Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

automatically installed a new rear, but puzz led Du n lo p techn ician s were unable to find a ny fault with the discarded cover. ' This left Juan Garriga to six th, after he'd broken free from the next gr o up , wi t h Do ug Chandler a n other 15 seco nds adrift in seventh after another strong but steady ri de. " I was going good, then I started to ge t so me chatter fro m the rear at abo ut half-distance, and I though t I'd better back off." But he finished safely, the last rider o n the sa_ me lap as th e leaders. H is Du nl o p ha d " la mi na ted", one that slipped th ro ugh th e new quality con tro l net. Didi er de Ra di gues was eigh th on th e second Lucky Strike Suzuki , reporting tir es that slid too much and a front bra ke h ydrau lic problem tha t had the lever co mi ng back to the bars. H e was 35 seconds a head of Kocinski in ninth. I E d d ie Laycock was 10th , a nd Michael Rudroff was four seco nds ahead of Papa's Cagiva at the finis h . There was on ly one retiremen t Adri en Morillas burbled into the p its with engi ne trouble wi th 25 la ps left. On gross points, Doohan now has 126 to Rainey's III and Sch wantz 's 90. Drop th e worst two sco res a nd it is a lot closer - Doohan ha s 94, Ra iney 89, Schwantz 81, Kocinski 69, and Lawson 60. 250cc GP Bradl from sta rt to fin ish - a yell ow streak that led the first la p by alm ost a second, survived a big slide that all o wed Chili to catch up to wi th in TwO tenths, then ope ned up again to draw a head to a lmost eigh t seconds a t the finish. Itwas a performance worthy of Freddie Spencer in hi s 1985 da ys of 250 class su premacy , especially a t a track wh ere it is mor e usual to have a pack of 10 or more bikes toget her. H is perfo r m a n ce prevented th is happen i ng even in t he battle fo r seco nd, a parade of changing fortunes tha t eventually yielded a lap reco rd for victor Cardus. Chil i had led the pursuit at first, wi th Zeelenberg, Reggia n i a nd Cadalora hanging on beh ind, and Preining coming th ro ugh on the second lap to join th e train. The Austrian priva teer's strong performa nce came to a premature end when his engine went sick , and he p u lled into the pits pu nchin g the air in fru stration. Reggiani had been u p to th ird, then he dropped to six th af ter leaving his braking too late and running straigh t at the chicane. Then in the closing la ps a sparkin g plug came adrift, a nd he drop ped to an eventual eigh th. And a ll the w h i le Ca r d u s wa s coming, p icking his way thro ugh fro m 12th on lap one af ter getting a way slowly with a slippin g cl u tch until he arrived with the serious chargers o n lap seven , the record lap. He passed Reggiani before the Italian started having trouble, and with 10 laps left was a strong element i n a definitive three-strong group, exchanging places with Zeelenberg and .Chili as the slipstream advantage passed from one to the other. In the closing stages, the Hondas seemed to have the legs' on the Aprilia , and it was between him and Zeelen berg. The Dutchman explained. " My bike was a bit faster, but lacked some acceleration, as in Hockenheim. H e passed me on the straight, and I drafted him up the hill. I thought I co uld get back at him in the last right-ha nder before the Esses, but he left h is braking so late that even though I was inside, I couldn't pass him. He was sliding around a lot, but he was in front." By just three-tenths across the line, with Ch ili nine-tenths further back. Some way back, Cadalora was su ffering from a rare error by Erv Kanernoto's team. H e had asked them to gear the bike u p before the race , but instead of a 17· tooth fro nt sprocket, mech an ics ins talled a lfi-toother, and he j ust di dn't ha ve the speed to keep . up. " I kn ew fro m th e start that I was in trouble," he sai d, a nd he did well to hang o n to fifth. Shimizu was six th, after triumphing in a race-lo ng battle with Jochen Schmid ; the n came the lim p ing Reggiani. Alex Cri ville was the winner of a race- lo ng dice with Stephan Prein. T hey had been together wi th Rombo ni, but the Italia n cras hed on the fifth la p, unhurt. Casoli's Yam aha was a lon e l Ith, while Ap rilia -rnoun ted Harald Eckl was the wi n ner of a fierce five-bi ke battle that ra ged all race long. Wimmer was next, th en Eer o Kor p iaho (Ap rilia), with Corrado Ca talano taking the last point from Fausto Ricci's Yamaha a nd European cha m p io nsh ip charger Eric Suter. Wimmer' s fin ish came after a heroi c ride from dead las t. "T he bike was o n one cylinder on the warm-up lap," he said. "The n I go t a message on the start line from my mech anics th a t they ha d for go tten to con nect the powervalve ba ttery. I couldn't do anything a bo u t it then , so I ha d to sto p at the first ch icane and plug it in . I was geared tall for slipstreaming, wh ich was a probl em because I was rid in g alone for the who le race." And slicing past two or thre riders at a tim e, an e impressive display. Net points m ust send a chill down ear ly title leader Cadalo ra 's sp ine. He now has 97, but Bradl has 94. Cardus is th ird on 79, Zeelenberg has 75, and Reggi ani 62. 125cc GP The first race of the day , run in ben evolent su ns hine, was the fami lia r 125cc thriller, 22 nail -bi ting laps with the issue in doubt until the last corners, and grou ps of any thing fro m six to 12 bikes jostli ng for position over th e hill and through the ch ica nes. German GP winner Ralph Waldmann had clai med pole in practice from Loris Capirossi, Gabriell e Debbia, Heinz Leuthi a nd Fausto G resini, wit h bar ely four- tent hs coveri ng fro m first to fifth , and the first 14 ri ders within the same second. Italian GP inj ury vict im Nob oru Veda, still leading the Wo rld Champ ionship' on net points, was back, pronounced 90 percent fit by Dr. Costa, but sti ll tro u bled by h is right hand inj ury (it hurt under acceleration, but not braking, he said la ter ). Ca p irossi led th e first three laps fro m Gresini , with Wa ldma nn third, but Veda was sh rugging off th e pain and workin g his way through from a sixth p lace start. He made most ground on the run u p th e hill , usin g his non-HRC Honda's power a nd th e slips tream of th e others to pick up place after pl ace, a nd mo ving into the lead o n lap five, up a t the front yet again on another track he had never seen before. At this stage, the front-runners were a litt le spaced o ut, but the nature of the tra ck meant tha t th e issue wasn 't settled, and over th e next three laps, Waldma nn had th e crowds on the hillsides cheering as he worked hi s way through. He was seco nd on lap seven, and took th e lead on the run over th e hill next tim e ro und, with firecra ckers a nd rockets signalling his success. No w it seemed that th e German a nd the J apanese wo u ld co ntin ue to pull away fro m the pursu it , led by Capiro ssi from Dirk Raudies, Gresini, Heinz Leuthi and Hans Spaan. But this was an illusion, for Capirossi's bike was West German Helmut Bradl won th e Austri an off song, a nd he was holding the others up. First Ra udies a nd Gresini wen t by, then Spaan, Peter Oett l and Jorge Martinez, riding a standard Honda after splitting wi th the 11 Cobas Honda team. Now th e lea ding grou p of fo ur started to bunch up, with G resin i moving past Veda into second o n lap 12, and Ra udies ha nging on beh in d. And so it went to the finish, with Waldmann: leadi ng every lap except the only one that really mattere d. That went to Gresini, after a las t- lap battle that was fittingly exciting for suc h a good race. The drama sta rted a t the first ch icane. Veda had grabbed the lead, but he ran into the chicane too fast, went dirt-tracking, a nd slo wed Waldma n n and Gresini as he fought to regain con tro l. Then G resini surged into th e lead up th e hill , using the full speed of his Pil eri Honda for th e first time ' all race. Veda wasn 't beaten yet, a nd a ttemp ted a n almost suicida l run round th e o utsi de of the long and fast 180-degr ee Fahrerlager Curve, the last bend befo re the final Esses. Sudden ly, his machin e slid and flicked, and he almost fell as G resin i a nd Waldmann moved deci sively a hea d. The Italian he ld th e advantage to the flag, with Waldmann second by less than five- hundredt hs of a second, a nd Ve da less than half-a-second beh ind. In the closi ng laps, the experienced Spaan ha d a lso step ped up hi s pace, a nd had closed r ight up on Rau dies, fa iling to seize fourt h p lace by a ten th. Close behind, Capiros si led Martinez a nd Stadler across the line in less time than it takes to read th eir names, with Le uthi n inth and Oettl lOth. The ba ttle for the last points was an epic, wi th I I bikes atta cking th e fina l ch icanes two a nd three abreast, and o n ly a m iracl e preventing a mu l tiple pile-u p . Alessandro Grami g ni was II th , with J apan 's Wakai next , then O liver Petruccian i, Maurizio Vita li , a nd Fr en chma n Allain Bronec taking th e las t point. Capirossi still leads the titl e o n total points, but discarding the two worst scores sees Gresini take the lead, with 74 points. Veda' has 70, Ca p irossi 69, Wa ldmann 57 and Lu eth i 43. Spaan is nirith on net poin ts with 37, seven th o n gross. ~Occ GP by eight seconds. Sidecar GP Steve Webst er qualified o n pole, with Alain Michel alo ngside, Ro lf Biland third, and th e Egloff brothers fourth. Ra in had spoiled their last two p ractice sessio ns, and condem ned any slow starters to lowly grid posi tio ns. The green ligh t went, and Michel moved forward, th en suddenly slowed, h is clutch gone. Passen ger Simon Birchall raised his hand, a nd most of the followi ng outfits managed to swerve past. But not the Swiss Zurbruegg brothers, coming up fast fro m the sixth row , and boxed in . They ra n over the back of Michel's mac hine, fli pped up into the pit wall, then bo unced ba ck to la nd on top of th e outfit of Tony Baker/ Steve Prior. It was an awful spectacle, wi th people lea ping for cover from th e pi t rail, mach in es swerving from side to side, a n d p a sse n ge r Ma rt i n Zurbru egg ro lli ng alo ng in among the debri s. The race was stopped, and Marti n Zurbruegg and driver Alfred ta ken to hospital, , the form er wi th a broken pelvis, a nd the driver with torn ankle ligaments. The British crew were no t hurt, bu t their fai ring wa s badly damaged a nd th ey were forced to ret ire after th e restart; a sha ken Michel als o di d not rejoin, h is rear suspension damaged. The restart came promp tly, . with three times World Champion Webster and Gavin Simmons getting off th e line best , and ru nnin g a way a hea d. They wer e never passed, and wo n for th e fou rth ti me ou t of five races . The race for secon d was truly breathtaking. At first th ere just three outfits - Austrian crew KJaffenboecki Parzer from Abbott/Smith and the Guedel broth ers, a nd they ha d th e cro wd yelli ng with exci tement as they jostled for positio n th ro u gh the fast swerves. While they were hol din g each o ther up in this way, Biland/Wal tisperg and Kumano/Roesinger sneaked up o n them , and then the battle was really on . Back and forth they went, kicking u p grass and sto nes, and paying little heed to the hazards of th e circu it. Ku mano made mos t of the running, with Steve Abbo tt always strongly p laced . ' The battle really honed up in the closing stages, then the las t time into th e chicane Klaffenboeck got into a massive slide, a nd too k Abbott off o nto 15

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