Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

SROADRACE Road Race Series: Round 9. ~ Lawson celebrates with Giacomo Agostini and one of the Castiglioni brothers. 125cc GP winner Alessandro Grarnigni (39), holds off Ralf Waldmann (3) and Fausto Gresini (2) in the 12Sec GP; Waldmann finished second and increased his points lead/ 12 an early tire change saw him finishing strongly, passing the fading Kocinski two laps from the end. Behind them, Juan Garriga was a lone eighth, the last rider not to be lapped. ·Lawson's teammate Alex Barros was ninth and set the fastest lap, after pitting for a tire change; with Ireland's Eddie Laycock claiming the last championship point. Miguel DuHamel was 11th, and GP debutante Andrew Stroud a good 12th on the injured Peter Goddard's Valvoline Yamaha, after Niall Mackenzie had lost ninth place in a lengthy tire-ehanging pit stop. There were several sad stories among the privateers. Briton Kevin Mitchell (Harris-Yamaha) had taken the same tire gamble as Lawson,. and was wellplaced for a charge into the points when an engine bolt backed out; and Corrado Catalano (Roc-Yamaha), who was eighth and chasing Lawson when his· ignition went off. Criville must have been the most disappointed. He was out of the" points when he was called in by his t~am, and put onto his spare bike, ready warmed up and wearing intermediate tires. His team manager had misunderstood the rules and thought it was now legal to change bikes. It was said he'd checked with rival team owner Kenny Roberts, who must have been amused when Criville was black-flagged a couple of laps later. Doohan surely appreciated the result, with his closest championship rival Schwantz only fourth. In absentia he . remained massively in the lead of the championship, with 130 points to Schwantz's 87. Rainey now has 73, with Chandler closing up in fourth on 72, and Kocinski losing ground on 55. 250cc GP The 250s started with an echo of the 5ODs, with rain starting in the middle of the first lap, and the red flags out immediat~ly. The start had already been delayed once, and now it was deferred again. By now, front-row qualifier Carlos Cardus had decided not to compete, still in pain from his shoulder injury. It was dry when they did get underway, with Doriano Romboni's nonworks Honda RS SPL leading the charge from Loris Reggiani, with the latter's works Aprilia getting into the lead on the second lap and making a small break on his own. By now, however, pole man Cadalora had recovered from a slow start and was in second, and he closed up onto the Aprilia's tail to make it two of them pulling away ahead. "I was confident of being able to win here because of my practice time,"·said Cadalora, his Rothmans Honda was fastest by a full second. But he was not confident enough to leave it to a last-lap move, as he does so often. This time he took to the front on the ninth lap, just riding away to win by more than 11 seconds. Reggiani was similarly unmolested in second, while Spaniard Alberto Puig (Aprilia) seemed to be safe in third. Until Chili turned up, on a major charge. The Assen-winning Aprilia star had been left at the start, finishing lap one in 16th, and he'd been storming through, emerging at the front of a close battle for fourth at two-thirds distance. He quickly closed up on Puig, and passed him, but the Spaniard fought back and regained the place after Chili's first overtaking move, and they settled in to a fierce fight. It ended abruptly on the 25th lap. Chili's dramatic riding had cooked his tires, and he was flicked over the highside and into the bales, running straight back to the bike to tour disconsola tely into the pits. , The fight for .fourth was excellent, incorporating at one stage seven bikes, before J.P. Ruggia retired his Gilera with ignitiqn problems and Biaggi crashed out (one lap after Chili). This left Shimizu, Zeelenberg, Bradl and Romboni scrapping it out, with Jochen Schmid losing ground behind by the finish as they passed the flag in that order. It was a great ride for "Rambo" Romboni, riding a factory-kitted RS Honda among the full works bikes; and for recuperating Dutchman Zeelenberg, who almost crashed the Lucky Strike Suzuki after Shimizu' dragged his knee on the inside of one comer as Chili was coming past them, and threw grit and stones under the Suzuki's front wheel. He held off Brad!, who had followed Chili through from a poor start of his own, but stopped taking too many risks after a couple of near misses. Former double champion Carlos Lavado had wasted his front-row start and finished li,lp one in 20th place, but he also gradually pulled through on the Gilera to finish ninth, too far behind Schmid to be a threat, but consigning Torrontegui's Suzuki to 10th place. Bernd Haengelli (Aprilia) was 11th, after a race-long battle with Kozono's Honda; Andy Preining took 13th in a close finish with Stefan Prein (Honda) and fellow Aprilia rider Bernd Kassner. Cadalora now has 155 points and an alm~t unassailable championship lead he can secure the crown in France in one week. Reggiani is second on 97, Chili has 72, Bradl 67 with Puig moving up on 62. 12Sec GP The minute crowd saw the first race get away in perfect conditions, with Ezio Gianola bursting past pole starter Alex Gramigni to put his Semprucci Honda into· a lead tha t rapidly grew until, with six laps gone, he was almost five seconds ahead and seemed set for ·yet another runaway victory. There was a huge 10-bike brawl behind him, all slowing oI)e another down. It wasn't until one-third distance that Raff Waldmann moved firmly to the front, and started to pull away rapidly, with Bruno Casanova (Aprilia), Gabriele Debbia (Honda), Gramigni (Aprilia) and Noboyuki Wakai (Honda) all piling up behind Fausto Gresini (Honda), who was holding third place. By half-distance, Waldmann was on Gianqla's tail, and by now things were going wrong for the Assen winner. "Something must have broken in my' front forks, and the suspension was jumping around," said Gianola; and he dropped to second place on lap 15, and went straight do.wn to third as a hardcharging Gramigni dived past as weli. He gradually faded, to finish an eventual11th. Gresini soon joined the two up front, with Gramigni giving it aU he had to take the lead on lap 18; and it looked like a three-man battle to the finish. Then Japanese charger Wakai closed up in the final lap, and it turned into a brawling dash for glory. Gramigni held them all off, with Waldmann hanging on to second, Gresini third and then Wakai, with just over three-tenths of a second covering the first four across the line. . Debbia won a fierce tussle with Spaan for .fifth by a similar margin; Kazuto Sakata. (Honda) was seventh after succumbing to the Dutch veteran in his best race of the year. Bu t the Japanese hero managed to hold off his countryman Noboru Veda by just over a tenth. Ueda was making his return after breaking his wrist in Germany, and was laboring under the unusual disadvantage of not being able to open the throttle fully in one go. Bruno Casanova (Aprilia) was ninth after duelling for the lead then narrowly escaping falling in an off-trackexcursion. Takao Shimizu was 10th. Waldmann extended his title lead to 101 points over Gresini's 88, with Gramigni closing up in third on 87, and .Gianola dropping to fourth with·81. Sidecar GP The last race of a day of variety was. also one of the most settled. Rolf Biland's plan had been to get an early lead and then save his tires, and that's exactly what he did, winning by almost eight seconds at the finish. He was considerably helped by the nature of the track. Narrow and perpetually twisty, it offered few passing opportunities for solos and almost none for the sidecars. . Title leader Steve Webster had no chance to attack after he took 19 laps to get past the comingman Klaus Klaffenbock, only succeeding when the Austrian ran into gear-ehange problems. He held onto third, however, to finish eight seconds behind the Briton. Bohnhorst was fourth, hard pressed at the finish by Streuer, who got an appalling start and had a dramatic afternoon charging through. The Dutchman's last victim had been sixthplaced Kumagaya, with Briton Abbot seventh, Darren Dixon eighth, and the Egloff brothers ninth, the last outfit not to be lapped out of 15 finishers. The Guedel brothers were among eight retirements after a strong ride, while Bosman and Kellet also stopped 16 laps from the end. Webster extended his title lead to 70 points over Klaffenbock's 54, with Biland moving up on 43. CN Results 125ee QUALIFYING: 1. Alessandro Gramigni (1 :50.034); 2. Ezio Gianola (1:50.129); 3. Nobuyuki Wakai (1:50.177); 4. T. Shimizu (1:50.247); 5. Bruno Casanova (1:50.330); 6. Gabriele Debbia (1:50.373); 7. Fausto Gresini (1:50.564); 8. Ralf Waldmann (1:50.687); 9. Jorge Martinez (1:50.819); 10. Oliver Petruceiani (1:50.935); 11. Kazuto Sakata (1:50.983); 12. Hans Spaan (1:51.052); 13. Carlos Giro (1:51.146); 14. Noburo Veda (1:51.304); 15. Dirk Raudies (J:51.452); 16. L. Bodelier (1:51.463); 17. Maurizio Vitali (1:51.650); 18. Arie Molenaar (1:51.816); 19. Julian Miralles (1:51.967); 20. Peter Oettl (1:52.075); 21. Heinz Leuthi (1:52.162); 22. Luis Alvaro (J:52275); 23. Manuel Hernandez (1:52.362); 24. G. Palmieri (J:52.666); 25. Hisashi Unemoto (J:52.84J); 26. Hans Abold (1:52.905); 27. Oliver Koch (1:52.921); 28. Kinya Wada (1:52.980); 29. Guiseppe Fiorillo (1:53.542); 30. Robin Appleyard (J:53.693); 31. Steven Patriekson (1:53.851); 32. Fausto Ricci (1:54.067); 33. Peter Galvin (1:54.258); 34. Alain Bronec (1:54.258); 35. Alfred Waibel (1:55.413); 36. T. Kis (1:56.949); 37. A. Szabo (1 :57.640). 2SOce QUALIFYING: 1. Luea Cadalora (1:44.069); 2. Carlos Cardus (1:45.047); 3. Loris Reggiani (1:45.079); 4. Carlos Lavado (1:45.1 16); 5. Doriano Romboni (1:45.252); 6. Helmut Bradl (1 :45.279); 7. Alberto Puig (1:45.342); 8. Pier-Francesco Chili (1:45.373); 9. Massamiliano Biaggf (1:45.486); 10. Jean-Philippe Ruggia (1 :45.886); 11. Jochen Schmid (l :45.950); 12. Herri Torrontegui (1:46.112); 13. Loris Capirossi (1:46.229);-'14. Wileo Zeelenberg (1:46.389); 15. Masahiro Shimizu (1:46.404); 16. Andy Preining (1:46.488); 17. Stefan Prein (1:46.493); 18. Frederic Protat (1:46.509); 19. Renzo Colleoni (1:46.551); 20. Paolo Casoli (1:46.821); 21. Bernd Kassner (1:46.934); 22. Katsuyoshi Kozono (1:46.966); 23. J.V.D. Goorberg (1:47.142); 24. Bernard Haenggeli (1:47.186); 25. Adrian Bosshard (1:47.271); 26. P.V.D. Goorbergh (1:47.503); 27. ]. Kuhn (1:47.746); 28. M. Gallina (1:47.779); 29. Eski! Suter (1:47.814); 30. Yves Briguet (1:48.006); 31. Luis D'Antin (1:48200); 32. Adi Stadler (1:48.293); 33. Harald

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