Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

GOOdbye, Cagiva 54 r ed e signa t ed th e V587. Th e work h ad been d on e in h ou se b y e ngine d e s ign er Ezi o Ma scheroni, the d ir ecti on of d ev elop ment closely followed that of Yamaha . The an gle between the vee closed .right up from 90 degrees to 56, making the .motor more compact; the inl ets to the reed valves were arranged in line and Mikuni carbu retors wer e ad opted, and the total -loss Marelli ignition (requiring a bulky battery) was repl aced halfway through the year with a Japanes e Kokkuisan self-generating system. Cagiva had signed up for the fir st and only time with a sponsor, Bastos, a European cigarette brand: th e bike s were s till red, but had white striping. They recruited two rid ers who could be regarded as good and still improving: Frenchman Raymond Roche and Belgian Didi er de Radigues. And they sign ed up French engineer Allain Chevallier, until now a racing bike manufacturer in his own right. He was expe cted to produce a lightweight chassis, but when this w as n ot forth comin g, Cagiv a built th eir ow n in hou se , which arrived in time for th e fourth ra ce a t M onza . Ch ev alli er remained in charge at th e trac ks, but thi s wa s ano ther relati on ship that ran int o the doldrums. Roche and d e Radigu es had a go od year, by and large, thou gh the non-finishes were still frequen t, with nin e and eig h t, re s pect ive ly . Bu t each sco re d p oint s fou r times, with a b e st- e ver fourth in Brazil for de Rad igues, who was 12th overall, wi th Roche 13th. Now Cagiva were the stronges t they h ad ever been. Th eir b ike still lacked p erform ance and refinement, but th e gap 'w a s much, much s m a lle r, and might be closed still further. And as a rew ard the y managed to catch the ir best rid e r so far - Randy Mamola, on th e rebound from Team Roberts, but still a leading light. Randy and teammate Roche rode the revi sed V588, with the new arched sw ing arm just like Yamaha's. During the season they also switched to Ohlins suspension, adopted a new computerized programmable ignition from Marelli, and revised the bodywork to a fully enclosed design. With its vivid red paint and Testa Rossa-like air ducts, it was the prettiest bike on the track by a big margin. But it was still not as good as its ever-improving rivals, remaining awkwardly peaky by comparison, an d too heavy, with aluminum rather than magnesium engine cases just one reason why. They were also the only team racin g with the new Pirell i tires . All the same, the results were better than ever. Mamola failed to score at nine out of 15 rounds; but when he did fini sh he w as three times in the top si x, and in Belgium gav e Cag iva their first-ever rostrum. He wa s 12th overall. Mamola had two more years at Cag iva, but things really didn't continue to gel. Randy had brought George Vukmanovich with him, the d im inimutive ex-H RC crew chief aiming to impose strict Japanese-style development disciplines on the overenthusiastic Italians. These hopes were g ra d u a lly eroded, and George left early, despairing that they could never learn to te st one change at a time rather than three or four . The bike was further improved for 198 9, with lightweight magnesium cases, new rotary exhaust power valves and ATAC-style exhaust chamber, and a new cha ssis. But they ran into handling problems and teething troubles that d rop ped Mam ola to 17th 'overall, with a best race resul t of seven th. In 1990, Marnola's ded ication to playing the fool finally got the better of the It ali ans. They were more serio us than ever, with eng in e a nd fra me furt he r improved, and a new carbon-fiber frame waiting in the wings. Just to prove their innovative spi rit, they had also tested fuel injectio n during 1989. It w as far from race ready, but th ey were agai n some yea rs ahead of th e Japanese in these trials. Mamola came clo se to w in n ing in Spa, moving through lik e a mast er in the wet before finally outreaching himself to cr as h; but hi s be st re sult was sixth . New teammate Alex Bar ro s d id bett er, with a fifth plac e; bu t gra ndiose plans with their new three-bike team came to little with Ron Ha slam inju red almost throughout the year. Barros w a s 12th, Mam o la a n d Haslam 13th and 15th, respectively. Disappointing, given the amo unt spen t on bike and rider s. And as a resul t, Cagiva dropped a bombshell. They were to quit. Or so they said . In fact, they did nothing of the sort. Instead they were busy negotiating to recruit their greatest prize ever - four-time World Champion Eddie Lawson. It is still not entirely clear why they . made the announcement. Perhaps it was a way of d ispensing with clown prince Mamola without having to fire him they rehired Barros for the ne xt two years . Perhaps, as they later argued, the y only changed their minds when the Lawson deal came into view. In any case, it heralded the best two years so far - not onl y be cau se of Eddie's results, which were better than anything they'd dreamed of so far, but because of the progre ss th ey made toward full maturity a s a ge n ui ne ly competitive racing team that need make no excuses when compared with the Japanese. Certainly much of this wa s as a direct result of th e influence of the qui et American and his ex-Yamaha mechanic Fanale. Steady Eddie brought not only a methodical approach but also a great strength of character and steadfas tness of purpose to the task, and the bike and factory responded in kind. In 1992, he had only four no -scores out of 15 races, and he was twice on the ' rostrum, in Italy and France. Two thirds were backed up by solid top 10 results, he was sixth overall; poles in Holland Caglva experienced its greatest success with Eddie Lawson (right) and John Kocinski (below, #11). Both won races lor the Italian marque, with Kocinski ending up third In the 1994 500cc World Championship. and England were the icing on a year , that saw the Cagiva dicing with the likes of Schwantz, Doohan and Rainey for the first time ever. . In the next year came Cagiva's first win , and while it may have had as much to do with tire choice as anything, lawson's victory in Hungary also required that the rider and bike be good enough to take advantage of the tactics. Lawson thoroughly deserved to be the man to bring the Cagiva to victory. If it hadn't been Eddie, it would have been John Kocinski, a Cagiva lat ecom er who, in terms of development, took the benefit fro m th e foundations laid by Randy and Eddie. Yet Kocinski and the Cagiva were peculiarly suited, and his first dry-weather win in the USA and the secon d this year in Au stralia were out-and-out victories that owed nothing to tactics and everything to the abilities of machine and rider. He gave Cagi va a fitting swan song. Cagiv a had poached Doug-Chandler from Suzuki to replace Law son for 1993; though Doug started well, a heavy crash at Mugello left him con cu ssed and unconfident, an affliction that took a year to shake off. Kocinski became available onl y late in the season, after falling out with Suzuki. Unloved, his reputation for peevishnes s now a legend, Kocinski had nowhere to go until Cagiva stepped in. It wasn't what he would have chosen, but he was happy to have a set of whee ls at all, and proceed ed to ride th em off the th in g. Vict or y in the U.S. Grand Pri x w as just one fine rid e amo ng several. Th e b ike wa s n ow n ot o n ly better than ever, but was teaching the [ap anese lessons in a crea tive a p proac h. Cagiv a had b een ea r ly with an e ffec t ive Big Ban g to follow Hon da 's lead in 1992; they h ad a lso been qui ck est to copy Honda's ram -pressurized airbo x, thanks to new chi ef en gine er, Riccardo Rosa . This year a hatful of new ideas ranged from a h alf-c arbon i half-alum inum cha ssis to a so p hist ica te d update of mechanical anti-dive brakes; whil e their engine-management electronics were as good as anybody' s. Th ey al so had an open attitude that was a refreshing contrast to the obsessive secrecy of Japan, Inc. Kocinski won the first GP, and might easily have fini shed higher than third overall but for injury in Germany. He rode with great determination, amid a flurry of pogo-stick scatter-gun machine "development" that in earlier times would ha ve brought out the worst in the Italian team. They had by now achieved a veneer of professionalism that countered the wilder aberrations, but the similarity in temperament between rider and bike remained strong. Both were . capable of brilliance, but neither could be relied upon to produce it weekend after weekend. Since Cagiva have yet to announce their expected withdrawal officially, it is too early for an epitaph. Yet it is appropriate to disinter the eloquent ghostwritten statemen t made by Mamola to the press in Britain in 1990, on the occasion of their first retirement. "It 's all going to be a bit more ordinary [without Cagiva] don't you think . "When you write you r stories, say what you have to say...but try and think of something encouraging for the brothers... "Tell them that for all the down stuff, they were great. "Try to tell them we want them back...we're going to miss them. I don't think we even reali ze how much." Michael Scott is the editor of M otocourse, and a fuller version of this brief history appears in the 1994/5 edition, published by Hazleton Securities... Editor. .

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