Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128336
o nd a 's Tohru Ukawa and Hitoyasu Iz u t s u crushed the fie ld in the 27th Suzuka 8 Hours in Japan , taking a runaway victory as t he ir rivals faltered . Their HRC-prepared CBRIOOORRW was in clean air before the first lap was over and they never surrendered the lead. The win was Ukawa's fourth and moved him even w ith Wayne Gardner for most 8 Hours victories. " It' s fantastic t o win the 8 Hours, " Ukawa said . ''Actu ally, it didn't feel that long." For lzutsu, it was his first win fo llowing nine unsuccessful efforts . "I am very, very happy," he said. " I can retire. I joined Honda to w in the 8 Hours , so I am really happy today. At the be ginn ing o f t he weekend, my ba c k ac hed because I crashed duri ng th e testing in Ju ne and broke ribs. Bu t today I the H shape, a nd t he tem perature was co oler than that of T hursd ay o r Friday. U kaw a w on it four times, and my record is no t comparable to his, but I take satisfactio n in being U kaw a ' s pa r t ne r for his fo ur t h win." The win marked Honda's eighth consecutive victory and 19th overall win in the 8 Hours . Honda clobbered the competition, as CBR I OOORR rid e rs took eight out of the top 10 positions . Ukawa and lzutsu completed 210 laps - nine short o f the record set by Colin Edwards II and Daijiro Kato in 200 I. However, th is 8 Hours was the first run on a slightly reconfigured course, with a new chicane between the Hairpin and Spoon curves . i Briefly... The prize money given away at the Suzuka 8 Hours continued to be very lucrative, w ith a total of 41, 180,000 yen ($374,364) paid out in qualifying and race results . The total purse in the Superbike class was 17,780,000 yen ($161,636), with 10,000,000 yen ($90,909) for first, 18,182 yen ($18,182) for second and 1,000,000 yen ($9,091) for third. Q ualifying paid a total of 8,600,000 yen ($78,182), plus refund of entry fees for all qualifying teams. A total of 6,400,000 yen ($S8, 182) was paid to all riders in the single-lap Spec ial Stage. Shinichi Ito and Takeshi Tsujimura earned a total of 1,200,000 yen ($ 10,909) for qualifying and topping the Special Stage, and Tohru Ukawa and Hitoyasu Izutsu eamed 900,000 yen ($8,182) as runners-up In the Special Stage. The Suzuka Circuit course was modified over the w inter to intro - duce a chicane in the 200R comer, a fast right-hand turn after the Hairp in and Spoo n Curve. This section of the cou rse was branded as unsafe by many MotoGP riders after Marco Melandri broke his leg there in practice for the 2003 Japanese Grand Prix. The new chicane features a sharp right-leftright set of turns that takes riders off of the old course and then back on, but at lower speed. "I don't like," said Yoshimura Suzuki's Yukio Kagayama. "Be fore , I like big corners, I enjoy the previous layout. Now is small chicane, it's not exciting. It's a little bit more safe, but I don't like. 1want more excit ing comer for big slide and high speed! " Tadayuki Okada echoed Kagayarna's comments. "I don't like. I like more big slide. That point was very difficult point, but now not so fun. But for sure, not enough runoff before." Tohru Ukawa felt the new chicane increased lap times 2.S to 3 seconds and agreed with his fellow riders : "Basically, I do not like the new chicane. The old turn was very exciting. I know safety is important, and 200R [has] almost nothing to the barrier and so high speed . But I think the new chicane is stupid ." The field gets under way at the 27th running of the Suzuka 8 Hours endurance road race, the most famous of its kind in the world. When it was over, the Seven Stars Honda team of Hitoyasu Izutsu (left) and Tohru Ukawa had thoroughly dominate ed the race. The Yoshimura Suzuki team of Yukio Kagayama [ebeve] and Atsushi Watanabe had held high hopes for a victory. The team fin· ished se co n d, lost in a sea of Hondas that toak eight of the top 10 placings in the race. Suzuka Circuit wanted to simply shift the line of the racecourse by new construction to create additional runoff in the area ahead of Spoon Curve, but that proved nearly impossible. Suzuka Circuit wou ld need to purchase land adjacent to the course to do this, but the land owner re fused to sell. T he modified Suzuka Circuit was re homologated on April 23 as a Grade B circuit. Gr ade B ho mo logation qualifies the circuit for Worl d Supe rb ike , World Supersport and World Endurance championsh ip events - but not MotoGP. Grade A homologation is re quired for MotoG p, while a Grade C homologation permits only World Endurance . The FIM represen tative in attendance for the 8 Hours, Bambang Gunardi , stated that big modifications are required to Suzuka C ircuit for Grade A homologation, but he declined to be spe clflc. According to Tohru Ukawa, the main complaints from MotoGP riders that Suzuka needs to address is the first left turn in the S curves and the fast 130R left tum at the end of the back straight. "There are still Conlinued on page 39 CYCLE NEWS • AUGUST 11, 2004 37