaining. Repsol Honda 's Carlos Cardus, sixth today, is third with 65. Thira went to Aprilia Valesi's Pier Francesco Chi li with fellow Apriliamounted Italian Loris Reggian i fourth . Dutchman Wileo Zeelenberg was fifth on the Samson Sharp Honda. The 125cc race was a runaw ay wi n for AGV Honda-Pileri Corse's Fausto Gresini. The 30-year-old Italian, who'd qualified on the pole, finished over 18 seconds in front of teammat e, and World Champion, Loris Capirossi, with Team ltalia's Alessa ndro Gramigni third. Gresini, who finished the 26-lap, 56.35-mile race in 36 minutes, 29.927 seconds at an average speed of 92.638 mph, leads Capirossi by four points, 71-67, in the World Championship. Hero Sports Nob oru Ve da, w ho Crashed today while in fourth pl ace, . is third with 55. Veda broke a bone in his right hand, injured his left kn ee, and had to undergo a CAT scan for possible head injuries. He is expected to compete in next week's German race. In the final race of the day , Steve Webs ter drove an d passenger Gavin Sim mons hung on for a 14-plus-second win - their third in a row - in the sidecar class to keep their perfect record [or 1991 in tact. - Second went to the Lucky Strike Streuer rig of Dutchman Egbert Streuer with American Pete Essaff the nonkey. It is bel ieved to be the first .ime an American has fin ished o n a iidecar podium. The Swiss G udel I For the second time in a row, John Kocinski finished second in Italy. Eddie Lawson was all smiles after putting the Cagiva on the rostrum in Italy. brothers were third on th e B.P . Racing team ent ry. Webster leads Gudel in th e standings 60-40. H e comp leted th e 26-lap, 56.35mile race a t an average speed of 96.234 mph in 35 minutes, 8.095 seconds. The morning warm- up wou ld prove to be om inous for both the Lucky Strike and Marlboro efforts. Schwantz was nearly a second and a ha lf off of h is qualifying mark and whe n he pulled in the problem becam e apparent. His back tire was leaking air. Still, his hand gestures to his crew su ggested a serious front end problem. . Kocinski was also well off his mark, the victim of a ch un ked rear tir e. Only Doohan would improve on his qualifying time, which gave little comfort to his competitors. To the utter satisfaction of the crowd, Lawson was first into the first tum and held the spot across the line to end the first lap . A few turns la ter and Rainey and Doohan were past and by the fourth lap Kocinski had joined them . Schwantz, meanwhile, was making up for a botched start, fini shi ng th e first lap in an uncharacteri stic l Oth, " T he bike j ust bogged," he would later say. "I don 't know if it was the jetting, but it seem ed fla t in th e race." Doohan was quickly up on Rainey as the Pair separated from Kocinski, himself abou t to break aw ay fro m Lawson. Fifth early on was de Radi gues, _ but Barros took the spot behi nd his teammate Lawson on the fifth lap. After that de Radigues faded to 11th before . being taken ou t by the crashing Adrien Moril1as near the end of the race. By the 10th lap, Rainey and Doohan had over five seconds on Kocinski who, in tum, was about 150 yards in front of Lawson. Five seconds back was Barros with Ruggia sixth being ch ased by Schwantz and Chandler, and' Garriga, ninth. Schwantz didn't appear to be making any progress and was sli theri ng wildly on acceleration as he tried to stay ahead of Chandler with a push ing front end and a tire about to chunk. " When I. got by Kevin and got in traffic that saved me, " Chandler said after he, too , had tire troubles. Doohan passed Rainey to start the 12th lap, bu t o n lap 14 Rainey was back in fro nt, th ou gh it was sh ort lived. Going up th e short stra igh t th at led to the fin al bend before the pi ts on the 15th lap, Rainey, in second, signall ed a ra di o -equ ipped crew mem ber that hi s rear tir e was bad. But wh en he got to th e pits , th e team was unprepared to change and didn't th ink he was going to re-join the race. " When I pul1ed in they didn't kn ow what was going on ," Ra in ey said; apparen tly his trouble wasn 't relayed to th e crew. " T hey sai d, 'What are you doing?' and I told them I needed a tire. T hey grabbed John 's back-up, just by accident, but then they pulled out the axle and lost th e spacer." By th e tim e he was back onto the track he wa s a li ttle over a lap down. On his second flying lap he turned a new lap record 1:15.982 and quickl y un-lapped himself. T he tire wou ld hold u p well to the end of the race. Every race we have new parts," he said. " We got some parts here that didn 't pan out li ke we wanted. We're dosing the gap slightly." . ' Between Ra iney and La\Vson on th e front row were Rainey's teammatejoh n., Kocinski. and Lucky Strike Suzuki's Kevin Schwantz. Kocinski ha d been fas test in th e first session, before qualif ying .122 seconds. behi nd Rain ey in the second. T he 23-year-old 250cc $orld Champion felt ham pered by a lack of dry practice time, but felt he kn ew the key to a fast lap. ''I'm just tryi ng to fin d a com bination that works for me, " he said. " T hese th in gs are not what I' m used to-. It j ust takes time: I' d like to ha ve im pro ved on th e time a nd on the bike. We'll try to ma ke the best guess for the morning warm-up andthe race and race it out wi th wh oever it's go ing to be," As far as tiirning in a fas t lap, Kocinski said tha t the fast turns here are where fast laps are made up. "The three turns for speed are at th e end of th e b~ckstrai ght. Most of the o ther turns are fi rst gear so you don't make u p time in them." Schwan tz (1:16.44 11102.256 mph ) agreed that th e . left l eadi ng o nto .t he ckstraig h t was critical as was the righ t-han d firs t turn. " As simp le as it seems; '·rI1P9Et3.nt to get it right to get a good lap ." . ... ie never-endi ng search for traction wa s Schwantz's consuming'passion in the se session and he did it by bringing in the front end off-set. "Today (Sa tu rda y) we. had a lot more con tact, better grip, more co n trol, especially from the rear. Looki?g auhe times in thedry ( ~he front ro w separated by .625 secs.) i t loo ks like i t could be a clos e, har htrace." And one of the ride { con sidered in the fray was fifth-fastest MickDoohan on the .. . Dootianhad had a number of problems, inc;l~ding a spark plug lead .that 6ime off iii the morning session, which slowed him. But he wasn't concerned: ."We're in the fifth position, but it 's nothing to worry about if i t's dry, " he said. ' . here he was having trouble was the crucial comer leading onto the kinked ackstraight "I'm just having problems with the drive getting on there," he said. ''The Yamahas are sliding, but they drive when I'm sideways." He also said he was getting "full-lock" thro ugh "the high-speed kink. "It's not doing the tires ) · or going straightaheadmuc h good." , " .., ... . Sixth-fast~st was Team Roberts Yamaha's Doug Chandler, a careerqllalifying; best after ,he made some adjustments to his riding. position, placing a pad on . the t3.nkto~eeBhimf r()m sliding forward. . Brazilian Alex Barros was seventh fastest on the Cagiva followed by Sonauto Yamaha's jean-Philippe Ru ggia and Belgian Didier de Radigues o n the second Lucky ike Suzuki. . . .. ' non-qualifiers was Rothmans Honda's Wayne Gardner, the victim Friday crash that saw him crack a bone in his right ankle. The Aus however, is expected to return for the Gerrnan(;p afterbeing fitted with a special boot. ........""""....._. ,"~~-- """'=...""~

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