Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Round 3: Suzuka 8-Hour By Norlko Mori" SUZUKA CITY, JAPAN, JULY 31 t all came down to the final 45 m inutes. New Zealander Aar on Slight vs. Am erican Scott Russell. Honda vs. Kawa sa ki. The prize? Victory in the mo st prestigious ro ad race in the world - the Suzuka 8-Hour. In the end, the win went to Slight and his teammate Doug Polen - by just .288of-a-second - giving the Honda RC45 its first major victory in international competition. Ironically, the dueling duo of Russell and Slight were teammates last yea r when the pair gave Kawasaki the win. Slight and Pol en averaged 96.695 mph in completing 183 laps of the 3.63mile race track that is located some 300 miles west of Tokyo. Russell and his British World Su p e rb ike tea mma te Terry Rymer ended up second. Third p lac e wen t to the am/pmbacked Honda RC45 of Japan's Shinichi Itoh and Shinya Takeishi, the last of the teams to be on the same lap as the two leading teams. Finishing one lap behind was the fou rth-placed Yamaha team of four -time World Champion Eddie Lawson, in wha t was likely the final motorcycle race of his illustrious caree r, and his young Japa nese teammate Yasutomo Nagai; the pair being fortuna te enoug h to have Nagai's early-race crash not figure in the scoring because of the red-flag that stopped the race only one lap later. Six bikes crashed with oil and fire forcin g officials to stop the race, ma rking the firs t time in the history of the race that a race-stoppage has occurred. Early on, the race took on the look of an All -Japan Na tional Cha m pi o ns hi p race, with the young Japanese stars taking command. But things soo n sorted themselves out with the top riders from th e Wo rld Superbike Series - Russell , Polen , Slight and Terry Rymer - moving to the front of the pack after the Japanese aces started to falter. I QUAUFYING Th is year's Suzuka 8-Hour - the first to be run under World Superbike regulations rather than Formula One rules featured something different when it came to qualifying. While each rider still competed in regular qualifying, grid pos itions were ultimately decided upon via a "Special Stage," a one-lap blast around th e 3.641-mile circuit that was featured on television with sp lit-times highlighting each riders progress. Scott Russell and the factory Kawasaki ZXR750Rwas the fastest combination throughout regular qualifying, and the Georgian was able to duplicate that during his high-pressure run for pole pos ition. Russell ended up circulating at two-minutes, 11.924-seconds, just fractions off his best lap from Friday. Next best was the am/pm-backed Honda RC45 ridden by 500cc Grand Prix star Shinichi Itoh and fellow Japanese Shinya Takeishi, It was Takeishi, though, who gave the team its fastest lap in the one-lap "Sp ecial Stage" - a 2:12.814, nearly a second slower than Russell. Third best was Kiwi Aaron Slight, who turned a 2:12.831, to give himself and teammate Doug Polen a good starting spot for the Le Mans-style start. "There were some more things to do on Friday, but we found most of the good settings on Saturday," Polen said. "I'Il keep my strength in reserve for the first hours, then up the pace after five or six hours." Sli gh t wasn't a fa n of the "Special Stage" qu alifying : "The new qualifying system is stupid, " Slight said . "1 wasn 't going to try hard, but after starting, I tried. I am going to win this race again!" The official Yamaha pairing of Eddie Lawson and Yasutomo Nagai were always near the top of the qualifying sheets, but the pair had problems in the "Special Stage." Lawson nea rl y crashed after a big slide and it slowed him enough to make Nagai's 13th fastes t time, a 2:15.013, the team's best. "It's a long race and I don't mind the grid at all," Lawson said. La wson and Nagai were ha ving problems with their suspens ion settings, according to team manager an d former race winner Tad ah iko Taira. "Their prob lem is on ly with the front fork," Taira said. "Eddie thinks the rear is more impo rtant, bu t Nagai uses more of the front. I think for the long d istance, it's better to ad opt Edd ie's way." To make ma tt ers worse, Nagai uses Dunlop tires in the All-Ja pan Ch ampionship, but had to adapt to Michelins for th e 8-Hour. La w son, on the othe r hand, ha s am ple experience with both brands. Both ride rs, howe ver, s aid th a t tires wo uldn' t be a problem. "We're s till changing, still deciding, about front s uspension . We'll do jus t the sam e things we have been doing, just trying different settings and see w ha t happens," La wson sa id . "He (Nagai) likes d ifferent se ttin gs than me, but eventu all y we 'll ha ve to decide." The Lucky Strike Su zuki team of Peter Goddard and Scott Doohan, who was subst ituting for the injured Alex Barros, ended up qualifying 11th with Goddard turn in g a 2:14.983. The team leader ha d crashed on Friday, injuring his finger. "I think we ha ve a setting for the race tomorrow," Goddard said. "It's stabl e and handles well. The only problem is that it lacks acceleration compared to the other bikes, so we ha ve to exploit our cornering speed. My hand is not a worry." Doohan was also optimist ic: "I've been trying to get used to the bike . As you know, this is the first time for me on a Suzuki. Every time out I seem to be going faster. The Ducati I ride in Australia may have a little more acceleration, so I'm having to work harder through the comers with the Suzuki. Peter (Goddard) and I seem to be running similar settings. he's a little bit lighter so I like the suspension a little bit harder, but those kinds of problems are the same for everybody." The number two factory Kawasakiof Keichi Kitagawa and Shoichi Tsukamoto were forced to start from the 39th pos ition on the grid after Tsukamoto crashed during the " Sp eci a l Stage." Another who crashed out during their hot lap was Toru Ukawa on the factory Honda RC45, forcing himself and teammate Tadayuki Okada to start from the 38th position on the grid. SUZUKA 8-HOUR The race got underway in oppressive summer heat at 11:30 a.m . on Sunday morning with a Le Mans-style start - the lead riders running to their motorcycles while the number two riders waited to push them off. The Aoki brothers got things rolling quickly as Takuma Aoki led the way from the ir number seven starting position on his factory RC45. Aoki was followed off the start by Daijiro Kato - who w a s substituting for new Marlboro Yamaha recruit Norifumi Abe - the Shinya Takeishi-ridden am/pm Honda RC45, the Yamaha of Maturu Yoshikawa and Shuya Arai on the Moriwaki Racing RC45. The man on the move was Lawson's teammate Nagai, who had the Yamaha with the lead group by the end of the second lap after starting 13th. Five Japanese riders ran at the front of the pack with positions changing all around the circuit, giving the race the look of an All-Japan Series sprint race. The most remarkable ride was being turned in by Toru Ukawa, the current points leader in the All-Japan 250cc Championship, on the HRC-backed RC45, who started 38th but soon jumped up to eighth by the end of the second lap. It didn't take long for him to catch Russell, and by the eighth lap he was up to fourth - having shot by Russell, Kato and Slight. Meanwhile, Slight and Russell seemed content to follow the Japanese, although Slight seem ed to be trying early on before realizing that it was better to wait it out. As it turns out, the two

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