Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

~ ROAD RACE Series:Final round e " \0 , ~ Q) ..g ...... u o The Ducati teams all ran into problems. Here a horde of mechanics try to figure out what's wr ong with Stephane Mertens' mount. , The Suzuki Endurance Racing Team celebrates its win; the race ended an hour earl y when specators swarmed the race track, 12 have set tled, but the relative peace was d isturbed by the anno uncemen t that the lea d ing Su zu ki (wi th Michel Gra ziano on boa rd) had collide d wi th the priv ateer Kawasaki of Sim on Buckmaster, one of th e remaining titl e candi da tes. Gra zian o, who had a one-lap lead at the time of the crash, got up , ripped the fairing off, and tried to restart it. Thwarted in hi s efforts , he was left to push th e bike back to the pits. Buckm aster, how ever, rem aine d on the ground after hit ting the Arm co barrier. Th e Brit ish rid er wa s taken to a nearb y hospital by helicopter; and d octors would lat er amputate his leg from the knee down. Graziano was gree ted warmly back at the pits by hi s teammates Lavieille and Moineau, who saw another opportunity to fi n a lly w in the Bol d 'Or thrown away. Th e bike was repa ired a nd the Frenchmen go t back into the race in 52nd place. With t he leadin g Su zuki no w a " safe " d istance behind a nd all three Ducatis lo sin g grou nd d ue to so me clutch problems and the lack of experien ce of th e factory mecha nics in th e Du cat i pits, Rymer and Kawasaki took con trol. At 3:00 a.m. the halfway signal came out and the number one Kawasaki had a two-lap lead over the Suzuki of Sarron, and an eight-lap lead over the privateer French team of Alex Vieira, Jean-Jacques Lovi chi a nd Rach el Nicotte. Haquin / Ch arles-Artigues /Coutelle followe d in fourth position, and Toland rode arou nd in fifth place afte r a trouble-free race. Th e Du cat is were eighth (Mouchet), ninth (Merkel) and 21st (Polen), with the second Kawasaki in 11th and Moineau's Suzuki already back up to 17th. The fi nal hours of darkness have always proven to be the hardest on rid ers a nd m achines during endurance races. In the Bol d 'Or, this didn't change - in a spa n of three and a half hours, five of the top teams would retire . At 5:00 a.m, on Sunday, Mertens was in the pits for good as both the clutch and the carrier were ruined. "Nevertheless, this has been a good e xpe rience for Ducati, which might come in handy next y ea r, when the Italians go through with their plans to compete in m o st o f th e World End u rance races, " Mertens sai d . "We have had some problems: first there was a battery problem (due to a malfunctioning condenser), then the engine started to overheat (due to a radiator leak) and then the clutch broke down. Durin g my last shift, the engine had started vibrating, and I lost some speed on the Mistral Straight. Just to be sure, I went into the pits, but it was unfortunately going to be the last pit stop." Polen was more disappointed. "Too bad we lost some time during every pit stop," he said. "Our lap times were consistently fast, and if ev erything had gone well, we would have made life harder on the front runners." Unfortunately, the Ducati pit crew didn't have any road race or endurance exper ience whatsoever. Most of them were factory mechanics; they had practiced a pit stop only during Saturday morning's warm-up session - only a few hours before the start of the race. One hour after the Ducati departure, th e Dutch van der Wal team re tired , after they had occupied fourth place for several hours. But the order was really thrown upside down when the leading Kawasaki came in a t around 6:30 p.m. for a routine pit stop - on ly they didn't return. "The chain of the start motor, which also drives the oil pump and the engine were no longer lub ricated," team manager Christian Bourgeois said . "This caused the engine to eve n tua lly st op working." And as th e Su zuki of Sarron (wi th Vieira in the running for a record sixth victory a t th e Bol) took ov er the lead, Crafar came in to the pits, once again, by foot. An oil leak in the clutch assembly caused by the same problems that grou nde d the first Ducati - had put oil on the rear tire, ca usi ng the New Zealander to end his race in the gravel trap. At 8:30 a.m., the second Kawasaki of Bontempi retired, iro nic ally with th e same problems which had knocked out thei r teammates on the number on e bike. Shortly thereafter, the third Ducati gave up the fight, again with a ruined clutch and carrier. Ducati learned a t lea st one lesson from their participation in the Bol d 'Or: th e aluminum carri er n eed s to be replaced w ith a n iron o ne , and th e clutch needs ser io us re in forcement. Similar problems pl agu ed Du cati Sup erbik e riders last yea r. Four hours p rior to the finish of the race, ever ybod y seeme d happy to have su rv ived the night and see med d eter mined to stick to their positions. Sarron led with a five-lap lead over Vieira, a 10lap lead over Haquin and a 12-lap lead ov er Langl ois /Dav id /Romanen s and Toland 's team, who slowed their pace dramatically with the retiremen t of both Kawas akis. Moineauand his teammates were sixth and the y would eventually finish fifth, with the race ending an hour early as a large portion of the 80,000 specta tors swarm ed onto the track. The Sarron-Ied Suzuki team turned in 638 laps of the 2.37-mile race track in the shortened race, averaging 100 . 837 mph. tN Results 1. Sar ro n/Dele tang/ Bo nhu il (Suz ); 2. Vieira l Lovichi / Nico tte (Ho n); 3. Haqu in /Charles--A gu es / rti Coute lle (Ka w); 4. Langlois /David /Romanens (Hon); 5. Moin eau /La v ie i1le / Graz ian o (Suz); 6. Lu ss iana / Linde n / Toland (Hon); 7. Dem oncourt/Peri n/Fersteler (Suz ); 8. Lega udu /Granie /Ckiliani (Suz); 9. B.uthod l Autissier / Besson (Ho n); 10. L'HerbettelJ ua n ola / Leblanc (Hon); 11. Bertin / De Pun ier /Protat (Hon); 12. Jac q uie r / Paquay /Pos ta l (Ho n); 13. Ambord / Graf l Len taigne (Kaw); 14. Mah e/Mizera lJ acqu e (Hon); 15. Winterbott orn /Railton /Pullan (yam) . WORLD C'SHI P POINT STANDINCS: I. Dou g Toland (106); 2. (TIE) Brian Morrison /Wilfrid Veille (80); 4. (TIE) Steve Manley!Simon Buckma ste r (66).

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