Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

MOTOCROSS W ORLD C HAMPIONSHIP 125ccM TOC O SSERIES O RS Round 8: German G Prix rand gloves, Puzar rushed the Germa n for second - a place he was to lose to the ram-. paging Jasinski on the last lap. "On ce I threw my gogg les away, my he lme t wa s s li p ping o ve r m y eyes," Puzarsaid . The loss of two points didn't seem to wo rry him unduly after he crossed th e line together with Chio di, his cham p ionship rival, a lap behind . Jam es Dobb had not ridd en the first moto afte r changing w ea ther duri ng qua lifica tion had ca ught him with the wro ng tire choice; but he rod e a hard second moto to ad vance from 10th to sixth. It could have been fifth. "I pull ed back 20 seconds on those factory Huskys and passed Traversini," he explained . "I'd have had Federici, too, but Van Drunen held me up really bad as we lap p ed h im and I los t about five sec- : onds." Incredibly, Jarv ela took nin th despite riding from lap four of 16 with a flat rear tire, w hile Manneh took the fina l po int two places beh ind Moore - who was a sorry 13th after several falls and stops for fresh gloves. "I even tried rid ing wi tho ut for on e lap, bu t tha t was even worse," Moor e said . I The torment over, the teams got ready to go home - but before they had packed away the bikes in their transporters, the By Alex Hodg kins o n GERSTElTEN, GERMANY, JUNE 22 hicco Chiod i' s seeming ly comfortable lead in the World Championship 12See Motocross Series e vap o ra ted a t Gerstetten in So u the rn Ge r many a s Sandro Pu z a r pulled back 20 points on his fellow Italian in a mud-bath GP. He now trails by just 14 points with f OUT rounds remaining. After 30 ho urs of almos t nonstop rain, thi s wa s a lways going to be the race wh ere Ch iodi either finished off his lone Wi"""'" remaining rival off or b lew it - and the Yamaha rider, who was psyched ou t of the crown tw o yea rs ago by the very same rival. blew it. He restricted his losses to seven points in the first moto despite a fall, but sat in the slime several times in race tw o to finish 14th. To mak e ma tters even worse, he was lapped by Puzar near the end of the rnoto. The big w inner - apart fro m Puzar, who did n' t fall all da y en rout e to a 1-3 moto tall y - w a s Fr ed er ic Via lie. Th e French man's secon d win of the season pu lled him back into contention for third place in the cham pions hip. The French riders had the first choice of ga te after d ominating th e qua lifying , but only Vialle got to the'first tum before Puzar and Chiodi. The trio was joined by local Jochen Jasinski, who was riding in his first GP of the year after getting hurt back in the sp ring, to make up a fou rrider breakaway. Vialle led for 18 min ut es before falling in the com er before the ban k to the finish line . Puza r then too k co m m a nd wi th Chio di in his w ake, but the title leader was the next to go down , spinn ing out at nearly the same spot as Vialle had . He ended up a distant fourth, wa tching his points lead cut down to 27. Th e tall Jasinski w as an impressi ve third. 46 "I brok e the little finger in my righ t hand yesterda y, but it didn't trouble me in th e race," he sa id . "Yo u can forget these th in gs when you ar e r acin g up front. But it hurts like hell now ." . Th e rock y g ro u nd offer ed a single solid, if slippery, groove, but there were plenty of problems waiting to catch riders off-gua rd. O ne of th ose riders wa s Brit Paul Malin. " I go t kn ocked off o n the first lap," Malin said . "I had fresh gloves and gog- ' gIes waiting for me, but w hat use was. that when the bars were so greasy?" Ditto for Da vid Vu illem in: "Loo k a t my rear tire," he sa id . "We are throug h to the rock and it has rip ped all of the knobs off. [ cou ldn' t get up the hill on the last lap." Mickael Maschio and Sebastien Trottie r we re ju st tw o rid er s nu rs ing eye injuries aft er losin g their gogg les while racin g w ithi n th e to p 10. Petr i Ja rvela cooked his Kawasaki after th e coolan t fluid boiled away; Bad er Manneh found thrott le contro l simply impossible after failing to cu t extra ribs on the grip; and Bob Moore didn't complete a lap. "It was my fault," Moore said . '1 was the one throw n off-line, bu t som ebo dy jum ped into my left elbow - the o ne I broke earlier in the year." In the end, only five riders stayed on the same lap as Puzar . The rain had ceased by the end of the firs t moto, and the sun eve n pok ed its head o ut of th e clouds at times in ra ce tw o. But tha t o nly served to mak e th e mud cling to th e bikes and make th em even heavier to control in the slippery condi tio ns. Via lle was unstoppab le this time, th ough he had o ne h eart-st opping moment on th e penultima te lap, when (Top) The gate gets ready to d rop for the start of the German 125cc Grand Prix, and event ual w inner Frederic Vialle (3) and runner-up Sandro Puzar (100) prepare to drop the hammer. (Above left) Although Puzar didn't take the overall win , h is 13 tally brought him to within 14 ' po ints of championship leader Chicco Chiodi. (Above right) Vialle scored the overall win w ith his 2-1 moto scores. (Right) The surprise 01 the race was loca l hero Joehen Jasinski. Th e tall German finished th ird overall. he made his only mistake - falling, to see his lead of m ore than a mi nu te cu t in half. The title cand idates had both started in th e lo wer reaches of th e to p 10, bu t their fortu nes d iverged after IS minutes when Chiodi d ro pped frorn seve nth to 17th after the first of several falls which, a t one stage, sa w him down in 23rd. Puza r, meanw hile , wa s moving forward and lay a thr eaten ing fourth, eve n thoug h he had been forced to dispose of his goggles early on. . Ju st ahead o f h im , Kanstinger was holding off Moor e for second but, wh en the Am er ican fell and p itted for fre sh evening sky turned a heavenly blue with not a dark cloud in sight. f:< German Grand Prix Gerstetten , Gennany Results: J une 22, 1997 (Round 8 01 12) MOTO 1: I . Sandro P U 7.cl T (fM); 2. Frederic Vialle (Yam ); 3. Joc~ Jasin..ki (Yam); 4. Ch iem Chiodi (Yam); s. Jimmy Verburgh (Yam); 6. Erik Ce mer lengo (Yam); 7. Ste-ve Ramon (Kaw); 8. Thoma:"T reversi ni (H~); 9. Andi Kanstinger (Hon) ; 10. Alex Belome tti (Kaw); II. Max Ba rtol ini (TM); 12. Marce l Va n Drun cn (Ya m ); 13. earl N u nn (Hon ); 14. Abe l Bema rd ez (H e ); 15 . Fredrik m Wl-ml'J" (Hu.o; ) MOTO 2: 1. Frederic Vialle (Yam ); 2. Jochcn Jasins ki (Yam) ; 3. Sa ndre Puzar (I"M); 4. Andi Kansting er (}-{on); 5, Cidudio Federici (Hus); 6. Jimmy Dobb (Su z); 7. Thunld5 Traversini (Hu:,,) 8. Lui gi sPguy (TM); 9. Pet ri [a rv ela ; (Ka w ); 10. Da vid Vuill e mi n (Yam ); 11. N icolas Charlier (]

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