Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

uphill right on the far end of th e course after too many close calls. The l Sth lap would be the crucial one for the leaders. Doohan and Schwantz were right up on Rainey, but going into the looping, uphill righthand tum one, Rainey put a few back markers between himself and the others and pulled out nearly a twosecond lead. " I got by the back markers on the straightaway and they caught them and that was enough to be there at the end ." Rainey said. "It was pretty close down there with those three back markers," Doohan said. "All five of us could have gone down. I don't know how they get their international licenses. " With his fro nt end skating, Doohan had to relinquish second to Schwantz with five laps to go and Schwantz set out for Rainey, cutting slightly into his lead, before slowing marginally at the 'end to take secon d, abo u t th ree seconds back. " "Early on I was having a battle with Wayne Gardner and had a hard time getting a clear track, " Schwantz said la ter. " J ust when I got up there Doohan an d I got held up by th ree or four back mark ers. Me and Mick suffered. Before we'd all been pretty close, less than a second I thi nk . Then it was over 2.5 seconds and I cou ldn' t do anything." " We ha d front end chatter in qualifying and we'd worked no n-stop for the race," Rainey said. " It was th e best for the race, the best it's been a ll . weekend . "When I was leading the race, I was going as quick as I cou ld and wh en Mick went past th e tach lost 800 rpm. I thought a plane was landing and it blew me over. Then the bike started working better when the fuel load went down:" Asked about his chances for th e World Championship, Doohan said : "As far as I understand there are three more races to go, so we'll see what happens." Well back of th e lead trio, Gardner Texan Kevin Schwantz (34) finished second to Rainey after disposing of both Wayne Gardner (5) and Doohan. finished fourth , sayin g: "The three in fro nt set a rapid pace and th e going was just a bit too hot for me. If I cou ld only find one or two more tenths of a second I could be right back up there again. At the moment I'm just missing the last little edge." Ma ckenzie wa s fifth fr o m t he ha lfway point, bettering the Marl boro Yamaha of Kocinski. " If we gave him Ruggia 's good bi ke, he Schwantz gets the edge,takes R:.=- . : ol=----e ucky Strike Suzuki's Kevin Schwantz (right) took delivery of a new frame , the MK III model, for the .IRTA tests the week before the GP. Since no one had been to the refurbished facility in six years - the last race was in 1985 - everyone was starting new and looking for an edge. Schwantz found it. Despite having trouble getting the front end to stick, the 27-year-old Texan grabbed the pole position with a lap of one-minute, 54.276-seconds (102.675 mph) in Saturday morning's second session, With the temperature rising "throughout the day, the third sesson was considerably hotter and no one was able to better him. It was his fourth pole of the year. " I'd be feeling a whole lot better if I had a better practice this afternoon," Schwantz said. "We had one with a bad engine that we had.to bring in. I feel like the bike I rode this morning is the one I'm going to race and that's the new one. . " "1, "We made steady progress all through the morning session - especially getting the front to settle better on the first part of the tum, which is so important on the comers here because you have to go from one angle of lean to the other real quick. We got the suspension real good and I used a different front Dunlop with a stiffer construction. Then I was ready at the end to go for a time. Actually, I had another fast lap coming, but I came real close to falling off,' : Schwantz was also using on-board telemetry for the first time and was getting positive feedback: "A lot of times it's hard to tell if the problem is originating in the front or the back. The computer equipment on the bike tells us what it is." Second to Schwantz was Rothrttans Honda's Michael Doohan, just .290-0f-asecond slower while trying to son his front end and get through the slower riders. "It's working a little better than Donington,' he said. " We got tires after Paul Ricard for Donington, but everything was too hard. Up until now we've been hurt by n ot doing development on the tires ,and the. bike while Rainey's team .' .. . '~ has been doing plenty of development." L wo u ld have won th e race," Sonauto 's , Rosset sai d. "I loved every minute of it," Mackenzie said. Kocinski, who chased the Scot for a number of laps said he'd never seen an yone brake that hard go in g into comers. " It nearl y shook the bars out of his hands," Kocinski said. Koci nski had p robl ems of his own. H is race bike had seized in the mornin g warm-up and they had to gu ess on the setup for his spare. Kocinski thought th ere was somethin g wrong with .his shock because he had littl e rear grip. " It was moving around. The more laps th e tire had on it th e more it moved around." Garriga too k seventh, movi ng past de Radigues and Chandler on the 17th lap with th e Belgian finishing eigh th and Chandler ninth. More bothersome than tires was traffic: "They're wobbling around looking over they want to have a picnic they should ride at spectators," he complained. " If " in to town. They're going so slow they can put th e bike wherever they want. " Doohan's teammate Wayne Gardner, who qualified sixth, agreed. "They're pathetic. They shouldn't have intern a tional licenses , I think. When you look at th e 125s and they're nearly as quick as the three-cylinders (H ondas), it's a bit of a joke," Rainey was third quickest, just .33-of-a-second behind Doohan whi le using a new chassis and the Ohlins Computerized Electronic Suspension. "The new chassis brakes better, but gets a bit more chatter," he said. "Overa ll it performs better around this race track. It seems like a problem of tire chatter. It seems if you load the front tire you can go fast for a eenain amount of time and if you don't load it that fast you go off line. The old chassis, when you' flick it in you used more front tire to scrub off speed. This one draws the bike around the comer better," . Comparing the CES and non-CES bike , Rainey said : "One is like a Yamaha and the other is like outer space. I haven 't put a lot of time on the other other bike. " Rainey's junior teammate John Kocinski was at the far end of the front row , trying to get used to the CES: "Basically, we've changed a lot of things and by the end of the fourth session we didn't gain much ground. It 's going to be a long race. We've been going in the direction of the old chassis. My ,.setup has to be a little better than everyone else's because I don't have the strength the other gu ys have." Asked if he was happy the race was shortened due to the heat, he said: "The shorter the race the better for the guy with the short arms," Gardner was fifth, just in front of Chandler who, like the others, was trying to make the front end stick. De Radigues was seventh on the other Lucky Strike Suzuki, one better than former Lucky man Niall Mackenzie on the Sonauto Yamaha. Mackenzie had been looking to get back into the 500cc class for most of the year and had ridden Chandler's spare at Donington. Sonauto's serge Rosset gave him two bikes for Mugello and he was to make the best of them. Helmut Bradl earned his sixth 250cc pole position, nipping fellow Honda rider Carlos Cardus by .046-of-a-second with a second session best of 1:58.492. Third behind Cardus was championship leader Cadalora, unable to improve on his second session time because of the heat and having strained some muscles in his shoulder during the third session. He received medical atten tion and said he felt fit for the race. Aprilia's Loris Reggiani and HRC's .Masahiro Shimizu ' filled out the front row. 15

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