Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

IN THE PADDOCK BYMICHAEL SCOTT . .. The 1998 2S0cc World Champ io nship isn 't the first to be decided in su ch a controve rs ial . manner: In 1983, Kenny Roberts (lett) and Freddie Spen cer (right) nearly crashed together in their batt le for the SOO cc championship. · '· ~ ~ · t1 ! . oris Ca piross i - exclu de d from the re sult s of the A rg ent in e 250cc Gra nd Pri x for "u nsp orting co ndu ct" aft er nerfing tea m mate Tetsuya Harada out of th e championship and into the gravel at the last corne r of the . last race of a hectic up-and -down season - has been officially exonerated. From hero to villain to hero agai n in two short w eeks . Not tha t it made any d iffer en ce, as FIM d ig nitaries hu ffed a nd puffed. They co nsidered h is last ditch su icide attack dangerous, bu t cru cia lly w ithout d elib erat e intention of caus ing an accident. Taking into accou nt the fact that his behavior that has been " irre p ro a cha ble durin g his career in Grand Prix" they gave him back his second place and his 20 ill-gotten points. It mad e no difference anyway, since he was World Champion with or without the points. By ensu ring Har ad a d id not score, he d idn't need to either. The on ly. point of the hearing was to clear his nam e, at least for the record book s. Few of us who wer e actually th er e in Buen os Aires will find it so easy to forgive and forget, but in the long run that does n' t matter, ei ther - just so mu ch more huffing and pu ffing. Co n de m na tio n of Ca p iross i w a s almost. u niversal. O nly a few espoused the other view - that Capirossi had actu ally been hero ic, if seriously nu ts - but isn' t bike racing suppose d to be serious ly nuts an yway? I was cu rio us about my own rea cti o n . I was rea ll y a ng ry wit h p oor, bewildered-lookin g Loris , en joying his cha m p i o ns h i p w h ile e ndu rin g th e angry tau nts of his victim : Harada first . p u n ch ed a ho le in th e bi g p ost er of Capirossi' s face in the Aprilia pit, then strode into the mid d le' of a tea m pho to session to give him a n extravagan t upto-th e-elb ow gesture of d efiance. But wh y wa s I a n gry ? W h e n I watched Mi ch ael Sch u mach er d o th e sam e th in g to Jacqu es Villeneuve last year to try to reso lve the Formu la O ne cham pionship in his favo r, I ap plau ded . Becau s e, fo r o nce , in the sa n i tize d world of big-bu cks car raci ng - all corpora te u niform s and sp onsor-speak so meone ha d behaved like a real racing driver . L So why was the.same behavior intolerable in Capirossi? I suppose it ' s because I ca re more abou t motorcycl e raci ng, and becau se I'd alw ays liked and admired Cap irossi as a fun ch a rac ter and spi rited rid er , notab ly lacking in malice, w ho raced for enjoy me n t as m u ch as for glo ry. Thi s kam ika z e m ov e wa s (as th e FIM observed) totally ou t of charac ter. I also believed that Ha rada deser ved th e titl e, hav in g put toge th er a mu ch be tter season than th e err a tic Itali an . H e'd lost hi s ch amp ion sh ip lea d th rou gh no fault of his ow n w he n his, Aprilia se ize d and s pit him off in th e penulti mate GP in Au stralia - throug h no fa ult of his own, he' d lost th e lead he'd worked so hard a nd endu red""', mu ch to accumulate. The discus sion then turned to nerfing in ge ne ra l. It hap pe ns over a nd over again all the wa y dow n the field , more usually through misjudgmen t than su icidal ma dness. Everybody could come up with a t leas t five recent ex am ples. N one w e re as infa m ous as thi s on e, however. They da te all the way back to 1983, wh en the pro tagon ists we re no ne other tha n a yo u ng Fre dd ie Spe nce r a nd Kenny Roberts. The former - yo ung prete n de r o n a n im b le t hre e -cylin d e r Ho nda - deposed the latter - the King af ter a classic to-and -fro season. Ther e were just two points in it - and the a u tcome hinged on a ner fing incid ent eve n mor e controversial than w as Ca pirossi's this year. 30 YEAR G ... SA O D ECEMBER 5, 1968 i ck M iller (T r il a n d Du sty Coppage (Tri) ba ttled their way onto the cover of Issue #45 at the class ic H op eto w n Gra n d Prix. Co ppage we nt on to ru n awa y wit h t he Ope n A mateur / Exper t- class w in . In t he uppe r le ft-h a n d co rne r o f t he s am e issue, Preston Pe tty (Suz) and Brian Wade (Gre) staged a similar bat tle for the 250cc Expert win. Wad e came out of it with the victory ... Bengt Aberg (Hus) won the 250cc Intern ation al class and Joel Robert (CZ ) the 500cc International class w hen the pair con tes ted the New Philadelp hia , O hio , In tern a tion al MX..., Larry Bergquist and Gary Preston (Ha n) teamed u p to win the Ensenada-to-La Paz desert race in Mexico... Norton took ou t a two-page ad vertisement for its Co m mando s tree t model... Mert Lawwill (!;I-D) and Mark Brelsford (TrD took home wins in the Expert and Amateur cla sses , res pe ctively, at the fina l Ascot Half Mile of the 1968 season. D OCJ 0\ 0\ ...... 00 ...... ... a; .o E a; ;> o Z. 72 It h a ppen ed a t t he e nd of the z:1:!nway at Anders to rp airfiel d in Sw ede n , w h e r e t h e ma in s traig ht en ded in a 90degree turn. It wa s the last lap. Roberts led , but Spe ncer 's triple wa s in his slipst ream . As Roberts b ra ked , Spen cer pu lled in sid e bef o re h itting h is own brakes . Roberts let off his br ak es slightly... and so on . It cu lminated in a near co ll is io n th a t put bot h rid ers o ff th e track and on to the d irt . Spencer recovered quic ke r and won the race. The n he only need ed to finish second a t the next a n d fi na l ro u nd a t Im o la in It al y to becom e World Cha mpio n. There were other ups and downs in th e ye ar, but to Rob erts, that was the crucial mom ent. Lookin g back, he ha s al w ays manfully blam ed h imself, for und erestimating th e toughness of hi s Su nday-schoo l op po nent. "He su rprised me," Robert s has said . "I had no id ea he was prepared to cras h' in order not to lose the race." Simila r th ou gh ts mu s t b e go in g through Harad a's mind . . Th e poin t was th at ev er yb ody felt Spe nce r 's kamika z e move had been d elibe rate. Capiro ss i's g a ve eve ry appeara nce of being just the same thing: Crash or w in . Rost ru m or hosp ital - a noble eno ug h sentiment, as long as it is not at somebod y else's expense. The r e hav e bee n co u n tl e ss o ther mor e or less deliberate nerfings in any a nd e v e ry fo rm of b ike ra cin g . Th e a n t ics o f Ste ve Hi s l o p a nd Nia ll Macken zie in thi s yea r's British Su perb ike Cha m p ions hip ra nk pretty hi gh on any body's scale. Even Mick Doo ha n number s a not or ious acciden tal shove in 1993 among his more em ba rrassing m om ents. Tr apped too fas t in tr a ffi c for the first chica ne at Doningt on Pa rk, 20 YEARS AGO... NV O EMBE R22, 1978 • " G a s s i n '" Gaylon Mosier (Ka w ) se e m ing ly cam e fro m ou t of now he re a nd go t on th e gas to win th e AMA /Toyota Su percross Seri es fin al e a t Anahe im Sta d iu m . Bob Hannah (Yam ) was seco nd , a nd Darrell Shultz (MaD was third ... Larry RoeseIer a n d Jack John son shared pilot chores on a Husky 390 to w in the SCORE Baja 1000 in rai ny cond itions ... Jeff ~ard proved tha t he cou ld st ill hustle a mini bike arou nd a motocro ss cou rse at 'T he night before the day after" motocross at Saddleback Park, as he won the Pro class... It wa s time to take a look a t Danny LaPorte's works Suzuki RN420-78 and also the production version of the 1979 RM400, an d w e d id , with the works bike being han dl ed in this issu e and the stocker coming in the next issue to ma ke for a two- part series... Jimmy Filice had the hot thro ttle hand at the Salinas Airport dirt track . "[ irnbo" trip led up, winning the 250cc Expert, 360cc Expert an d King of the Airport mains. he s k i t t le d th e Su zuki s of Kevin Schwantz and Alex Barros in a sp ectacula r th ree-b ik e aeria l gym na st ic d isp lay. An d nobody has more experience in nerfing than Max Biaggi, wh ose rid ing style on a 250 was merciless. He establis he d the repu tati on in 1994 at th e Hockenheimring, when he gave Doriana Rombono the cras h-or- lose option in the final corners. 'Til pa y him back a t the next race," fu me d Dor iano; to which Ma x sneere d: "This is bike racing, no t classical ballet." Max has nerfed cou ntless other oppone n ts, inclu ding O liv ie r Jacq ue , mos t spec tacularly at the AI- Ring on lap one o f la s t yea r 's Aust r ia n GP . A bit te r Jacqu e qu ipped , "I feel as thou gh I have a tar get pa inted on my back." But to be fair, it's nev er looked delibera te - Biaggi is just very toug h, and he do esn't give up easily. As you may have noticed . To put the whole th in g in p ersp ective, I tidied up som e memories: Hadn' t Harada n e r fe d Ca p iross i o u t of th e Dutch TT , du r in g th e ir fi rs t bou t of intense 250cc-cla ss rival ry ? I referred ba ck to Mot ocourse, w he re the tru th turned out to be slightly d iffer en t. Yes, they h ad co lli ded a n d both cras he d, leaving Capirossi un conscious for a few min u tes; and yes, he had blam ed Har ad a for the cras h . Later, photog raph ic and vid eo evide nce clear ly showed that Ca pirossi ha d ma d e th e mis take and had run right into Harada ' s rea r th reequa rter side. The Italian then apo logized to his uninjured rival. "I just felt a bu mp from behind," said Harada , who had defeat ed Loris for the title the year before. Here we go again. l~ 10YEARS AGO ... NOVEMBER 16, 1988 a m Hyper-Cycle (Su z) an d Mike Smith (Ya m ) w ere bi g w in ners a t the AM A /CCS Race o f Cha mp ions weekend at Da yt ona International Speedway. Hyp e rCycle, with riders Carry A nd rew and James Dorna y, wo n the fina l round of the Endu ran ce Cha llenge Series, also taking hom e the cha m pions hip. Smith won thr ee classes in RoC actio n. Interestingly enough, Bubba Blackwell (Suz) won the Heavyweight Superbike Novice class. Blackwe ll has since gone on to achieve notoriety for jum ping his Harley-Davidson XR750 over cars a la Evel Knievel... We gav e you a glimpes of Yamaha's red -hotlooking FZR sportbike li neu p for 1989... Kevin Brow n (Yam) won the fina l round of the AMA /Wiseco GNCC se ries in Ta re ntum, Pennsylvania , bu t th e se ries title belonged to Eddie Lojak (Hus)... Terry Vance (Suz) officially retired from d rag racing by scoring his 27th career NHRA Pro Sto ck Bike victo ry a t the Winston Final s in Po mona , Ca lifornia, successfull y closi ng the book on a C~ career of do minance that spa nned 17 yea rs. 11

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