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(Left) The factory-backed
Kawasaki team (Jean-Louis
Battistlnl shown) led In the late
stages but finished second,
their lead derailed by a broken
water pump.
(Below) Herve Molneeu (2) and
Steve Manley (4) prepare to
overtake a backmarker. Manley
later crashed out of the race.
were limited and both factory riders
were able to get back to the pits without
much delay. The Honda and the Suzuki
would resume their fight in the fourth
and fifth position, respectively, lying
five and six laps behind the leading
Kawasaki of Rymer. Second and third
were held by the privateer Hondas of
Mertens and Guyot.
The night hours didn't bring many
surprises, despite (or thanks to?) the
heavy rainfall. Rymer kept his lead at an
average of two laps from the French-Belgian Honda of Mertens, Simeon and
Mattioli. But behind the two leaders,
things were a little bit more exciting.
During the night, the private Honda
of Guyot couldn't thwart the comeback
of the factory Honda and Suzuki. Guyot
and his mates eventually dropped back
from third to fifth, letting Moineau and
Vieira past as those two battled it out
between themselves.
Still, the two factory teams would not
have it all their way. For Suzuki, a faulty
shift mechanism caused some headaches. For Honda, things were a little bit
more complicated.
"When Alex had come in with the
crashed bike, the mechanics had
changed the fairing, the exhaust and
some minor things," said Brian Morrison. "But as the night wore on, it
became ever more difficult to use the
shifter. We lost a lot of time making
unannounced pit stops, and trying in
vain to find the reason of the trouble." .
At 3 a.m. - at the halfway stage - 43
bikes were still running on the soakingwet track. Behind the factory and best
privateer teams, the fastest lap times
belonged to Belgian Michel Nickmans,
who rode a private Yamaha to the
eighth position.
Just when the track started to dry
and the first rays of sunlight shined
above the Arden pines, the race results
were turned upside down. At around
5:15 a.m., the leading Kawasaki passed
the bus-stop chicane at a very slow pace
- the result of a broken chain. Rymer
was forced to push the bike back to the
pits, but fortunately the bus-stop is the
last chicane before the La Source hairpin, and there's a downhill run to the
pits. And the team only ended up losing
about 10 minutes.
But that was more than the Guignabodet team had asked for, and it put
Mertens and his teammates into the
lead. At the same time, the factory
Honda was back in the pits with the
recurring shifting problem rearing its
ugly head again. After another 15 minutes of searching and work, the cause
was finally discovered - in the Vieira
crash, the axle of the shift mechanism
had been pushed through a separating
wall in the engine, causing the axle to
get stuck. The number-seven Honda
dropped back to sixth place, with 16
laps separating them from Rymer.
At 7 a.m. on Sunday morning - eight
hours before the end - Mertens was
leading from Moineau (6 laps), Guyot
(7), the astonishing Dutch-English team
of Bosch/Pullan/Neomagus (13) and
Vieira (17). At that time, Belgian Michel
Nickmans was forced out of the race
with a broken gearbox.
A full workday waited the riders
before the checkered flag. On the track,
the best, lap times were made by
Rymer's Kawasaki, while the Honda of
Vieira wasn't able to make up ground due to some minor oil leakage through
the gasket and the riders having lost
motivation after Vieira's crash and the
difficult hours that followed. The Honda
boys were now lapping three seconds
slower than they had been doing on Saturdayafternoon.
.
For the official Kawasaki, team their
troubles weren't over either as trouble
struck again - and again it was Rymer
who was the unlucky one who had to
bring the bike back into the pit.
"The water pump just seems to have
blown up," the Brit said. "I took the
chance to ride the bike back to the pits,
with the water leaking out of the engine,
but 1 found I had no other choice, even
though 1 never thought 1 would make it
till the pit."
But make it he did, and the Kawasaki
mechanics managed to repair the bike
pretty quickly. Rymer got back on the
track still in second place, but now with
a five-lap margin to the lead Honda,
after having crawled back to only a onelap deficit prior to the water pump incident.
Things were really looking good for
Mertens and Mattioli: With the Kawasaki thrown back, and Vieira struggling to
get into the top three, their chances to
leave the Francorchamps circuit as the
new leaders of the World Championship started to grow. As a matter of
fact, championship leader Christian
Lavieile wasn't even in Francorchamps.
After his "escapade" in Assen - where
he had ridden one of the Guignabodet
Hondas - he had been fired by Suzuki
team manager Dominique Meliand.
Still, Mertens, Mattioli and Simeon
would have a hard time in a breath-taking finale. Around 10:30 a.m. on Sunday, the RC45 ran into trouble for the
first time. Mertens rushed into the pit
with a problem he couldn't really locate.
It took his French technical crew some
minutes to discover that a part of the
chain tensioner had broken.
"I had heard a strange noise right
from the beginning of my turn,"
Mertens said. "But 1 had not the faintest
idea of what it was."
The pit stop took some 10 minutes,
and the lead was brought back from five
laps to two.
Four hours before the end, Mertens
was still leading, from Rymer, Moineau,
Guyot and Bosch. A final twist of fate
was expected at 2 p.m. when the rain,
once again, started to pour down.
'1t was a bad time to make a wrong
decision," Simeon said. "I remember 1
was still wondering what to do when 1
rounded La Source. At the last possible
moment, 1 turned into the pit lane, and
dashed to my crew. 1 asked them to put
full rain tires on. The intermediate
Michelins had given me a hard time
during the nightly showers, and 1 did
not want to risk a crash. And 1 knew
that the rain tires would last until the
end of the race, even if the track would
dry up on the last laps."
Simeon's gamble turned out to be the
only correct one; Rymer made a pit stop
two laps later after he gave up hope that
the rain would stop. With the gray
clouds gathered over Francorchamps, he
had no choice but to pit and finally drop
his last ambition of taking the victory.
Mattioli/Mertens/Simeon won
from Rymer/Battistini/d'Orgeix and
Moineau/Bonhuil/Gomez.
In the championship point standings,
Mertens and Mattioli are leading with
12 points more than Simeon. Both championship leaders will try to gather some
more points at Suzuka in another few
weeks, while Simeon is hopeful that
team owner Guignabodet will take a
second bike with him to Japan. The
diminutive Suzuki dealer has every reason to perform well in the championship - due to his excellent result in
Assen and his victory at Francorchamps
aboard the Guignabodet Honda, the
Suzuki importer is not so hot anymore
to continue his contract with Simeon. At
the same time, Guignabodet was scheduled to meet with the Honda France
people the week after Francorchamps in
order to try and get some extra support
from them.
Vieira isn't going to Suzuka, which
means that the official RC45 will not be
used during the last weekend of July.
But will Honda (France) be willing to
send a fifth works bike to the 8-hour
race? It might help a privateer to win
the World Championship title...
CN
24 heurea de Liege
Spe-Francorchempa, Belgium
Reeult8: July 16, 1995
1. Mattioli/Mertens/Simeon (Hon); 2. Rymer/
Battistini/d'Orgeix O