Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

wo uld come within a wee k or 1 days, a'nd wo uld be " the final '0 te";'iri~ti~g in'a slow <;Om~r 'rathe~ than the «Urrent medium-speed · word on the. matter." D orna and their subsldlary'company TwP' "Stek kenwal." Atlea st one. other chicane will be Installed ; at the hold all the. contracts with the F1M sa nctioning body and th e cirhigh's pee d " Me euwenmeer" .section: t he most dist ant point of the track: ., .. , cuits : but IRTA has failed ' io renew its contract to supply teams The tit le bailie 'for Daryl B~attie became' that mu ch harder after and riders to 'the series, .which expires at the end of this season.. doctors r uled him out of the first race of the season. The Team Instead. it has slqned a new contract with' a rival sports promo tion . Ap~i1ia'sV"~in ' 500 maY-gro~ closer totbe full '50 0cc ~fier .. Hond a 's pro misi ng de bu t wit h ' t heir ,own' fu ll-size V-twi n. .But Lucky Stri ke Su ~uki rider cras hed on .Sunday when h is engine ' , and TV·rig hts body, ISL. . . ' . designer Jan Witt eveen insist s that he will not qoall the way. This seized.'T hough outwardly unhurt Beattie suffere d a concussion. Stili not fully recovered on Thursday. he was advise d against rac: ' If anybody think s racing" pr iva teer-level ROC or Ha r ris" . year's engine 'was the same as last year's at 4 10cc, he said. " But Y amah a Is a low -cost option, think again:.The price of Yarneha's , with the latest version 'yve have the possi bility to 'make it bigger: ing by Clinica.Mobile staff and independent docto rs, " Naturally, I'm really disappoin ted." , he said, before' flying home to Australia new sealed alrbox, with ,it s pressu rized ram-air effec t. is almost - , We cou ld go to. the lull size, thouqh I would 'pr efer,to go to 430cq .ormaybe 450cc. But I don't want to change the size until we have to ' continue his recuperat ion. "It 's the' worst way to startthe sea. ' . $ 14 ,000, ' . .' , got this one working perfectly," Th e new RF-V 500 : ridden by · son, 'But there are 14 more races left , and lt 's better to 'go for top Tetsuya Harada's 'first ;eaction to the droopinq tail. of his new . Doriano Romboni, has ,been revised' throughout. "The chassis scores inthem than,risk my own safety and everybodyelseson dimensio ns arernore or less as last year, but the chassis ts Yamaha was "to feei a littl e embarrassed when .I rode down pit Sunday." Beallie did notjoin the IRTA tests earlier in the week; but 'w as tuming "competitive ballpark t imes, faster than a Suzuki' s · lane." the Japanese rider admitted in Malaysla:' But the 'oversize ", stiffe r. We have new crankcases, cylinders and crankshaft.vThe tail. unit. which follows the .curve ofa crouching rtder'sback. rdefl-: aim has been to achieve smoo ther .perforrrance.. t o reduce the ' 'ever bee n ro und here before" on ·Sunday.· accordinq to a team · nitelylrriproved the top .speed . "W e found t hat in a wind tu nnel," .' wheelie ' pro blem we had lasi year," . said ' W illeveen. "W e' ve source . ' . . •• Scott Russe ll unexpectedly ~issed the team tests.' after ·opting . to take,more time to rest after finishing seco nd by inches at Day' tona . ," Ii 's pity Scott missed the opportunity to ,get track t irne . when all the other top runners have tested here. " said Team Ma nager Garry Tay,lor.' , · . , .' . a Dary l ' Beattie's abse ncemeant a specia l 2 1st birt hday gift for Japanese Lucky Strike Suzuki .superb ike 'rider Katsuak iFuj i " .' .w a ra. The rising AII:Japan st ar (third in last year's S uzuka 8·Hour: seco nd in' the opening .round of this 'year' s championshipl tumed 2 1 on March 27. and received the last-minute call to pack his hel~ met and leathers On March 28. Fujiwara, already a Wiid Card entry for the Japanese GP, has 'never raced a 500 , but has ridden one in tests: At Suzuka during the winter -.having set a respectable 2: 10.5 ' , on his Superblke , lie went for an informal 500 cc try-out and recorded .2 :" 0 ,0 , .The iap record 'is 2:09 .439 , 'se t . by ~evin Schwantz in 1994 , Sadly.jtellwentwronq after seven tapsof .tirned pract ice. Lying 17th ove rall, FU iwara' s Suzuki suffered a j · seize-up.similar to that which caused Beatt ie to cresh. tand he .suf- . . fered shoulder and knee injuries that nuled himout of t he race. 'SuZ~ki b~Ok~ t~~ u~u~1 J~panes~ p~IiCY' . , i ota I ~eCreCYbY admitt ing t hat it was "component failure " -that caused both Beat tie'and his replacement to fall ~ but wo uld .not enlarge' on the details . It emerged unofficia lly that the.seize-ups were.plston-reiat.ed: both .happened as the ride rs closed the th rottleo n corner entry, Sources close to t he team we re confident t hat t he problem ' . .would be solved by the .next race . The machines havenewcyhoders and pistons, and revised vers ions cou ld be quickly 'made, In the same way that Suzuki took only five weeks to come up with a Big Bang 'engine in 1992, the first to respond after all t he factories were.caught nap~ing by Honda, . ... . . ' . Ra l f Waldmann pulled ' our of the r ace efteronlythreelapsof practice - his'freshly bro ken collarbone prov ing too painful to carry ' on..."] broke It -the week beforelast, andit was plated at a local .hospital, I wanted to fide, b ut it's imposs ible," said the HB Honda ·rider; who was third overall last year,. . .' . . . H o n d a de nied as0itch from their in-house Show "suspE a msion . to Ohllns front fork, 'as used by Yamaha: after numors we re trig·.. Kat sua kl ' . Fuj iwara was , . expected..to ri. . . - . Lu cky St "rike Suzuki, but ttie.Japanese ri de r crashed In, ' . de Daryl Be attie's practice. . . ,, . '. ·gered in .early test sess ions that Michael Doohan had tested (and .much.preferred) the Scen dmevianequipment "w,e 've never used, Ohlins," insiste d ' Doohan's crew chief Jeremy Burgess.. " But we said Harada..By how much?':That's ~ secret. " The 1996 'Y a m a- . : altered t he induction gas-flow: The 'new 'c rankshaft design ailows do have so me ,diff eren t Showas ,that are built m ore along i he ' ha uses a lonq-stroke versio n of the reed-valve VZR e'ngine first . improved flow within the crankcases so that the bike doesn'I' snap ' Ohllns patt ern , There are a Jot of detail differences .betw een ol d used at theHnal race of ·.1 99 5. " I th ink we .rnade t he mo st so much' when you open the thro ttle . We still have a problem with ·and ~ew for ks: to do with 'air and oil vol umes and other things: ' progress of anybody in the winter at improving' power, " setdHara-, wheelies. but not so bad as last year:- Willeve;,n's preference for M ick prefers . the feel .of the new type, more like the Ohlins, but ' . da.·" But whim I came here 'I saw the others have not been stand· ' an undersize e ngine is to avoid having an excess o f whee lie-lnduc,we don't see any diffe rence in lap times , lt 's like 'the bette r ride ing still: and I expectounnq the year I will again comp lain of being' ing torque and to preserve ' the high.rev characteris tics of the 250 ' you get froma limousine compa red with a sports car, but there's '.' 'short of power," .. . .' . ' . machines on' which the 500 ·is based .' "The' Honda ii.. performing . no advantage you can measure," All t he' same, Doohan used the" .'. we ll . but they , have t ake n t he easy way: 'using two. 2·SOcc new fork s. ntcknameo ." Sho hllns" by Ohlins staff, 'who believed ' " Sp anish 500~c star A lberto ~uig is far from sure if hewlll ever " mot ocross cylinders. They can rev o nly to t 1,000 where we go to the re ' were some of their part s inside ' the for k 't ubes: " We' re r eca pture 'the race-win nlnq form t hat was cut short .by his heavy '. 13.900. Our erigine 'has development: potential" but ,I don't think doing a lot ofwork on suspens lon because the re are some tracks . ' crash in practice for last year's French GP. Puig broke his left leg Honda have that. potential. ", . , . where the Yamahas 'obviously tum i'1 bette r 't han our 'blke." said very badly. and tbough.. the threat :o, amputation ·was av.erte, . it ' f d . '. '.. , Burgess: Ohlins 'is owned by Yamaha;,but the fork s are,supplied ' ' has been left sti ff and wea k. " I thi nk it is wo rse eve n t han . Th~ othe; E~ropeari 500 bike .' . ihe V -fou'rElf'ROC -, qualifi'ed . 'to a number ,of other teams. ' .' , D oohan.'s leg'," said puig. ~ I have no Je'e ling' in ,it.' W hen I am .rid· 15th fn .the hands of top rider J uan Bo~a . on the tail o f the worlks . . '.. . . '. . ' ing, I have to lookoowri from'time'to time to check th'e position of . .. 'machines and beaten by' only"c o privateer, Frenchman Fred Pro- , me Wayne Rainey ' is to race. again, The fo rrrer t hree-li me W orld . my foot on the peg. 'I am try ing to get used to the th ~mb-ope rated .' tat. ': W e are very pleased: The' bike is very new , and though we Champion, whose career was ended by a crippling crash in 1993 , . rear brake, but·the first 'time i tried It at Jerez I crashed after,four .. ' teste d 'o ne bike in the winter,"t he other three we have here did not ·wiil take part in t he Toyota Celebriiy warrruprace for the Indy C ar . iaps beca~se o f braking too hard. I 'decided i. I have .to crash while , tum a wheel before arriving here, .and we did not 'join any of the f even t at Lo ng B each t he :w eek end' afler !.he Indo nesian Gp. , . I get used to it, then I have to crash." . ' , .. ., , , pre-race tests here,: :said ,team bo~s Serge' Rosset. who i~ also . ' Rainey, paralyzed from the,chest' dow n, has ,ilread; tes ted the ' . . , , ' . " ' , . . . " . . : . head of ROC, ' It has been reiiable, and that 'is the first step, But ·Celica he will race, con"arted to' hand controls ; His legs are kept Dual·compound t i res; hailed as a ..blg break through in Day.-' we have a lot of wo rk. There are so many differe nt possib ilities in place by Velc ro on his shoes, : I'm really.pleaS-ed about it. and I . tona, are far from new , confirme d M ichel.in and 'Dunlop techni-' . both.in chassis sellings and .engine·management selling's. We.' e v want to win," ,he said. " I've already pissed them off in practice cians at Shah Alam, Michelin said they had been making them for , only tested abo ut ' 30 percent of wbat we can do. This year, is to ' because I was using the track verges, and because nobody could elght:to ' 10 years , while Dunlop sald ·they were racing them last , Ieam. W e do not ""'pect results. This is a revolut ionarY type of: V· .get past m e," . . ' ', . . ' year, . They also , made something similar in the '70 s.. for Kenny '. four, and everyt hing is new," he said. Unlike all the 'other V-fours, ' . '. . . . . Robert s: "The trick is' not in making them, : said one tec hniCian .' wh iC have separate crankcases for each cylinder, the Swiss·A utoh ,K e n ny Roberts J r . expects'to be fitfo return for the third race' ·" but making them so they work .for a' full race: ~ based HOG engine has each 'pair of cylinders sharing a common ' ofthe seaso n, the Japanese GR in Ap ril- The kid with the famous ' , , ' . ' . .. '.' '.. . . crankcase. ,This allow s 'tw o fewer main bearings. than the ,single- , name' broke his leg in Shah Alam i ests tw o ' months ago .' " He's The einasculati on of the ClaSS circuits will claim.a new victim : cran k Honda NSR engine, cutting ' internal fricti on and reduCing IC already'walking withouf·crutches~: and should be '1oo-percent fii by ' . when Assen is revised in five yearS i1me. The goal fs to increase engine size. The solo version of the forrrer.sidecar engine also has ·then:' said Roberts Sr. His son makes his '500cc-c1ass, debut in' , the paddock arj'a and open.It for sp'ectato rs: the area is currently , ' exhaust power valves. noi 'needed on the three-wheelers, and has ' Kenny' s Marlboro.sponsored works Yamaha team aft era fas t. Iirriited because the track nuns on both sides of the paddoc k. New '. more power through out · the rev range than any of the Japanese . -track rise 'thro ugh the ranks. ': ,. '. " . '.' " plans will 'mqve the famou~ . • Strubben' horseshoa .bend furth er mo\or'S, : Our biggest problem 'at the moment is wheelspin: We \ . ... . .'.' . . . . ' . .. , ' . '. . away, culling the pr esent run up .to the ·U·bend .' t he ' st re tc h 'need to domesticate the P?wer, ". said Rosset~· They,already had a , 'The 'f u t ;' r e o f GP r';ci;;g .remaici ed open t o qu esti o n in , where Yasutomo Nagai was fatailY-injuredjn the World Superbike type of :tract,iori coritrOl" system iricoiPomte d in the engine man: Malaysi a with no ' resolution in sight of .the fig ht betWeen control· race. The current back straight .· act ually a classic sect ion of tech·. . agement: thaI cuts power when ·the fro nt wheel rise s, ,b ut t hey ' .' ling bod y D orn a an'd feam s ' assoc iat ion' IRTA. Bu t .a ' Do rria " nically difficult flat-oiJt Zigzags directly aft er the. Stnubben · will.be .' were not using it at Malaysia. The eventual intention is to make .the spoke sman said that a' statement origi~all; prOmis ed for this GP ..repiaced by a straight some 200 yards back ,from. the ·paddock..' : Elf-ROC available.to privateers , probablY in 1997. ' .... '. - , . . . .' . . . ., . " .. .

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