Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Road Race lap, when both Harada and Okada passed the Italian. His race would be with Laconi, and he wo uld prevail when Laconi took himselLout wi th the turn-one spill. "I re mem ber h it t in g Biaggi as he ca me across me when we b raked for Red gate," Laconi said . "I had nowhere to go except the grass, and fell." Biagg i co n ti n ued o n, 10 seco n ds adrift of the leaders at the end , wi th that mu ch in reserve on 'fifth. "Th a t was a n im po r ta n t fo u r t h place," Biaggi said. "It could be crucial for US in the future becau se we learned a lot about the bik e." The Italian said tha t the loss of reartir e tr acti on wa s w ha t prev en ted hi m from stay ing wi th the front-runners. Th ere would be three of them , th e dominant Crivill e, the attacking Harada, and the patient Okad a. After Harada moved in to seco nd on the 20th lap, he steadfastly refused to give it up, hangin g on until the 26th lap, when Ok ada got a better run out of Cop pice Corner and passed the Aprilia go ing in to the ch icane. There was n othing in it fo r Okada, with Harad a taking the lead by squeezing by on the ins ide of Macl.eans, a midspeed right, only to lose it in the Melb ourne Hairpin several turns later. As th os e tw o squ ab b le d , Criv ille tried to split, holding his·biggest lead of .730 of a second on the penultimate lap, b e fore Okad a m ad e hi s d espera tion move almost within sight of the flag. Brieflv.·...·. - Max Biaggi (2) had his hands full with Regis laconi (55) until the French man cras hed out of the race. Biagg i ended up fourth on the Marlboro Yamaha . It ca me in th e Melbou rne Hairpin, Ok ada making th e pass on the brakes, only to find he'd gone in too d eep and losin g his drive ou t, allowing Criville to re-take the point and hold it across the line. "My position was difficult, especially w he n Ta dy p a s sed o n th e la st lap ," Criville sai d . "Tha t was close. I think w e near ly crashed . Tetsu ya Harada rode a' grea t race. I never look ed back, but [ kn ew he w as behi nd me because m y team told me so on my pit board ." Okada a d mi tte d th a t in the e n d , Crivi lle was jus t too fast. "Eve n though I led at th e s ta r t, [ foun d [ could not keep a good pace," he ad m it te d . " It was hard for me toda y because I could not keep the kind of lap time that I wa nted to." Harada felt much the sa me way : "At half-race, I thou ght it would be possible for me to win, so I tried ," Harad a sa id . "W he n I cau ght O kad a a n d Criville, I wa ite d behind them to se e what would happen. But, five laps from the end, my tires began to slide." Behi n d H arada ca me Bia ggi , the n Barr os, th e Brazilian MoviStar Ho nda Pons rider a t the front of the fifth-placed line that was covered to eighth place by less than a second . hand were X-rayed . Nakano finished third in the race. maintaining his third Sp?t in the championship, " '. '. Fi~e· time 50 0cc W orld Champion Mick D o o h a n and 'hi S girl. friend. Selina Sines. had their first child: a girl. A lex i s : on Ju ly 1 ' .Jean-Mich el B a y l e is back on two wh eels. but not on his Proton M odenas KR3. The French man. who co ntinues to recov- . in Nice. France. not fa'r from their home in M onaco. The child was born abo ut a month premature and weighed about 3.74 lbs. "Th'e er from a shoulder injury suffered in the Catalunyan Grand Prix baby arrived a little soone r than ' expec ted. but 'eve rybody 's we ll at Barcelonaon June 20. put so me time in' on his minibik e. Team and we' re both looki ng forward to' being parents ." Doohan said. manager Chuck Ak sland said the ride we nt well. though Bayl e Doohari was to fly from M onaco to Doning ton Park for the Day of di sc overed that he w asn't r eady toret urn toraclnq . That' s Champ ions. a charity event to benef it Riders For Health and the expe cted to co me at the German GP at the Sach senring in two launch of his 'autobiography. ..M ick Doohan, Thunder from Down we ek s' tim e. Ak sland said the initial .shoulder se paratio n w as Und er . ", whi ch was w ritte n by. British jo urnalis t M at O xley'. 7mm . but t hat it had , hea led to w here It' s now 4mm , Pro to n Because of the baby's birth, he missed the charity event. but he .Modenas' KR,' s M ike Hale, is back on a mot orcycle also. and out on a race track as we ll, though not at Grand Prix ievel. ..He went , did make Saturday' s book party . Doohan. w ho still walks with the aid of crut ches: was leaving Mona co two days after the British GP and rode ' a 250 last wee k at Oak ,Hill,': Aks land said of Hale's outing on a friend's Hond a RS25 0. ." He go t a Jew laps on it and , to retum 't o Northern California for three more' weeks of physic therapy . He said he st ill plans to ret um for, the Czech G P on' 'it broke." 'A ksland said that he couldn' t put a date on Hale's August 22 , : . " . ret um to ,racing and neit her would team' owner Kenny Robert s. In his absence. Ja mie Whitham will continue to ride the M od eBecause Donington is one of th,e "cover-up " races t hat forbid s nas. A fter Hale was hurt at the French Grand Prix. Whitham was signed for a five-race deal that expires after Germany, The 32 tobacco si g nage in any form . the teams use ingeniou s rnethyear-old Englishman had a viciou s high -side on his home track ' , ods to get their message across. Repsol Honda's 'Alex Crlvi lle, on Friday' afternoon when he tried to get a fasttime in ,the final . who has pe rso nal sponso rship from Fortuna. the Spa nish cigaminut es of qualifying. the bike battering ,him as he sli d down the , rett e co mpany. had pat che s orf his leath er s which read "For track . The team had been workin g throu gh a chatt er prob lem . , 0.7%. " ,Cnville explained that Fortun a donates 0,7 percent of. its budget to UN ICEF. the United Nation s children's fund, whi ch had .only gotten wor se. Wh en he pitted for the final time , ' they' found a broken exhaust brack et. - Fixing that onl y left .me Int rigue 'continues to build 'about wha t Hond a wi ll race i n nex t with five or six minutes in the session. I rushed it andcame off ." year's World Superbike Championship, The first sus pect Whiiham said. The crash had put him on c rutc hes. agg ravating was the all-new V-tw in that Aaro n Slight and Colin Edwards have old ankle injurie s in his right f oot . Before 'the sess ion, he'd told the team his time wo uld be Itmrted. and he co mpleted only a few ' both tested. But a Briti sh Honda employee . who tested the bike in Japan recently, said that there was some consternation abo ut its off-speed laps befo re pullin g in. his Friday tim e goo d enough fo r co mpe titiveness and reliability . He said that the bike lacks about 15th on the grid . The race w asn' t much . bet ter . w ith Wh ith am 400 o r 500 rpm at the top of the rev range and that there was no cras hing out on the second lap in a co llision w ith Team Suzuki' s way to find it in the engine.' Though it had goo d top speed. the Nobuatsu AokL "I had a good start and was keen to get past as lack of guts up' top made it very difficult to pull out and pass' anymany as I co uld beca use t hat's re ally im portant her e : " he explained. " Coming down into the hairpin. Ao ki turn ed in front of ' one. Aft er riding several of the machines on the bowl at the Twin Ring M otegi circ uit . he com mente d that it mist ed him w ith oil me and we touched . It wasn't his fault · he did n't know I .was there!" ' " , . ~ore than ~ny other machine' he'd ever ridden . . ' , Abe wa s .175 of a seco nd ba ck in sixth a nd lam en ting the b rake se t-u p that sent him off course. "I thi nk we got the setting wrong ," he sa id . "The first tim e I reall y felt it was on t he first lap w hen I ran off the trac k, an d then it happened a few times aft erw ard s. [ d id as m u ch as [ co ul d , but it was nearly impossible to overtake." Th en came Bor ja , who' d go tt e n Roberts on the last lap , and Robert s. Kocin s k i fi n ish e d over a seco n d down on the leaders and abo ut five seconds in front of Team Biland GP1 rid er Simo n Craf ar in hi s fir st rid e o n the MuZ . "Basically, the en gine characteris tics are wrong for a co ns istent tir e performance," Cr afar sa id . "There is just too much pow er av ailable when the rear tire is worn." Michael Rutt er ' wa s the last finisher, 11th on the Millar Honda V-twin. CN ' Donington Park Cast le Doningto n, England Results: J uly 3, 1999 (Round 8 of 16) 12 5cc QU A LI FYI NG : 1. G ia n luig i Scal vini 0 :39 .614 ); 2. Emilio Alzam ora 0 :39.682) ; 3. Arn aud Vince n t 0:39.75 6); 4, Robert o Locate lli 0 :39.773); 5. Masao Azuma 0:39.842); 6. Nobo ru Ueda 0 :39.895); 7. Simo n Sanna 0:39.905); 8. Marco Melandri 0 :39.999); 9. Gino Borso i 0:40.014) ; 10. Yo uic hi Ui 0 :40.023); 11. Ka zut oBak at a 0 :4 0.07 3 ); 12. Lu ci o Cec ch mello 0 :40.105); 13. Mirko Giansanti 0 :40.382); 14. Jeronimo Vida l 0 ;40.786); 15. Randy d e Pun ict 0 :40.855); 16. Ivan Go i 0 :40 .89 5); 17. Re inhard Sto ltz (1:4 1. 125); 18 . Fred eri c Petit 0 :41.175); 19. Max Sab bata ni (1:41.323); 20. Bernhard Absm ele r (1:41.702); 21. Manue l Poggiali 0 :41.748); 22. Alessandro Brannetti 0:41.758); 23. Pablo also said that he'd spoken 'w ith Erv Kanernoto about the availability of Joh n Kocinski in the event that the team's constant financial perils caused them to withdraw . Kanemoto confirmed that. should that happen. Kocinski would be a free agent. Kanemoto also said that otherteams had appr oached him abo ut Kocinsk i. including KennyRoberts' Proton M odenas team: . At Donington Park. Erv K a n e m oto said that the spo nso r hunt goes 'on, He w as .due to 'meet with 'a numb er of pot ential spa n· " sors on Satu rdayntqht. " W e're still talktnqto peopl e." Kanernoto said. "We've f ound people that have budget s later in t he year . ,There migh t be a .couple of possibilities fo r stnqle- rac e spo nsors hip. like in,Italy. I've been in discussion with a coup le of . co mpanies for a whi le , They have a budget. they say . but it' s dif - , ficult to say what that r eany rneans . .M aybe they' re just being' polite . Hopefully; something will turn out: " Unt il then. Kanernot o: continues to carry backin g from an Italian ce ramics firm. Unicorn S tarker Ceramics Group . thoug h they're only an associate spo n- ' · . . . . ..so ~ · Kanemo to arid John Kocinski we re leaving at 9 p.rn.' on the night of the Briti sh GP for the Suzuka Circuit. where they were to meet Freddie Spence r and test the Castrol Honda RC45 they' ll 'be racing in the July' 25 Suzuka 8 Hours, Kanemo to said that original- ' ' Iy Ho nda Raci ng Corpora tio n ' wa nted to team former World Cham pion s Freddie Spe ncer and Wayne Gardner . but ' Gardner ' had a co nflict with his car-racing spon sors . Kanemot osaid they 'd . also asked Kevin Schwa ntz and Kenny Robert s. before 'settlinq on Kocin ski. Spencer - along with a number of other rider s including Ca st roi H onda' s Aaron Sl ight and Colin Edwards. and Honda' s Shinichi Ito h and 250cc sensation Daijiro Katoh - tested at Suzuka at the end of Ju ne. lapping at ve rycompetitive times in the rain. though less so in 'the dry. In the wet. the top rid ers : ltoh , who 'll team w it h 250cc W orld Champi onship leader Tohru Ukawa on a Luc kyStrike Honda, and Kat oh -, we re lappi ng at 2 :31 ; wi th Spencer doing 2:33s , On a dry track . Katoh was fast est at 2:09.4. Edwards and Slight were in the 2:10 range, along with Itoh , with , Spencer back at 2:15 . about the same 'as the 2:14,9 tumed in by Kurt is Rob ert s in his first ride on an RC4 5. "They' re giving him as ' mu ch tim e as po ssibl e t o' rid e th e bik e'. " Kan emoto sa id ' o f Spencer's return visits to Suzuka. Au st ralian G a r ry M cCoy loo ks set to be the permanent replaceRiders 'replacing riders replacing riders was the way it looked at .Jo hn Kocinski had aneither frustrating weekend . still fighti ng ' Yamaha's 250 cc tea m: Brit .Jam ie Robinson rode for the , merit for Crafar at Red Bun Yamaha WCM , according t o team Ch est erfi eld Yamaha Tech 3 ,team in place ,o f N aoki Ma tsu do , , manage', Peter Clifford , Ciifford said the ' team was happy With 'the understee r problem on the Kanemo to Honda NSR500 'with ;'0 Mc Coy 's results so far. He said that. however, before the, start of relief in sight. Had he not jumped the start. he f elt he co uld have who himself was a replacement for GP regular O livier .Jacque..the fought for a pos ition in the top five . ." 1must say this very clearly : Frerichman who was injured very early in the seaso n. Robinson ' the weekend. M cCoy crashed, in final qualifying when the wind too k o ut his freint w heel in Coppice Comer. He erided 'up .16th on" The machine is good and the machine can win, races. ~ Kocin ski finished 12th but doesn' t see himself in the team's plans.Matsuthe grid. McC oy jumped .the start . served a l Ovsecond stop-a nc- , said . " But my' riding t he mac hine is not so go od . We have to do crashed at the' previous week's ,Dutch TT and .returned home ' to J apan to rehabilitate his injurie s in time for . the next roundof . go penalty. and had to m ake his way through the pack.He was . make changes . Y ou have to understand Honda' s positron. Th ey 're lying ,15 th in the race when he had a vlclo us, high-speedhigh·side ;"'inning races andwe're at the end of theprlorttyltstff we.have , the All-Japan Ch ampionship. which he currently leads. Robinson. 23. is contesting the' European and Bntish 250cc Champi onships. . that threw him onto his back and t ore up his motorcycl e. Luckily. , problems this week . arid there are no changes, don 't you think H e's leading in Britain, 'aft er sco'dng first and fourth in the opening . he was able in limp away from it. " lt 'w as a hell of a fall. " M cCoy , -we'll have problems next week (at the 'German G Pin two 'weeks said, ..All I can remember was flying t hrough the air, and seeing timel? I'v e tried a lot more things with this bike this year than I did two rounds .' and is seco nd in the European Cha mpionship aft er blue sky.". C lifford said he'd made 'some inquiries in the United . all of lastyear: the' things we 're usinqnowwere made by Erv. It's .two rounds, The 'other half of .t he team was also among the walka very. very frustrating ' situation because I .know . to morrow I can ing wo unded. Chesterfield Yamaha Tech 3' s Shlnya Nakano suf- . Stat es about availability:of riders but found that no one of G P caliber was available. Au stralian Daryl Beattie was all set to come' ' go outand win. Right now . v theonlythmq I'm conce rned about is .fered a concussion when he high-sided in the fast downhill Craner but had 'to demurat the, 11th hour for personal reasons. Beatti e is getlingback ·to to p fo rm in, the GPs ., It' s .the only thing t hat' s Curve's five 'min ute s into the f irst qual ifying ·'session . ' He w as apparently involved in a custody battl e and chose to stay home in important to me. :There isn't anybody out there lhaven't beaten examined for a 'concussion. then rejoined qualifying. taking 't lth. · · . ' , After the session injuries to his right wri~t 'and 'a finger on his left ' QueenslandAustralia . according .to unconf irmed r eport s: Clifford ". before... 8 : '" '

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