Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

(Right) Belgian Stefan Everts traded his championship-winning Kawasak i for this works HRC Honda . (Below) Suzuki's Marnlcq Bervoets will be in the hunt for the 250cc crown. set to lead the German Yama h a team, bu t a knee injury will now keep him out until midseason, and team mate Edwin Ev ertsen, a previou s world number three, does not look to have the aggress iv e s ty le o r t he immaculate gra ce which ar e associa ted w ith su ccess in the 125s. Michele Fanton, another old-timer at 29, goes int o the campaign as lead er of the P la tin i Ka w a sak i te am, b u t h e sho ul d b e di sp la ce d in th is r ol e b y Philippe Dupasqu ier lo ng b ef or e the en d of the summer. I expect thediminut iv e 21- ye a r -old to b ecom e th e first Sw iss rid er in modern times to earn a sing le-d igit ranking in the GPs. The p erformances of teenage French SX specialist Da vid Vuillemin, whose talen ts have been seen in the ea rly U.S. West Coast super cross races this yea r, will be interes ting to watch. but he is prob ably not qu ite so good outdoors. Suzuki, once the undisputed dominator in this class of GPs, have no official team bu t Da ne Bria n Kjaer Jorgen sen, the Europea n Junio r Champio n two years back, rides for the British importer and could break top 10. The performances of the youngsters coming u p from th e junior seri es are alwa ys interesting to observe, but titleh o ld e r Marco Stallman is surely not good eno u gh to race too near the fron t. More li ke ly candida tes are fellow Dut ch kid Erik Eggens and 16-year-old Brit Carl Nunn. The pair led the Euro series (Nunn still as a Schoo lboy) until an injury set him back last year. Nunn, w ith Da vid Th orp e as te am manager, broke a thu mb p laying basketball. Extrovert Sou th African Collin Dugmore, 27, is still full of vitality to mix it with the kid s after his off-season switch from Suzuki to Honda. Ted Campbell, a 20- year-ol d St at e . Champio n from Apache Junction, Ar izona, looks fast enough to make the cut each wee k and he shou ld score an occaDi sional point. M55 in9=L=::-in ====;;;;;;:::::;::;::~~ i -,::=k ™ is looking to the future by step- K ping back into the past. The new factorY'250cc MXer from Austri a, which will be campaigned by veteran Brit Kurt Nicoll in the 250cc MX World Championship Series, has a sp eciallv-co rnmiss ioned Ohlins rear shock mounted dire ctl y onto the swingarm ~ w ith no linkages. N icoll made a dream return to the m arqu~ earlier this 'm onth whe n he w on all four mot os of the opening outdoor motocross of the European season at Sainte Ce cile le s Vignes in south ern France. Opposition was not lacking with the full Su zuki and Husaberg factory teams on hand . "I tested the normal rear suspension and this setu p for five da ys in the fall and was give n the cho ice what to use ," ....... ..... ;..; 0.. < 22 1997 if he can win the smallest-capacity crown this summer. Tortelli's riding sty le doesn't always make friends on-track as he has already developed a habit of making contact with an yon e careless enoug h to let him get too close . On th e fast , open European tracks, this could, however, be his do wnfall, as collisions no t only lose potential points, th e y can also lea d to bro ken li m bs. Tortelli has been lucky in this respect so far. But how long can this luck last? If th e Ya maha p ro v e s to b e th e stronger bike, Moore cou ld actually ou trun h is on ly obvious rival, w hile th e avoidance of zero scores is ju st as im portant in th e GPs as on the U.S. circuit. Moo re can be expected to score more frequ entl y than h is rival on the green bike. Yam aha pres ent m ost o f th e co ntenders for bronz e. Ide nt ical mot or s to that delivered to Moore will also be available to 20-yearold Italian Claudio ,Fed erici, Frenchman Fred eric Vialie, 22, and Brit Paul Mal in, 24. None have displ ayed consiste ncy in the past, and it is difficult to see the m corr ecting th is. Any of them could still clinch third, however, for this is a class ' of youngsters, so they ar e not alone. The It a lians and the French h av e do mina ted th e placings in th e 125s in rece nt years an d are expe cted to do so aga in. French 22-year-old Mickael Maschio won a GP la st year a nd could do so again, but, stylish as he is, he does not give th e im p ression that he can ever m ake th e very top. He should be top 'Honda, how ever. Vetera n Dutchm an Dave Strijbos , 28, a GP w inner as long ago as 1984, w as N ico ll said of the non -linkage wo rks KTM. "I had no hesitation in choosing the no-linkage setup. The feeling is very much the same as a normal shock, but you get more traction und er acceleration and it simply doesn't kick un der braking. That gives a very stable feeling into corners, and I can get the pow er to the ground very quickly on landing off jumps. 1can honestly say that 1can only sec advantag es." Development engineer Magnus Eriksson was on hand at Sainte Cicile and Beaucaire to adv ise Nicoll's mechanic johnny Lemmins, "Although the film (Ohlins) is owned by Yamaha , the internals of the shock, which are patented under the name Progressive Damping System, were developed at the request of KTM and they have exclus ive use this year," said Eriksson. "One of the major advantages of the system is the redu ction of friction for smoother operation. The mounting bolts have been increased from 10 to 12mm dia mete r, but we have had no breakage s or signs of stress. Hu saberg and Gas Gas have already expressed interest in adopting the system as soon as it becomes ava ilable to them." . KTM team manager Georges [obe, who won his first title in 1980 on a twin-shock bike, said, "(Back then) all of the manuf actur ers we re looking to increase their suspension travel and they sim ply d id not have the technical know ledge at the time to do it without linkage systems . There were a lot of breakages those first few years. "In 1991, I asked Honda to build me a no-link bike, but they just lau ghed," said [obe. "The japariese still do n' t appear to be interested. but they will get left behind if they are not careful. You only have to look at Kurt here to see how well the bike picks up when he land s off the big ju mps ." Nicoll had tested for one week with KTM factory engineers on hard terrain at Area di Trento in Italy, as well as in the mud at his family's farm in southern France, before Sainte Cecile and proclaimed himself very optimistic of getting the Austrian factory back on the podium at the 250 GP. "In add ition to the rear suspension changes, we have a new motor with a revised powervalve system which gives a lot more bottom-end power and has comple tely eliminat ed the loss of po wer in midrange," said Nicoll. "You never know for sure un til you get into a race wi th some of your main rivals, but 1 feel the motor is already more powerful than the Honda I had last year, even the one we won the Irish GP with."

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