World Championship Road Race Series
Round 14:Pacific Grand Prix
By MICHAEL SCOTT
PHOTOS BY GOLD
&
GOOSE
MOTEG(, JAPAN, OCT. 6
star Alex Barros had ridI ) den the RC211 V Honda V-five
four-stroke for just two hours before
the start of the Pacific Grand Prix. It
took the West Honda Pons rider
another 44 minutes, 18.913 seconds
to prove firstly what a good rider he
is, and secondly what a good bike it
is. By the end of that time, he had not
only won his first race since the Italian GP more than a year ago, but had
also set a new lap record for the
Twin Ring Motegi circuit. And he had
become only the second person this
season to defeat Valentino Rossi in a
straight fight.
To be fair, he had a little unexpected help from HRC. His bike was at
least nominally a production model next year's satellite-team machine.
All three full-factory Hondas, possibly running a later version of the
slipper clutch, had problems with the
unit. Rossi came close to crashing
several times, with problems going
'R. razilian
10
OCTOBER
16.2002'
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