Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Brno," said Chan dler, who has a severe con t us ion b e tw een h is seven th a nd eighth ribs. His teammate, Mat Mladin, hig hsided twice in practice and re-br oke the righ t collarbone that he 'd -broken a month earlier at Assen . Rothmans Hond a's Shinichi Itoh was fif t h, h is tir e tr oubles th e same as Beattie's who nearly caug ht him at the line. The difference was .243-of-a-second . Th e 250cc class p rovided n early equal drama to the 500s, the cha m pions hi p leade r go ing down on the first lap and a first-time w inne r, though the race was for r ea l a n d mu ch be t te r . April ia's [ean- Philip pe Ruggia took the lead from Marlboro Team Pileri's Loris Ca pi rossi and, d espite cons tant pressure, hel d off the tena cious Ita lia n to take his first 250cc GP victory. " I knew that Loris was on a really good bike and I was afra id for the last lap," sai d Ruggia, w ho won by 3.266 seconds. "The hard thing was to be consis tent every lap. I tried to get away, but I saw him there every time." , Toward the end of the race Capirossi wa s hung up in tra ffic and dec ided to back off a nd collect the certain 20 points. Bu t though Capirossi, like Rai ney, wo uld like to have scored ma xim u m po in ts, his di sap poin tme nt was so mewhat assuaged by the retir emen t of the 250 cc p oi n ts le ade r, Te lko r Val esi Racing's Tetsu ya Ha rad a, who crashed out of the race in the first com er. Though his arm was in a sling an d he walke d w ith a limp after th e race, he s uffered n o serio us in juries a n d is expected to be back for the next GP in Czechoslova kia on August 15. But he 'll arrive there with a smaller cus hion in the World Champ ion ship , 151 points to Cap irossi's 126, with fou r rou nds remain ing. Third tod a y wa s Ru gg ia' s Aprilia tea m ma te Loris Reg giani, th e ve ter an Italian riding alone for the second half of the race after Ducados Hond a Pons' . Alberto Puig retired w ith an engine failure . Telko r-Ya m a ha Val es is Pie r Franc esco Chili was a distant fou rth in fro nt of Rothmans Honda 's Tadayuki Okada and Rothmans Kanemoto Hond a's Max Biaggi. Biaggi was third on the fourth lap when he was thrown from the saddle entering the Melbourne Hairpin. Though he didn't fall, he fell back to 21s t place and spent the race catching up. Ruggia, who mo ved in to fou rth in th e cha mpionship be hind Biaggi w ith the win, completed the 27-lap, 67.S-mile race in a record time o f 43 m inutes, 5.248 seconds at an average sp eed of 93.991 mph. For the seventh time this year, Team Europa Raudies' Dirk Raudi es won the 125c c GP, and for th e seve n th ti m e F.C.C. Technical Sports' Kaz u to Sakata w as seco nd . Ra u d ies and Saka ta swa p ped the lead back and forth until th e 15 th lap, wh en the d iminutive Germ an took over for good. He pulled away to win by 8.150 seconds and averag ed 87.902 mph for th e 26-lap , 65-mile race which he completed in 44 minutes, 21.938 seconds. More importantly, he soli dified his g rasp on th e cha mpi onship after 10 races. Ra udies now leads Sakata, 202185, with four rounds rem aining. Al so tak in g a fi r m g r ip o n thei r championship was the side car team of Rol f Bilan d and Ku rt Wa ltisperg. The Swiss veterans won for the fou rth time in five tries, to take a 120-72 lead in the race for the title. The res ults might hav e been di ffere nt, ho wever, if race leade rs St eve Webster and Gavin Simmons hadn't seized their engine while in the lead on the 10th lap. Biland went on to win the 26-lap , 65- The battle for thi rd went to the lasteomer with Ni all Mackenzie (11) beating Carl Foga rty (68) to th~ checkere d flag. m il e ra ce w it h a n avera ge s peed of 90.798 mph. They crossed the line 5.787 seco nds in fron t of Bri tons De rek Brindley and Paul Hutchinson. Loris Capirossi (65) le ads eve ntual 250cc GP winner J.P. Rug gia (l7). 500cc Grand Prix It had been a troublesome we ekend for Rainey, the World Champion havi ng to choose among th ree chassis and settling on one that was mostly a revised 1992 model. He'd cra sh ed in pract ice and would sta rt fro m the second row, kn owing that an y hope he had of making a race of it dep end ed on a go od start. Th e light flashed green and Barros sped into the lead, bu t Rainey was in fro n t b y t he tim e th e p ack h it the Ho llywood bend, a fas t rig h t lea di ng do wnh ill. It would be his most im po rtan t sta rt of the year, becau se, afte r he was safely through the Esses, near the end of the first la p , the Barro s l SchwantzlDoohan melee occurred, an incident that nearly took Cadalora ou t. "It was very cl ose and th e cras h scared me a little," said Cadalora, who broke his windscreen and dam aged his steering damper avoidi ng the pileup . "It - took me a while to ge t my con fid en ce back." Fogarty took over second, the partisan crowd roaring its app ro val , w ith Cad a lo r a third in front of Itoh an d Marlbo ro Honda Pons' Alex Criv ille. Fogarty knew th a t Cad alora w as behind him , turning in his fastes t lap on the sixth go-around. But Cada lora was just getting warmed up and was qu ickly by, di sp at ching Fogar ty w ith ease an d setting off for Rainey. By the 10th lap the margin was down to 2.6 seconds and sh rin king. Two laps la te r and he was right on h is se n ior teammate and content to sit and wa it. "I knew that Wayne was not 100 % so that gave me a chance to win the race," Cadalora said. "I got a little gap on Luca, b u t as I p ulled away, I was thinking that was as fast as I could go, and looking at my on- 31

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