Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

tion when the pace car came out after the Mo ineau/Nicotte crash. "This way it's the sport that is penalized. If w e hadn't had that five- la p pen a lt y, w e wo uld b e battling for se co n d or th ird place." As night started to fall over the 4.34mile circu it of Spa -Francorchamps, th e Kawasaki and Suzuki works bikes started to stamp their au thority on the fastest privateers. Morillas was still lea ding, with Bonhuil climbing steadily towards second place. The private teams weren't up to the fast pace set by the Suzuki. The Dutch team, led by a fo rmer endurance ride r, the tall Johan Van der Wal, was fo rced to cope with two unsch eduled pit stops because of cracks in its Marvic wheels. The sa me brand ha d already p rov en to be th e ticket .to the gra vel pi t and retirement for a Belgian team (a s it h ad been for Rob ert Dunlop on the Isle of Man , and for Jose Kuhn in the World Superbike round in Al bacete, Sp a in ). La ter the Du tch / French trio would suffer fro m brakin g problems, forcing them to change the carbon-fiber bra kes for common steel rotors, w hich t h e n forc ed them to change bra kes every two ho urs, causing Planken and his teammates to fall back to a place outside th e top 10, a lbe it momentar ily. A short while later, it was the Swiss Bolliger team's turn to get in to trouble. First, Graf laid the bike down on the p it .lane to avoid a car eless p it marshall, an d later Ammann d id it all over again, bu t at a speed of some 125 m ph. He push ed the bike back to the p it lane and the bike was hastily repaired, re tu rning the team to ba ttI e in eigh th place. Du ring the night, an ot her crash would delay their comeback a litt le more. Meanwhile, th e Brit is h Phase O ne . Kawasaki wa s 'ru nn ing like cloc kwork, as it ha d done a year earlier in winning the Belgian race, a n d th e team (with Kiwi Robert Holden ) was holding a very strong third p osi tion behind the two "Japanese" factory bikes. At ha lf d istance, Morill as led with so me five laps over Bonhuil, Manley, Ma tti oli, Graf-and Planken, and these gentlemen seemed pretty pleased with tha t re sult. In other words, nothing m uch changed during th e night, ev en tho ugh the Dutch had a tou gh time trying to keep Bertin/De Puniet/LeGaudu (on a Honda RC45) behind them. After th e re tir em ent of Vieira, it w as pretty su rp ris in g to find Mattioli/ Autissi er and Simon best defending the colors of Honda. The experienced team (wi th the - Belgian Simon celebrating his 37th birthd ay on Sunday) rode an exemplary race on their brand-new RC45, wh ich was 1 tun ed in the workshop of former Grand Prix rider Jean-Louis Guignabodet. The y su ffere d their worst moment aro un d midnight when the electronic lap count- ing device on their bike refused to send . any more signals to the receiver at the side of the track. Fortu nately, the organ izers a ls o keep la p co u n t ing charts whi ch are manually upd ated by a team of experienced counters. For Tola nd, th e rac e ended around 2:30 a.m. on Sunday morning when his Fren ch tea m m ate, A ndre Lussia na , co uldn't avo id a Gu zzi rider who h ad cras hed in fro nt of him. The team w as - running in the top 10, some five la p s behin d the fourth-placed French Honda team of Mattioli. An other in cid ent p ut the p ace car bac k on the track when a Belgian rider crashed into a reckless spectator in the p it lane. The last change in the top five came a bo u t around 10:00 a.m. o n Sunda y - (with five more h ours to go) w hen (Left) The victory went to t he Kawasakl-mounted tea m of Denls .Bonorls, Adrlen Morlllas and Jean-Louis Batt lstin i. (Below left) The Ducati teams ran Into all kin ds of problems; here Philippe Mouchet pits . (Below) World Champion Doug Toland and his team dropped out of the race afte r a crash. (Bottom) The top th ree teams celebrate th eir fin ishes, with the KawasakJ France team standing tall on the top rung of the rostrum. battle for the lead was very sho rt-lived, this has been a copyboo k end u rance race, w it h a ll it s specific ch allenges. Especially when yo u have a comfortable lead and you kn ow that you still have a long way to go, these races can be very difficu lt. It d id not stop us from going faster during the race than d uring pra ctice . I still ha ve some p rob lems due to my injured w rist, but we had an excellent doctor who took care of that. " MoriIlas and Battistini, who are now leading the World Ch ampionship, are not slated to go to the Suzuka 8-Ho ur at the end of July. But what if Bonoris took a crash course in alchem y and started working on a wa y to chan ge a stone in to gold? ex Bertin was forced out. His team's race had been pretty consistent, except for a w h eel problem. On Sunday morning, the French National Moto team had run out of wheels. The fi v e brand new wheels (bought from a manufacturer whose name starts wi th an M...), which they had purchased just before the Spa race, had all been put in the garbage can after a few hours racing. Meanwhile, the leading Kawasaki had started to take it a little easier on the brakes and the engine as soon as their lead ' grew seven laps. Only at around noon did the p it crew of the offici a l Kawasaki get very ne rvous when the announcer sa id that Bonoris had come to a halt at the back of the circuit, only to res tart half a minute later. "We a lre a dy h a d a little p roblem du ring the p it s to p , a n d w hen 1 approached the fast chicane at the end of the long uphill straight the brakes d id not work an y more," Bonoris exp lained later. "I stopped to check everything and p umped the brakes a few times an d tha t did the job . We d id not have any brakin g problems a ny more afte r tha t." The offici al Suzuki had also slowed down the pace, in an effort to safegu ard th eir s ec ond p lace. Manle y and h is teammates didn' t have to worry too much abo ut the French Honda of Matti- oli, even though th ey had to change a noisy exha us t pipe in the morning. Three hours before the finish, one of the fastest privateer teams w ould lose all chances to end in a decent position. The Bolliger team ran into transmission problems, w h ich condemned. them to the p its until the last minutes of the race. Given th e fact that, at that time, th ey had covered more than 75% of the winne r' s d istance, th ey would eventually fi nd their names all th e w ay ba ck in . 30th. Ther e was still some trouble left for the Ducatis, as well. After so me minor p roblems, som e sl ow p it stop s an d a crash by Mouchet, b oth o f the Italian twins we re now ou t of the top 10. But this didn' t tem per. th e en th usiasm of most of the 15,()(J{H;trong crowd on the sunny hi lls of Spa-Fran corchamps. In any case, it didn't cha ng e a lot for Morillas/Battistini/ Bonoris, who no tched up victory in Belgium, in fron t of Bonhuil /Monner et /Gomez a nd Manley / Holden/Graves. Once again, the official Kawasaki turned out to be not onl y on e of the fastest bikes around, but also one of the most reliable. Apar t fro m the little scare inspired by Bonoris a few hours before the finis h, the winning trio ha d run a fairly uneve ntful race. . " Nevertheless, this has been a tough event," said MorilIas. "Even though the Circuit National de Spa-Francorchamps Spa-Francorchamps , Belgium Unoff icial results: Ju ly 10, 1994 1. Morillas/Battistini/Bonoris (Kaw); 2. Bonhuil / Mo nneret/Comez (Suz); 3. Ma nley I Hold en/G ra ves (Ka w); 4. Mattioli/ Autissier/Simon (Hon); 5. Planken/ MiJleI/Graziano(Yam); 6. Pelil/ Lelan/Dubois (Ho n); 7. Bosch /Den Broc k/Colet (Kaw) ; 8. Bonnet l Kne ma n n / Lac ro ix (Hon); 9. Lebl a nc/ L' He r be tt e/ Marchand (Hon); 10. KretschmeryZiegenfusa/ Berg (Yam); 11. M o u chet / M ou n ie r / Chambon (Du c); 12. Rosenfeld / Cr asso us / Jaggi (D uc ); 13. La crosse / Nickma ns / Le gr a nd (Ka w );14. Bre it enst e in / Kell er l Askar (Yam) ; 15. Backstrom / Johansson /Nyman (Ka w ); 16. Co rbe tt / Sm it h /Goo d ley (Ya m ); 17. Schittko l losch /Seefel d t (Ka w) ; 18. C uz in/Gleyz e/Go mba ud (Yam); 19 . Ru s er / Sch m id t / Schli eper (Ya m); 20. Wauters /DeKimpe/ De Wit (Ka w ); 21. Orb an / Pistt.-r/ fissetle (Yam); Z2. Scheer linck/Bemard/DevilJe (Kaw); 23. Key meulen / Ae r ts/ Ve rs trl"p en (Du c); 24. Ye ndu ffele n /Va nd ijk /Pla ta ci s (Ka w) ;25. Gorn ng hs / Mombaerts/ Genin (Due); 26. Lagamme /Servais/Granie (Ka w); 27. Kemp en er /Maes/Verhegghe (Ho n); 28. Boner /Tenhaa flM ommen (Ka w); 29. Goffinghs / Detoumay/Dupuis (Due); 30. Grai/ Ambord / Anunann (Ka w) ; 31. Deta ill e-/ Pir s on /Fonta ine {Hon); 32 . Beltermann/Carey/ H ill (Suz); 33. Fe n acci /Mu jteau/ Guigou (Due); 34. Dubus/ Ada m /Marchand (Suz); 35. W ill ems /Ruhroth /Bludau (H on); 36 . Bell eg o / Laud inet/Mo ree l (Suz) ; 37. Arisy / Ma rcha l/ Deband e (Kaw); 38. Van Buynder/Van Haver/De Maegt (Yam). Di stance: 52J laps, 2269.82 miles. Ti me: 24 hours , 1 min.,47.38 :oec . Average speed: 94.256 mph . F.astesl lolp: Mo rillas / Battistini / Bo nor is , 2.31.2 9 / 103.050 mph. WORLD C 'S H I P ENDU RA N CE S ER IE S POI NT ST A.NDINGS (Aft er 2 o f 4 rounds): 1. fil E) Jean-Louis Battistini / Ad rien Marillas (80) ; 3. (T IE) Iua n-Ertc Gome z / Ph ili p pe Mo nne r et /Bru no Bo nhuil (M) ; 6. Te r ry Rymer (40); 7. (T IE) Jose Kuh n / Alex Vie ira/ Rachel Nicotte /Stev e Manle y/ Robert Hol den/Peter Gra ves (34); 13. (TIE) Patrick Lelan lJol Petit (32); 15. Michel Simo n (26). Upcom ing rounds Round 3; Suzuka, Japan - July 25 Round 4: 601d'Or, France - Seplember 19 33

• Cover