Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

by Kawasaki's Scott Russell and Aaron Slight. Again, Honda gave that race away when Eddie Lawson and Mick Doohan crashed the top two Honda factory bikes. This year's race followed the script of 1993, with the outcome determined not by clever race strategy or multibike battles for the lead, but rather by the lead actors crashing unexpectedly. That, dear readers, is what happens with the pressure experienced in motorcycle racing's biggest show, the Suzuka' 8-Hour. Showtime was 11:30 a.m. for the 101,000 Sunday spectators, when 64 rid: ers ran across the track for the Le Mansstyle start. Okada jumped on the Honda that Aaron Slight qualified on the pole, and led into the first comer and onward for the remainder of his stint. Gobert controlled second for the first" four laps and was then passed by Takurna Aoki. Aoki had a terrible start and cleaved his way through the pack, setting the fastest lap of the race on lap three, a time of2:11.600. By lap 16 Gobert had succumbed to another factory Honda, this one being piloted by Shinichi Itoh. Two laps later Gobert was passed by Edwards, and two laps after that another factory Yamaha went around Gobert, this one being ridden by Kensuke Haga, the older brother of Edwards' teammate Noriyuki Haga. "We were really down on power compared to the Hondas," Gobert said. "I would pass a Honda in the corner and they would get us going down the straightaway. It was sort of worthIess to (Above) An exultant Edwards stands next to Gobert (left) on the victory podium. . (Lett) Three-time and defending event champion Aaron Slight and his teammate Tadyukl Okada confer In the pits. Pole qualifier Slight crashed before the halfway mark, breaking bones In his 'foot end ending the team's race. The top teams pitted again during laps 77 through 80, and the race order remained the same, by motorcycle, with Fogarty in the lead, followed by Haga, Crafar, Akira Yamagawa on a factory Kawasaki and DuHamel. Haga was able to slowly chip away at Fogarty's 13-second lead during this session, and kept the race interesting. But as far as attention-grabbing interest, Fogarty provided ample amounts when he crashed going into the hairpin, alone, just a few laps before he was scheduled to pit. "1 just tipped it in the corner, like 1 did the previous lap, and the front end just walked away from me," said the reigning World Superbike champion. Fogarty was quickly on his feet, stared at the felled Honda for a few seconds, and then remounted the bike and quickly rolled it back to the pits. Twelve laps later, the final Honda miscue occurred when Ukawa crashed the bike he shared with DuHamel. Ukawa was trying to overtake a backmarker, but the backmarker moved into Ukawa's line and both went down. "A lot of the riders were being really unpredictable," DuHamel said. "Some would see the blue flag and they'd move over. The only problem is that usually you're already over there. They'd move into your path pretty fast. Unfortunately, Ukawa, my teammate, got caught by one of those guys. 1 think he saw the blue flag and moved out, but that was the racing line and he just came back in and nailed him. If it wasn't for that, for sure we would have been on the podium this w~kend. But that's a part of racing!' The crashing by the top four Honda teams completely changed the race for everyone else, much to their liking. 'T d be lying if 1 said 1 was sad about it," Crafar admitted. "1 was looking for a really long, hard day - until Fogarty crashed," Edwards said. "Of course we changed strategy. We had like 30 seconds on Gobert and Crafar. When 1 got back on the bike, we pulled it out to about 40. Then Haga got on the bike again, and pulled it out to 50. Then 1 got back on the bike, rode Bunch of-baloney_ _ " keep doing this thing over and over. We actually blistered a rear tire in the process. So we dropped off the pace a little bit, and from then on we just lost ground gradually, all day." Okada built a six-second-plus lead by the time the first round of pitting started, just prior to the one-hour mark. Slight went out quickly and maintained the lead, albeit briefly. Just after completing his first lap in the race, Slight's day came to an end at the beginning of the 5-curves. "I went around a backmarker, I went off l.ine, and got high~sided," Slight said. "It's a problem we've had'all week, and that's the track is very dirty." Meanwhile, another factory Honda was in trouble at the chicane section, where Sotoshi Tsujimoto dumped the HRC-prepped RC45 he had just taken over from Itoh. After eight minutes in the pits Tsujimoto returned to the race in 50th position, and ultimately their team would finish 11th, five laps down. Honda's Fogarty picked up the lead and held it until lap 41, when Noryiuki Haga passed the Honda on the back straightaway, going into the fast, lefthand 130R comer. A dozen or so seconds behind this duo was Simon Crafar, followed by an all-Japanese factory Kawasaki, and then a gap back to DuHamel and Rymer. The second round of pit stops for the leaders began on lap 50. After the completion of these stops, Edwards still had the lead, but was being caught by Aoki. Aoki passed Edwards on the inside, going into the hairpin. It was the second and last lead change from a rider overtaking the leader out on the track. "I rode my ass off trying to stay with him," Edwards said. '1 just couldn't do it. He pulled, I think, 10 seconds or so on me." Ican't really get into all this sort o( nonsense, y'know what I mean?" Carl Fogarty exclaimed when asked (or his feelings on the unique procedure of setting the grid for an eight-hour race by sending riders out for an "attack lap," where the top 30 teams send their riders out one by one for a warmup lap, a timed flying lap, and then a cool-down lap. "It's an eight-hour endurance race. I can't get into thinking that I've got to get on pole and all that. It seems to be a bit of a waste of time, really." Scott Russell was even more to the point: "We don't give a $ - - about the special stage. That means nothing to me, or Terry, I think. It just doesn't matter." The favorite going into the special stage was Anthony Gobert, who consistently headed the charts in practice and qualifying, as well as being the winner of the special stage at the 1995 Suzuka 8-Hour. This year Gobert was denied by his World Superbike rival Aaron Slight, who turned in a stunning time of 2:10.386, not far from the Superbike lap record of 2:10.278 set by Katsuaki Fujiwara on a Kawasaki ZXR750 on November 11 of last year. "That lap wasn't very quick," Slight claimed in the press conference. "I had a couple of points where it chattered. I think it could have been a little bit better, but that's all we needed, SO I'm very happy." Gobert came out of the Special stage with the fifth-best time, being bettered by Slight's teammate Tadyuki Okada, Honda rider Shinichi Itch, and Yamaha rider Kensuke Haga. The Australian star turned into a barroom lawyer in the press conference, making claims about lack of horsepower on the Kawasaki, Dunlop's forgetting to bring qualifying tires and poor track conditions that prevented him from bettering Slight's time. Slight was not amused by any of Gobert's explanations. "I almost high-sided coming (out of Spoon Curve), and it affected the speed coming down the back straightaway," Gobert said. "But that wasn't the main problem. 1was sort of a little bit easy in some of the comers. To be honest, I think that slide coming out onto the straight really affected our lap time. The Kawasaki has been quite a bit down on horsepower compared to the Honda and the Yamaha. And also this morning (in Slight's session), the track temperature was quite a bit lower than what it was (when I was out). Due to the heat, we were sliding around more than we expected, and we couldn't carry the corner speed we would have liked to, to do a high 9. I still feel it's possible to do a high 9 around here, and we'll just wait and see in the race." Slight and Okada would start the Suzuka 8-Hour from pole position, followed by Itoh and Satoshi Tsujimoto, Toshihiko Honma and Kensuke Haga.

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