Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

eTEST Cagiva V591 I Getting serious in Italy ......... . By Ala n Cathcart P ho tos by P a tri ck Gosling way from the rumbling background of political strife which dominated the 1991 Grand Prix road race season, a nd with du e defere nce to Yamaha and Wayne Rainey's feat in scoring back-to-hack 500cc tit le wins for the first ti me in a decade, one feat ure of GP raci ng's eli te class stood o ut above all ot hers last season: Eddi e Law son 's feat in turning the Ital ian Cagiva team into ge n uine co ntende rs for the first tim e since the Cas tiglioni brothers ' factory bu ilt its first 500cc race bi ke exactly 10 years ago. Of co urse, it wasn 't an ach ievem ent brought abo ut solely by the efforts of th e four-time World Ch am pi on : suc h a cla im would ignor e th e tir eless effo rt s of the talented, co m milled engineers and race tea m personnel operating out of the Var ese factory's well-equipped race shop, who a t last have given the deep ly ent h usiastic Castiglioni bro thers, Gianfranco and Claudi o, som e reward for the billions of lire they 've in vested in G P racing over th e past decade. More to the point, in a year when Cagiva 's presen ce was more cru cia l than ever to the overall spectacle of the 500cc G P class, which gridded a mer e 13 starters at the midseason Austrian GP, two of them Cagivas, the fact tha t th e Casti glionis were persuaded to o vert urn their announced decisi on to withdraw from racing at th e end of 1990 made the pay off they received after doing so all the sweeter - and underlined th e tru th of the o ld a xio m: a year is a long time in the world of racing. A 12 But if Law so n is!),' t solely respon sib le for Cagiva fina lIy gelli ng o n the pa ce af ter all these years, he sure as a nything gets the mos t credit for their do ing so. For a start, it's do ubtful if the Castigl ionis wo ul d have ,cont in ued in raci ng had Edd ie not signed to race the bi ke thi s seaso n; they were deeply di sillusioned as the Ra ndy Marn ol a era a t Cagiva drew to an end in 1990, and cro wd- p leasin g antics appeared to have assumed precedence over a seriou s effort to becom e co m petitive. Lawson 's arrival not only gav e the bro thers new heart, i t also revitalized the men on their race team, led by e ngine designer Ezio Ma sch erorri , chas sis man Luigi Bo tta and race engineer Fiorenzo Fanal i. Lawson's arrival gav e their efforts a new focus - but his influence goes beyond mere presence, because from Day One a t Cagiva, Eddie demonstrated the level of commi tm ent to excellence that has made him the mos t com p lete rider of th e mod ern era - a nd the men at Cagiva responded in kind : they did it h is way. Lawson 's Way dictated a pace of development a nd a readiness to experim ent that ca ta p u lted the red Ital ian bike on to th e front row of the grid - ahead of Doohan 's H onda - for the first time ever by the fifth race of the season, on home ground at Misan o. In the hands of "Steady Eddie" Lawson for just one year, the Cagi va V591 has become a genuine contender in GP road racin g. "Imm ense" is what we call its achievements. When Lawson led th e fir st lap of th e Italia n GP a nd put a Cagiva.in th e winner 's circl e for the first time ever in the dry by finishing th ird (with teammate Alex Barros fou rth, just to sho w ' it wasn 't a fluke!), it was pr oof that even though the red bike was still evo lv i n g rapid l y, it wa s a lrea dy co m petitive. From being the Lat in no-h o per with prett y bod ywork wh ich occ upied a valuable rol e in fillin g up the gri ds so as to make it look lik e the winning J apanese factory bik e had actu all y had to work for victor y, the Cagiva was paid th e co mp liment of bein g co nfirmed as a gen uin e co nte nder by the posse of Japanese technicians wh o sta rted hanging around the Cagiva p it a nd tak in g photos of the bike when it a ppeared un clothed. They weren 't the on ly ones: sudde nly jo urnali sts, whose h i the rto marginal interest in the Italian team had been awa kened by the news of Lawson 's sign ing, found them selves wi th another stop to mak e o n their ro unds of th e 500cc class elite - even if th ey see med less co ncerned in recognizin g th e ex tent of the team 's achieveme nt in getting o n th e pa ce than pressuring th em to do the truly impossible a nd go fro m backm arkers to race winners in six months! By the time Lawson repeated his Misan o ro str um place a t Pa ul Ricard by defea ting Kevin Schwantz's Suzuki fair a nd sq ua re with a Cag iva that was o bvio usly fast er than the J apan ese bik e in a straigh t lin e down th e Mista le Straight, even that go a l seemed no lon ger o u t of reach. Sad ly, a front end problem sha red with fell ow Michelin users H onda , meant the seaso n ended on a disappo in ting not e, wit h bot h L awson a n d Ba rr o s inju red : bu t Eddie's sixth place in the poi nts tabl e, wit h a bag of fin ish es in th ird to sixth place a head of a llbut the very best of the J apanese facto ry bik es, pro ved Cagi va rea lly is in bu siness a t lon g last. Crazie, Edd ie. Having ridden each version of the works Cagiva every year since 1984 and th e days of the C-type square-four design, my seaso n-end appointment with Lawson's V591 was some th ing to look forward to even mor e than usual. Two days in ear ly October watch ing a curtain of rain sh ro ud ing the garage door at Mugello while a pair of V-4 .La dies in Red awa ited my pleasure meant the suspense had to be p rolonged, foll owed by a polite request not to co me to J erez in November, aft er all - it turned o ut Cag iva was testing Du nl op tires , to see if mayb e a change of ru bber supplier wasn't advi sab le. But at last the cha nce to sample 'Ia macchina di Law son' came just before Christma s at a damp, windsw ept Pergusa speedbow l in Sici ly - a nd it was well worth the wai t. Resul ts in the histor y books spea k fo r themselves, of cou rse, bu t with a change of rid er a nd o ther variables entering into the eq ua tio n , I think on ly som eon e fortunate eno ug h to

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