Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

wo uld be on equal terms wi th hi s major riva ls. Pushed by Rainey, Rober ts too k th e latter cou rse, and his Yamahas will joi n th e Ho ndas and Suzukis ba ck o n Mich elins. T op of the big pi le are the Team Marlboro Roberts mach in es, benefiting not on ly from clo se contact wi th the factory but .also from their own agg re ss ive devel opm ent prog ram , whi ch this year sees Warren Will ing concen trating on technical develo pme nts , w i th fo rm er Su zuk i te a m man ager and car FI tech nician J ohn Gentry signing o n. 500cc T here are 30 na mes o n the list fo r the 500cc class , and all of them are o n four- cylinder motorcycles. The numbers ar esplit between riders on full works bikes, and those on the new RO C or Harris works Yamaha replicas. T here are l-l works machines , and 13 of the new-style not -works p rivateers, with th e rem aining three en tries fro m hom e brewed offshoots like the Paton . As ever, it is the works bikes that comma nd th e high gro und, and there have been few cha ng es in th e lin eup in the to p works team s. In the case of Roth mans Honda, th is is rather surprising. The top HR C sq ua d were expected to recruit Dary l Beattie at the expense of their form er cham p io n Wayne Gardner, with the you ng Au stral ian riding besid e hi s count ryma n Micha el Ooohan. Well , Doohan is still in th e squad, and on the basis of last season's results mu st surely be regarded as the leader of th e team. But Gardner - who might now deny that he talked a lo t about retirement all through the last season - managed not o nly to stay aboard, bu t was able to brag that he had done so for h is best-ever financial deal. It is hard 'to kn ow wh at Gardner said to HRC to convince them th at he can rise aga in after a coup le of years when he seemed to fad e away gradually, failing to recover his old form after several accident s and bad luck. Bu t it sho uld never be forgotten that Gardner is at hi s best when he has a poi nt to prove, and he may prove a thorn in the side to Ooo ha n as well as to his rivals o n other mach ines. Ooohan remains one of the favorites. Second to Rain ey last year, he wo n three races. More impressively he was a consis tent top-three rostrum finis her, with j ust o ne hiccu p when he crashed at Assen. Last year, ' he was tro ubled by a lack of front wh eel traction from hi s Honda, bu t HRC sq ue lched an y suggestio n that th ey sho u ld switc h to Dun lop tires . Some people think that Doohan 's front-end problems are the resu lt o f his o wn style, with h igh entry and mid-corner speed, a nd a ten dency to work the front tire harder tha n any o the r rider o u t there. Now he mus t hope that Michelin will come up with a front tir e that suits him in particular. Despite Hon da 's promise to the FIM (in concert with Yamaha and Suzuk i), that they would endeavor to make more V-fours available, th ere are on ly three NSRs taking part in 1992, and th e third is to be ridden by former 125 cham pio n Alex Cri vill e, movi ng up to tak e over the retired Sito Pons's ride for Cam psa , with Pons managi ng th e team. Cri ville was brill iant o n a 125, bu t has had a cou p le of not particularl y successful years on a 250 Cobas. H e mu st be gi ven at least a year to adj ust to 500s. Like H ond a , Suzuki's prom ised extra bikes have yet to material ize - they are su ppo rt ing th eir usual two-ri der team , led as us ua l by Schwantz, who must (as us ual ) be ano ther favori te for th e ti tIe. Schwantz has now recovered from in juries sust ained in practice for last year's Malays ian G P, whe n he badl y hu rt his left hand. Suzu ki was one of the firs t of the 500 teams to start testing for th is seaso n, and Schwamz discovered tha t though the bike was gen erall y bett er, th ey still had the same mid-corner traction problem th at had p lagued h im last season. Back o n (Left) Eddie La wson retu rns for on e last season. (Below) Dou g Chandler will ride a Suzuki along with Kevin Schwantz. Mich elins, at least they knew it wasn' t a tire prob lem , and at least th ey had some tim e to work o n it before the seaso n began. Schwa ntz als o ha s a new crew chief - ' Bri t Stuart Sh enton, formerly with Gardner at Honda (a nd lo ng before tha t with the four-times cham pion Kork Ballingto u 's Kawasaki team ). Suzuki has the hab it of changing their number two riders regularl y, and replaced Didier de Rad igues with a second Am eri ca n, Doug Chandler. The form er AMA National Superbike Champion made his GP debut o n a Team Roberts Yamaha last year, and showed himself to be both steady and fast. No w he knows th e trac ks. but not the bike - but he's read y to learn. It will be interes ting to see if he has the ta lent to overcome the jinx that so often applies to second uzuki riders, and with Schwantz's former crew chief Simo n T onge headi ng Chand ler 's crew, ther e is certain to be some rivalry within the tea m.' Yamaha was alread y prepari ng to increase th e su pply of th eir V-four YZRs whe n they signed th e p ledge, and as a result most of th e work s bikes indeed, most of this yea r's 500s, are Yamah as of o ne sort or an other. (Ri gh t) Michael Doohan will aga in be Rothmans Honda mounted. (Below) John Kocinski is also back for more. T eam leader is, of course, two-time Worl d Champion Wayne Rai ney, but the Californian has a bi g hill of his own to climb. He broke his leg badl y in pre-race testing in Mal aysia . and has had a winter of pain and opera tio ns. By the tim e th e team started testing in February, he was read y to rid e again, bu t still a long way sho rt of hi s top form and top fitn ess. Seldom injured, Rain ey mus t prove he can regain hi s aggressio n in time to fend off th e hungr y rivals - but he went a lo ng way to wards proving the point by posting fastest time a t the IRT A j erez tests, inside his own 1991 pole time, bu t in the abs ence of H onda and Suzuki. One of hi s problems is hi s own importunat e teammate john Kocinski. The man wh o won the 250cc Worl d Ch am pionsh ip in his firs t attempt fo und his first 500 year was ha rder than he had at first im agin ed, bu t by the end of last season (alt ho ug h with Schwan u and Ra iney away) he was ab le to cla im h is first victory in the class - - o meth in g he had been brags gi ng abo u t doing from th e start of th e year. Along the way, he had gone into the doldrums and fought hi s way o u t of the m again, refu sin g to com pro mise his riding style, and making hi s o wn life very d ifficult as a result. It is too early to say wh ether h is co m p lete domination in Mala ysia was dow n to circumstances and the pecu liar nature of th e' track. If not, the o ther riders are going to hav e to dig deep to resist thi s extraor dinary ta lent . There are others wh o will be riding 1992-version YZR Yam ah as - fu ll works bikes. One is juan Garriga , sponsor ed aga in by Du cad os, an d Ou n lop-shod . The Spa niard, o nce the terror of the 250cc cla ss, ha s improved steadily in hi s two years of 500cc-class racing, but too slowly to be a real threat. Anot her is Randy Marnola, scheduled to make a co mebac k on a 1991 YZR pro babl y sponsor ed by Budweiser, and provided by Kenny Roberts (iro n ica lly the man wh o sacked Marnola at th e end of 1987, sending the Ca liforn ia n off to exile with Cagiva for three years, and finall y out into the wilde rness ). Mamola did n' t deserve to be rideless las t year, bu t a t th e sam e time ha s probably been away from the top for too lon g to cha lle nge for th e ti tIe. 17

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