Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
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inches. It was agonizingly close for Mang. He had the bike that day but underestimated the ad- vantage of the draft at Daytona. Mang again had a great bike at Daytona in '81. He would go on that year to win both the 250cc and the 350cc World Championships with Kawasaki, but a loose rear axle cost him the chance to win, and he was helpless to do anything as Eddie Lawson and Jimmy Filice pulled away from him. Again, a podium, now his third on the box at Daytona, but the big prize contin- ued to elude him. It would be five years before Mang returned. Now a four- time World Champ, Mang was so primed, so confident, that he would finally win Daytona in 1986. He had the right to be confident. He now had ample ex- perience in the art of the Daytona draft, and he would be riding the awesome factory Rothmans Honda NSR250 GP machine. The '86 edition of the Day- tona International Lightweight race had an impressive field of international riders. The big- gest challenge to Mang in the '86 race would be Spaniard Sito Pons, also on a factory-backed NSR250. Mang dominated quali- fying to earn the pole. Pons was second on the grid, followed by another Honda-mounted Span- iard Carlos Cardus. German Re- inhold Roth was fourth, also on a Honda. Then came yet another German, Harald Eckl and Bel- gium's Stephane Mertens. Start- ing to get the international pic- ture? The top American qualifier was AMA 250GP Series Champ Donny Greene in seventh! After years of tough luck, Mang got maybe the biggest break of the race before the green flag even dropped. As riders came around after the warm-up lap, Pons stopped at his pit to top off his bike's tank with gas. Then he started to move to his front-row stating position, but the two-minute board was already up, and he was stopped and forced to start from the back of the field. It probably wouldn't have mattered much anyway. Mang was on his game that day and was unstoppable. England's Gary Noel led the start on an EMC, but Mang blew by Greene and Noel on the bank- ing and that was basically the race. Mang was gone. He effort- lessly opened up a 30-second lead and lapped all the way up to fifth place. Pons finished a dis- tant second and Eckl third mak- ing for only the second (and final) international-rider-filled podium in the history of the race. Mang had finally won at Day- tona on his sixth attempt. "It was quite an easy race," Mang said. "It was more like a long practice than a race. Every time I saw a pit signal there was a two-second gain on my lead." It would be the last time Mang raced Daytona. He would go on to win the 250cc Grand Prix World Championship again in 1987 and retire after the 1988 season as one of racing's all-time greats. CN CN III ARCHIVES P138 Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives Daytona in '81. He would go on that year to win both the 250cc and the Toni Mang and his factory Rothman's Honda GP machine were so dominant at Daytona in '86, Mang said the event felt more like an extended practice session rather than a race. So needless to say, with Spencer and Lawson in the race, even though Mang was favored, it wouldn't be easy.