Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

~ ROAD RACE Wo~ld Championship Road RaceSeries:Round 10 m Wayne Rainey (1) led m os t of the British 500cc GP, b ut Luca Cadalora (7) took th e victory. Ins et: Michael Doohan, Alex Barros an d Kevin Schw an tz crash at Do ni ngton's Esses. Cadalora wins,title race heats up in England By Henny Ray Abr ams CASTLE DONINGTON, ENGLAND, AUG 1 he 500cc World Championship has suddenly become a four-race series afte r a sequence of events turned th e British Grand Prix a t Doningto n Park in to th e most u n usual contest of th e year and, for the second time this year, a first-tim e winner was crowned . The Marlboro Roberts Yama ha team took the top two spots, a team first, but th e orde r was unexpect ed with Italian Luca Ca dalora sc oring h is fi rst ever 500cc Gra nd Prix win, p ass ing teammate Wayn e Rainey with less than tw o la ps to go to deny h im five Wo rld Championship poin ts. But, equally im p ortan t, th e points lea d e r, Team Lucky Strike Suzu ki's Kevin Schwantz, wa s taken out of the race on the very fi rst la p when he was involved in a crash w ith teammate Alex Barros and Rothrnans Honda's Mick Doohan, so the damage to Rainey was som ewhat minimized. Rainey wasn't overwrought by the loss of points, but team owner Kenny Roberts said they'd hung a "P-2" (second place) pit board out for Cadalora in the hopes that he would stay behind Rainey, but the message didn't get through. T o "They said nothin g at the beginning of th e ra ce," said Cadalora, 30, whose first 500cc victory was suddenly controversial. "They don't need to say nothing. 1 was thinking a lot about this at the end of th e race. 1 saw at the beginning that Schwantz crash ed and 1 knew there was no t so muc h trouble if 1 win." "1 was hoping he wouldn't pass me," said Rainey, 32, who was still sore from crashing in p ractice the pr evious da y. "That was as fast as 1 cou ld go and he was all over me. 1 kep t making mistakes. 1 couldn't stay on line so 1 settled into a pa ce. It was too slow." It was so slow that you would have to go back to 1989 to find a British GP w hose a verage s peed was as low. Cadalora won the 3D-lap , 75-miIe race in 47 minutes, 45.630 seconds at an average speed of 94.216 mph. Though he sha dowed Rainey for most of the race, once in fron t Cadalora pulled 'away to win by 3.312 seconds. . Schwantz's crash and Rain ey's second place closed the championship gap to three points. With fou r races to go, Schwantz leads Rainey, 192-189. ''I'm just a bit mo re beat up," Schwantz said after suffering his first DNF and first race crash of the year. "It means that from here on it's a four-race champi onship . 1 think if we can keep on doing what we've been do ing, 1 can beat Wayne. It's just a sha me that all the hard work we've p ut in over the last 10 races has gone out the win dow." The acci de n t happene d on th e entrance to the Ess es after the fas test straightaw ay on the trac k. Rainey was safely thr ough, but th ere was mayhem behind him . Barros was just behin d Rainey, with Schwantz on his right side and Doohan just behind, but between the m . As Barros tu rned in, Doohan clipp ed him from behind sen ding them all sprawling, but unhurt. "1 don't really know w ha t hap pened," Doohan said. "1 didn't think 1 was too hot going into there. Everyone braked, and 1 braked , and, all of a sud den I accelerated with Alex, like 1 was getting suc ke d in wi th Alex. The on ly opening was between them. 1 feel so bad for Kevin and everyone, reall y. It's the firs t tim e 1 ev er bagged it on the first lap." Doohan dropped back to fourth in the cha mpionship, his Rothrnans Honda te.a mmate Darryl Beattie, sixth today with rear tire traction problems, moved into third with 126, six ahead of Doohan. The battle that had the es timated 25,000 fans riveted on a cool and cloudy afternoon in the Bri tish Midlands was the one for third. Carl Fogarty, a British wild card entry aboard a factory Cagiva, held the spot almost the entire race only to get ni p ped at the line byScot Niall Mackenzie on the Valvoline Yamaha by .34-0f-a-second. Fogarty, whose Cagiva developed fuel starvation problems late in th e race, ran w ide out of God d ards, the final hairpin bend, an d the 32-yearol d Ma ck enzi e veered hard left an d swep t und er h im as "F og gy " looked over his righ t shoul der. Fogarty, 27, a Ducati factory rider in th e World Champi onship Superbi ke Series, was the lone Cagiva after the rest of th e factory team pulled out because of injuries to its riders. Doug Chandler, w ho had qualified 15th, found he was still hindered by the injuries to his left side that he'd suffered in MugelIo two weeks earlier and pulled out on race morning. "I'm going home to California so that 1 can rebuild my body and be fit for

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