Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

~ ROADRACE World Championship Endurance Road Race Series: Round 2 Both Kawasakis were down to two riders apiece in the latter stages when Vieira and D'Orgeix left the track to fly to Paris and take part in a French National Superbike race at Carole later in the afternoon. Third, a further 14 laps behind, came the Finacor Yamaha of Phillip Monneret, Bruno Bonhuil and Michel Mattioli, followed by the Giat Industries Suzuki, a 1991 model GSXR, of Michel Simeon, Mario DuHamel and Michel Graziano four more laps adrift. ' Graziano sits third in the championship with 60 points (he raced with the SERT team alongside Moineau and Lavielle at Le Mans) while Simeon and DuHamel are fourth overall with 48. French Canadian DuHamel, the elder brother of Yamaha France 500cc GP star Miguel, commented: "It went pretty well for us. No real problems. We lost a bit of time in the pits. This weekend we ran some new discs which were harder on the brake pads and meant we had to change them more often. Hopefully we'll get a '92 motor and chassis for the Bol D'Or. We'll need more horsepower for that race." ~ Qualifying Kawasaki France's Carl Fogarty, Terry Rymer and Jehan D'Orgeix w~n in Belgium. Two for two for Kawasaki France By Gary Pinchin SPA·FRANCORCHAMPS, BELGIUM, JULY 5 ritish riders Carl Fogarty and Terry Rymer, riding a factory Kawasaki France lXR750, lead the World Endurance Championship with maximum points after two races. Following their Le Mans 24-Hour win back in April, their latest victory came in the 24 Heures De Liege at the SpaFrancorchamps circuit, with Frenchman Jehan D'Orgeix the third rider. The winning trio completed 531 laps for a total of 2288.61 miles at an average speed of 95.668 mph. The race featured a tense battle between the eventual winners and the single works SERT Suzuki of Herve Moineau, Patrick Igoa and Christian Lavielle. But the event reached a dramatic conclusion with an hour and a half remaining when Moineau crashed while on the same lap as the Kaw.asaki. Moineau lost it at Blanchimont, a wide-open, sixth-gear lefthander when oil from his own engine sprayed onto his rear Michelin. The slick caused another machine to crash and the pace car was brought out for almost an hour while the course was cleaned up. Until then, the rival factory teams had battled for the lead, the Kawasaki being faster in the dry while the Suzuki picked up time in the early rain storms. B The Kawasakis were also losing time to the Suzuki in the pits, especially early in the race when the conditions varied frequently between wet and dry and the team took too long with wheel/tire changes. Rymer said: "We had a hard battle with the Suzuki. We were running not far off superbike pace for 23 hours, that's hard graft! We're all pleased for Kawasaki and Dunlop but it's a shame the Suzuki wasn't around at the finish. 'I don't like winning like that. "We had a bit of bad luck late in the race when the end of the gear lever broke off. We lost time getting that changed and I think that's when Moineau decided to go for it. Then he crashed and it was all over." Steve Hislop, Alex Vieira and Jean Louis Battistini, on the other works Kawasaki, finished second, eight laps down after losing time early in the race when Hislop fell during a heavy rain,storm, in the same high speed turn as Moineau's later tumble. Hislop, though, was delighted with' the result. ''I'm really pleased to have finished and get some points," he said. "We were leading at Le Mans when we broke so it's good to get back into the championship. But it was hard, especially those last three hours when Jean Louis and I did double stints." It was another disappointing entry for World Endurance when only 43 entries lined up for qualifying, with only three full factory bikes among them. The crowd was also down from the previous year to 20,00.0 (22,000 last year). This could have been because' of poor weather on the Saturday morning of the race and a blockade of French freeways by the striking truck drivers - but there was much discussion in pidane whether the new superbike regulations for endurance racing would stimulate interest in the ailing class for 1993. Fogarty put the Kawasaki France lXR-7 on pole, with a two-minute, 30.84-second lap, the only rider. to crack 31 seconds. He was teamed with Rymer, the pair, with help from Belgian Michel Simul, having already won the Le Mans 24 Hours, would be joined by Frenchman Jehan D'Orgeix. He missed Le Mans after crashing in qualifying. Herve Moineau was second quickest with a 2:31.66 on the SERT Suzuki also ridden by Christian Lavielle and Patrick Igoa, now back to full fitness after breaking his collarbone in qualifying at Le Mans. Alex Vieira qualified the other Kawasaki lXR-7 third overall with a 2:31. 75. Steve Hislop crashed the bike in the first timed session, blaming soft suspension for his crash. The consistent Jean 'Louis Battistini completed the team. Fourth fastest was the kitted OWOl Finacor Yamaha of Monneret/Bon-' huil/Mattioli and fifth was the Genoud Godier Kawasaki of Mouzin/ Bonoris and Michel Simul, the Belgian who team'ed with Rymer and Fogarty at Le Mans. Race It was overcast and spots of rain kept threatening but the race got underway at 3:00 p.m. with everyone on slicks and Moineau taking the initial lead on the factory SERT Suzuki. Within the lap, Fogarty had blasted in front on the Kawasaki France lXR-7 and between them the pair pulled .£our seconds a lap on the second of the Kawasakis piloted by Steve Hislop. The privateers had their own battle even further back with local Paul Ramon in fourth on the Rizla Kawasaki ahead of fast gating Simon Buckmaster on the leading Honda in the race. . The first two hours saw the works Kawasakis sandwiching the Suzuki with the Rymer lXR-7 in front. Fourth was the Ramon/Van Vaerenbbergh/ De Danker Kawasaki but in the third hour Hislop and Ramon both crashed in the same turn when the rain came down heavily. Ramon's team dropped to 20th when he had to push in for repairs. The works Kawasaki, though, only suffered a bent' clip-on and broken fairing while Hislop was a little dazed after banging the back of his head when he whacked into the bale-lined steel barrier. "I was just hooking fifth, short-shifting to stop the wheel spinning when the bike snapped sideways and spat me over the bars," said Hislop. "In the dry, we are going 140/ 150 mph but I guess I was only doing 100/110 mph when I went down. I slid for ages." While the Hislop team battled back up to third by the fourth hour, the leading Kawasaki lost two laps - and the lead - after a bungled pit stop just before 7:30 p.m., four and a half hours into the race. Rymer came in a lap early with his wets completely shot and sliding around badly. He asked for slicks as the track was virtually dry everywhere except in front of the pits. From the Kawasaki pit, the dry line appearing at the top of Le Radion (the uphill turn two) could clearly be seen. Team' manager Christian Bourgeois said no and sent him back out. Incredibly, Hislop had pitted 20 minutes earlier with 'shot wets on the other Kawasaki - and there had been no rain since. A lap later Rymer pitted for his scheduled stop to hand over to D'Orgeix and said the track now required slicks. After the mechanics had fitted a slick"front, Bourgeois ordered them to replace it with an intermediate to match the rear. Rymer stormed out of the pit box in disgust. Two laps later D'Orgeix pitted for slicksl The indecision handed the Suzuki a lap lead. After five hours the Suzuki had a two-lap lead but the Fogarty/Rymer/ ' D'Orgeix Kawasaki gradually pegged back the lost ground to actually lead during the seventh hour. But at midnight the Suzuki was back in front by a lap. And .the pattern followed through a tense night of racing with the Kawasaki often edging ahead, only to lose the lead with less efficient pit work to that of Dominique Melliand's Suzuki team. But the balance of power was restored when the Suzuki' encountered some minor suspension problems and a broken tailpipe which had to be replaced. • The Godier Genoud Kawasaki of Mouzin/Bonoris/Simul lost five places and some seven laps just before midnight when they ran out of gas at the 24th post, almost a mile and a half from the pits. That promoted the 1991 Le Mans 24 Hour-winning Finacor .Yamaha team to fourth, followed by the Suzuki of Simeon/DuHamel/Graziano and the Daffix Honda of Buckmaster/ Soulon/Amalric - these three teams all on the same lapl DuHamel's team had opted to run different discs for this race than they used at Spa and the pad wear rate far exceeded their expectations which meant several lengthy stops to replace pads. Buckmaster was impressive on the French Honda in the wet, particularly in the heavy rain when he was one of the fastest riders on the track including the factory riders! The Daffix Motors team, though, lacked endurance experience, especially com-

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