Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Once Luca Cadalora (I) passed Japan's Nobuatsu Aoki (53), he was able to pull away to win the 250cc GP by over nine seconds. Wayne Gardner broke his leg when he crashed for a second time in the 500cc GP. ecause of an off-season ru le ch a nge that a number of riders weren' t aware of, Rothmans Honda's Mick Doohan was . in danger of not qualifying for the j apan ese GP on Honda 's home track of Suzuka with less than five minutes to go in the second and final session. But the track, which had been wet almost from the start, dried at the end of the one-hour practice and the Australian was able to put in a lap that moved him up to fifth on the grid. Team Marlboro Roberts keep tabs on Michael Neither Wayne Rainey nor ,. . Doug Ch andler knew that the Doohan s last mmute attempts to qualify. Saturday morning session was umimed, showing that the word from th e new masters of racing hadn 't gotten out, though ther e was plenty of blame to go around. It was an event that pointed out a glaring weakness in havi ng only two timed sessions and one that the rid ers decried , especially sin ce they claim not to have had any say in it. "For th e first tim e in my life I thought I was going to fail to q ua lify for a race," Doohan said. "I was only saved by the fact that the rain eased and the track dried a liule for two or three laps toward the end of the session . As I was riding around in the rain I felt I faced a hopeless task and was hop ing that I might just be allowed to start from the back of the grid or even the qualification regulations might be altered a lillie because of the freak conditions . "In 1990 there were four sessions, last year there were three, thi s year there're two. What'll we have next year?" Doohan asked. The change to two timed sessions, an hour each on Friday and Saturday afternoons, along with two one-hour untimed sessions Friday and Saturday B 12 in th e Spoon (Cu rve) and Degner (Curve) was kind of dodgy. " Li ke the top two , Schwantz had an uneventful rid e in th ird and was abl e to fin ish nearl y a minute in front of fou rth-pl aced Ito. Schwantz had seen Koci nski 's crash on the seventh lap and .that helped him decide how to run th e race. " He fell right in front of me,looking over his shou lder," Schwantz said. " It wasn't tha t close, but it definitely had an effect on how I rode the rest of the race. T he bike was working good. These gu ys u pped the pace. I was lucky enough nobod y rea lly pressed me after john fell. It was just good to finis h well up there. I watched the 125cc race and a lot of guys didn 't fin ish." The order of the top five was set from the eigh th lap on, Ito fourth and Mam ola an encouraged fifth, desp ite falli ng on the war m-up lap . "I went dow n becau se we filled a front tire I hadn 't tried before so I wasn 't used to it," he said. " I kn ew what Wayne and j ohn were goi ng to use so we were all going to be on th e same tire. I never pushed a front so hard in a race." In the race Mamola said h e lo st th e front with littl e warning, but saved it. " I almost fell off two mor e times and said, 'forget it. ' I knew Wayne (Gardner) was coming - there was nothing I cou ld do . When he cam e up I pushed it for three more laps then slowed down." Suzuki 's Ohishi fini shed the first lap in 10th, but slowly made hi s way to the fron t, passing Mackenzie on th e last lap for sixth. Mackenzie said th at he'd decided before the race to ride 90% and finish. H e missed the sta rt ligh t comp letely and hooked up with a trio of j apanese riders, incl uding Oh ishi, but had to back off at the end when a wh eel weigh t came off hi s rear rim causing th e tire to bounce off the ground. • Yamaha's T oshihiko H onrna, Kirin Mets Yamaha's Norihiko Fuj iwara , and am /pm Racing's Satoshi Tsuj i- . moto rounded ou t the top 10, and were the fin al rid ers to finish on th e same lap as Doohan . 250cc Cup O'Noodles Nobuatsu Aoki sped to the lead from the pole po sition, jHA Racing's Katsu yoshi Kozono second, Cadalora third, and HRC's T adayuk o Okada fourth. Kozono took th e lead on th e second lap, but fell on the fourth handing the lead to Aoki , with Cadalora second and Okad a third. Helmut Bradl was fourth at thi s point and would sta y there to the end. Five laps in and Aoki had over a four-second lead, but Cadalora was getting faster with every lap, dropping into th e 2:37 ra nge on th e seventh and cu tt ing in to the lead. T he World Champ ion made his move on the 10th lap, outbraking Aoki go ing into the chicane at the top of the front straight. A lap later, in exactly th e same place, Ok ada sli pped by Aoki and, on the II th lap, the order of th e top three was set. Cadalora upped th e pace turning hi s fastest lap of 2:35.862 on the 16th lap. Nobody else even got into the 36s, mo rni ngs, was done to mimic the practice in Formula One car racing. The teams were in formed, but som e failed to tell their riders. World Champion Rainey was . told halfway through the untimed morning session and Lucky Strike Suzuki's Chandler, fastes t in Friday's tim ed session, was informed by a journali st between the two Satur da y session s that the morning one didn't cou nt. The po le went to Lucky Strik e Suzuki's Kevin Schwantz, hi s first session best of two minutes, 20.324 seconds, averaging 93.479 mph over the 3.64-mile course, a resu lt of a wise decision made just befor e th e start of th e session . " We were sitting there just after lunch watching the weather. It seemed to be gelling wor se and wor se," Schwantz said . " I felt lik e if I had warm tires and I could get on e lap in, I could catch everybody by surprise. It was a big risk. What if I fell down or if it dried out and everybody went faster ? On the lap before, I felt the bike move around. One more lap I came around and shut down." T he 27-year-old Texan felt they had some more testing to do in the morning war m -up before making a decision on the race setup. " Everyone's in the same pos ition and we have some ideas on which way we'll need to go," Schwantz sa id. Yam ah a's Toshihiko Honrna, the sixth place finisher in the japanese 500cc Ch ampioinship last year, was second fastest at 2:21.082, just in front of Schwantz's teammate Ch andler. Lik e Honma and Schwantz, Chandler did his fast time on the second lap of the session. " I was lucky I got the one lap in, " the 26-year-old Californian said . " H alfway through the first lap I had to ease up after I had a moment in the Spoon (Curve). I chase d a fter Kevin and some japanese riders as fast as I could and pulled into the pits on the next lap. " Cha ndler said he was having trouble with the brakes and would have liked an other dry session to sort it out. Still, he was happy with tile new team and, especia lly, the bike. . . • " I feel a lot more comfortable on the Suzuki," he said. "It fits me a lot better becau se it was built around Kevin. That's made a big difference for me." Rothrnans Honda's Wayne Gardner was at the far end of the front row , his fast lap coming 'at the end of the session as the track dried out. Gardner had been briefly fastest in Friday's wet session, but crashed and was taken to a local hospital where he was diagnosed as having a bruised and swollen left ankle. "The main thing is that my injured ankle, though uncomfortable, is not really

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