Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Slight/Okada was setting the pace, closely shadowed by the second RC45 of Itoh/Tsujimoto. Third place was for Kawasaki riders Yanagawa/Fujiwara, while the official Yamaha riders - Fujiwara/Yoshikawa in fourth and Nagai/Edwards directly behind - had not left each other out of sight for one single minute. After Kagayama's crash, Fred Merkel and Peter Goddard defended the Suzuki colors brilliantly, holding sixth position. Mattioli and Mertens were 18th at that time, and the unfortunates, Gobert and Hale, were clawing their way back (Above) From start to finish, It waa all Honda with the team of Aaron Slight and Tadayukl Dkade (11) battling with Shlnlchlltoh and satoshl TsuJlmoto (4). The SlightlDkade duo would prevail. (Left) The other race - In the pits. Dkade (left) and Slight hand off. Gobert T through the Held from 29th and 51st position, respectively. The second half of the race was marked mainly by very strong comebacks by the two factory Kawasakis. Two hours before the end, Yanagawa and Fujiwara had set their sights on the third rostrum position, at the expense of Yamaha riders Fujiwara and Yoshikawa. Nagai and Edwards had also lost some ·ground, which promoted the Merkel! Goddard pairing into the top five. Anthony Gobert, on the other Lucky Strike Kawasaki, was getting back into the top 15 after having overtaken Mattioli and Mertens, who were running in 17th place. During the last two hours, everyone seemed fairly satisfied with their positions, and most of the teams started to back down a little in order to take their bikes to the finish. Only Anthony Gob'ert seemed to be a little bit too eager, crashing in the last hour, but losing no places in the end. At the finish, Slight and Okada took the victory in front of their teammates Itoh and Tsujimoto. '1 had never expected to finish on the rostrum," Slight said , after his third consecutive victory in the Japanese classic. "When I was lying in the grass on Saturday morning, I thought the weekend was over for me. I was wondering if I was going to be able to race. I couldn't even walk on Saturday,. and had to sleep with ice on my -ankle and two swollen hands. I could've kicked myself - we had done so much testing here and now I was going to throw it all away, Fortunately, Okada has done a great job; we owe this result mainly to him. I just tried to be consistent. The injuries cost me about one and a half seconds from my own best practice times, and about one second compared to Okada's best times, I only started to believe that I would make it till the end and that we might win the race after Tsujimoto had made some mistakes and I had been able to stretch the lead a little bit to some 40 seconds." In the final stages, Merkel and Goddard dropped back to sixth position after the two Yamahas made a successful final charge. Colin Edwards took his Yamaha to fifth after a very steady race. "In my first two turns I still struggled a bit," Edward said. '1n'the first hour the rear was too hard, which prevented me from doing the lap times I knew I was able to do, In the second hour a softer rear was used, but then I lost a wheel weight on the front, which made the bike feel a little bit unstable. The third hour we all got it right, and in the fourth hour I settled down, as there was no chance to catch Fujiwara." Gobert and Kitigawa finished 13th despite the minor crash by Gobert in the last hour. "A shame we lost all our chances in the gravel pit," the young Australian said. "We had had a fron'tend chatter problem Cluring the whole weekend, and I crashed trying to make up positions. At the start, I wanted to win really bad, especially after the pole position I had set on Saturday. I knew that it was going to be very difficult to beat the Hondas, which are on familiar ground here. Racing here was quite an experience, but you have to be very careful. There are several slow riders, which makes things quite dangerous." The fact that he was the youngest rider to have taken pole in Suzuka, and the only rider to have done so in his first attempt, was of some consolation to the Kawasaki rider. Mattioli and' Mertens finished just outside the points after an eventful weekend, During practice they had ruined their best powerplant and had to run on the rebuilt engine during the first race laps. They stayed around 17th posi- ole he ways of the Japanese are sometimes unfathomable; even though several team managers and riders had admitted not to be very hot for a repeat of the "special stage" formula introduced Iast.year to establish the starting grid, the organizers bad once again decided to send each rider of the top 30 teams out, one by one, for a single fast lap

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