Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

PREVIEW 1998 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP ROAD RACE SERIES By Michael SCott Photos by Gold & Goose or the past four years, Grand Prix racing has consisted of a series of anticlimaxes for a dwindling number of ·spectators. Mick Doohan bestrides the landscape like a colossus, and whenever it has seemed that maybe another rider might arise to challenge him, the end result has been the same: Not this time, Mr. Upstart. Things might be a little different this year - with close racing as a prospect, and something to bring the spectators back again. Mechanical changes, some new personnel, and the ever-shifting sands of racing fortune all combme to suggest that Doohan's attempt to win a classic fifth straight title could be harder than any of the previous four. Preseason times have been packed up very tight indeed, with all the factory teams closing up, and it is not overly optimistic to say that we could be in for a bumper season of knockabout 500cc racing again, after too many seasons of hopeless processions. Not that Doohan is anything but the favorite. It's just that he'll need more luck on his side this year. A couple of bad Sunday afternoons could open the door for a number o£ other hopeful candidates - among them the always-fast and sometimes-redoubtable prodigal son returned, John Kocinski. There's a prodigy in the 250cc class as well. Four-time champion Max Biaggi has gone up to SODs, but 125cc World Champion Valentino Rossi has moved up to take his place. And the Spice Boy of GP racing has been breaking records left, right and center in preseason tests. The mechanical change is the most important. From this year on, all classes will burn unleaded gas. This move to "Green Gas," already once postponed, represents a major hindran.ce across the board. While earlier objections that the finicky two-stroke racers would suffer frequent seize-ups seem to have evaporated (in Japan they have already raced lead-free for two seasons), there is no doubt that they will aU lose power. It is variously estimated that the new gas will cost between 8 and 10 percent at the top end. In the smaller classes, the 125s and 250s, this will surely be a difficulty. The 125s in particular spend a lot of time at or near full throttle, and they will really miss what they have lost, while the 250s will have to scratch hard to make up lost lap times. But it's rather different for the 500s, overpowered as they are, for they spend only a fraction of a lap at full throttle on all but the ';ery fastest tracks - and there aren't many of those left these days. Knocking the big V-fours back by 10 percent actually does most of the riders a big favor. It makes the w.orld's fa~test racing motorcycles easIer to fide. Instead of struggling to attain the almost impossible limits of the V-fours. in their previous variants, riders now find.that those limits have been brought back to be within the reach of more of them than before. In simple terms, it means that a greater number of people will be able to get close to the perfect lap time. Sounds good to me. It's probably good news also for rivals to the V-four establishment - especially the riders of the Modenas V31ightweights (the Vtwin Aprilia has withdrawn). True, they will also lose power - but less in sheer numbers, because they had less to lose in the first place. And revisions to the year~ld design promise a better engine than last year in any case, so the gap will be nanowed. All but one of the V-four riders, meanwhile, have every re.ason to be delighted. IRTA and other joint test sessions. have yielded whisker-close lap times, with both Yamaha and Suzuki times well up with the Hondas, and all packed up tight. Not only can the nonHonda riders hope for some good racing among themselves, they are closer now than for several seasons.to those dastardly and usually invincible V-four NSRs. And those who do have a Honda between their legs are in turn closer to that dastardly Doohan. Mick is, of course, the one rider who does not benefit from a leveling of the playing field. He thrived when the bikes were more difficult because he alone had the skill to explore and exploit the outer reaches. Hence his decision last year to switch to an earlier pattern of fir- ing order in the otherwise updated motor. While the rest enjoyed the more user-friendly Big Bang, which fired off the pairs within 70 degrees of crank rotation of each other, Doohan brought back the evenly spaced 180-degree "Screamer." It was harder to ride, which flummoxed all his teammates - but he could use its more eager throttle response to advantage. And he did so. Doohan was openly dismayed when he first rode the lead-free bike in January this year. "Usually," he explained, "when I've been off the bike for a couple of months, it feels really fast when I get back on. ot this time." As the season drew closer, promised improvements from HRC failed to o;taterialize, causing Doohan to leave Jomt tests with Suzuki and Yamaha at Eastern Creek after only two out of four days. Meanwhile, speculation grew that HRC might exhume an even-older crankshaft configuration from the early days of the NSR - with all four cylinders firing separately at equal intervals, every 90 degrees of crankshaft revolution. The return of the wheelspin-erazy Warbler. But the Green Gas effect may not last (Top) The man they'll all chase: Mlck Doohan. (Above and above right) They've won titles In the 250cc class, but can they win the big one? Max Blaggl and John Kocinski. (Right) Alex Criville could be Doohan's toughest foe. the full distance. One reason for the way Suzuki and Yamaha have closed up max be their use of a new American fuel New Tech - and if this is the case, how long will it be until Elf (Honda's suppliers) catches up? Team by team, 1998's 500cc-class lineup represents a combination of stability and change. Hondas dominate on numbers, with 15 out of the 24 entries eight V-fours and seven twins. Yamaha has four entries, Suzuki and Modenas . two each, and there is just one MuZ, the former East German firm having taken over the SwissAuto-powered Elf 5OOs. Honda's lineup is much as before, though with significant alterations. The factory Repsol/HRC team is led as usual by Mick Doohan, with Alex Criville and Tadayuki Okada on identical V-fours - as last year. Takuma Aoki had been scheduled to ride the works Vtwin, but sadly he was severely injured in a preseason testing crash. His plaoe was taken for testing by Spaniard Sete Gibernau (after Daryl Beattie and Lues Cadalora had both apparently declined), and the Spaniard is entered also for the first two GPs on the bike. He is likely to see out the season, given reasonable results. Sito Pons' MoviStar team is again two strong, with Carlos Checa back for another year and Alberto Puig's place taken by World Superbike Champion John Kocinski. Little John has been away from GPs for three years, but returns older and one championship wiser, and (all his dreams come true) on a V-four Honda. GP fans will look to him to break the Doohan stranglehold; whether or not the former GP outcas.t can redeem his reputation and justify his vast talent is a major point of interest for the year to come. II is not the only one. Max Biaggi has also joined the 500cc class after his ~ toric four-in-a-row 250cc titles. Runnmg with the same Kanemoto-Ied team in the same Marlboro colors, Italy's towering 250cc star now has double the number of cylinders and cc. Max is, of course, a man with victory his only agenda. How long it will take remains to be seen. . Alex Barros is back on a V-four for . Honda Brazil, after a V-twin season. Then there are the twins: the works

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