Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

T he fro n t p ack w as stru ng ou t w it h Oka da in fourth, Biaggi fift h , Gi bernau s ix th , an d championship lead er Criville se ven th . Once h e r e gained h is com p o s u re, Roberts d ropped th e ha m m er, k nocking his lap time from th e 34s to the 32s a nd taking nearly a seco nd lead at th e end of fou r laps as he s tarted to clear ou t. M e anwhil e, Bia g g i m o ved up with th e trio ju st behind, crossing th e line in fourth , b ut taking seco nd by turn o ne and setti ng o u t fo r Roberts. The re w a s work t o b e d on e w it h Roberts h o lding .1.486 a t th e end of the fift h la p , though h is fa s t lap re m a ined th e fou rt h . Biag gi took two-tenths o ut of th e lead o n the next la p with Roberts tighten ing hi s exit from th e final corner to stay off t h e cu r b ing, and Biaggi u s ing a ll the tr a ck a n d g e tt ing a better d rive down th e fron t stra ig ht. The Ita lian separa ted h imself from the pursui ng pack of five which Abe a n d Barros led , then A b e came ba ck at h im and th e two Yamahas s ped away. Roberts turned it up again, low ering the lap time a nd taking his biggest lead, nearly two secon d s at th e e n d of t h e eighth of 27 laps. The seventh would be h is fas test la p of th e ra ce, a new unofficia l lap record o f 1:32 .743. Abe, m ean while, m oved to sec o nd by passing Biaggi in turn three on la p nine. A t th e en d of 10 la p s, Roberts' lead had grown to 2.530 seconds , bu t pos itions tw o throug h ei ght were covered by 4.5 second s - with constant swappin g a m o n g s t t hose positions . Biaggi and A be w e r e at the front of the gro up, O ka da w as ne xt , w ith Laconi m o ving Pole s itter J eremy McWilliams led the race - but o nly briefly. The Brit crashed o ut on th e second lap. through to fifth o n lap 10 in fro nt of Barros, Gibernau , and C rivi lle . En din g lap 13, La co ni m ad e a sweeping m o ve aroun d Abe a t th e h ead of th e strai g h t, th e Japanese rid er s lowing a n d looking d o wn a t w hat wou ld be d ia gnosed as a b roken exhaust. He was out. H alfwa y in and Roberts had 4 .021 seco nds in hand, Bia g g i was seco n d , w it h La coni a cl o se third , and Okada rig ht in the m ix . Okada took o ver third o n th e 14th, th e t rio a t o ne ano th er in every corner and m oving a way from the next p ack con testi ng fift h . . Barros was o u t w it h th e fi rs t of his two ch u n ked tires o n the next la p a nd the a tt r it ion wa s h elping the injured Criville. He w as n ow up to fifth, a n d holdi n g o ff G ibernau - fo u r secon ds behi nd the second-place bunch. Barros and his teamm a te Juan Borja both went out with severe ch u n king to the left side of th eir rear tires . Robe rts w ould be nex t. At the end o f the 23rd of 27 laps, Roberts m o v ed off-line at the h ead of th e stra igh t a n d s tuck- his foot out to alert th e others to pass . His lea d had crested a t 5.862 seconds o n the 19th lap, but it was go ne in a n ins ta nt. The pursu - Not Doohan all ri hI T he Mick Ooohan Farewell Tour rolled into Phillip Island on Satu rday, the five-time World Champion explaining for the third time in a week why he wouldn't be racing at his home Grand Prix and why he may never race again . "I wou ld say by the end of this month - by the end of the season - I'll know exactly wh at's going on, whether I'm compe ting as a ride r or some other form of involvement in the spo rt," the Repsol Honda rider replied when asked about his futu re. "I'm just taki ng a realistic approach to it all. And I don't need to get out there to prove anything to any one. And if I'm going to get back ou t there, get back out there strong eno ugh to rid e th e motorcycle, a nd that's wha t I said fro m th e beg in ning a nd tha t' s the way I fee l at the mom en t. Because what I do is race motorcycles; I do n't ride mo torcycles. At the moment I can' t race a motorcycle so what's the sense of being au t there ?" he asked . Since returning to his native Australia, Dooh an has faced three press conferences - one in Surfer's Paradise ing pa ck was quickl y p ast a n d Roberts was now in co nse rvatio n mod e . The race was o n . "Tha t wasn 't w ha t we expected," Roberts sa id . " Ev e ry t h ing was going fine when suddenly I felt a b a n g fro m the rea r a nd the bike s ta rted vibra ting. I knew it was a tire p roblem an d I had to back right off." -or co urse when I see Ju ni o r slo wing d own I was thinkin g maybe h e have some engine problem," Biaggi said . "I was thinking he was on two-cylinder o r someth in g like tha t. I was taking his p lace, then I w as fig h ting with Ta dy." Three-wide at th e end of the st raig ht severe than he orig inally let on, which is wh y he's trying to be frank now . "It's jus t taken lo nger than we plann ed , but as I say the injury isn't an every day in jury," he sa id . "I' m not trying to cover up anything here. I think in the beginning we we re tryin g _ to cover up as much as we can, but there comes a point in time whe re yo u can't cover up any more ." That said, Doohan was n' t going to catalog his injuries. "I think it's just sort of, without going into it, I don' t think we need to: Injuries. Nobody's my doctor here." The last time he was in the U.s . his doctors advised him to cut back on his physiotherapy, and he has n't been doing any since being ba ck in Australia. He was told to rest the injury, which he's done. "I was prelly mu ch put on bed rest and some cru tches. Thankfully I'm back off the crutch es again now. I think we've talked enough about the injuries," he said with some finality . Someone su ggested that fath erhood may have softened him, but he denied it. there's a bike there for him to ride. At this point in time, I've just got to get myself back together. "As I said to somebody, I could probably hop back on the motorcycle next week and ride the motorcycle and maybe finish in 10th, 12th positio n. Why d o that? I've done that befo re. I know tha t I physically can' t ride the motorcycle the way I want to ride the motorcycle. I don't think I need to be out there to finish in 10th position and to circulate. Because mentally, I feel the same as I did before the accident. So if I was physically okay, I know mentall y I'll be okay. I've be in this position before in '92, and I've come back and I've ridd en injured , and I'm menta lly trying to do something I physically can't, and I end up throwing myself down the road aga in. It does nobody any good . It does Honda no good , it does myse lf no good to be riding around ou t there in 10th position. Everyone else is S3}Wg. 'what the hell are you doing out there?' • Whether he can ride again or not ,,;11 di ctate his future. At the moment, he has no answers about if he'd be riding for or running a team. "I wish I knew; I do n't' know too much about it myself," he said. "I think there is some talk of people wanting to do stuff, wanting to put things together, so on and so forth. But, I think I' m the last to find ou t about it. At the momen t, I've been quit e tied up d oing some other things. I've been on the phone quite a lot talking wi th HRC, talking with other people. It really depends o n what I'm d oin g, wh ether I contin ue to rid e or not . It will also d ep end on wh ether people really want to go that way . I can't really confirm or d ~n y a,~ yth ing at the mome nt, it's -jus t one of those thmgs. Dooh an deni ed that he wa s in d iscussions with Aprilia' s Valentino Rossi. near his home, one in Melbourne, and the final one on Saturday at Phillip Island - to d iscus s his future. This wa s the race he was targeting to make his return, but he's far from fit and may not be read y for the final two GPs, in Brazil and Argentina, at the end of the month especially if mor e surgery is required . Doohan will be back in the U'S, on Tuesday, October 5, to consult with his d octors in Northern Califo rnia. Even if they deter- "Valentino speaks quite a lot too ," Doohan s aid . mine that his conv alesce nce is proceedin g, the dama ge don e by his crash at May's Spani sh Gran d Prix in Jerez is indelible. "It's taken long, it's taken its toll," Doohan said dur ing Frida y' s lun ch break . "I wo uld n' t say it's changed my focus. I haven't gotten a lot of enjoyment out of kind of sitting d own and taking it easy for this long. I really expected to be over this by now . "But saying all that, it see ms to improve and then plateau o ut, and th e n impro ve and then plat eau out, and then some- times come back a little bit as well. I' m going to go back to the States (to see Dr. Arthur Ting in Northern California) aga in on Tue sday of this week and see the doc tors again and see where we go from there. The last time I was out there we were going to have a little bit more do ne. We couldn' t do it, so, hopefull y every thing is okay and I won't need any more surgery and I can continue wi th life and then try to get back on the motorcycle, but they need to do some more work ." The crash occurred near ly five months ago and was more to star t la p 25, Bia ggi m o ved in fron t with O kada second , th en Laconi. T wo laps to go an d it was Biag g i in fr on t of Okada a nd Laconi, .159 of a second covering fi rst to th ird to set up a thrilling final lap. Nose to tail o n the final la p, the order d idn' t change u ntil Okada mad e a ru n up th e inside a t th e hairpin, a hard braking d o wnhill ri ght ju s t before the fina l looping run to th e front stra ig h t. At th e to p of th e s traig h t, Okada ran slightly wide, but Biag gi couldn't ca pi ta lize, an d it w as Okada' s thi rd win of the year. " I pu t e v e ry t h ing I could into tha t last braking mo ve," Okada said . "I was injured before I became a father . It didn't help speed it up or slow it down. An injury's an injury . I hit a wall at 130 m ph and come off second be Thankfully, I'm even here." st. Ooohan said he'd made a point of keeping Hond a abreast of his cond ition, "but I don't want to give them an answer until I hop back o n a motorcycle an d find ou t whether I actua lly do want to rid e the bike the way I've ridd en the bike in the past. I don't want to commit to somet hing that I'm not ready to commit to, and they understand that. So I think peo ple are still waiting to see what Mick Doohan' s doing, so to speak, but they're also taking care of everything else as well, because they need to. But if Mick Doohan is to come back and ride the bike aga in, " May be it ' s the Italian w ay . Some o f th e things, maybe it's got some thing to do with Hond a Euro pe. At the moment, no, ther e' s nothing with me." Doohan had been to a few GPs earlier in the year, but went there knowin g he'd be specta ting. This was the race where he thought he'd be makin g his comeback. As it is, he's just an interes ted, and hon ored, specta tor, but one with a uniqu e view of the cham pionship. "This year has been a season full of interesting results, and everyone is kind of jostling this year I guess," he said . "They realize they' re in a position to win the championship and do what ever they can to get some good results. So you never know wh at thi s is go ing to bring for th e comi ng seaso n. Ken ny (Robe rts) Jr. has definitely done a good job this season . He will mainly improve on his consistency . I think Alex (Criville) has de finitely mad e a few mistakes this year. I think he's jus t put himself unde r too much pr essure. I think between Alex and Junior, I think those two gu ys will be the guys for the next two season s." 9

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