Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Round 4: Sprite Suzuka 8 Hours WORLD ENDURANCE CHAMPIONSHIP By Tracy Hagen Photos by Mark Wernham SUZUKA CITY,JAPAN,JULY 24-25 , ., . ii1 ~ ~ 7ii " g' « 30 e got ou r asses kicked by th e Grand Pri x guys, pretty mu ch ," was th e ex pla na tion gave n b y Co li n Ed wa rds 11 at the end of the Sprite Suzuka 8 Hours. Edwards m ay h a ve o n ly been think in g of hims elf a n d Aa ro n Slight, the Honda World Superbike teammates who finished second at the end of the midsummer classic end urance race in japan, but the sta te ment had un iversal a pplication. Do in g the ka ra te kicki ng in j apan we re Tada yuki Okada and Alex Barros'. Before the race was two-thirds over, the p air of H onda 500cc Grand Prix riders had lapped the other 69 teams wi th their Lucky Strike-s po nsored RC45, and they w ent on to com ple te a total of 213 laps. It was a d istan ce cut short by two sp lashes of rain, a nd it was o ne la p shy of th e r ec ord set by Ed wa rds and Noriyuki Haga in 1996. "It was easy today, easy," said Okada with a lau gh. Indeed ; Barros' only concern was not taking thin gs too easy. "I just tried to rid e and keep my concentrati on an d not take it so easy, " Barros said. "Sometimes you lose yo ur concen tratio n w hen yo u go too slow. I do n' t want to do that." What mad e O ka da and Barros' tr iumph so d istastefu l to o th er big-buck teams was th at neither of th em are .o r were of regul ar rid ers of four-stroke race bikes. All of the other teams have at least one rider that is currentl y, or was recently, fu ll tim e in a Superbike C ha m p ionship Series of one kind or another . The second Lucky Strike Honda in the 8 Hours featured the dan gerous pairin g of Shinichi Ito and Tohru Ukawa, the victors of the last tw o Suz uka 8 Hours. Like he d id in 1998, Ito captured pole, and th e tea m looked like a sure bet. How ever, bad luck struck Ito on th e 13th lap and the reigning All-japan Superb ike Cham pion • found him self laying in the gravel trap. Ukawa ma naged to find his way there, too, d uring their comeback attempt. Edwards and Slight had the honors of carryi ng the revered number l l on their Castrol -bac ked Ho nda , bu t th e tw o World Su pe rbike stars plo nked around in practice, qualifyi ng , and the Specia l Stage (Superpole) to end u p as the slowest Honda factory tea m in the field. The second- place tro phi es becam e theirs d ue to the miscu es of others rather than any magic worked from the thro ttle grip. The other Castro l Honda came hom e se ve n th in th e hands of john Kocinski, the 1997 World Su per bike Champion, and Yuichi Ta ke da, th e yo ungest-ever winner of a World Superbike race an d a full factory Ho nda rider in the All-Japa n Superbike Championship . During th e firs t hour, Koci ns ki was sq uee zi ng the Ho nda aro und every bike in front of him to ma ke u p fo r a p oo r Le Ma ns-s tyle start. The n it appeared that Kocinski hit the cur bing w hen he flicked the bike into the C a s io T ria ng le chica ne, and the Honda came off its wheels. Kocinski and Takeda salvaged seventh place. The re was only one Htmda team tha t could hang with Okada and Barros in the ra ce, the Sakari Honda sa tellite tea m of Daijiro Kato and Makoto Tamada. Tamada is a first-year su perbike rid er in the A ll-ja p an Series, a nd Kat o is Honda 's hired gun for 250cc racing in ja pa n. Kato crash ed the Honda during the fifth hou r, and the rep aired bike limped in'eighth at the end of the race. In recent yea rs, H ond a' s s tro ngest competition has come from the Kawasa ki cam p. Kawasaki , however, scaled back their factory teams from thr ee to two this year, and we nt wi tho u t any foreign rid ers. Th e point team for the green bik es was World Superbike rid er Akira Yana gawa and All-japan rid er Hitoyasu Izutsuo They finished a frustrat ed th ird , nine seconds behind Edwards and Slight, after running ou t of gas once when,the y had a secu r e sec o nd . Shi nya Tak e is hi a n d Tamaki Serizawa - two factory riders in . the All-Japan Superbike Cha mpionship » piloted the seco nd factory Kawasaki and had a respectable race go ing until their rear shock broke and had to be repl aced . Still, they managed to finish fifth ove ral l. The top p rivatee r team in the 8 Hou rs, Osa mu Nishijima and Ryu ji Tsuruta, fin ished an impr essive sixth on a ZX-7RR. Yama ha , th e only non-H onda to w in the 8 Hours since 1994, with their victory in 1996, had World Superbike supers tar Noriyuki Haga on th e factory' s dou bl e tri ck YZF R-7 - joined by Red Bull Yama ha 500cc Gr and Prix rid er Regis Laconi. Laconi , on a superbike, w as no t in th e same league a s H aga , thou gh , a n d reserve rider Simo n Cra far com plained of allergic reactions to the Michelin tires on H aga 's bike and remai ned in stre et clothes. They finished fourth, thr ee laps do wn, p urely due to Ha ga' s aggressive rid ing, and one double stint by the japanese rid er. Wataru Yos h ik a wa a nd Takes hi Tsu jimura, Yamaha's All- japan Superbike riders, had Haga-spec motor. cycles as well, bu t the team was knocked ou t of co nten tion after Suzu ki's Akira Ryo ramm ed Yoshikawa o n lap fiv e. Yoshik aw a w ent off the cou rse o n hi s own hal fw ay through th e ra ce, which didn't help the cause, either. Yamaha USA entered Jami e Hacking an d Richard Oliver for the 8 H ours, but Oliver was replaced by Yamaha career rid er N orihiko Fujiwara, a veteran of 10 prev ious Suzu ka 8 Hours for Yamaha factory teams, Hacking w as pulling his hair ou t a ll weeke nd , as the so-ca lle d wo rks R-7 turned ou t to be a street-spec R-7 with qui ck-change whee ls, and Fujiwara had no intere st in trying race-bike suspens io n se ttings. Hacking and Fujiw ara's off-track excursions during th e race had the team' s m echanics busier than most, and the pai r finished 13 laps down, in 14th place. The Suzuki factory, where bot h facto- The Suzuka 8 Hours gets underway with the Le Mans-style start and a horde of the trickest four-st rokes in the wor ld heading towards tum one. ry teams failed by the halfway mark, had an eve n longer day. Th e lead team was Akir a Ryo and Keiichi Kitagawa, two of the best su pe rbike riders in Japan. Ryo's desperate bid to catch the quick Hondas in the first hour resulted in a fast est lap time that held up for tw o hours, bu t also resulted in an accid ent with Yamaha's Yoshikawa. Lat er, Kitagawa also cras hed . The seco nd factory Suzuki blew up with a cloud of white smoke in the third hour, leavin g Suzuki's factory All-Jap an Superbike roo kie rid ers Atsus hi Watan abe and Cho jun Kameya stranded . It's rar e these years for an enduran ce team from Europe to run the 8 H ours, due to cos t, th e com pe titiveness of th e Japa nese fact ory teams and the fact that the 24-hour races in Europe pay double poin ts . "The Phas e On e tea m for th e World Enduran ce Cham pionship made the trek from Great Britain to Suzuka, but a tearful Ton y Rees had to withdraw the Suzu ki GSX-R750 after seven hours and 36 minutes , w he n the engine s ta r te d makin g d eath, rattle noi ses . Thus the r esults fr om th e 8 Hou rs, the fourt h round of the World Endurance Championship series , will not have a bearing on this year's title. RACE For the Suzuka 8 Hours, the w ea ther on race da y w as bet ter than most years: temperatures were in the lo w 80s, but with the always-p resent hot-tub humid i1 ty. . Th e 85,000 fan s co u n te d down' the clock for the 11:30 a.m. Le Mans sta rt, and Ho nd a's Ito success fu lly converted his po le position to a tum-one. lead, followed b y Okada, Yanagawa, Haga, Kato, and Yoshikawa. i

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