Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

ROAD RACE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP ROAD RACE SERIES Prix the Japanese 500Cc Grand Prix. In his home GP, Okada made a successful break from the pack, but he was eventually caught by both Michael Doohan (1) and Alex Crlvllie (2) and Nobuatsu Aokl (18) last year's winner Norlfuml Abe (5) follow Okada into the first comer at Suzuka. (Below) Doohan moves In for the kill. accident a month earlier. The car he was driving was broad-sided by another car. Kato hit his head hard enough to form a blood clot and he also dislocated his hip. ''Winning the Japanese Grand Prix as a wild-card rider is a wild experience for me and I truly want to do the full season next year," Kato said. "But my first priority is next week's All-Japan Championship round two at Sugo. I missed the first round due to my car accident so I must win next week to win the championship." Benetton Honda's Tohru Ukawa slipped into second with Harada third after his engine slowed on the last lap. "1 had a good lead for the win going onto the last lap, but then the engine slowed a little and Katoh and Vkawa caught me," Harada said. ''TIley surprised me as I braked for the chicane. Maybe if I had chosen a tighter li.tie I could have kept them out, but they were closer to me than I had realized." FCC Technical Sports Takeshi Tsujimura was a close fourth with Marlboro Honda's Ralf Waldmann fifth. Marlboro Team Kanemoto Honda's Max Biaggi rode in pain to finish seventh. The three-time World Champion had dislocated his shoulder in practice on Friday practice. Seventh was good enough to keep him in the championship hunt after two races. Harada takes over the lead with 36 points, • weeks after the building of the race bikes began. The Marlboro Team Roberts rider was in a fight for 11th before a vibration caused him to back off and take the secure 14th. Kenny Roberts Jr. wasn't as lucky and was forced to stop with handling problems. "The bike started dragging the fairing." Roberts said. ''We've had the same problem before but this time it was lifting the front tire off the deck, so I thought I better stop before I fell down." Starting the season with two wins gives Doohan 50 points, 10 better than Criville with Nobuatsu Aoki third at 27. The 250cc class provided not only a wonderful race, but an extraordinary story as well. Oose right to the end, the victory went to Japanese wild card Daijiro Kato who outbraked Aprilia's Tetsuya Harada going into the chicane on the final lap after reeling him in in at the end of the race. Harada had as much as a 1.7-second lead in the final laps before being caught on the final lap. It all came down to the entrance to the chicane, a trio Of Japanese riders three wide, Harada the widest, to the left, Kato taking the inside line and holding on to win by .208 of a second. '1t was my first race of the year, I just didn't want to crash, and I just happened to win," Kato, 20, said. Suzuka was his first race after a traffic two better than Biaggi, and six in front of Ukawa. Japanese riders took the first four places in the 12See race, the very popular Noboru Veda taking a very hard-fought win, his first in class since 1994. It could have gone to any of three riders, but it was Nobby who took the win after starting from pit lane. He was forced to start from there after changing his rear sprocket following the warmup lap when he realized he wouldn't be facing favorable winds on the front straight. "The wind was so strong on the sighting lap that 1 decided to change my final ratio," Veda said. "But my mechanics had a problem with the rear axle so I couldn't make the grid. 1 knew I could catch the leaders because Suzuka has long straights; so I could slipstream other riders." What made the Team Pileri rider's victory more compelling was that team owners Francesco and Paolo Pileri are both in an Italian jailon tax evasion charges. Second and third came along in less than a second, VGT 3000's underpowered Kazuto Sakata leading Jha Racing's Hideyuki Nakajo. Then, within a 10th of a second, four more riders led by L. B. Racing's Masao Azuma. The win vaulted Veda to the top of the 125cc World Championship charts with (Left) Tadayukl Okada (7) was a fast starter In By Henny Ray Abrams Photos by Gold & Goose SUZUKA CITY, JAPAN, APR 20 he Suzuka Circuit is owned by Honda, which was appropriate given the results of the home Grand Prix. Honda riders not only owned all three races, but finished first through sixth in the premier SOOcc GP with Repsol Honda's Mick Doohan leading the way for the second race'in a row on a track where he hasn't had much luck. The only other time he won here was in the rain in 1992 as the only rider to use the Big Bang engine. Again today he was the only rider using a certain engine configuration, this one the c1ose-to-9O-degree crank. Getting away in a serum of Honda riders, Doohan made his way to second behind teammate Tadayuki Okada on the fourth of 21 laps, then chipped away at Okada's lead to take the front spot on the 10th lap. From then on he tried to make a break, but couldn't get away and came under late attack from another teammate, Alex Criville. Criville threatened to lead and pressured Doohan right up to the final comer, nearly taking the inside line and the win, but Doohan was able to preserve his 36th career 500cc win though by just .431 of a second before a crowd of "'_..J 50,000. t'-.. ~ _ 'Tm sure he was trying." Doohan said of Criville, "but I tried to be as smooth as I can and bring it home in front. I honestly thought Alex would come by me on the brakes somewhere. I could hear him at the hairpin just about every time. Either there or going into the last chicane was basically where he was going to have his best chance of getting me. When I didn't see him as I'm tipping into the chicane I thought, 'I might win here: but I could still hear him." "My aim was to try to pass in the last lap Mick," Criville said after yet another second place. "Perhaps the best way was in the corner before the chicane but he was riding very, very well, very smooth and it wasn't possible to pass him." Okada finished third, six seconds back, his best fourcylinder result to date, and was well in front of the battling Aoki brothers at the end. The Repsol-backed, twin-mounted Takuma came out on top of Nobuatsu, who was aboard the Rheos/Elf FCC Technical Sports V-four. They were about 20 seconds behind Okada and were nearly caught up by another scrap, this one between MoviStar Honda Pons' Carlos Checa and Yamaha Team Rainey's Norifumi Abe, the pair finishing sixth and seventh, respectively. Eighth went to Checa's teammate Alberto Puig, wild-card rider orihiko Fujiwara was ninth on the Marlboro Yamaha, and Alex Barros filled out the top lOon the Honda Gresini V-twin. The backmarkers and non-finishers were a noteworthy bunch, their placings out of character given their resources. The futility award probably goes to Lucky Strike Suzuki, though Yamaha Promotor Racing was a close second. Peter Goddard, riding the Lucky Strike Suzuki in place of the injured Anthony Gobert, finished 13th. That was the high point. His teammate for the weekend Daryl Beattie had front-brake failure which caused him to run off the track and pull in. Promotor's Troy Corser crashed and his teammate Luca Cadalora was 11th, the team operating amid a swirl of rumors that they were either about to be taken over or worse, mainly due to a deteriorating financial position of the principals. There was also a bright spot among the late finishers as the Modenas KRV3 .scored its first points in the hands of Frenchman Jean-Michel Bayle just 13.

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