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Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127728
ROAD RACE ." . ..W ham orldC pionship R oadR Series _ ace _ By Henny Ray Abrams Photos by Gold & Goose JEREZ, SPAIN, MAY 7 - 7 he short version of .the Span ish Gran d Prix at Jerez goes like thi s: Lucky St ri ke Su z u ki ' s .Kevin Schwantz did n' t show up, Rep so l Ho nda's World 'Ch a m p io n Michael Doo ha n crashed out of the lead, Fortu na Ho nda's Alberto Pui g wo n his first 500cc GP, as well as first-ever GP, and became th e first Span iard to ever win hi s h ome GP, and, fin ally, Luc ky Strike Suzuki' s Dar yl Beattie lea ds the 500cc World Championship. To the 100,000 or so highl y partisan and enthusias tic Spani ards it was a d ay to rem ember wit h favo rite so n Puig taking ove r the lead when Doohan crashed in a violent high-Side when his rear tire failed him on the 21st of 27 lap s. Doohan wa lked away and cou ld on ly watc h as Pui g e dge d away fro m Marlboro Rob ert s Yama h a's Luca Cad alor a, the It alian racin g on Michelin tir es, front and rear, to his best finish of the year. " If I d idn' t do it today, may be I would ne ve r d o it ag ai n ," the 28-year-old Barcelonan Puig said of his breakthrough victory. "That's why I can't go 70 percent today. I h ave to go 100 percent. All the people out -there wanted a Spaniard to win today and today is my day." "Alberto, I was very impressed with him tod ay," Cadalora said afte r finish ing se co nd, 5.093 seconds in arrears . "When he led the race I tho ught maybe with a little pressure I cou ld catch him, but no way." Puig rode a smart race, but it wasn't pa rticul arl y fast. He com pleted the 27lap, 74.21-mile race in 47 minu tes, 45.728 seconds at an aver age speed of 93.334 mph. Doohan ha d won last year's race with an average spee d of 93.701 mph. Round 4:SpanishGrand Prix The Aussie World Champion e xp la in ed that " th e back ju st b roke aw ay w hen I was on the gas and the bike stepped out in a big way; and I was high-sided off the machine. The rear tire h ad been ru n n in g loose and th e bike had been s lidi ng pretty bad ly a fe w times, but nothin g like that." Thir d p la ce was decided o n t h e penu ltim at e la p with Repsol Honda ' s A lex C ri v i ll e, who 'd overcome ma chine p ro blems that h ad plague d h im a ll weekend, finally getting th e better of Marlboro Roberts Yamah a's No rifu mi Abe to give the Spa niards a 1-3 fini sh in thei r ho me GP . It was Criville's thi rd thi rd -place finish of-the ye a r. Abe, unli k e Cadalora, use d a Mich elin fro n t and a Dunlop rear tire, a co m b i na t io n which has beco me kno w n as "M ichel op." 'Ka n ern ot o H on d a ' s Alex Ba rros, who'd run as higl- .IS second place earl y in the race, crossed the line in fifth after losing tou ch with the fig ht for th ir d when he had to take evasive action late in th e race . He and Marlboro Pileri Honda's Loris Capirossi were bu mping fair ings whe n Capirossi w ent off the . track w it h six laps to go with Barros slowing to avoid him. Barros went on to finish a seaso n-bes t fifth, with Ca pirossi rejoining the fray to take sixt h, his best finish of the year also. He might have given Barros one last go, excep t that race consultant Fau sto Gr esin i prev ented that by making him believe there were two laps to go when they was, in fact, one . "If I hadn't d0I1e this he would have charged for fifth place and he probably would have got past, but I di dn't wa nt him to r isk anything," Gresi ni sai d . "Fa us to was r ight, " Capi rossi concurred . " It was vital for us to finish after fallin g in the last tw o races." Seventh went to Daryl Beatti e, who d espi te the finis h, took over the SOOcc cham pionship p oint s lead for the first time in his career. After fou r of 14 races, Beattie lead s Doo han, 74-70 . Puig moves in to thi rd with 56 points. What the 500cc race lacked in excitement, the 250 eve nt made up for in emotion. It was a run away win for Marlboro Team Rainey Yamaha's Tetsuya Har ada, giving Wayne Rainey, th e th ree -time Wo rld Cha mpion, his firs t victory as a team owner a nd ea rni ng Harada hi s first win since the end of 1993. "This is a big d ay for me," a joyful Raine y said after atte ndi ng the victo ry p od iu m for th e fi rs t time a s a te am ow ner. "My riders have helped me a lot. It ' s nice to see H a rad a a n d (Kenn y Roberts) Junior doing su ch a go od job. They bo th rod e great races, and as far as I'm concerned it was like Junior w on too. I'm definitely happier than I w as at a ny time in 1993. But it ' s a lo t mor e wo r k watc h ing th an r a cin g . W hen y ou ' r e ra cing you h av e co ntro l, but when you 're wa tchi ng you don't know what's going to happen ." And while Ha rada was cru ising to a mo st convincing win - he was ahead of the pack by 14 se cond s a t one poi nt the battle behind him won' t soon be forgo tten . . From the thir d lap on, when Harada took ove r the lead, second thro ugh seven th places wer e constan tly shuffling , the pack a swarm in every comer, with MX On d a' s LuisD' Antin stirring th e pot. He and Chesterfield Aprilia's Max Blaggi go t down to serious business in the final few laps and it took everything Biaggi had to hold him off by just over 1.5 seconds. . "There was n o way I co u ld chase Harada because my bike was not work- I ~I The 500cc Spanis h Grand Prix gets underway with Luca Cadalora (2), Loris Capiros si (65), Daryl Beattie (4), Alberto Puig (5) and Michael Doohan (1) getting the jump on the rest of the field. ing well today," Blaggi sai d . "For haIf the race I didn't have full revs and that gave me problems w ith spee d and accelera tion, the n I seemed to lose low-rp m power as we ll. That made it really ha rd for me becau se I was havin g to work the rea r tire too hard and that meant I was get ting a lot of slides tow ard the end of th e ra ce. Fini shin g seco n d tod ay was like winning for me, I rode 110 percent." Second throu gh six th were covered by less than a second , with Honda Team Agostin i's Dorian o Rom boni carding his best this year wi th a fourth, na rrowly in front of first-lap leader Ralf Waldmann of the H B H on da Ge rma ny team . The las t rider in the pack was Team HRC's Tadayuki O kad a, his six th secu re after he pu lled away from Elf-Hon da-Tech 3's Jean-Ph ili ppe Ru gg ia as th e ra ce wo und down. Ever the optimist, Waldmann looked at the big picture. "Maybe it was not my lu ckiest day today," he said. "I think, wi th a little bit of luck I co u ld h a ve co me second as wel l. At le a st I made good p oin ts aga in." . Bu t no t good e nou gh to retain the cha mpionship points lead. That went to Harada with 78, four better than Waldma nn wit h 10 races to go. Blaggi ho lds third with 68. Like the 500s, the 250s we ren' t able to match the pace that Jean- Philippe Ruggia se t in wi nning las t year. H ar ad a completed the 26-lap, 71.46-mile race in 46 minutes, 25.162 seconds at an average speed of 92.366 mph; Rug gia averaged 92.631 mph. Harada 's a ve ra ge mi ght