Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

RMOTOCROSS W~dU~~n~_OO_t_cM_X_&_~_s R_oo_~_4~~ ~~~~ ~~~ : e .. ~ American Bill y Liles (5) and Finn Arlo Panttila (10) get the jump at the start of th e second rno to , but it was Brit Kurt Nicoll (9) who earned the overall victory. (L eft to right) Billy Li les. winner Kurt Nicoll an d Georges Jobe shared th e rostrum. Nicoll wins big in Finland • By Alex Hodgkin son RUSKEASANTA, FINLAND, MAY 24 u rt Nicoll , the 27-year-old Englishman who broke his thigh last June when seemingly on his way to the World Championship 500cc MX title. scored wh at is perhaps the most important win of his career by scorin g the overall win at the Finnish Grand Prix. Not previously co nsi dered to be a candidate for victory on the sandy tr acks of northern Europe, Nicoll scored two rn oto vi ctories and a runner-up spot to Georges Jobe in the Ru skeasanta sand pits near the Helsinki Airport. " If I can win here. th en I kn ow I can win anywhere." beam ed the Brit. as he waited to mount the rostrum. "T his victory today convinces me that I will win the title this year aft er so many near-misses in th e past. " Nicoll was th e runner-up in the cha mpionshi p series in 1987, '88 and '90. It was the sixth GP win of his career and the first since breaking h is th igh. The 57 points he earned in Finland K 8 hoi sts the KTM factory rider to within IO points of series points leader J obe. Ever since th e series opener in the U.S.• Nicoll has headed J obe 7-2 in motos, while his scor e against American Billy Lil es. the other titl e candidate. is 6-3. Defending Ch ampion j ob e, who has only one GP win since 1987, was philosophical in defeat: " Co nsistency will be the key to the titl e in the end. Wh en I realized that I could not catch Kurt in the final deciding moto, I was cont ent to settle for second o n the day." Li les, the only American ridi ng the class, had, on ce again, raced his two riva ls wheel to whee l all day. With out a GP overall win since April 1990. the native Georgian is no w 21 points off th e cha mp ions hip pac e. Fran co Rossi. the winner of the last two ro unds in Czech oslo vakia an d Au str ia. had disastrous weeken d. In it iall y beset by carbure tio n p roblems in the thin northern air, the Ital ia n added a crash and a bro ken chai n to a h is tale of woe and collected jus t o ne point o n the da y. Nico ll's win mai ntained the KT M success story since the cha m p io nsh ip ret urned to Europe. It was th e team's thi rd successive win. " T hose th ree gu ys are wi tho ut doubt the top three riders in Europe," said clerk of the course Ral ph Manner as Nico ll. Liles and J obe raced the fina l lap of the first race. And who co uld arg ue wit h him? With Rossi floundering in midpack after a con fidence-sapping weekend, as he enco unte red co nt inual carburetio n problems, the tri o of ti tle chasers were in a class of their o wn . The rest were quite sim p ly in a different race, so to speak. T here had been an anxious few minutes at the start of race one, as th e gate malfunctioned. but the fault was qu ickl y found and the race started o n ly five minutes behind schedu le. N icoll an d Jobe out-accelerated hom e coun try favorite Arto Pantilla from th eir ou tside gates to ro und th e first turn side by side in front. Li les had looked to be with them. but was no higher than sixth at th e end of the first lap. "I missed a gear in the first turn." Lil es said. It too k Lil es a mere five minutes to demo te Pantilla, Belgian Marc Velkeneers and Sweden 's Patrick Hoglund. but the American was already over five seconds do wn on the leading du o. J obe held a comfortable lead for 15 . mi nutes before Nicoll put o n a charge and closed to h is rear wh eel. 'This is a di fficu lt pl ace to pa ss. so I can 't say that I would definitely have been able to get by," admitted Ni coll, " bu t Geor ges made it easy for me in the end ." Under pressure from his main rival for the title, the cha mp ion had no seddived over a big jump and, altho ug h he stayed o n the bik e, Ni coll was past and go ne and Jobe was now under p ressure by Lil es. The Ameri can was to pass him exiting turn one wi th three . laps to go. . At the finis h. Liles was clos e to Ni coll . " I thi n k I mi ght 've been able to gei Kurt if Geor ges had not held me up for a tim e." The winner disagreed: " It looked closer than it was. I was ridi ng easy in the last couple of laps, but I had eased my pa ce just a fracti on too mu ch on the penultimate lap. We face th ree hard races today, and I didn ' t wa nt to waste energy." A lo ng way ba ck fro m th e tri o, Holland's Carlo H ul sen had been the fir st ma n to push ba ck th e ra pid sta rters and for a ti me was a fairl y lonely fourth, o nly to be caugh t by th e im pressive Belgia ns J oh an Boon en and J oel Sm ets before the fin ish . Sw ed e J o rgen N il sson ha d a lso charged well to the fore, on ly to crash soo n aft er Boonen ha d pu shed him back down to sixth. Fell ow coun tryman Marcus Hansson came from 14th o n lap on e to finish sevent h but kn ew he had to cho ose a different gate in race two : " I started quite well , but twothirds of the way down the stra ight they just closed me down from both sides." Las t year 's Finnish GP winner J acky Martens , once again , started badly on the four-stroke Husqvarna but advanced well from 24th o n lap on e to ninth at th e checkered flag. Three-time World Champion David Thorpe had started well in eighth but could not hold it and picked up just three points. Pantilla got the nod at th e start of the second mota , but it didn't do him much good. Halfway around the lap, . Liles, Jobe and Ni coll had already gone past and what a race th ey put on! Even before the end of lap one, J obe was in front, but the Ameri can fought back on lap two to retake th e lead . After several "sniffs" at Li les' rear wheel, jobe put in the telling move a t the 20 minute stage and immedia tely moved a coup le of seconds clear to cont ro l the rest of the race from the front, while Nicoll, wh o had until then be en co ntent to watch th e battle immediately before him wa s trying all he kn ew to snatch second.. In the end it was no cont est, as Li les sma cked the gas tank with two laps to go and had to settle for a distant third. Srnet s and Hansson had pro ved the. best of the young bri gad e and establish ed them selves in firm fourth and fifth pl aces, respectively, just after halfway after seeing off the q uick-

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