Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

·: ·ROAO:.:RACE·. >: ' :'.: .' Round 4: Spanish Grand Prix § . : :I ., :W C pionship,Road Race Series' ' orld. ham t~han takes cont r o l (Lett) The Spanis h 500cc Grand Prix gets underway with Brazl lian Alex Barro s (6) leading his teammate Kevin Schwantz (34) and John Koc inski (11). (Below) Six riders were in the lead group early on wit h Mlck Doohan (4) lead ing Schwantz, Barros, Kocinski, Alex Crlville (8) and Alberto Pulg (17). Doo han went on to win his second GP of th e 1994 season while also takin g over the lead in the World Champ ions hip point sta nd ings. By Henny Ray Abrams JEREZ,SPAlN, MAY 8 ha t is happening in Grand Prix racing can best be 'd escribed by the oxymoron "negative progress." One race after Lucky Strike Suz uki's Kevin Schwantz change d to a fra me that looks strikingly like a 1993 chassis, HRC's Mick Dooha n talked of going back to 1992 suspension se ttings, though what he means, accor ding to a source within Honda, is that he's p u t the 199 2 suspension pa rts ba ck on his motorcycle. Whatever he d id, it worked, and he was just enough better than Schwan tz to come out on top after a hard-fought duel in the Pepsi Grand Prix of Spain, held on a sunny day at the Jerez circuit in front of a crowd of 150,000. As mu ch as the sun baked the spectators, it also destroyed the tires. Doohan and the others knew that whoever had anything at the end would p revail. "I thought it was going to be tough all weekend, and it was," the 28-yearold Doohan said after winning his secon d race of the year. "I had to make do with what 1 had. 1 wasn't sliding around any more than anyone else out there." Doohan completed the 27-lap, 74.208mile race in 47 minutes, 31.082 seconds at an average speed of 93.701 mph, an d he beat Schwantz by .489-of-a-second . The Honda team had tested at the [ararna circuit, jus t outside of Madrid, the previous wee k and had disc overed the suspension fix that was applied in Jerez. What it did , accord ing to Doohan, was sa ve the rear tire. "Kevi n (Schwa n tz) ju mped in fro n t of me (on the 13th lap) and 1 could see he was having the same problems," said Doohan , who repassed Schwan tz a lap later. W Schwantz would ma ke a lat e-race charge, setting a new lap record on each of the la st three laps, though he was stymied somewhat by traffic. Yet he refused to blame that for his finish , saying that bo th the rid ers and the marshals in charge of alerting the slower riders to oncoming traffic did the best they could. "My biggest problem was Mick," the 29-year-old Texan said . "His bike was working a little better than ours and he made very few mistakes. Even if the backmarkers di dn' t get in the way, 1 would have had a hard time passing him." The win allowed Doohan to pad his championship points lead. After four of 14 races , Doohan has 86, with Schwantz and Cagiva's John Kocinski tied for second with 68 points. Sch w a ntz ' s Lu cky Strike Suzuki teammate Alex Barros had led from the start, giving way to the World Champion on the second lap . Schwantz led the next five with Doohan up to secon d on the third lap, then taking over the lead on the sixth. Bar ros dropped back to battle Kocinski an d the Cagiva, the pair of them gra dually losing touch with the leaders. By the time Kocinski got by on the 18th of 24 laps - after a few close calls - they'd lost touch with the leaders and he had to settle for third. Further hand icapping his charge was the fact that just after passing the Brazilian, one of his cylinders began to misfire and he was unabl e to mo ve forward - b ut he refused to mak e excuses . "I would've finished third anyway," Kocinski said afte r coming home almos t nine seconds behind Schwantz. Barros w as an o ther fo ur seco nds ad rift, all alone and glad to finish w here he did after his tires went off on the 12th lap. Fifth place went to HRC's Alex Criville, the first Spaniard, who had a few big slides in the middle of the race then decided to save his tires for the end. It was a strategy that brought him to within 1.6 seconds of Barros at the finish, for his best finish of the year. Next came Spaniard Alberto Puig, the Ducados Honda Pons-backed rider who spent most of the race circulating by himself. Cagiva's Doug Chandler was seventh after choosing a rear tire that was too hard and never worked any better than it did on the first lap. It took him most of the race to pass Slick 50 Team WCM's Niall Mackenzie, who was riding with an engine which had been re-built the night before. Mackenzie had broken a ma in bearing in his ROC Yamaha during qualifying and said that in the race it was marginally slower than before the seizure. The Ap rilia RSV-500 piloted by Italia n ve teran Lo ris Reg gia ni finis he d ninth in its debut in the SOOcc GP class. The 400cc V-twin, based heavily on the Ap rilia 250, had qu alified seventh, but the straigh t-li n e powe r d e ficit w as found to be da unting . Still, he was able to finish in front of a host of four-cylind er mach in es, including the Marlboro Yamahas. It was a day that learn owner Kenny Roberts would soon like to forget. Luca Ca dalo ra, who came in to the ra ce a close fo urth in the championship, retired on the 12th lap while in 11th place. The cause was a rear wheel valve stem which broke, causing the tire to go

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