Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

happening at first, " the Frenchm an said . "All I knew was that I had to stop tumbling as quickly as possi ble. There was a lot of ru bbi sh ou t on the track. It was inev ita b le th at s o me o ne would hit some th ing . Unfo rtu nately, it was me." With th at crash, on ly fou r factory bik es wer e left in the race. For the next two h ours, things s tayed pretty much the sa me, and when night fell over the circuit, God dard was lea d ing Lavi eille, d ' Orgeix, Jea n dat (o n a privateer Honda) and Bonhuil , o n the s eco n d Suzuki. Bonh uil might ha ve be en in a better position bu t the tea m had had its s ha re of bad luck, losing precious tim e after a rea r-light failu re a nd th en an electrical problem . Rus hing ou t of th e pit lane af ter that second unplanned pit stop, the team was then caug ht speeding and had to come in on the next lap for a stop-and-go pen alty an d lose more precious time. Lig h ti ng probl em s also ca u sed a sca re in th e Kawa saki pit, when the th ird -placed bike en tered the pit with no lights at all. Fortunat ely, it was apparen tly o nly a loose co nnection and th e rider was qu ickly back on the tra ck. As th e n ight progressed, everyone who was still racing seemed to be happy sim ply to still be there and appeared to have settle d into th eir respective po sition s. The onl y victim of fate was again the second Suzuki, which lost more time due to a slow leak in one of its tires . Fortunately, this problem didn' t affect the running order: Bonhuil and his teammates remained in fifth place, eight laps behind on the other Su zuki. Behind th em, the private Kawasaki of Ulmann /Haquin /Maubon slowly moved up to seventh, but they weren't running anywhere near the lap times of the factory rid ers. Then the team fell victim to electrical problems, dropping them back to ninth. Around the halfway stage, the pace cars came out for a fourth time, while rain also began to fall . The rain didn't disturb the running order much, though it did force the rid ers to slow their pace, as well as pit to change tires on occasion. Around 8 a.m . Sunday morning, the running order up front was disturbed for the first time since the exciting first few hours. The second Kawasaki made an unplanned pit s to p in ord er to cha nge a punctured rad iator . Just a few minute s later, h o w e ver, the b ike returned to the pit lane: the engine wa s damaged earlier because of overhea ting, spelling the end for Kawasaki. With that retir em ent, the manufacturers title wa s on ce again opened up and Honda was in with the best shot at that point in the ra ce - but on ly if its teams remained wh er e th ey were in the running order until the end of the race Goi ng into th e la st q u a rter of th e race, the p ict ure was becom in g more clear: Ho nda would have'to try to take as ma ny points as possib le in or der to take the manufac tu rers title, and Suzuki needed to win this race in order to make up for an otherwise d isastrous season. These ince ntives proved eno ugh for the lead ing riders to sta rt putting down lap times of aro und 2:01 - helped by the bett er condi tions after the re turn of the · sun over the so u th of Fran ce. . The only factory Honda was running second and wait ing for even the slightest mi stak e by the lead ing Suz u ki. The second Suz u ki was running in third , a safe distance in front of the tw o fastest privat eer teams of Jea nda t/Lucchia ri / Riba on a Honda and Gabrieli /Thomas / Crassous on a Yamaha. Tw o h ours b e fore the e nd th ere (Left)The Suzuki team of Peter Goddard , Terry Rymer and Brian Morrison. The trio completed 666 laps in.the 24-hour race. ' (Below) The top three teams celebrate - two of the top three rode Suzukis, while third place went to Polen's Honda s quad. Thi ngs are not made any easier wi th the slower ri d ers, who were also pushed around by the wind, which ma de thei r racing lines pretty unpredictable." For Polen, the last quarter of an ho ur was particu larly intense . 'The bike had to go out of the pits ," he explained. " If it had stayed in the pits u n til the end of the race, it would not have bee n qualified - officially it would have been re tired . But it came good a t th e end . Th is season has been fun for me. There is way more to it than World Superbike racing, because this is su perbike raci ng for 24 ho u rs in a row. End urance pace does no t exist anymo re - and the distance we cove r on this track in kilometers is mo re than a whole season of Wo rld Superbike ra ci ng . I d id h a ve so me problems wit h th e wi nd , especially in turn one, where I we nt all the way across the track. Moth er nature wa s in control at that point, 1 just had to wait and see. And th en she took over again in th e famous 'Pi f-Paf .' But we stayed on our wheels and th at' s w hat counts." t~ wasn' t much happing as the leaders all appeared happy simply to journey safely to th e finish . Ten minutes later, though, Goddard on the number-one Suzuki rolled his non-running bike into the pits after it quit out on the tra ck. The team feared the worst, but it turned out only to be a fuel-delivery problem. The tank was changed and the Su zuki restarted with a considerably smaller lead - just one minute, 50 seconds over the number-three Honda. Half an hour later, a different battle sta rted between Honda and Suzuki, this one off the track. Bernard Rigon i, manager of t h e official Honda Elf team, lodged a protest against the Suzuki Castrol team, because Goddard's return to the pits was a ss is ted by course marshals, who pu shed the bike - a .fact that was proven by the circuit' s video sy stem. Another half-hour la ter, the team manager decided to withdraw his earlier protest. But then Honda ran into troubl e itself. Just 15 minutes before the checkered flag Lavi eille, who had just started his and the bike's last stint, had the Vfour engine of the number-three Honda explode on the Mistral straight. He managed to get back to the pits, then set off determined to cross the finish line . The oil was refill ed , a new fairing was put on the bike (in order to catch the leaking oi!!) and Lavieille star ted his fina l lap, rid ing and pu shin g the bike on the service roads most of the time. " I was goi ng down th e Mistra l s t raig h t, a nd then los t th e e ngine," LavieiIle said . "I looked d own an d saw a big oil (stain), w here oil was coming ou t and on my leg. [ sto pped in the pit a n d discu ss ed ou r o p tions wit h th e te am. [ wanted to continu e, but th ey convinced me to d o jus t one more lap and then wait for the end. The engine was probably damaged when the chain snapped in the night ." The gamble paid off. A few laps later, the Su zuki go t th e chec ke re d flag a nd Lav ieille was cred ite d wit h third after los ing five laps to th e second Suzu ki, w hich as a result finish ed second. Christian Bou rgeois, th e Ka w asaki team manager, never ended up lodging a comp laint against Honda for what could have been considered dangerous riding (pus hing?) when Lavieille started his fin al lap on an oil -leaking bike. If Bourg eois had made that complaint, his team cou ld have taken the manufacturers title. For Goddard, th e vic to ry at the Bol was one of the best moments of his laborious 1998 season. " It was a hard one," th e Australian said. "Especially with the fuel problem at the e n d . The bike hesitated, th en stopped halfw ay down the straight. It rolled to the end and [ had to push it to the pits. We had to push hard all the time. [ think the wind made it particularly hard. [ got a plastic bag stuc k over one of the inlets but luckily it blew off, and [ had one near crash , after the wheel locked up goi ng into the slow chica ne. Bol d'Or Le Castellet, France Results: September 13·14, 1998 (Round 4 014) O /A : 1. God da rd /Rymer /Mo rriso n (S uz) ; 2. Bon h ui l /Ma he /Va ndenbossch e (Suz); 3. Lavit.>ille l Polen /Costes (Ho n); 4. Jeandat /lucc:hiari/Riba (Ho n); 5. Gabrieli /Thomas yCra sscus (Ya m ); 6. L' Herbettel Leblanc/Buffard (Ka w); 7. Sa mpson /Nowland/ Rees (Suz); 8. Ulmann /Haquin/Maubon (Kaw ); 9. Ciciliani / Legau du / Holo n (Ka w ): 10 . Le ntaigne /Cirardot / Laurent (l'lon): 11. Resmond /Martin /Perez

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