Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Road Race Round 4: Sprite Suzuka 8 Hours WORLD ENDURANCE CHAMPIONSHIP (Left) John Kocinski teamed with Yuichi Takeda after Spencer suffered injury. The pair ended up seventh on the factory Honda RC45. (Right) Akira Yanagawa and Hitoyas u Izutsu had numerous problems that cost them any chance of a win. Still, the pair battled bac k to finish third. en en en ~ ~ ~ iii " g' < 32 under tw o-tenths of a second in three laps, with Kato recording what would be the fastest lap of the race - a 2:10.457 - on the.58th tour. Kato dis lodged Okada from first pla ce with a pass at tum one on lap 59, and the stage was set for a sequel to the BarrosTamada show from the second hour. But like man y seque ls, it failed to live up to the standa rds of the original. Okada mad e a run on Kato at the chicane on lap 60, and the two riders were dea d even on the Suz uka scoring sys tem w he n th ey h it th e line. Ka to go t th e advantage on O kada in tu rn one a nd focused on escapi ng from his foe. That he did, and in eig ht laps Kato had a sweet eight seconds on Okada. The first sp rinkles of rain starte d on lap 69, and wer e isolated to th e sou theas t sectio n o f th e race track, on turns on e a n d two, and th e '5' cu rves. Lap times increa sed three to five seconds, and rather u ni forml y . If an yth ing , Kat o backed off the least. Th e is o la te d ra in continu ed up ' through th e sc he d u le d pit s to ps th at began on lap 79. The track was far too dry to keep rain tires cool, so the teams nervou sly mounted slicks. Again , the factory Honda cre w of Okada and Barros made up the 10 secon ds that Kato had earned the hard wa y. On lap 82, Tarnad a's out lap, Barros breezed past going into Spoon Curve. Tarn ada gamely hu ng on to Barros, and w he n th e tw o swift Ho nda riders were hea d ed for th e chicane it looked like Tarnada had a chance to overtake. But a backm arker unexpectedly moved over, forcing Tama da wide and clearing the w ay for Barro s. It was on ly a sixtenths-of-a-second favor to Barros, but for Tarnada it turned out to be tha t one eve nt in a race that a no nwin ning rider never recovers from. The rai nd rops gre w in size an d fre'quency on lap 84. Tarnad a backed off on the throttle, but Barros onlv half as mu ch, and he picked up thr ee ieconds for his lead and lapped fourth-placed Slight to boot. The rain cloud had now move d up to the cross-over poin t of Suzuka's figure-of-eight layou t, and th e front runner' s lap times were 2:30, give or take. Rain is the one factor that can always ' be co u n ted on to co nvert road racin g from a science to an art, and ther e was just eno ug h rain to complete the conversion. Laconi and Izutsu op ted to pit for rain tires, wh ich was the prevailing opinion regarding the optim um stra tegy. Barros' team gav e him the "Pit In" sign for six or so laps, bu t he ignored the requ est. Slight's team put ou t the same board just once, and that, too, was ign ored . Tamada also stayed out on slicks d espite the rain . "The lap tim es ~e re ab out 2:30. I think the worse was 2:35, so it was a little bit slippery," said Barr os abou t his insub ord ination. "But if I stop to change tires" no big difference. So if I can keep this lap time in that condition, sure, I do n't need to stop. So I prep ared to continue . The pit board was ou t for six laps, [ think, but I tried to ign ore that and make 2:31 a nd wa it for the conditions to be a little bit d ry . Th e track is no wa ter, jus t wet. I think at tha t moment, it's better to watch the weather for full rain , This is a very important decision, that I no lost time to sto p to chan ge tires.". Barros' judgement proved to be spoton, Izutsu and Laconi lost nearly 10 seco nds a lap o n ra in ti res co mpa re d to wh at they we re ge tti ng with slicks no t coun ting the time required to stop an d mount th em . Mo r eo ve r, Barros a n d Tarnada had a full lap on the field , and the op tion of slow ing ,down carried less risk for them . In fact, they slowed down enoug h for Slight, now thir d after Izu tsu 's stop, to un lap hims elf on lap 92. The su n starte d peek in g aro und the edge of th e ra in cloud on lap 92, a nd soo n shadows could be seen u nder the bikes. Izutsu stopped for a cut slick rear , but oddly left the front rain tire mounted. On th e ne xt lap, Izutsu s to p ped once more in the pits , and this time the front rain tire carne off, and a cu t slick went on. Alt ogether, these th ree sto ps an d slower lap time s on rain tires cos t th e Kawasaki team 2'r, minutes of track position to Barros in just five laps. Tama da g le efu ll y welc o med the retu rn of the su n and wen t in pursuit of Barros, who had accumulated a 13-second advantage d uring the wet lap s. Barros , nat u rally, also noticed that the su n was back, and relapped Slight in defense of his fragile lead over Tamada. Tamad a cut the di stan ce in half after five tim es around, bu t then Barro s raised the bar and had the advantage up to nea rly 10 seco nds when the rid ers started reporting to the pits, begin ning on lap 107. Like th e previous sw itchovers, the Lucky Strike Hond a pit ted firs t, givi ng the Cindere lla Honda boys two laps to head the scoreboard . Tamada wa s still riding ham-fist ed to ge t back the p recious seconds Barros took away, and, in fact, ban ged a backmark er during another agg ress ive run thr ough the S curves. Kato was given the bike on lap 110, as th e titanic tw o-b ik e ba ttl e had en tered the fifth hour, with the two heavyweight riders of each team now on the track . This time Kato was dea lt a poor hand . The time Tama da lost on the track in the fourth hour, plus the time his team lost in the pits in eant that the underdog was ap proxima tely 14 seconds be hi nd and was fighting from the knees. Bu t ano the r littl e rain cloud sta rted we tting odd part s of the track, and by lap 125 the lap times were back up to 2:30 to 2:35 for the faster riders .Tthe rain started falling with some continuity. The cond itions were virtually identical to the first episode of rain , and this time the reaction by th e tea ms was iden tica l, too: if it' s possib le to rid e on slicks, then rid e on ' slicks. "(The team) left it up to us if we wanted to pull in or not ," sai d th ird -p laced Edwards. "You could kinda maintain a decent lap time, and it looked like it was going to blow away. Aa ro n stayed ou t there the first time and I saw it could be don e, so whe n I went out, I jus t staye d ou t there and tried to ru n so me decent laps," Kato was still keen to take the battle to O kada, but lost his gamble to push the situa tion in the adve rse conditions with a big moment in the S curves, a nd a big moment in the gravel trap . The sen timental fa vorite and lead er o f 59 la ps was now stationary. The race-tra ck announcer holl ered himself hoarse. "Right as Kato cra shed wa s wh en it quit ra in ing," sa id Edwa rds lat er. "I didn't See him go down, but I saw that he went down. Then I saw that he was getting it back on the track, and I thought, shit! Shit that he crashed, and shit tha t he wa s g ett ing ba ck in th e ra ce, kind of every th ing . I wa s wai ting fo r h im to corne back up on me, bu t I guess he had to pit." . . Edwa rd s' hu nch was correct. Ka to had ta ken a short cu t to th e p its , a nd ea rned a one-lap pena lty for d oin g so . There the team removed the gas tan k and airbox, and started cleaning out the sod , stones, sand and other asso rted sediment , that Kate's crash had stuffed in to them, Thus , at four hou rs and 45 minu tes, the Suzuka 8 Hours had a new and less exciting look to it. Th e leading Lucky Strike Ho nda had thr ee min ut es and 20 seco nds - a full lap an d then some - on the second -p lace d Castro l Hon d a. Th e math worked out to 2" , seconds per lap for the remaining three hou rs, an impossible amount to make up by aggressive ridi ng alone. However, the third place Kawasaki of Yanagawa and Izu tsu we re only 20 seco nds behind the seco n d H ond a , a nd Yanaga wa was gaining back the time lost through the' earlier rain-tir e fiasco. As long as Edwards and Slight rema ined in second, Ho nda had their bets covered . The last thing Ho nda wan ted was th e sun to set with a Kawasaki in second place. Yanagawa upped the intensity of his riding and mad e up six seconds in six laps. The interval stabilized at 13 seconds for a couple laps, and then wham!- in tw o laps Yanagawa had it down to less than nine seconds. The followin g lap, lap 137, Edwards pitted and Yanagawa and the Kawasaki sailed past. What happened next made the raintire fiasco for givabl e, as th e Kawasaki team mad e e ndu ra nce ra cin g ' s m ost basic mistake. . Th e Kawasaki tea m was ge tt ing 27 laps ou t of their fuel load in dry cond itions, and stre tched it to 29 laps during the first occurrence of rain, Their last pit stop ha ppened on lap 112. Figuring in' the two brief periods of rain and the distance record of 214 laps, it was sate to say that there were 100 more laps left for the Kawasaki . No matter how one looked at it, three stops we re need ed with 25 or so lap stints between stops. Tha t s im p le math problem wasn' t considered , Yanagawa stayed out on the track until the Kawasaki sp uttered ou t of gas at the end of the back straight on lap 142, 30 lap s since his. last pit stop. Yarragawa coas ted up to the track exit for the pits, and then paddled his way down the pit service road. Slight , meanwhile, came roaring past to reclaim second , " I tri ed to u se th e res erv e, bu t it d oesn 't w ork," ex p la ine d Yan a gawa, who added in brok en English that that was the team 's race stra tegy for deciding the timing of pit stops. "Ou r bike, the fuel consumption is not so good, like limit 27 laps. But tha t time, wet con di tions, and my lap time is 2:35 or 2:36. My team thou gh t maybe 32 laps is okay, But that was a mistake." The team was lucky to have only have lost a minu te of total time. With 60 laps to go, the one minute and 10 seconds to the Cas trol Honda was wit hin reach, an d Izu tsu valiantly took up the challenge. The interval had eroded from 1:10 to 46 seconds when Slig ht wa s given th e "Pit In" sign on lap 164. lzutsu carne in o n la p 167 - a 25-lap s tin t - and with both teams back in th e groove by the e n d of lap 169, th e in terva l from Edwards to Yanagawa was now down to 41 seconds . Yanag awa started rapidly ea ting int o Ed wards' margin with lap tim es of 2:11 an d ,2:12, vs . Ed wa rds at 2:13 and 2:14. "(In) the seventh hour of th e race I was jus t doing the bu siness," related Edward s. "I was seeing '+30', '+32' (on my pit board), and then nothin g. There was no thi ng on my pit board . No plu s, no nothing; they just had the time up there fo r seven o r eig h t la p s in a ro w . I though t, 'Shit, (Yanagawa) must have crashed, you know . Ju st tak e it horne and bring it in and take it easy : So I was just cruisi ng around, and then next thing you know, '+22'. I thou ght , 'Jesus Christ, I los t eight seconds in p ro ba b ly eig ht la p s.' So th en I tried to pu t m y head

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