Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

even d own to 1.7. Bu t Kocinski was con trolli ng th is o ne fro m the fron t, a nd beginning on the 20th lap • his fastest of the race a nd th e fastes t of th e d a y, a 1:27.092 - he sta rted to stea dily dra w away. " I was going r ea ll y comfor table," Kocinski sa id later. "Unfort unately, it was one of those things. I caugh t th e backrnarkers and had like a two-second lead . I though t, 'Grea t.' But I lost a second because of backmarkers, go arou nd hi m, pulled a second ba ck , cau ght an other backmarker. .. I couldn't get a break and it was kind of frustrating after pushin g so hard . To run those low 27s was no problem ." Fog art y, mea nwhile, was havi ng troubles of his own. "I was just glad to see the end , to be ho nes t," Fogart y said. "It took m e a w hile to get through to seco nd place and once ] d id there was abo ut a second to John. It seemed to stay around tha t th e whol e ra ce; I'd pu ll a few hundredths back a n d then lose a b it. I sp ewed up twice in my he lmet so that was quite funny. I had a real bad stoma ch ac he an d then the gearbox started jumping ou t of gea r with thr ee laps to go. I just wanted to get 10 the finish . I've be en feelin g pret ty sic k the last th re e days, so I'm jus t knackered and I wan t to go home." C ha ndle r was n 't the o nly ear ly knocko ut. Ha le departed after two laps, the victim of bad brakes once again. "I'd st uffed a few people and was 10th or so," Hale explained. "Going up the hill from six I had a good d rive and (Akira) Yanagawa just pulled me up the hill. Then, between 10 and 11, the front locked and tu cke d under; then the wheel locked when I wheelied out of 11. I killed it an d clicked it into neutral an d cou ld hard ly pu sh it off the truck." The next to go was Picotte, out with brake fade . Then Crafar cras hed the factory Kawasaki in turn two and Whitham laid down the factory Suzuki in turn 11 on laps seven and 10, respectively. "I lost the front end and slid along for ag es on my kn ee," Whi tham said . "Just when I thought I might save it, the bike fell on its side. The accident broke the gear lever and damaged the steering so there was no way [ could carry on." Th e crash wa s Whitham's th ird of the week end . Mladin would join the ranks of the non-finishers on the 22nd lap, his Fast By Ferracci Ducati giving up wit h a yetto-he-diagnosed problem. "It just qu it," Mladin said . "It's possibly the fuel pump. [ was doing low 28s a nd running with (Nei l) Hod gson. We ju st didn't ha ve the gru n t to ge t p ast him. The tire was hea ps be tter, but we jus t didn't hav e the grunt." With the battle a t th e fro n t n ever m ateri alizin g, it was left to DuHamel and Russell to keep the crow d's int erest - and they did an admira ble job of doing so. Ru s sell, a ga in, h ad to m ake up ground after a bad sta rt. But he was on DuHam el for the fina l ru n to the flag. Gritty as ever, DuHam el wasn' t giving in and the pair were forced into pickin g up the pace for the final 10 laps. At the fla g, it was DuHamel - by less than a tenth of a second . "I had a nother terribl e sta rt and [ d on't really know what happened, but [ wasn't where I wanted to be - tha t's for sure," Russell said. "I just put my hea d down and was on the edge of crashin g nearly all the time. [ had to block-pass a co u p le of gu y s, whic h lo ses you r momen tu m , but I would have los t so much time on the leaders if I'd waited Kocinski raise s the trophy while Fogarty (left)and DuHa mel (right) look on. Chili red hot J u s t w hen i t appeared as thoug h the Arnertcans wo uld sh ine the brightest on a sun ny Ca lifo rnia day a t Laguna Scm Raceway, an Italian forged his way to the top of the qualifying sheets with a last-lap Oyer. That man was Pier-Francesco Chi li (right), the Gattolone Racing Ducati rid er finally ridd ing himself of the bad luck that has riddled his previous outings at Laguna. The final qualifying session turned out to be as thrilling as qualifying ses sions ca n be. Just when Castrol Honda 's Jo hn Kocinski appeared to have a lo ck on the top of the charts, attention quickly focuse-d on Mu zzy Kawasaki' s Doug Chandler. The Californian put in his last-lap flyer, jumping from ninth to second to cause a stir. But Chili saved the best for last, clicking off a 1:26.628 on the very last lap to capture his first pole position of the season. In doing so, he also became the sixth different pole sitter in six races. '1 was surprised because ev erybody knows that Ihis is not my preferred track, Chili said. " 1 w orked hard today and tried to make the bes t I can be . John (Kocin...l j) waited until the last minutes to make fast time. They said to me, 'Oka y, plea se go: That was good for me because the track w as free and I co uld push ha rd . I had som e problems o n the first lap beca use up the hill the front wh eel was going (a front-end push). The next lap, be cause I saw on my scree n that the lap wasn' t so bad, I say, 'O kay , I can ma ke pole now.' '' Kocinski stayed second-bes t, sati sfied w ith knowing that he had a race setup that would go the distance. He, like the rest, was somewhat miffed as to why th e Ja p tim es we re slo wer tha n last year (Kocins ki qu alified on po le for last year's World Superbike race wit h a 1:25.715)a nd slower than the win ter off-season test sess ion . They we re on ly just un der the pol e- earning t ime that Chandler set in the spring AMA race. "It jus t got d own to a last-minute thing whe re I guess we had used up the allotment of tires and 1 didn' t have a new one to put on there:' Kocins ki said. "The nice thing is, in the beginning of the sess ion. we were us ing race tires and were able to run really good la p times ~ that's w hat it's going to take around here. It wo uld have been nice to be on pole, just for all the fans . There are so many people out there, I can't belie ve it. It's wonderful. r thin k tomo rrow, for sure, they are go ing to have to d eal with us. It' s im portant to be on the front row and 1 thin k tomorrow I can get a good. start. I jus t want to get out front and keep my nose clean. I want to stay away from some of these people - I don't want to get involved in any banging-and-bashing deals . J just want to "I'm v~ry happy," Yanagawa said. "This is·a ve-ry difficul t course; a di fficu lt circuit. It is like a motocross. The most difficu lt pa rt is th e Corkscrew... I ne er saw a corner (like tha t one>. 1t'11 be maybe okay, I v think. I agree that this is a Kawasaki circuit because the machine is very good." So why the rise in lap times, compa red to last yea r' s Wo r ld Su pcrbike ra ce, th e sp ri ng AMA race and th e winter preseason tests? "It mu st be the track," Chandler said . " It just must be more slippery. We tried the tires we ran here in the AMA race a nd they rea lly spin." The second TOW of the:" grid would be led by Smokin' Joe 's Honda's Miguel DuHamel, a surprising effort considering he' d crash ed his 600cc Supersport bike ea rlier in the day and suffered bruised ribs and a concussion . Then ca me Piergiorgio Bontempi, Yamaha 's Scott Russell and Ducati's Neil Hodgson. "Every session we 've gone out, we've been in the top three, top five," Russell said. "At the end of qualifying, we just didn't put our good lap in there w hen we need ed to. We d idn' t put it in at all, actually. We're real dose. On the last lap I jusllried toe:, hard to do a lap and I made a mistake, but it would have only been for third place. We wouldn't have been ncar the guys at the top. We'll be on the podium for sure. It's pretty hard to pass here, so you need to ge t it good start . From th e second TOW it won't be too hard . 1 think everyone is stru g- H stay clean and slay out front. My bike is fairlyfast and I'm looking forward to 27 laps, or 30, or however many it is:' Chandler's last-session effort netted him the third spot on the front row . "I thi nk we had a shot at pole," Chandler said. "\ Ve kinda ran out of time. We had a bit of trouble in the middle of that session and kind of lost track of how much time we had . I got back out there on a qualifier there at the- end but only ,;ot one lap . Normally, we can get about three or four out of 'em. ''''Ie had. some trouble yesterday and we keep findi ng little things and we had some trouble.this morning. We keep thinking. 'Well, this 1$ go mg to get the thing straightened out,' but we're still hav ing trouble. Hopefully. we can get it better for tomorrow. I've got a lot of people I know here and they'll be ou t here tomo rro w, rooting me on." The question was just how hard Chandler would be willing to push come race time wit h the AMA Superbike Champion. hip obvious lv in s the back of his mind . • "'U just go with'em," Chandler said when aske if he'd be willing d to step it up in the final laps if the race pace su dd enly dropped. "That's the big thing: If you can go that pace a nd feel good a bou t it, there's no problem. If you're a lread y over you r head, then you just say, 'See ye.?' Surprisingly, it was a Laguna Seca first -timer fillin g the front row of the grid . Kawasaki's Akira Yanagaw a. > gling here for a setup. I guess it's good that I feel as bad as I do on the mo tcrcvcle, but I'm still in the top five. There' s nothin g in it, reall y, lap-timewi se. It 's hard to say w ha t's going to happen tom orrow ." Row three was led by Yoshimura Suz uki 's Aa ron Yates.. the thi rdqu ickest of the AM A regula rs in ninth pla ce. "Th e bike is wo rk ing prett y go od ," Yates said . " We've got so me new en gin e stuf f and it gi ves us a different powerba nd . And the tires seem to be really good. Since Loudon we hav e the bike set u p pr etty good . Now little changes make a differen ce. They're go ing to go p retty fast. They seem to be able to ron low 278 a nd I've ron high 27s. Hopefully , 1 can hang on to the tail end of 'em." Kaw asaki's Simon Cra far was 10th, the New Zealander cras hing in the final session in the infa mous Cor kscrew. "We wer e reasonably happ y with the se tu p on ra ce tires," Crnfar sa id . "1 think we 're quite competitive. Then we put a qua lifying tire in a nd I made it three-quarters of the way aro und the tra ck an d I'm not quite sure exactly wha t happened there. So I didn't get: to do a good lap on the qualifying tire. Race-ttrcwtse, J think we 're competitive. I know the other guys up the re haven' t gone much fas ter than tha t with race tires on ." Ca rl Fogarty, the championship point!' leader coming into the Laguna St..'C3 round, was surprisingly only 11th when all was said and done but that was better than Castro I Honda's Aaron Slight, who was 13th and visibly struggling. s "You na me 'em," Sligh t said of hi. prob lems. "I'm struggling with front-end gri p on the bike. We just can't get it to tum in. w e' ve tried everything, rea lly - just trying to get confidence in the front. I've been pushing hard and the rear is.coming around; we ' re just struggling, really. I thi nk w e've go t something we can try tomorro w in the warmup, but for me it'. jusl not good at all. Everyone seems to be struggling. The times ar e a lot slo wer (than the pr eseason test a t Laguna) and I think it's jus t upsetting my setu p more than anybody else's . I wo n' t be finis hing 13th tomorrow - tha t's for su re." Sandwiched between Foga rty a nd Slight was Yoshi m ura Suzuki's Pasca l Picotte, an other wh o was struggling to find his setup on the no rma lly difficul t 2.238-mile Laguna Seca Raceway. " (t fee-ls really heavy," Picotte said . " I d on 't kno w w hy . It just feels like there's so mu ch load on the front; it's kind of sluggy. The rpms seem to be picking up really slo w . The ne w tir es are really good. There's more grip going in to the com er, sid e gri p, and mo re on the exit. There 's also better durability. I hope we can save a few for Mid-Ohio." In all, only 23 riders attempted to qualify for the race. It brings up the case of quality rather than quantity, as less than a second se para ted the top 12 rid ers . ------------------ 9

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