Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

· GROADRACE ~ Series: Final round third with CriviIle joining the fray on the Marlboro Pons Honda. But Schwantz was back out front on the next lap, a lead that would last for four laps . Cad alora wa s back at th e p o int on t he eigh th lap, Schwantz b riefly second as the rid ers behind began to close up. Kocinski moved by Schwantz on the 10th lap though the pack of six riders - Cadalora, Kocinski, Schwantz, Itoh, Barros, Beattie were running n o se to tail. Further back, Criville was circulating alone after hav ing muffed the sta rt. "The cru cial poin t has been the start:' said Criville. "If I had a good s tart surely I could fight in the group of leaders." As the race approached the midway point, Schwantz began to drop back as he lost feeling in his right hand. To try to restore sensitiv it y, Schwantz would take his hand off the throttle and sha ke it while holding the throttle wide open and steeri ng with his left hand while on the 1100yard stra ightaway. "In th e beginning, after the fifth lap , I was having trouble:' th e Texan s ai d . "I tried to change the w ay I was gripping the bar and the way I went in to the com er on the brakes. It was really tou gh riding. I was in fifth or sixth spot and thou ght abo ut pulling in, but I'd finished every race except for Donington." (Above) JeanPhillipe Ruggia (17) holds off Loris Reggiani (13) and th e rest of the 250cc GP pack in fro nt of a crowd estimated at 60,000. (Left) Max Biaggi sprays champagne at winner and World Champion Tetsuya Harada. 8 The lead was assumed by Kocinski on the 13th lap, Cadalora shuffled back to second with Itoh moving up to third on the fuel-injected Honda. Itoh dis- " placed Cadalora on the 16th lap and on the next moved in to the lead. Cadalora was beginning to have trouble with his front tire and would last one more lap b efore sliding off in turn eight, the Portago comer. "I was just waiting," Cadalora said. "Itoh was ahead and I was happy to wait for him to start to tire near the end before making a move. I'd not had any problems at the corner where I fell. Some corners I knew I was trying, I could feel I was on the limit, but not that corner. Suddenly the fron t tire s lid awa y . I had no chance of getting it back." His sp ill, on the 18th lap moved Barros to thi rd , behind Itoh and Kocinski, and Beattie to fou rth ahead of Schwantz. Itoh held abou t a 50-yard advantage on Kocinski, who had the same on Barros, on the 20th lap, but Kocinski, who was losin g ground .to the acceleration of the Honda, decided to make his move. Unfortunately, it was a lap too late. Coming out of tu m 11, a fast downhill left known as th e Buga tt i corner, Itoh highsided right in front of Kocinski. Kocinski, who couldn ' t avoid hitting Itoh , ran over Itoh 's legs before comin g to a stop in the sand pit. He picked the Cagiva up and tried to get it going with the help of a comer wor ker, bu t another comer worker was pushing him tow ard the ha y bales, promptin g Kocinski to take a swing at him. Eventually he got go ing, but as he pulled away his righ t front brake rotor, whi ch had been d amaged in the crash, came apart and piec es of carbon fiber flew off the bike. His da y was done. "I was making a run at him because he wa s pulling me so bad off the co rners: ' Kocinski sai d . "I though t I'd follow him , then get him on the brakes at the end of the straight. I wa s ab out six inches beh ind him wh en he did the classic highside. If it had been a lap earlier, I could have missed him ." With the two leaders out, Barros took over the lead. Beattie inherited second, and Schwantz was third an d ha ppy that he kep t going. "Things started falling in to place, literally:' Schwantzsa id . "O ne guy fell and I thought, 'okay, I'm up to fifth.' Then ano ther a nd another and I th ought, ' I' m in third place.' I'll take third any way I can get it." Barros, w ho h ad led two GPs th is year only to crash in the final stages, remembered those tim es and kept hi s wits about him this tim e to score his first GPvictory. " It was a ho t day, and though the track wasn't so slippery, we were all s li d ing a lo t: ' Ba rro s said . " I saw Cadalora crash in front of me, then Itoh did the same, taking Kocinski with him. I knew it was because of tires and that no w I was leading, I must be very careful. I also thought a little of the times I had crashed while leading, so I just kept a careful eye on my pit board to see that Beat tie wasn't catching, and made sure to finis h." Beattie crossed the line about five second s back and credited part of his su ccess to adjustments he'd made to his front suspension. "Basically, in qualifying I did reasonable times and I knew I could put five of those together, but maybe not a whole race: ' Beat tie said. "We changed a lot with the forks . We wouldn't have been th at consisten t in the race without the changes. We would have struggled a lot. I ma de a half reasonable start and manage d to keep up with the leading riders. My main aim at the star t of the race was to make su re the others did not pull too far ahea d of me." Schwan tz crossed the line in third, about 13 second s back, but five up on Criville wh ose late-race charge stalled. Since Schwantz's crew had known that h is spot was sec ure for m uch of the second half of the race, they'd sto pped giv ing him intervals. "By then I was so far back that my pi t had sto pp ed signaling the gap from the leade rs, bu t as the others fell ou t, I was a bl e to kee p go ing and hang on to third:' Schwantz said. Afte r a number of difficult races, CriviIle was content to finish fourth. "The engine ran well, but I had a little rear sus pens ion prob·Iem which meant I couldn't really get on th e gas hard exiting s lower corners, " the Spaniard said . _ Fifth place went to Chandler, the Cagiva rider spending most of the time riding alone after an early challenge. "I was pretty much on my ow n after I got back pa s t Reynolds and the bike was the b est it has b e e n all week," Chand ler said. "I'm p retty happy with it. At leas t I finished one." His teammate, Mladin, finished sixth after los ing a lot of ground in a first tum incident in what is likely his final race with Cagiva. "I made a good start, but then I got hit at the first comer, then I hit someone else and I was way back," Mladin said. "I had to put my head down after that and by halfway through the race the rear tire was finished. I saw that with six laps to go I was six seconds behind Garcia and Mella, but I didn't think I could catch them. I jus t kept trying." Sp aniard Juan Lopez Mella fell with four laps to go, moving Yamaha Motor France's Bernard Garcia and Mladin up a notch. Mladin, passed Ga rci a on the final lap . Be h in d Ga rcia ca me Team Valvoline's Mackenzie, th e Scotsman losing his front brakes on the fourth lap while in eighth, dropping all the wa y back to 27th. He adj us ted the front lever and slowly began to claw his way back a spot at a time, though he used up his rear tire in the process and had to settle for eighth. 250cc G rand Prix The numbers coming into th e final race were simple. In order to add the 250cc World Championship to his 125cc title, Capirossi had to finish third or better if Harada won the race. At the start of the race it was th e Ap ril ias th a t wou ld go out fa s t, Reggia ni leading te a m mate JeanPhilippe Ruggia. Rothmans Honda's Tadayuki Okada was third before crashing out on the second lap. He suffered only a minor elbow injury. The shunt moved Romboni into third ahead of Biaggi and Harada's teammate Pier-Fra ncesco Chili. Sixth and seventh at the time were Harada and Capirossi, the two feeling each other ou t early. Chili was the first to begin dropping back, though Romboni couldn't match the early pace and fell to the championship contenders on the sixth lap when he sai d his rear tire began to go off. Ruggia had taken over the lead on the second lap, dropping Reggiani to second. On the s e v en th la p Biaggi would drop him to third, with Harada and Capirossi just behind. It became a five-rider pack, Romboni dropping off the pace considerably. "After the th ird lap, m y rear tire started to go off," Romboni said. "I was sliding badly and had no chance to follow the pack." The order would remain the same for one more lap befo re Capirossi mad e his first mistake, passing Harada needlessly. He would move farther forward, taking over third on th e 12th lap, before settling back to fourth behind Ruggia, Reggiani, and Biaggi. As the riders approached the halfway point Ruggia remained in fron t,

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