Cycle News

VOL. 55 ISSUE 1 JANUARY 9, 2018 P105 a little wider for Lawson, but there was no short- age of competition for the 1984 world champ. Honda was loaded again with newly hired Wayne Rainey, defending AMA Superbike Cham- pion Fred Merkel and emerging flat track super- star-turned road racer Bubba Shobert. Yoshimura Suzuki had a true weapon in its new GSX-R750 and Schwantz was loaded with talent and looked prepared to upset the Honda-versus-Yamaha storyline. Backing up Schwantz was the newly crowned Japanese Superbike (TT-F1) Champion Satoshi Tsujimoto. Taking no chances, Yamaha also brought GP racer Mike Baldwin to the pro- ceedings, along with Jimmy Filice. Lawson edged Rainey in qualifying. Schwantz, Tsujimoto and Baldwin rounded out the front-row starters. Lawson found out that the one open question about the power of the Yamaha was an- swered with resounding positives. Not only was he the fastest qualifier, but trap speeds showed his machine was the second-fastest bike, topping out at 170.13 mph. Only Rainey's Honda was slightly faster on the top end at 171.42 mph. Schwantz' Suzuki came in at 169.17 mph. There was a massive 160-rider entry list in that year's 200, which meant that half of the riders never made it to the starting grid. The 200 quickly developed into a battle be- tween Lawson, Rainey and Schwantz. The trio quickly gapped the rest of the field. Lawson looked effortless in setting the pace, leading most of the time. Rainey's Honda was fast, slipping past Lawson here and there, but mainly he seemed happy to latch on to Lawson and use him as a gauge. Schwantz was hanging in there, but looked on the ragged edge doing it, finding he was forced to try to brake later and lean his Suzuki harder to stay with the leaders. Schwantz eventu- ally realized he was going to have to dial it back if he was going to go the distance, so six or seven laps in he dropped off the pace, just a tad, making it a two-way fight for the lead. The pace was so intense that Lawson and Rainey were hitting lapped traffic by the seventh lap! The grunt of V-4 Honda VFR750 was allowing Rainey to hook up wonderfully out of the cor- ners, but at a cost. He slowed and then pulled in on the 15th lap with a chunked tire. The crew was not ready for the premature stop and he lost 50 seconds in the pits. Lawson by now was long gone. Lawson built on his lead the rest of the way in a flawless race, complete with ultra-fast sub- 20-second pit stops. He was so much in control that after his last pit stop he dialed back his pace by two seconds per lap and still went unchal- lenged. Schwantz was the only real threat, until the chain stretched on his Suzuki wearing down the sprocket teeth. He would have to nurse the bike the rest of the race. Merkel was gaining on Schwantz and likely would have passed him for second, but he too chucked a tire on his Honda late, ending his hopes of a runner-up finish. Lawson was happy with his victory and his $20,000 payday. There wasn't a lot to talk about after such a dominating win. "I thought if he was going to run the whole dis- tance that way, we were in for a hell of a race," Lawson said of Rainey. "It was just a matter of getting through traffic and it was bad. My tires were getting a little slippery at the end, but it wasn't like they were unrideable." Lawson's race time of one hour, 54 minutes, 49.656 seconds at an average of 106.030 mph, shattered the record for the Daytona 200 set the year before by Spencer by over three minutes with Spencer '85 victory completed in one hour, 58 minutes, 13.067 seconds at 102.989 mph. It also marked Yamaha's first-ever AMA Super- bike victory. Lawson would go on to wrap up a fantastic 1986, winning back the 500cc Grand Prix World Championship. CN Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives

• Cover