Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

ROAD RACE . ' . World Championship Road Race Series . By Michael Scott Photos by Gold & Goose SUZUKA CITY, JAPAN, APR. 23 he tide turned at the crash strewn Japanes e Grand Prix. On a drying track after streaming rain that had earlier flooded the Suzuka circuit, Daryl Beattie pressured race and title lead er Michael Doo han into a lastlap erro r that cost him the race. As Dooh an ' s Repsol Honda took a peri lous 125-mph short cut across th e helicopter pad, the steadfast Bea ttie' s Lucky Strike Suzuki swept past to claim his first win of the season and the second of h is two-and -a-bit-year Grand Prix career. The weekend wa s hit by s te a d il y deteriorating weather, that turned into a b ull- bo re cloudburst during the 250cc race, which had to be shortened. But the rain did not deter 70,000 japanese fans, huddled patiently under umbrellas as the program was de layed . Beattie's win was a surprise . " 1 hadn't giv en up hop e exactly, but I was pr etty sure until the n I was going to be .second," sai d the Aus tra lian, who in the penultimate lap had gotte n the wo rst of the backmarker s so that a gap of ha lf a second stretched to more than a seco nd . Dooh an praised his fellow Austra lian for putting on the pressure and thanked his luck y stars that he had managed to stay on board as the Hond a bucked and leap t across th e g rass and th e lu ckil y empty tarmac (scene of a simi lar adventure b y Wayn e Ga rd ne r in the p as t). "But I'm pissed off with myself for rnakin g a mistake . I w as tryin g too h ard because I wanted to ge t a bit of a bu ffer on Daryl in the last few comers. He was riding really well." T .• ~ I,~ _ ' ii{ ~ t:9 l!) 0\ ~ ('f") ~ '<::' ~ 6 Round 3: Japanese Grand Prix Third went to Wild Card rid er Takumi Aoki, in not just his first GP, bu t also the japanese Superbike rider's first-ever 500cc race. It wa s a rem ark ab le rid e in itself, and also made history. Tak u mi is the middle of three racing brother s - the others are GP regul ars - and there was an Aoki on every one of .the Suzuka rostru ms . Eldest bro ther No bu atso Aoki wa s second in the 250cc race, while the you ngest, Hara chuki, w on th e 125cc race, his second win of the year. Lu ca Cada lora brought the Ma rlboro Yamaha home four th, using Dunlops in th e wet after tes ting Michelins in the dry; with Fortu na Honda's Albert o Puig a close fifth. Kevin Schwantz could d o no better than six th on the second Lucky Strike Suzuki after having been the fas test in wet practice; he was troubled by a lack of grip. T he ra ce brought h eartb re a k for almost-hero Shinichi Itoh, who took his Repso l Honda straight into the lead and pulled away. He still had a comfortable gap wi th se ve n laps left when he touched a white line at the end of the back stra ight, and crash ed . O the r fro n t- r unn ers to s ee thei r h op es of g lory d isapp ear wit h the crun ch of fibe rg lass in clud e d Lo ri s Capir ossi, Alex Barros and Tosh ih iko Honma, in a wee kend tha t came close to breakin g all accident record s. All but the 25Occ.race were delayed, and that was red -flagged after 12 laps. Both th is ra ce an d the 500 GP had already been red u ced to 18 laps (from 19 and 21, respectively) because of the conditi ons . The 125cc GP was schedule d for 18 laps, which is minimum GP distance. HB Honda's Ralf Waldmann claimed victory in the 250cc race, making histo ry by becoming the first man since Mike Hailwood a t the TT in 1965 to fall off while leading, th en remount without los in g th e lead and g o on to win the race. One lap earlier runawa y lead er Tad ayuki Ok ad a o n the HRC Hond a had also fallen. He mi ght have pulled the same trick as Waldmann, except that his left clip-on had snap ped off. He was doubly unl ucky. He cra shed on lap 12; th e race was s top p ed on lap 14, with results taken from two laps ea rlier. This w as two-t hird s distance - e nough to make it a full-po ints race with no rest art. Sad unori Hikita was a su rprise third on the Ma xell Tea m Globa l Hond a RS, jus t fend ing off a cann y Tetsu ya Harada on the Marlboro Rainey Yama ha, who w as biding hi s time as people fell all around him. Hikita also crashed, but by then the red flag had jus t come out and the race wa s over. There were 14 crash victims, aquap laning and sliding a ll over the p lace. Among the most spectacular was Max Biaggi, languishi ng in nin th with machine trouble with h is Cheste rfie ld Apri lia. He fell on the pit straight, and slid down the center of the track for 300 yards, shrugging his arms as he did so. O ther victims incl uded Kenny Rob erts [r., lyin g third at the time, and fast Wild Card Noriyasu N umata on the Lu cky Strike Suz uk i. The 125cc ' race saw the yo unges t Aoki take a second ru naw ay win of the season on the Blumex-backed Ari Molen a ar Hond a . In t he closing s tages, a fierce th ree -b ike figh t was closi ng th e gap again, with Akira Saito jus t pipping Kazu to Sakata and Hid eyuki Nakajoh. H B Hon d a 's Dirk Raudies crashe d wh ile in the leading group in the early stages. So too, am ong many others, d id Ga rry M cCoy, the Australian one of only a handful of inju ry victims, with a dislocated sho u lde r. 500cc GRAND PRIX Th e rac e finall y got u nd erway in improving conditi on s, wi th r ain n o longer falling bu t the track still we t enough for full-wet tires. Ito h leapt d irectly into th e lead and started to pu ll away in determined style, with an all-action pack beh ind him . By the fo u rt h lap, with Itoh 5.5 secon d s ahead and on target for a first GP win, ther e h ad already been m uch shuffli ng in the six-b ike group going for second . Wild Ca rd Aok i was in front of a charging Barros, and up-and-down Beattie, Ca da lora , Doohan a n d Schw an tz . Doohan was steadily ga ining posi tions, Schwantz losing them . "I do n't know why, but yesterday the bike was on rails in the we t, but toda y it lost a who le bunch of gr ip," Schwantz said later. "Every time I tried to speed up I'd be ou t of the seat." On the sixth lap the accide nts began . Criv ille and then Honma bot h slid off at th e le ft-hand D u n lo p curve as they crested th e hill ; ha lf a la p later Barros fell at the end of the back straig h t, and priva te er Jam es Haydon at the Spoon Curve . Then Bernard Ha enge lli pitted, reducing the field by five in one lap . Capirossi was the next to go, shortly a fte r p a ssing Schwa n tz . He tried to re mo un t, b u t found both brakes were broken. At the sa me time, Dooh an wa s ge tting moving. He po wered past Aoki on the back straigh t, and was soo n closing on ltoh, so that on lap 11 he cut a second off the ga p to bring it down to 3.5 seconds. But an exciting finish was not to be. Itoh , rea cting to the coming pressure, took his tum to touch a white line

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