Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

IN THE PADDOCK . B Michael Scolt y rad ition deems it unwise to draw conclusions from the first GPs. Just look at 1994. Michael Doohan won only one of th e first th ree. Only later, when it got serious, did he sweep the board. Even so, the start of 1995 was such that the words "steamroller" and "D oohan " were inextricably linked in the minds of all who watched his total dominance. "The only person who can beat Mick is Mick himself," quoth the sages. "How d'you mean," replies the deliberately literal-minded Mick, looking simultaneously baffled and bloody angry, as he tries to envisage how he might achieve this patently impossible task. Let's assume, however, that the old wive's have it. Doohan will be beaten, for the simple reason that he was foolish eno ugh to win the first two races so easily it looked like the others were riding wit h one plug lead disconnected, Hey, you can't mess with tradition. Armed with this know ledge, we must look at the other 500cc-class cand idates in a new light. There are people there who can beat Doohan; who have beaten him before. The field narrows considerably when you start looking for riders who might be able to do so on a regular basis. Yet the soothsayers insist that someone will beat Mick. Least likely to do so, another Honda rider. Not while Mick's still on his wheels. ·Th e beautiful Big-Bang Honda NSR, with only a few deviations, has been built around him for the past three years. He uses it ra ther .like an extra limb, a sort of prosthetic device to make up for the frustrating fact that humans aren't born with wheels and a highly tuned two-stroke engine. T For the other Honda riders, it's just a motorbike. Early on , Alex Criville was the best of them. Never particularly impressive on a 500, he has achieved some consistency and maturity, and rides the machine rather well. Ju st a lot slower than Doohan. Puig the Redoubtable has been dragging his keel ra ther, but is likely to come . back fighting before the year is much older. Be a miracle if he wins one. Likewise Shinichi Itoh. And Alex Barros, considered more lik ely to get himself and even team boss Erv Kanemoto thoroughly lost in the intricacies of trying to get the complicated NSR set to hi s liking. Which leaves Loris Cap irossi, 125cc double champ and 250cc s upe rstar, nowadays to be seen clinging desperately to a Marlboro NSR whic h is clearly far faster than anything he had imagined. Puig and Criville have both raced with Doohan, and been beaten. Capirossi, in only his second GP, managed something rather more impressive. He followed Mick for two or three lap s in practice in Malaysia, within an ace of lap-record speeds, in the process carving a huge chunk off his previous best time. Wide-eyed afterward, he explained. "I 'd been using 250 lines. Mick showed me where to put the wheels to ride a 500 differently." But the real point was that he'd been able to do it, matching Mick move for move, even if he did hold his breath all the way. Sooner or later he'll learn how to do it without a guide. Then we'll have a real 500cc-<:lass star. A Yamaha winner is even less likely than a Honda rider. For a complicated se t of reasons, the once almost divine Team Marloro Roberts has started '95 even worse than. '94. The new bike is g ood; but th e Dunlop tires are, in a word , disastrous. There is nothing new in th is . Ever since Wayne Rainey's crash, the Dunlops have been erratic and troublesome. At least now there is a reason, as Roberts points out. They lost an entire factory, including their entire motorcycle racing tire division, in the Hanshin earthquake, and the Anglo-Japanese company has been in a state of major upheaval ever since. Quite apart from resiting the production of street bike and car tires, they also recovered special race-tire equipment and tooling by bulldozer , shipped it to Fort Dunlop in Birmingham, there to resume production ASAP. The Brummies' aim is to . reproduce as exactly as possible Japanese conditions, materials and working practices, though they will stop short of giving the building an occasional shake. At the tracks, th ey' re living on a dwindling stockpile of last year's rear slicks, a Japanese-made tire, while the fronts come as usual from Britain. The upside of all this is that Dunlop will emerge the other side with a brandspanking-new modem factory and racing facility, and in the way of things will sooner or later get back on target with their racing tires. But it will not happen soon enough for Luca Cadalora, wh o was alread y after two races rumored to be threatening to quit if Roberts didn't get him some Michelins and pronto. Malaysia and the wandering fronts gave a clear insight into the difference 11 years can make in racing. Luca qualified well, second to Doohan by a tire 's breadth or so, but retired afte r dropping steadily out of th e top 10 in -the first third of the race . "If I- had continued, I would have crashed," he said. He is 30. Teammate Norifumi Abe is 19. He had just the same problems, but carried on until he did crash. He was closing on the group contesting second place at the time. Good guy. But beat Doohan? Er, hardly. Which leaves the only two real candidates. Kevin Schwantz and Daryl Beattie, on the Lucky Strike Suzukis both. Schwantz has been puzzling. As often before. His left wrist is permanently damaged, strapped up much of the time, and he cannot lock it in position under braking, so that his arm tends to ride over the bars. He also missed most of the preseason testing, and has been qualifying down among the second-stringers. Yet every time he races, he's back on full charge . If h e hadn't s ta lled the engine in Australia and had tire trouble in Malaysia he'd have been on the rostrum both times. Motivation? Schmotivation! And he's a good tip for a Suzuka upset too . . Beattie has meanwhile been confounding, my earlier opinion: that his talent was flattered by the NSR Honda. If so, the Suzuki does the same. He's not only faster than Schwantz, but he's also consistent, smooth and self-contained. Which suggests there should be more to come, should he ever s uccu mb to the red mist. . One of these will take the title from Doohan. Failing that, the soothsayers will have to explain to Mick exactly what they meant when they posed the metaphysical scorcher: Only Mick can beat Mick, It could be a painful experience. 0 INContinued from page 3 THE WIND AUTOGRAPH SIGNING: A t Central Yamaha in Lewisville, Texas, on April 28 fro m 6:30 p .m. to 8:00 p. m. Team Yamaha's Jeff Emig, John Dowd and Kevin Windham are scheduled to a p p e a r . For more info rmation ca ll 214/420-4000. - Maschio, is French - not Italian. It was the Frenchman's first-ever GP victory. M ARRIE D: Factory KTM MXer Tony Arnaradio, to long-time girlfriend Sharlla Dunnam, in Fallbrook, California, on April 15. CORR EC TIO N: The winner of the Spanish ro und of the World Championship 125cc MX Series round, Mikael CORRECTIO N: Cafe Moto , a wholesale coffee roaster and supplier to coffee bars and restaurants, will sponsor the prize for the 200cc GP class at the AHRMA event at Willow Springs - not the event itself, as we reported in our las t issue. AUT OG RAPH SIGNING: At San Jose Live! in San Jose, California, on Ap ril 23 from 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Road racers Doug Chandler, Fred Merkel and James Randolph are scheduled to appear. For more information call 916 /373-1557. MOVED: Regina USA to 401 Academy Street, Ca mbridge, MD 21613, 410/2212800 and 410/221-2801 (fax), effective immediately. AU TOGRAPH S IG N I N G: At Good Times Kawasaki in Sacramento, Califo rnia, on May 5 from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Team Kawasaki's Mike Kiedrowski, Mike LaRocco, Robbie Reynard and Ryan Hughes are scheduled to appear. For more information call 916/344-2141. LOOKING BACK... 25 YEAR SAGO ... M 5,1970 ay h e r e wa s dir t o n the cover again, with Dave Aldana p ictured at Ascot laying h is BSA wa y ' over . Aldana wa s the winner at th e 75-mile Sacramento TT beating National number one Mert Lawwill by more than 20 seconds " in th e lon ge st steeplech ase recorded" ; some riders had to refuel during the 50-lap race ...A 19-year-old Steve Bast clashed with Rick Woods at the An telope Valley speedway. Their ba ttle in the scratch main was so close that the riders made contact down the back straight, leaving Bast on the ground. Woods finished the race fi rs t, dismounted in front of the ambulance and collapsed as he put his weight on his injured right leg...The San Tong comp any advertised the Ge mini, a T __ ~:iii;;:~~"" . """", - f~~;:r 50cc minibi ke , touting its styl e setu p a decade and a half ago...In AMA and "tremendous performance"... Superbik e action at the Charlotte Motor A Yamaha 650cc flat tracker wa s Speedway, Wes Cooley took advantage christened by builder Dick Kelm. of a horrendous crash by leader Freddie The stock parallel twin was artfulSpencer to e n d the race in v ic to ry . ly con verted to right-hand s hi ft Eddie Lawson was sec ond and Dave and a Trackmaster Aldana third .. .Reigning 125 cc MX fram e was wrapped ~~"~P;~iI. World Champ ion Harry Everts around t h e four- II sco red 1-2 mot o w ins in th e d eep sand of the circuit in Norg, Switzerstroke mill. This bike was the precursor to land. He wa s nearly defea ted by 18the mach ine - that year-old Marc Velkeneers in th e fir st m oto , but the y o u n g ch alKenny Roberts would use to win the lenger's Yamaha seized in a gripping G ran dNa t i o n a I first moto...Scot Harden and Brent Championship a few Wallingsford leveled the Las Vegas years later. 400 beating the next riders to the line by 19 minutes. 1 5YEARS AGO... April 30,1980 hether ripping across Europe in quest of ISDT gold or just beating arou nd the bushes back home, the Yamaha IT425G was judged the hot W 5YEARS AGO... April 25, 1990 ta n d in g atop the podium at the Sacramento mile, Chris Carr had puta stop to the 1D-race mile win S s tre ak of ~7i1'T.... ~-_ S c o t t ~==~~~J.,J;,J Ingram took Parker. Dan II th ird .. . An item "In The W in d " announced that Bimola wa s to withdraw from Superbike racing , leaving AMA Champion Wes Co oley w ithout a ride ...Larry Roesele r was shown leading defending National Hare & Hound Champion Dan Smith nea r the finish at the Cherry Creek National. It was Roeseler's second straight win in the series...In Enduro action, ISDE gold medalist Kent Hough posted the lowest overall score at the Morrison ISDE qualifier. Brother Aaron Hough topped the 125cc class. 0 . .... l-< 0.. ~ 59

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