Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

'INTHE PADDOCK ,' By Michael Scott ve ry journalist knows the problem , Sometimes there is too much to write about, sometimes not enough. Similarl y , sometimes you have to dig, p robe and pry; other times the information jus t tums up. Wh en it comes in a spiral-bound, 60-page booklet, alread y ana lyzed and digest ed , then you kn ow it is Ch ristmas time. And when the cont ents comprises a first-ever analysis of a season's worth of GP crashes, each crunching impact listed and analyzed in several different w ays, backed up by an earnest pofaced introduction, then you ha ve to throw back your head and laugh. I'd bette r pu t this in perspecti ve before being accused of bad tast e and a lack of decorum. Crashes a re not funny. They can maim or kill, almost ' always hurt, and invariably cause costly damage to the machinery. They also provide fuel for the nannying politically correct "liberals" (in the American sense) who, feeling the warm glow of satisfaction from protecting other people from themselves, would like to ban all dangerous sports. .All true. But we're dealing with particulars here, not generalities. These statistics concern only the Grand Prix race and p ractice crashes of a single season. A year which. after the numbing shock of Wayne Rainey's crash in 1993, was mercifully free from serious inju ries.And without injuries, there is one other thing all motorcycle crashes have in common: They are all, in retrosp ect, more or less screamingly funny. I mean, remem ber the time when you ( fill in your own hilarious details here ) Nobo dy ' needs remind ing that crashes are even' funnie r when they happen to other people. And funnier still when they fall off twice. . Now, thanks to statistics specially compiled d uring the year by the Dorna company Two Wheel Promotions, along with GP doctor Claudio Costa of 8 the Clinica Mobile, and IRTA riders ' safety delegate Franco Uncini, we can page through and rememb e r th os e incidents that relieved the monotony of one perfect lap after another. I certainly spe nt a happy hour running through the statistics, chuckling hea rti ly at the antics of 139 of motorcycling's finest, who, in between thrilling wit h their skills at con tr olling motorcycles at their limi ts, thrilled even more on the 525 sepa ra te occasions in which they stepped over the limits and paid the tumbling price. Of co u rse it wasn 't funny at the Jime. Well, no t always. To be perfectly honest, it was someti m es horrible. Lik e w h en Kevi n Schwantz fell in p ra ctice at Laguna Seca, and lay aft erward in the middle of th e track awaiting atte ntion, obv iously in pa in, ,and equally ob viously able to move his arms but no t his legs. There were worrying minutes until we learned that he had dislocated his hip . rather th an breaking his ba ck: ti mes like that are an unwelcome remi nder that the joke sometimes goes very sour indeed. And, in the festive mood, ar e bes t forgotten. Better still to recall those hotshots who fell off not once a weekend, nor even twice; but then climbed back on board to do so for a third time. There were eight r id er s who achieved this, all but one of th em in the 12Sec class . And they weren 't just the Wild Cards and duffers. Among th em we re such notables as Kazuto Saka ta and Noboru Ueda, first and second in the 125 World Championship. But even in this risible statistic there is a sober message. If eight riders could crash three times a weekend in the 125 and 250 classes, why not among the 500s? One reason may be that when you crash a 500, you are less frequently in a condition to get back on board than in the smaller classes. It 's funny . Writing about this is much less amusing than just scanning the figures. So, here are some for your enjoyment. The top recor d was 12 crashes in the year. Jus t con templat e that for a second . Can you ima gine how it must ha ve felt the 12th time ? A certain sense of in evitab ility must surely be involved . The Top Cra sher of 1994 Award is shared between three riders: Manfred Geissler, Noboru Ueda and Rodney Fee . The first two are 125 rid ers, the former a 23-year-old Ger man striving to make his mark on racing in gene ral, bu t creating his greatest imp ression against the crash barr iers. Ued a need s less introduct ion, as the man who also wo n th ree races d uring the year and was in the end bea ten only by Sakata on poi nts. Fee is a Chinese-Can adian based in California who sco re d zero po ints and might benefit from a career rethink. Ne xt on th e parade of smash hits ca rne tw o mo re 125 heroes, o r to be precise one hero -'rising Italian future ch ampion Ste fa no Peru gini , and on e heroin e, Japanese girl rider Tomoko Igata. Any cracks about wom en d rivers are surely ben eath our dignity. Each of them managed to spill off 10 times . Only in th e th ird batch comes the first 500 rid er. It is Briton John Reynold s, who land ed wheels up and windscreen down nine times. So did six others, includi ng Sakata (who has the distinction of having fallen off twice within as many laps in one race, the U.S. GP), legendary 125 faller Carlos Giro, and the first 250 riders Spaniards Jose-Luis Cardoso and CarIes Checa . Five crashes was the benchmark for a number of famo us names, including Schwantz, Loris Capirossi, Ralf Waldmann, Alex Criville, Nobuatsu Aoki and Jean-Michel Bayle, clearly now a real GP rider. Michael Doohan racked up four crashes, in company with former and current World Cha mpions Max Biaggi, Dirk Raudies and Jorge Martinez At the far end of the list are 34 riders who crashed only once . Maybe they weren't trying hard enough. Yet there are some good names on the list, like World Superbike Champion Carl Fogarty (mind you , he on ly entered one race and left before practice was over); and even some fast men from the turb ulent 125 class. like Masaki Tokudome and rostrum man ·H e r ri Torron tegu i. Sad ly. the Spa niard's sing le crash' as innocen t-collision-v icti m smashed his leg, on e of the worst inju ries. It comes as no surprise to learn that th e 125s a cco u n te d fo r th e high es t number of falls , almost d oubling the tally of the 500s with 239, to 162 in the 250 class and 124 in the 500s. Nor is it un expected that most falls should com e on th e secon d da y of practice, when riders take extra risks for the sake of grid po sitions. There were 178 crashes on Fridays, 180 on Saturdays and 167 on rac e-da y Sundays. However, on each practice day riders sp en d two hours out on the tra ck, and less than one hour on race da ys, so that the crash-per-mile rate is higher when racing, wh en 'there is at least a tangible purpose in trying too hard. Th e overwhelming impr ession when seeing all these crashes lumped together between two covers is unfair to the evident skill, d ed ication and courage of their practitioners. The noble aspects do not survive the transition from actuality to a list of statistics. It is impossible not to think: What a bunch of clots. Finally, a ' tribute to two riders who ac hieved distinction by failing to appear o n this li st. A r ound of ap p lause please for 500-class privateer. Bruno Bonhuil, who at the ag e of 34 wa s wise enough to stay on this side of the giddy limit all season long. Bu t the m arl of the y ea r in this respect must remain Tadayuki Okada. The quiet family man not only managed to avo id falling on his Tea m Kanemoto Honda throughout the season. He also ca me damned -clo se to winning the 250 title in the process. I:'LOOKING BACK..... 'I' 25 Y AR E SAGO... December23,1969 Park in So uthern California ... her out of action for over a year, Sue Fish Kel Carru the rs was pictured on stormed to victory in both motos of the his facto ry Benelli four-cylinder Expert class in the U.s. Women' s Invita250 on his wa y to winning th e tionaI MX at Carlsbad Raceway... The 250cc World Championship. GiaWheelie King, D ou g Domokos, was como Agostini and . . interviewed by associate editor Gary D ave S i m m o n s ~~ ..,. Van Voorhis... Me rt Lawwill were the othe r . r ' " . , ..~...~ ,,!~was featured in the Christmas road racing World ~! I •• " , Gift Guide showing offhis new Champions in " bicycle - the Pro Cruiser, a 34- er r y Pratt's cover p h o to from the Saddleback Park InterAm MX showed Jiri Stodulka givin g chase to Davi d Aldana. The event was 1969... w on by the Arn e 1 E SAGO... 5Y AR Kring, who also wrapped up the December19,1979 series charnpi0 n d a announced that ons h i p on h is ~===::'~:.....:;="""'~=! facto ry Husqvama. Kring beat , they'd signed Bengt Aberg and Hakan Anderson in Steve McLaughlin fron t of 20,000 sun-drenche d spectators... M ark Bre lsford won his fifth h straig ht main event at the Santa Clara seaso n; t e tw o Co un ty Fairgrounds in San Jose, Caliwould campaign Honda fornia ; Brelsfor d beat Terry Sage and 750s bored out to 997cc... World Trials Greg Hodges... The Barstow-to-Vegas Champion Bernie Schreiber won the ha re and hou nd was won by desert ace American Tri als Associa tion 's 10th J.N. Roberts... Jeff Ward won the 6-8Annual EI Tria l de Espa na in Orange, year-old class in the Sou thern CaliforCalifornia; Schreiber topped U.s. Trials nia Mini Bike an d Kart Association Champion Marland Whaley... Aft er National Championship at Saddleback recovering from injuries that had kept T Chris Cran dall and Larry Roese ler followed Smith in the race across the desert.. . Boy racer Kevin Windham went undefeated at the Winter National Olympics held at Gatorback Park in Gaines ville, Florida . Jay Mann was the ' overall champion in th e 250cc Expert class; a record 3000 entries were filled out at the event... Suzuk i unveiled its VX800 V-twin roadster at th e Milan " i'\~ :'::::J I C~~;~::~~ou~~~r ~~_omoly '~::' H ~:l~;Onr:.:~r~:~: ... ." ~~t~rr~e~~::;I~~~~~a:~V~oi~ •'/ ri ed a sugges te d retail !Jj~ ' stopper - the rad,. '. ~ , . Jj \ :. ,. • f'l show boy Robert Birthical Morpho... son w on th e 125cc Pro ....;::::;-_~ I . . ' ; • day Dun- , , Ii price of $489... Rick John- -,"".-.. ... GPproad race, bMac.a u lo w on th e esti ng "-'-" ~ .class at Saddleback Park, 80 . - _· .. -=: ~ # ·40:.-V~b ' in a warm-up race for the S . CMC Golden State mlth conQue -;;.~ k!-s:. Series... ii.",,~ ('" .. y~, , " . ' 0 -, v e ; 5YEARS AGO... December 13,1989 F Phillip McCallen and Steve Hi slop. The top I~~q~.':.·": ~:f~·.·1~~.;:-"'.,· el g t p lfinisdherPwa~. l. •'~."..~. ~';f': i ~mherhican .ace au " : ~ : '..,-" <. • • ' i . ~\_ "I;,. <,r.,:,,:::: , ,~----.:. - : SI(.,~ . .:Y :,$ . Bray... DaVId Sadowski d ebuted Yam aha' s o ur- time Nati o na l ' . ,, ' hi' " FZR750RR at Dayt ona Hare & Hound Cham- . . 'O\l Cit. _,'" '1 ..,_ 1 International Spee dway pion Dan Smith left ...~ ::.:t ~~ ~ during the annual Dunthe competition in the du st en -i;;;~;''''' ''''' '':'':':.':::':;':-;:'~ , . lop tir e tes ts; Sadowski route to the overall and 500cc "U1)o 1II'

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