Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

.MOTOC·ROSS . .1996 MX GP Preview By Alex Hodgk inson u st thre e m onths in to the n ew year, it's h ard t o believe that the AMA Supercro ss Series is m ore th an half over a n d a ll but clinch ed by su pe rcross sensation Jeremy McGrath, and alre ad y one round o f th e Na tional MX Series has been run . But in Eu ro pe, th e '96 MX GP season has not yet begun, though by the time you read this, the gate for the 250cc GP series will have already dropped in Talavera de la Rein a in ce ntra l Spain. A week a fte r that , the 500cc GPs will get under wa y in Italy, follo we d a we ek later by th e open ing ro und of the 125cc GP series also making its season debut in Italy. As usu al, a lot has cha nged since last year, an d keeping track of who's d one wha t over the off-season has not been an easy task. Bu t by now, most every one ha s sig ne d on the d ott ed lin e and ha s sett led into the new - or old - team for '96. Her e's the latest. In th e 250c c cla ss, a ft er w in ni ng Kawasaki' s first-ever world motocr oss title, defending cham pion Stefan Evert s was one of many riders who ju m pe d ship du ring the winter, no doubt in his case lu red by the larger number of yen offered to him from Honda. H is new bike looks trick, but looks are not eve ryt hing . At Kawasaki, the 23year-old Belgian cou ld call on the tuning skills of Dutch team boss Jan De Groot at the trackside, but at Honda the HRC engineershave been and gone. Japan is an aw ful lon g way fro m Europe even today when a team d iscovers during the GP weekend that the computer calculations did n't qui te ad d up on a bumpy, gnarly GP MX track . Back in the heyday of the '80s, when the Eu ropean HRC effort was mastermi nded by Steve Whitelock, mistakes (and even Ho nda ma ke them) were corrected within days. Last year, Honda rid er Kurt Nicoll pl ead ed for m ore power in February; he finally got a new motor in June and immediately went out and w on the Irish GP. But that wa s too late. Evert s is und oubtedl y a talented rid er, but he h a s pro ved difficult to work with in the p ast and has alrea dy alienated himself from his teammates at RWJ. If he is to win, then he will need all his skill to sa lvage the crown. Com p a trio t Marnicq Ber voet s ran Evert s to the final round last yea r an d must again be conside red a major challenger. Three yea rs Everts' senior, the Suzu ki te am lead er h a s s u ffe red fo r most of his career from insu fficient confide nce in his ow n ability to reach th e very top, bu t a complete season alongside Greg Albertyn in 1994 rubbed off. There are still a few chinks in his armor, but th e one-ti me sa nd expert can race with the best on all typ es of tra cks. His final ranking may depend on the competitiveness of the bike . The GP Suzuki is little-changed from '95, but Bervoets a dm its th ey lack a littl e bit of m ot or grunt for the sand tracks. And there are five of them in the 13-ra ce schedule. A secon d Kawasaki completed th e top three last year, and the dep arture of Everts has left 24-year-old Tallon Vohlan d as tea m lea d er. The Californian devel op ed a su perb working relationship w ith De Groot las t year, and the men have su preme confi dence in each other. In an age when sta rs have becom e su pe rs ta rs, the Ame rican challenger with " Lone Wolf" on th e seat of h is pants is refreshingly d own-to-earth. While lesser rivals jet to the races and h ide awa y behveen motos in the air-cond iti on ed living quarters of the teams' huge ri gs, Tall on, his girlfriend and brother Tyson travel in a small box van with space 'in th e back for the training bike midweek and a couple of gas rings to cook up pas ta. The friendly, laid-back atti tu de is the right mental preparation, and it has wo n the hearts of the public, but in the end you have to have talen t too. Fortunately, Tallon ha s that quality. His fortitu de in surviving three years of chaotic Italian teams when injuries restri cted him to the number-eight plate h av e fin all y p aid off wi th bronze last year. An upgr ad ing of th e met al standard is a very real possibili ty, and don't forget th at team man ag er De Groot is the cha m pion- ma ker; in th e last fou r yea rs he has only lost once - in ' 94 to Alber tyn, the man he aided to the crown the two previous years. Having taken the qu art er-liter crown in alte rna te years from '86 to '92 Yam aha has go ne hom e empty-hande d since then, thei r '95 effort getti ng blown away whe n Bobby Moore w ent into the cam paign with inju ries an d Yves Dem ari a, leadi ng the standings, shattered a leg at the fourth round. Fre n ch m an , Th e 24-year-o ld Demaria, is ba ck and has already w on the major warmup race at Beaucaire on a bike whi ch, altho ugh basica lly the '96 factory bike, still lacked m an y of the refi ne men ts wh ich will glisten in th e Spanish midday sun at Talavera. Onl y a fool could discount "Th e Fly." He won the most GPs in '94, albeit during the second ha lf of the year when his title cha nces were already wrecked , and bounced back from that broken leg to be w inn in g again b efore the en d of last summer. The big question mar k agai ns t Dema ria is his ability to w in when th e pressure is on. Only a ride r who can do that can be champion. The fifth factorv in the class is KTM, back after a one-year sabbatical in wh ich the Austrian fir m co ncent ra te d their efforts on develo pi ng th e 360 for the 500cc class. . Tallon Vohland will take over as the team leader lor the Jan De Groot Kawasak i team on the 250cc GP circuit. Th e ir sole factory rider for the u pcom ing campaign is veteran Brit Ku rt Nicoll who, at 31 yea rs of age, is three years the senior of any of his class rivals. Th r ee tim es a num ber two in the world, ne ve r out of th e top 10 s ince 1984, and top five in all three of his previous 250 campaigns, Nico ll will not be champion. But he could win a medal. KTM has an exclusive deal to use the no-linkage Ohlins rear sus pe nsion system this year, and it wo rks. A GP win cannot be ruled ou t, and "Mr. Consistency" will always be thereabouts. There is an irony in the fact that Nicoll's 1996 campaign will be ma stermind ed by Belgi an Goerge [obe, wh o wa s once his bitt er on-track rival. Fa cto ry b ack-up rid ers rarely win titles, and 1996 shou ld not be different. Swe dejoakim Karlsson and Brit Rob Herrin g get HRC-kitted bikes to support Everts, the stocky Belgian Werner Dewit r em ains as Suz uki number two, Kawasak i has signe d up Fr en chm a n Frederic Bolle y ·fro m Yamaha, and Michele Rinal d i h as hi s tw o Ita lian s Alessio Chiodi and And rea Bartolini. Each can make top six, an d Bartolini can even win GPs (he did so three times last year). Chiodi was also a winner in the 125cc GPs, bu t he will ~doubtedl y find life more diffiCUlt amo ng the big boys. Werner Dewit has been th e man on-form in the warmu p races, bu t his p hysica l prep a rat ion h as been more ad vanced. Out of action throu ghout the secon d ha lf o f ' 95 a fte r a knee ope ra tion, Dewit had no choice. He could get back among the top six in the rankings, but the n umber one is su re ly beyond him . .Top ri de rs fro m private teams can also play a role. Former 125cc champ Pedro Tragter, 27, m ad e top six in his first 250 cam pa ign last year, but the Dutchman may find it diffi cult t o repeat that even

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