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ROAD RACE W R NDURANCE O LDE prite Cool Suzuka 8Hours ROAD RACE SERIES (Left) After eight hours of rac ing, · the event ends In darkness. (Bel ow ) Be n Bo st rom was the o nly AMA regular to take part in the race. The Callfornlan's Hon da f inally gave o ut after 103 laps. ah ead o f Aoki to take over seco n d. Pol en was up to fourth, leading Karo, Haga, Ta keishi, Serizawa, Fujiwara and Yanagawa in 10th. Ito progressively reduced Kocinski' s lead to a mere few tenths o f a seco nd over the next three laps. It was as mu ch a case of Kocin ski slowing down as 110 speeding up, and Kocinski's suspected problem was confirm ed when he pulled into th e pits mo st unexpectedly at the end of lap eight. " It m ust have been the humidity that m isted th e visor," Kocinski explained later . "It's all a mystery to me - I get a little bit of mistin g in World Superbike races in the wet, but nothing like this." Kocin ski pitted again o n the nextlap, and by lap II, when he was fully back in th e ra ce, Kocinski was 57th and four minutes, 54 seconds beh ind 1Ioh. By th e 30-m inu te mark, Haga had crashed the Yamaha at the exit of Degner, which also claimed Rymer a few laps later. "I just we nt ru nning into Degner and th e ba ck , way before th e co rner, the back just come around on me," the likable Londoner ~aid. "I do n't kn ow what · it was." m orning and mon o tonically increased throu gh th e day, as did the wind. On Sunday, th e center of the typhoon wa s north of Suzu ka, and the wind wa s subdued to the point that it felt calm compared to what was there the day before. But the ra in persisted , a nd a ll hoped tha t it would stop before the end of the race . 11 never did . The o nly chance the teams ha d to p ract ice in the wet w as the 30-m inu te war mup ses sion on Sunday morning. H istorica lly, this session is a setu p chec k , tire-scrubbi n g , a nd p it-stop rehearsal period. This year it was a ma d scra mble to find a wet setu p. However, d ue to the len gth of the 3.644-mile Suzuka Circu it, the brevity of th e sessio n, and th e need for bo th rid ers to get some time on the bike in the wet, each rider wa s e ffective ly limited to five o r six pr actice laps. Kensuice Haga grabbed the early lead from th e Le Mans-style start. Kato followed, with Takuma Aoki third. At the end of the first lap , Aoki passed Kato to claim seco nd, followed by 110, Rymer, Katsu ak i Fujiwara (Lucky StrikeSuzuki ).. Kocins ki , Yana g a w a . Po len a nd Takeishi in 10th. Surprisin gly far back we re Okad a in 14th and Corser in 15th. Aoki too k the lead from Haga at Degner on la p two, and Kocins ki jumped from sevent h to second. Ito moved up to third, Kato dr opped down to fourth and Haga down to fifth, an d Polen climbed to sixth. Kocinski went into the lead on the third lap , and Polen m oved aro und Haga. Takeishi was now u p to seventh, and the Yosh imura Suzuki of Tarn aki Serizawa had moved up to ninth. Kocinski ad ded tw o seconds to his lead on the fourth lap, wh ile 110 moved Sunny and Rosie H eavy rain with a gusty wind delivered by typ hoon Rosie forced race officials to cancel Saturday a ftern oon's Special Stage session to determ ine grid posi tions for the top 30 team s from timed qual- ifying. 11,e Specia l Stage is the uniqu e one flying-attack lap that has been a part of the Suzuka 8 Hou rs since 1994. Televised live in Japan, it's exd ting for the spectators , yet d erided by the riders as an un nt'Cessary ris k. Any rider who said he was sad to see the Specia l Stage canceled was like ly crying crocodi le tears. Star ting po sitions were thus determined by the res ults of Friday's timed qualifying session s, held in sunny skies, 83-dcgrcc temperatures a nd 71 percent relative humidity. The teams were sp lit into two groups, A and B, and the final grid was set by using the fastest lap time from either rid er and contin uo usly alternating between the two groups (i.e., A B A B A B A B, etc.). The fast est rider of the day was Honda's Diajim Kato. Kate broke the psy chologi cal 2:10 barrier for the first time in the history of the race, clock ing a 2:09.879 on his final ru n in the final session of the day. Kate , the wild -card winner of the Japanese 250cc Grand Prix in April, was pleased. " I kn o w it's on ly qualifying and the race is what coun ts, bul I'm very pleased to achieve that sort of lap time , especially looking around at th e competition this year," he said. Second-fastest was Simon Crafar, the Kiwi gu iding his Kaw asa ki around in 2:10.128. Like mos t other World Superbike rid ers elt Suzuk.J., Crafar was having to adapt to riding the de tuned endu rance bikes, which meant cha ng in g their cornering st yle to ('a rr y mor e ..p ee d through the comers to assist in keeping the engine spee d as high as possible. Ironically, the high e comer speeds required by the lower-output r engines was introducing new problems with suspension setup. "The who le w eekend has gone pretty smooth, a pa r t from a few front-fork hassles we're tryin g to sort out," Crefar said. "You have to carry mo re com er spee d, which is sometimes a litt le more d an gero us. By the end of the first hour, lto had ex pa nded his lead to 40 seconds over Aoki, and he then handed th e bike over to Ukawa. Uka wa rejoined the ra ce with a n eight-second le ad over Aoki . Ta ke is hi w as up to third, 14 se conds later; Kato wa s fourth, 46 seconds later; Corser wa s fifth, a additional eight seconds behind; Yana gawa was sixth, three seconds later; Sohwa seventh, four seco nds la te r; a nd Goddard w as e ig h th after taking ove r the Suzuki from Polen. Norihi ko Fu jiwa ra was ninth, tw o sec o nds behind Goddard with Yoshiteru Konish i now aboard the Yo shim ura Suzuki in 10th , an additio nal 16 seconds back. Th e final bike on th e lead lap was the Castrol Honda of Okada, a two- time winner of the ra ce and one of the top rid ers in the wo rld - yet he was dangero usly close to being lap ped b y the Ito /Uka wa Honda. "The suspensi on was th e problem ," O kada said . "I wa s sliding around in the opening hour." You' ve got to lean the thing over it bit more, rather than just stop a nd wha ck it on ." . Third -quicke-st was the defend ing co-cha m pion of the event, Noriyuki Haga, on a Yamaha a t 2:10.142. "I did not manage my goal of 2:09.5," Haga said , a nd du biou sly added, "I want to lap a t my own pact:' (in the face), and aim to do abo ut 216 laps in the 2:10 ran ge." To put the remark in context, 216 laps a t 2:10 at Suzuka wo uld be like planning 57 laps at Daytona in the 1:49 range. Fourth-quickest wa s Haga 's ga rage-ma te Wataru Yos hikawa cit 2:10.302. "I tried to get a 2:09 after cha ng ing tires. bu t 1pushed too hard and cra shed," he said . "I'm okay, an d I don't think the bike is badly damaged, so it's no thing serious . Bu t if the Special Stage is canceled tom orrow, I won't be sad. It will gtvc me a chance to recover, as J am bruised and could do with the rest." All of the top four qualifiers us ed Dunlop qualifying tires to set their bes t times . The first Michelin rider was fifth-fastest Shinya Takeishi o n a Kawasaki at 2:10.425, followed by f('I1O\,,' Michelin rider Takuma Aoki on il Honda at 2:10.532. Dunl op riders Katsuaki Fujiwara (Suzuki, 2:10.549) and Piergiorgio Bontempi (Kawa sa ki, 2:10.902) cla imed the sev enth and eighth positions , respectivel y. Then came two Michelin Hondas: th ose of Tohru Uka wa (2:10.617) and AaronSlight (2:I1.0 in 10th. 30l Joh n Kocin ski qualified his HondJ. 12th at 2:11.048, using race-spec Micheline. Doug Polen (Suzu ki, 2:12.578) was 16th, struggling with an engine tha t was overly leaned out. Yamaha's Scott Russell (2:12.293) was 17th, struggling trying to find a Michelin tire to his liking, a.. the settings he normally uses with Dunlop tires in World Supcrbike w ere not compatible with the French rubber on the eight-hou r bike. "It's vt!'ry difficult to find en ou gh gri p.... said Russell 's chassis man , Anders Andersson. "It' s like the tires and the bike are not friend s yet." Summing the low est time from each rider showed the team of Crafar and Yanagawa the quickest overall at 4:20.359, followed by Takeda and Kate (4:20.866) , Yoshikawa and Fujiwa ra (4:2U.991), Ryo a nd Takeishi (4:21.162), the Haga brothers (4:21.216), Ito and Ukawa (4:21 .371), and the Aoki bro thers (4:21.424), the last team below 4:22 on combim.. time. rd . In the second hour, Schwa's partner Satos hi Tsujimoto crashed in Spoon Corner, dropping the team from eighth to 28th. At the one-quarter-distance ma rk, Ito wa s back abo ard the lead Honda - 29 seconds ahead of Nobuatsu Aoki . Then came Goddard, 19 seconds behind Aoki; Ru ssell , nine secon d s from Goddard; and Konishi, 15 se co nds from Russell and the last rid er still on the lead lap . A lap d own w e re Crafa r , Takeda, Yoshikawa, Slight, Ryo and Barros. In the third hour, Kato crashed at the hairpin, but was able to rem ount. Yoshikawa brought the Yamaha into the pits for a lengthy repair stop; and at the halfway point in the thir d hour, secondplaced Takuma Aoki colli d ed with a backmarker and crashed. Aoki limped the Honda back to the pits with the shift linkage dra g gin g on the rac e track, rejoining after repairs in 14th place. After three hours, Ito had lapped the entire field . Polen was second after turning in a few quick laps to pa ss Corser. Serizawa wa s 30 seconds behin d the Polen/Corser duel, and Yanagawa was 40 second s behind Serizawa. Two laps down was Kocinski , followed by Kato, Okada (w ho was mi xing i t u p with Polen and Co rser, albeit a la p behind) and Takeish i. In the fourth hour, Kocinsk i go t back one of the two laps he lost earlier when he passed Ukawa go ing in to th e hairp in . Later, Kensuke Haga crashed fo r th e second time a t Degner Cu rve, ye t was able to p ic k the s na ggle to o th ed Yam aha up and rejoin the race. At half-dist an ce, Uka wa still had a fu ll lap over th e o the r teams. Russ ell ha d m oved his Yamaha 36 se cond s ahead of Goddard, with Konishi trailing by 27 second s. Bar ros was back to being two laps down due to Kocinski 's trip to the pits just before the four -hour mark. Crafa r was 13 seco nds arrears of Barr os, and fellow Lucky Strik e Kawasaki rid er Takeishi was 10 seconds behind Crafar. Then came Sligh t, 35 seconds later, and the last rider to be two laps down from the lead ing Honda. In th e fi fth h our, the Yoshimura Suz uki had a near miss at Degner Curve when a backm arker fell down in front of Kon ish i. Koni sh i was far less lu cky 10 lap s later when Barros blasted through on the inside in the off-eamber comer at the end of the ess es section. Konishi b ou'nced off the s ide of the Castrol Honda a nd tumbled w ith his Suzuki into the sand w hile Barros sped away from the scene. "The m oment I put it inside, we tou ched," Barros sa id, ad d ing. "But it' s not my fault. " Russell gave up second when his rear tir e sud de nly lost air in the first corner an d he had to cautiou sly ride the lap out to reach the pits. The team wa s preparing for a stop anyway to allow Corser to go ou t, !hus little time w as lost in the pits. Iro nically, th e rea r tire th a t was moun ted o n the Yam aha after the flat tir e didn't pro vi de a dequate tr a ction an d Co rser struggled throu gh his stint. After five hours, Ito continued to hold a one-la p advantage over the others. Barros had m oved all th e way to second, an d Polen was third, a distant 44 seconds behind. Corser wa s fo ur th, tw o la ps d own , followed by Crafar, Slight, and Ryo - all on the same lap . The next-c1osest rider was a furt her two laps behind. Despite the rain, th e remainder of the race w as relatively uneventful as fa r as seri ous misha ps and missteps are concerned. Race officials put ou t the "Lights On" sign at the six-hour mark, an hour earlier than usual d ue to the early darkness brought on by the thick cloud cover and the never-ending rai n .

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