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Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127738
Round 9: German GP
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By Alex Hodgkinson
BIELSTEIN, GERMANY, JULY 9
rampas Parker dodged the rocks at
Bielstein in Germany to move back
into the lead of the world 500cc MX
championship point standings with
an emphatic double victory that also
happened to be the American's first overall win in the series, A consistent Joel
Smets finished second overall on a pair
of third-place finishes and now goes to
Namur trailing by a slim two points,
Parker's first-moto win was a tactical
masterpiece: 'The start here is real short
like in Switzerland, and those fourstrokes didn't have enough time to come
past me after 1 got the jump on them,"
Parker said,
The American exited turn one in
fourth behind Van Leeuwen, Delepine
and Svensson, and needed just over a lap
to storm past all three. Another two laps
and Parker was long gone and would
ride his own race in the heat and dust. '
'Those guys on the four-strokes were
crying yesterday about the jumps and
got three of them cut down. What do
they want? We could go race motocross
at Hockenheim if that's how they want it.
• I could have broken a wheel too if I'd ridden too hard, but I kept the bike low off
the seven big jumps which were left."
In the end few riders went out with a
broken wheel - Delepine was the most
prominent, losing sixth place after 25
minutes when the rear wheel collapsed.
If it rains at Bielstein, then the lap
scorers can't read the numbers, but if it is
dry the riders are the ones with visibility
problems.
"For the first five laps you could see
nothing in the pack," declared a frustrated Dietmar Lacher asne sat in the stream
running through the paddock, trying to
cool down after his ride from 23rd to
ninth. "Once the pack stretched out it got
a little better, but by then the leaders
were way out in front. 1 gambled on the
inside gate at the start but they came
across me long before the first turn."
The battle for second was surprisingly
good under the circumstances.
.
Van Leeuwen had little hope of
defending it for long, this being his first
race in nearly two months and he eventually slumped to 25th. Delepine also
could not withstand the other medal
candidates, even before his spokes started to snap.
Peter Johansson was the first man
past, but then he hit problems of his own.
"1 had no sooner taken second place than
the motor started to misfire. It must be
the ignition again," said a disappointed
Johansson.
Darryll King might have been next,
but he found himself losing three places
in a single comer, "Martens went under
T
28.
me hard. He pushed me wide and Smets
and van Doom followed him through. 1
completely lost my rhythm for a few
laps."
Jacky Martens' kept second place, 10
seconds down on Parker, until he started
to make mistakes. "I started to experiment with different lines to try closing
Parker down, but they weren't so good
and I couldn't find my rhythm again,
until the last three laps when 1 started to
recatch Van Doom and Smets."
Gert Jan van Doom rode his strongest
race of the year with a solid charge
through the pack. '1 got a bad start, but 1
knew 1 could pass them, I've ridden here
five times now and 1 know every corner." Tenth on lap one, the Dutchman
was second with 15 minutes left in the
moto,
Srrtets had tucked in behind him after
being passed earlier in the race, "This
track is so fast. It is really dangerous in
the dust. 1 could follow van Doom but 1
could see nowhere to'try to repass him
safely and 1 had to think of my championship position." The Husaberg rider's
advantage over Parker had shrunk to a
single point.
Mike Young was storming through
the pack until someone ran into his rear
brake disc in a tum and he had to stop
for adjustments.
Parker took a repeat win in the second
moto as Johilnsson again had ignition
trouble: '1 holeshot but it started spluttering already on the first lap. In the end,
the motor cut out and 1 was pushed
down to fourth by Parker, van Doorn
and Lacher. The second time the motor
die~ on a climb it just wouldn't start
again."
Van Doom stayed close to Parker for
10 minutes, but then he too lost power,
thought to be caused by sand in the
motor, and fell back to seventh.
Lacher took over second until a late
pass by Smets, but the German was
given back the runner-up placing when
the Belgian's front wheel washed out
halfway around the last lap,
A grinning Parker claimed the credit:
"He fell for it. When 1 saw Smets was second 1 slowed down a little so he would
get closer, think he had a chance to catch
me and would crash. It looks like it
worked,"
The American was not impressed by
the Belgian fans: "We haven't got to
Namur yet and they've already started
throwing rocks at me. There was a big
bunch of 'em in the trees and the last four
laps rocks were whizzing past my head
when I went past there!"
Martens had gone down with
Delepine at the first turn and quit in disgust after a few laps, a result of the dust,
while Shayne King's KTM suffered
mechanical difficulty. An unfortunate
(Above) Dusty conditione made
visibility e problem end the race to
the first tum thst much more '
1mportent.
Young pulled vertebrae in his neck
when he crashed while chasing
eventual sixth-place finisher Caprani
through the pack.
(N
GennenGP
Bielsteln, Germany
Results: July 9, 1995
MOTO 1: 1. Trnmpas Parker (KTM); 2. Gert Jan van
Doom (}ion); 3. Joel Smets