Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

In the Paddock ow here's a remarkable fact - ap art fro m Frenchm an Arnaud Vincen t, the winner this year in Cata lunya, every 125cc Grand Prix since the end of 1996 has been won by either an Italian or a Japa nese rid er . One class up, and O liv ier Jacque's 250cc GP win in the final 1999 race in Argentina was the first since 1997. Ja cqu e is also Fr ench, bu t th a t is besid e the point. Th e Italian/Japa nese con trol of the smallest class in particular is all but complete, a fact on ly u nderlined by the anomaly that this year the smallest GP class has a Spa nish World Champion. Emilio Alza mo ra won the title withou t winni ng a race all year, the first person to achieve this dubiou s d ist inc tion since his cou ntry ma n Manuel Herreros (a.k .a. "Horre ndous" on accou nt of a highly unusu al cons tructio n of fa cial features ) beca me th e last 80cc World Cham p ion in 1989. This has as mu ch to d o with the way the points are added up tha n anything else. Cons istency is reward ed more than erratic race winners, an d for various reaso ns both third -placed Masao Azuma (Ja pa nese) a nd second-p laced Marco Meland ri (Italian), w ho eac h won five times during the year, missed out a t enoug h other races to let the older Spanish Honda rider get ahead. You might say there is no justice, an d certainly Melandri , who became the youngest-ever GP winner at just 15 last year, would agree with you. Especially after he was fined 10,000 Swiss Francs for "i rresponsible rid in g " afte r his strange behavior on the las t lap of the last GP of this year, when h e slowed right u p not (he insis ted) to try an d kn o ck A lzamora d o w n , t h o u gh he a lmost did so, but instead to give a cha nce fo r h is co un tryma n Rob erto Locatelli to catch up and get into seco nd place. This is a legitimate tactic. His mis take was to leave it mu ch too late in the race, and to make it obvio us . It was an immatur e performance, but then wha t do you expect from a rid er who has the world at his feet at th e age of just 16? Many N times it's been observed that Melandri's race tactics show an old head on young shoul ders, so it was only a matter o f time before he would prove he was really just a young kid under an even you nger hairstyle. Melandri is, of course, just a ra ther rem arkable tip of an iceberg. He's follow ing on fro m Valentino Rossi, 125cc World Champion at just 18, while he has a no the r 16-year-old, Manuel Poggiali, on his hee ls. The Japa nese riders, banging fairi ngs in w ha t is often th e most exciting race of the day, tend to be older, tho ugh you wouldn' t think so from the way the li kes of Nobbie Ueda and Youichi Ui ride . So just w ha t is it abou t Italy and Japan that p roduce one top 125cc ride r after another? Well , it's facile but tru e enough to say th at the Jap an ese have sta ture (or lack of it) on their side . Size is important on a 125, bu t not that import an t, as the giraffe-like double-'99 GP winner Gianluigi Scalvini de mo ns tra tes; while pin tsized Max Sabbatani is only a now-and then scorer, barely in the top 20 of the championship. Mind you, he does have to car ry ballast so he and h is bike can reach the minimum weig ht limit. The answer is even simpler. They s ta rt th em young . Both nations have thriving min i-moto races open to young kids (they call the m p ocke t bikes in Japan), in the same way that America did at just the right time for riders like Eddie Lawson and Wayne Rainey, lead ing on by the time they are teenagers to serious national youth cha mpionships, starting with "sport production" 125s but moving rapidly onto GP tackle. In this way talent is quickly discovered , easily nurtured, and rapidly d eveloped. With the obvious results . Me landri is curre n tly the s hiniest. Riding an A-killed Ho nda wit h at least a sma tte ri ng of facto ry su ppo rt (though neith er Aprilia nor Hond a actua lly run any fu ll works b ik es in the smalles t class), it may see m he has had an easy route to th e top. Es p ecially s ince he enjoys the financial patrona ge of Mauro Benetton, of that ilk, and has as his mentor former GP winner Loris Reggiani, the Span iards lik e Jorge Mart inez have won Wor ld Championships In the IId dler classes before, bu t It' s been awh ile . Thi s year, Emilio Alzamo ra beca me the first Spaniard to win a smail-bi ke crown since Manuel Herre ros did so In 1989, In the soee class. man who took Ap rilia into racing and won them their first GP, back in 1987. Loris, who retired only six years ago himself, used to race agai nst Melandri's father, and they live close by. He wa tched him racing mini motes, so when at the age of 12 he asked Loris for a run on a 125 Production Spo rt Aprilia he had knocking around, he was willing, eve n though: "I laughed, because he looked about nine and his feet couldn't touch the ground." It was h is firs t tim e on a full-sized bike, and after a cou ple of hou rs he was less th an two seconds off th e class lap record. "There was no mystery . It was easy for me to know he was really something specia l." T his is th e p oi n t. Me landri is n't w here he is just because there's a lot of tidd ler racing in Italy, or becau se he has influential friends. No thi ng but tal ent can ultimately shine in a national series where there are 40 or 50 local en trants for every Spo rt Production race. in the same way that nothing but talent can ensure the sort of success he has had in only his second year in GP racing. The easy thing would be to insist most vehemently that something similar should be put into motion right away in all other countries , but of course it is never tha t simple. After all, people have to want to do it, from riders to suppliers of the machines. And for some reaso n in the Ll.S, as in mos t other places, nobody takes 125 racing seriously. Riders swarm to race 600 and 750 four-strokes instead, leavi ng a sma ll band of tidd ler devotees who are not really going anywhere. It shou ld be a good nursery class for the likes of Jason d i Salvo, bu t when the wo rld-class guys (teenagers or not) get going, he and his peers are left looking like a bunch of rookies. Sad, but true. eN Looking Back ..... 30 Y AR E SAGO... DECEMBER 2,1969 2 E SAGO 0Y AR ••• OVEMBE R28,1 979 N 1 EAR 0Y SAGO... N M R22,1 OVE BE 989 oger DeCoster (C Z) was all crossed up on our cove r as he sped to victory at the Golden Gate Inte rAm motocross in San Francisco, California . Ak e Jonsson (Mai) w as second, and Ha kan Andersson (Hus) finished third. Bar ry H iggins (CZ) was the top-finAmerican, is hing landing seventh ove rall... The "Dese rt Fox" J.N . Ro b e r ts (H us) sto rme d to the wi n a t th e 100-m ile Bars tow M.e. Desert Run in the Mojave Desert. All the fast guys were there, inclu di ng Dave Ekins, who won the Trail class on a 100cc Harley-Davidson Baja... A Vizor Vu helmet visor, with its tiny corner-mounted mirrors, wa s the hot setu p of the da y. Available in w hite, black or international orange, the Vizo r Vu retailed for $6.95... We ran a small feature that herald ed a successful second year for California's CMC racing organization. Yamaha street b ike was on the cover again. This time it was the Ya m a h a XS650 -SG , which fused a bit of American cruiser styling with tha t Bri tishinspired Yamaha vertical twin . Our testers liked the bike , sta ting that it captured a certain to uc h of "British mystiq ue. Hell, ours even seeped oil...slightly " .. . The Latest Poop carried a picture of Chuc k Sun's radical-lo oking, si ng le-sho cke d , water cooled Honda 250 motocrosser. The bike' s space-a ge styling was id entical to tha t which would lat er adorn th e 1982 Honda CR250R... Kent Howert on (Suz) won the final battle of the AMA Supercross Seri es, which took place at Anaheim Stadium. Warren Re id (Hon) was second, and Mi k e Bell (Yam) was third... In speedwa y, Bruce PenhaH (Wes) and Scott Au trey (Wes) took the top two places in the American Final, also held at Anaheim Stadium. Another trick Ho nda appeared in the In The Wind section of Cycle News . This time it was the N R750 H onda which made its debut at the Tokyo Motor Show. There was little known about the bike, other than it featured a n incarna tion of th e oval-pistoned. eig htvalves-pe r-cylinder V4 th at was not unlike t he m a c h in e H on d a built for GP road racing in the early ' 80s... Warren Reid (Kaw) and Pete Murray were big winners during the sec o nd annual White Brothers Vet World Ch ampions hips at Perris Raceway in Perri s, California . Reid won a star-stu d ded Vet Pro class, while Murray captured the Vintage Expert race aboard a Maico... Page 26 carried an in terv iew with a you ng sp eed w ay racing phenom from Irwindale by the name of Billy Hamill... The Winst on World Finals had taken place at Pomo na, with John Myers (Suz) defeating Dave Schultz (Kaw) CN to win the Pro Stock Bike class. R A • §l ~ N .8 E g: o z 67

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