Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

B MOTOCRO~~d ~~~_~_b_M_ : R_OO_~_2~~~~~~~~~ X_~_'~_ e Trampas Parker (1) scored the overall win and moved to third in the standings. Bob Moore (81), Donny Schmit (75) and Bader Manneh (18) headed the pack at the start of th e second moto, Parker bounces back with Swiss GP win By Alex Hodgkinson COMBREM ONT-LE·PEm, SWITZERLAND, A 1 PR. 2 ra m pa s Parker bo unced back from a miserable opening 250cc MX GP in Holland to score a resounding win in the seco nd round of the World Championsh ip 250cc MX Series in Switzerland. It was the Louisianan's first overa ll GP success since last May and the defendi ng champ io n 's 52-point haul lifted hi m to third in the table , though he still trails Suzuk i's Stefan Everts by 30 po ints . Everts, the 125cc World Ch ampio n from Belgium , beat the America n in the firs t two races, but failed to score in the fina l enco unter after a first. comer crash. Bob Moore gave Am erica a 1-2 overall success with a convincin g win in race two on the Yamah a plus topfive finishe s in the other two rnotos, Everts rou nded out th e top three overall finishers on the strength of his first and second-place finishe s in the first two motos. All six American qualifiers for the GP had a top 15 finish in the three 25-minute plus two-lap rnotos. After their pointless days in HoIland, Micky Dymond and Bader Manneh each pl ayed a prominent rol e. Two-t ime 125cc National Champion Dym ond improv ed eac h moto to follo w teammate Parker home in the fin al race, while Manneh hol eshot the first two motos. Mike Heal ey and Donny Schmit were both unhappy with their meager 12-point scores for the day and were in volved in post-race argumen ts aft er a coll ision in race three had sent th e Minnesotan into the trees. At the start of the o penin g moto, Manneh grabbed th e holeshot , but couldn' t hold the lead for long. " I drifted wide and both Parker and Everts went through befor e I could close the doo r, " said Manneh, who held on to thi rd for two more laps befor e he got off line, lost driv e in a wet pa tch on th e track which had been effecti vely watered against du st, and could do nothing to prevent Engl ishman J immy Dobb from going past. But the op pos i tion had more difficul ty dislod ging him from fourth. Itali an Alessandro Puzar, Moore, T eus Visser, Edw in Evertsen , Peter T 24 J ohansson and Yann G uedard p ushed Manneh hard, wh o didn 't a llo w an opening until the closin g stag es. Whe n he did, Puzar, Moore and Evertsen were th e riders wh o got by. " My arms started to p ump up real bad in the last three lap s an d I just cou ldn 't hold them anymore," said Manneh . Before the fin ish Visser crashed hard a nd needed an ice-pack bet ween races to coo l down burning pa lms after he landed on hi s hands, whi le Guedard had cras hed even harder, hi s bike inj uring a spec ta tor as it bo u nced into th e crowd. The Fren ch man chase d down th e track aft er hi s bike and remounted for 14th pl ace. Ahead of these riders Everts had quickly displaced Parker and raced effortlessly away for a 13-second win, while Dobb was a lonely th ird. Moore had been right with hi s teammate Puzar until a midrace slip meant he had to rep ass Visser and Everts en on his way to fifth. The less aggressive Johansson was still behind seventh-place Manneh at the fin ish . The real action was - as we can expect a ll year in the short motos downfield -as star names fought to salvage som ething from ear ly mishaps. Schmit had collided wit h another rider comi n g o u t of the gate and had to come from 15th on lap one to fini sh n inth , whil e 10th-pl a ce fi nis her Dymond had been 28th a fter th e open ing lap. " I had started reasonabl y well , but the second comer was just like ice after the track watering and my front wh eel washed out," said Dymond. Heale y went down in the first tum with Belgian Marnicq Bervoets and Finn Pekka Vehkonen . Bieffe Suzu ki's Healey recovered to take the fin al po int for 15th after racing th rough the pack in tandem with Bervoets from even further back than Dymond. Faster than an y of th em wh en actually on the bike was Rob Herring. The British champio n , second to Everts in timed practice, had been right behind Schmit on th e first lap after being forced wide by the firs t turn melee, but was already past both the American and fellow Brit Mark-Eastwood wh en the ba ck wheel of the ra pi dly fadi ng Swiss Frederic RouilIier's machine stepped ou t in fro nt of him off a ledge and he went down. Rem ounting dead last , H er ring repassed half the field in just three laps , got stuck beh ind the H ealey-Bervoets tandem for a wh ile , th en lost th e front wheel under braking as he tri ed to go u nder the American and had to do it all again. In a rampaging first two laps he no t o n ly passed this du o again, but also five others to finish II th o Americans took co ntro l of th e second race from the drop of the gate wit h Manneh , Schmit and Moore at th e front of the pack. Dymond was fifth behind Everts, with Parker trailing Puzar in seven th place. Manneh again proved to be a difficult man to pa ss, and Schmit fin ally tried j ust a little too hard on lap five. " I tou ched Bader's rear wheel and crashed down hard. The bike was too badly bent to carry o n," said Schmit. A lap later Manneh 's resistance fin ally faded and the mor e patient Moore went past and raced ahead for a clear-cut win, his smooth, easy style taki ng him well awa y from the chasers once he had a clear track. H err ing was once again the man mak ing the mo st forward moti on. H e was II th after one lap, then forced hi s way to th ird beh ind Everts by the time six of the 12 laps had been com p leted, Bu t there his charge cam e to an end as the effort of a second diff icult race bega n to tell. There was just one lap to go when he made a terrible mi stak e in a deep rut. " I had both feet on the ground and my ass off the seat as the front wh eel bogged in the rut," said H erring. " I gassed it and the bike went without me! I knew I cou ld hav e had Stefan easy on the last lap." Parker, who had passed Dymond halfway through the race and then demoted Puzar two laps from the finis h, gratefu lly accep ted third place. Puzar was fou rth while H erring's m ist ake left h im fifth ahead o f Dymo nd at the finish. Michele Fanton, a first-lap cras her in the open ing moto, fini shed sevent h in a race which had always lacked th e interest of the opener. Bervoets wa s eigh th and Manneh fin ished ninth. Healey once again made a miserable start and finished 13th. "The clutch keeps going on me at the gate, and I am struggling a little today anyway," said H ealey. " I set th ird fastest time yesterday , but then I had a big get-off on the long downhill into the trees. The rider ahea d of me dug out an enormo us rock and I ended up cras hing all the way down to the bottom." At the end of two motos, Everts looked like the favorite for his second GP win of th e year, but the unpredicab ility of the new three-moto form at was sho wn clearly as th e pack ente red the first tum in the fina l moto. A plume of du st rose from the middle of th e pack, and when the field was gon e, a sin g le yell o w Suzuki lay stri cken in the track - and it was Ev erts. Th e Bel g ian re mo un ted quickly and was 24th a t the end of the first lap. He was 17th halfway through the next circuit, but another error dropped him back to 23rd and the next time aro und he was behind Schmit. The duo were findin g fo rward movement far from easy but had just' made th e po ints after 18 minutes when Everts went down for the last time. He remounted 21st and that was where he stayed to the checkered flag. The overall was now down to a straight fight between Parker and Moore, who were separated by a single point after race two . But the defending champ left hi s form er teammate no chance. Parker led from the start and Emmepi Honda teammate Dymond needed just three laps to pass Vehkonen and Massimiliano Gazzarata to take seco nd while Moore lost a pla ce to Herring and was seventh at this stage. The Englishman was getting tired from hi s day 's efforts and had no soo ner moved pa st H ealey for fifth than he once again got int o trouble in th e deep ru ts and settled for a gentle ride to ninth place after remounting. Moore, Johansson and Bervoets were th e men making moves on the leaderboard after that and Moore took fourth from the fading Gazzarata just after half di stance, but th ird-place Vehkonen was too strong aft er downfield rides in the first two motos, That set the order and Parker took the win four seconds ahead of Dymond, with another four secon ds separating him from Vehkon en wh o had an eq ual distance on Moore. Johansson advanced from a first- lap eighth to finish fifth and Bervoets made a last-lap pass on Puzar for sixth after completing the opening lap 20th. Healey had been fifth for the first

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