Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Qualifying Ito Unbeatable In Special Stage Honda's Shinichi Ito took the honors on Saturday as the top 20 teams from qualifying competed in the single-lap Special Stage shootout at Suzuka before Sunday 's prestigious 8 Hours endurance race . Twice a champion in the 8 Hours, Ito lapped the figure-eight Suzu ka Circuit in two minutes and 9.274 seconds and scored his fourth pole position to move within one of Wayne Gardner's reco rd of five. Though Ito Is competing in the XX-F support class, his time was better than Hitoyasu Izutsu's superbike lap record of two minutes, 9.943 seconds. '" felt more nervous than last year, " said the 37year-old japanese journeyman and the final rider to lap th e course. "O f course, I wanted to go faster than Izutsu. I did not know I had the best lap until I finished and looked at the screen and saw I had done the best." The Brldgestone t ire-development rider, also fastest in Friday's timed qualifying sess ion, freely admitted that he used special qualifying tires in the Special Stage . "I want to w in the race, and I think we can attack towards the end of th e rac e ," Ito said . "O ur tires will be good because they are very good In long races." Standing alongside Ito for Sunday's LeMans start was Hltoyasu Izutsu. lzutsu's factory Honda was fitted w ith a Michelin race tire, albeit a softer grade, and was 0.S43 seconds slower than Ito 's . "O ur time today was an average tim e,t . Izutsu said. " I had a lot of pressure not to crash . I could picture the face of my boss If I did . Thus I tried to play It safe." lzutsu 's teammate, Tohru Ukawa, was a quar tersecond off of lzutsu's time afte r carrying too much speed into the S curves and spinn ing the rear wheel too much th rough Dunlop Curve wh ile trying to make up the lost time. Gaku Kamada , a bac kup rider for the HRC teams until Yuki Takahashi broke his ankle on Thursday afternoon , was smooth and deceptively qu lck at two minutes , 10.176 seconds, lifting the team from a provisional e ighth to third . "In the Spec ial Stage , first corner, I was kind of edgy," Kamada said. "In free practice, I was ab le to do tw o minutes, nine seconds. I know the bike is really good. My third lap is always better, and in the Special Stage they time the second lap. But I am very confident for tomorrow." Kamada's partner, Ryuichl Klyonari, had a messy Special Stage lap and was almost two seconds slower than Kamada. " I always make silly mistakes on the track, and th at's why I did not get a good t ime," Kiyonari said. "It was basically my fault ." Atsushi Watanabe turned In a hot lap of two minutes, 10.27S seconds, to place the Yoshimura Suzuk i fourth . Watanabe was quickest through the first segment of the course, from the start to the end of the S curves, but slower through the other t hree segments. Co incide nta lly, this was the case as well for his partne r, Yuklo Kagayama. "The beginning of the course is a good match for Dunlop tire and Suzuki bike ," Kagayama theorized, and then added, "The track temperature was too hot . There was not enough rear grip and [it wasj easy to slide . I tried a special qualifying tire , but ..." Q UALIFYI NG: I. T. Tsui;m u,,",S. Ito (2:09.214); 2. T. Ukawo/H. lzut su (2:09.8 17); 1. G. Kama da/ R. Kiyo nar l (2:10. 176 ); 4. A. WatanabeIY. Kagayama (2: 10 .275); 5. Y Konish lrT. Yasuda (2: 10 .776); 6. . S. NakatomVW. Yoshikawa (2: 10.846); 7. K. Kitagawa/K. Fujiwara (2:10 .896); 8. T. YamaguchVK Tokud ome (2:11.082 ); 9 . T. Hamaguch i/S. . Mo riwaki (2:11.091 ); 10. T. Mo ri/K. Eguchi (2: 11.6'15). Continued from p oge 3 9 some corners that are a little bit dangerous," Ukawa said. "Tum three at the S curve. Valentino [Rossi], Kenny [Roberts jr.], and many riders complain about this corner going into the S curves . Not many crash there, but if [there is a] crash, it's a little bit close to the tire wall. Also 130R,so many complain about it - Valentino and Max [Biaggl] say it's too dangerous." The Casio Triangle chicane remained unchanged from the 2003 Suzuka 8 Hours, even though Claude Danis issued an ultimatum to Suzuka In 2003 to change it. The Casio Triangle chicane was removed by Suzuka Circuit and replaced by a bus-stop chicane at the behest of the FIM for the 2003 MotoGP. However, beloved Honda rider Daljlro Kato suffered mortal injuries from a crash entering the bus-stop chicane, and there were an unusually high number of fallers in the bus-stop chicane during the 2003 Suzuka 200K superbike race. Claude Danis reluctantly agreed to allow the Caslo Triangle to be brought back for the 2003 B Hours. Danis personally Inspected the circuit for the April 23 homologation. The Ukawa/lzutsu Honda CBR IOOORRW recorded the highest top speed of the race, at 172.7 mph . The O kada/Kameya Honda CBRIOOORR recorded a speed of 172.2 mph, and the Watanabe/Kagayama Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R I 000 reco rded a speed of 171.1 mph . A private Kawasaki ZX-I OR was Impressive at 170.6 for fourth-fastest honors. The fastest Yamaha YZF-R I was 13th overall at 167.4. No American riders participated in the 8 Hours, a first in the history of the event. Date conflicts with the MotoGP race in Don lngton Park and the AMA Superbike race in Mid-Ohio was a major reason why there were no Ameri cans and few international riders. "This year Is on ly japanese rider," said HRC Director Koji Nakajima. "I want to use MotoGP or AMA rider, but the MotoGP and AMA race same day as 8 Hours race . However, we have to consider th e next generation of japanese riders ." The I 0 tire-set rule, Introduced in 2003 and universally brand ed by riders as stup id, remained In place for 2004. The rule restricts teams to only I 0 sets of tires for the race, Friday qualifying, and pre-race warm -up. The single-lap Special Stage is exempted from the rule. New rule wording was made to permit hand-cut wet tires, whereas last year's rule required molded rain tires . Intermediate tires were classified as rain tires and not subject to restriction, provided the intermediate tire had minimum number of grooves of minimum size, located consistently with a homologated pattern. Cut slicks and any nonhomologated pattern tires were subject to the 10 tire-set rule. A new rule introd uced in the 2004 Suzuka 8 Hours was the elimination of quick-change rear-wheel systems. QUick-change rea r-wheel systems commonly feature the drive-chain sprocket retained in the swlngarm during a wheel change . Suzuka now requ ires the drive -chain sprocket and the rear- brake disk be attached to the rear wheel. Pit stops under the new rule approached 20 seconds, almost double that from pit stops with qu ick-change systems. In the last two Suzuka 8 Hours, Honda used a six pit-stop strategy, compared to the typical seven pit-stop strategy. For those events, HRC developed RC-SI superbike engines with good fuel consumption. "This year, of cou rse , seven pit stops ," HRC Director Koji Nakajima said. "This year we have new four-cylinder, straight-line engine . It Is still In development for fuel consumption. Next year we will [improve] the engine. I want to challenge for six pit stops." The top satellite Honda team and champions in the 2003 Suzuka 8 Hours, Sakurai Honda, secured sponsorship from the Hansh in Tigers, a major league baseball team in southern japan , not far from Suzuka. Fittingly the riders , wore leathers styled after a plnstriped baseball uniform. Baseball is extremely popular in japan , and the Hanshin TIgers, despite years of underachievement, have devoted fans. "This baseball team's fans are very strong," Sakurai Honda rider Tadayuki Okada said. "In south japan , the people are not like japanese - they are more fun. Normally, japanese are very quiet and very shy. But south japanese people are more like Italian people. The Hanshin Tigers are now in third position , so maybe we can get podium position and give more power to the baseball team. " Little known fact: Tadayukl Okada, two-time B Hours champion, first raced the 8 Hours in 1988 w ith American Dale Quarterley as his teammate. "He was a quite funny guy and a good memory for me ," Okada said. "During the race , my first pit stop, I came Into the pit road . After running, I was much confused. I tried to stop on the stop board but could not stop and crashed. That was my first riding in the 8 Hours ." Tadayukl Okada has been spending 2004 managing Honda's race effort of Michael Rutter and Ryulchl Kyonari in the British Superbike championship. Suzuki rider Yu kio Kagayama is also racing in the BSB for 2004 with good success, picking up three wins thus far in the season. Howeve r, Kagayama has found racing In Britain much different that japan . "The British circuits are very difficult," Kagayama said. "The tracks are much nar rower and many ups and downs . And blind corners. Suzuka and MotoGP circuits, no t this situation . Suzuka more smooth. Some British riders are much fast and exciting. British riders have special riding technique. At Cadwell Park, that circuit has a jumping spot. I cannot ride jumping spot. But British riders are very smooth and very quickly at jumping spot. British riders are very good at stupid technique ." Shawn Giles , the Australian supe rbike champion in 2000 through 2002 and ru nner- up last year, was back at Suzuka for another 8 Ho urs. "O riginally, I was going to be a reserve rider for the Yoshimura te am three weeks ago," Giles said. "Then I got a phone call about a week and a half later from the CastroISuzuki team [to see] if I was interested to be a third ride r in the race . I was pretty keen to ride again, so here I am riding for the Castrol Suzuki team. Now I have gone from third posit ion in the team to second rider." The Austra lian adapted well to the French team's GSX-RI000 but could not keep up with the quick Hondas. "The Suzuki is really fast," he said. "We're just struggling driving off the turns , getting all the horsepower on the ground. Once we get the horsepower on the ground, we can match them , but that 's where we are losing the race : off the turns. The Fireblade is almost a dead -ringer copy for the MotoGP bike. The Suzuki is still a great bike, but It 's old now compared to the Honda , the Yamaha, and the Kawasaki. Next year Suzuki will bring a new mod el out and it will be better than the oth er bikes - at least I hop e sol" Plrelli Tire made its first significant showing in the 8 Ho urs. The company's sponsorship of the Yamaha GMT-94 team and Yamaha Austria team required it to make the trip to japan. "This year, we are here just because we are attending the endurance championship through the Yamaha team GMT-94," Pirelli racing activities manager Giorgio Barbier explained. "We are leading the championship, so it was absolutely Important to be here and make this race. The second team in the championship is here, the Castrol Suzuki team, so we canno t lose th e opportunity to get points . But, In any case , it Is ve ry interesting, because this race is so importa nt for japan and so important to this part of the world . We have to learn what we need to do. " The toughest challenge for Pirelli was dealing with Suzuka's event rule that restricts teams to 10 sets of tires across qualifyingand the race. "The tire regulations at 10 sets for the weekend Is not helping us make all the tests we would like to do ," Barbier said. "But , for sure, if we are back next year, we will take the time during the season to test before. Continued on poge www.cyclenews.com CYCLE NEWS • AUGUST 11 , 2004 4' 39

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