Racing For Real
Racing For Real
RACE WATCH
Laguna Seca '86: Damn the wheelies, full speed ahead
DAVID EDWARDS
THE SETTING WAS ALMOST TOO appropriate. Eddie Lawson, on a one-week hiatus from the world roadracing wars, was staring into the shark tank at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. As a particularly menacing Sevengill swam smoothly in his direction, Lawson admitted that he had always been fascinated by sharks and their aggressive nature. A companion, hanging on his arm, voiced her opinion. “Each movement is perfect,” she said.
Two days later and 10 miles down the road at Laguna Seca Raceway, Eddie Lawson, cool and predatory, was in the midst of making all the right moves as he pulled into the lead of the first leg of the Nissan 200. And then, perhaps biting off more than he could chew, Lawson attempted to barge his way around a backmarker. The rider was going a good 10 mph slower than Lawson and using an unusually wide line through Turn Seven, a 100-mph downhill sweeper. Torced to the outside, Lawson ran across the white line marking the track’s edge, and for a moment, with his foot on the ground, appeared as if he were going to save it.
Unfortunately, YZR500 Yamahas don’t like to be dirt-tracked, and not even Lawson’s considerable talent could prevent a thudding, 80-mph impact with the hay bales. With that, Lawson was through for the day, lucky not to be out for the rest of the year. A trip to the hospital revealed nothing broken, but Lawson’s bruised and battered body had just four days to heal before practice began for the French GP. With only a 10-point lead over Randy Mamola in the world series, Lawson —not to mention his Marlboro sponsors — could have done quite nicely without the crash.
Ironically, the man who benefitted most immediatelv from the crash was Randy Mamola, who went on to win that first leg of the race, followed byteammate Mike Baldwin.
In Europe. Mamola and Baldwin both ride for Team Lucky Strike, a semi-factory effort that uses YZR Yamahas and is managed by none other than three-time world champ Kenne Roberts. Because Lucky Strike's parent company, Brown & Williamson, doesn’t own the rights to that name in the U.S.. the red-blackand-white livery of Lucky Strike was changed to the green-and-white of Team Kool. one of the other cigarette brands owned by B&W.
Whatever the color of their machinery. both riders have benefitted from the tutelage of Roberts and the change to Yamahas. In 1985. Mamola had been disheartened with his second-string V-Three Honda, and finished sixth in the point standings. This year, aided by an extensive diet-and-exercise regimen. Mamola is within grasp of his first-ever world championship. Likewise, Baldwin is riding w'ith newfound vigor after a self-sponsored 1985 in which he struggled to get his V-Three Honda into the top five. But this year, photos from Europe offer proof that the 3 1year-old Baldwin is riding extremely hard, with the bike right up to and sometimes off the edge of the track in an effort to squeeze every last iota of speed from it. That intensity certainly w'as evident during practice sessions at Laguna Seca, where Baldwin was usually the first rider on the track. Setting fast qualifying time also helped his outlook considerably.
Baldwin’s spirits w ere buoyed even more at the start of the second leg of the Nissan 200, as he soon cleared aw'ay from the rest of the field while Mamola stayed back and played tag with Wayne Rainey and Kork Ballington. ín years past, the F-l race at Laguna has turned out to be a show of high-speed wheelies until the last few laps, at which point the leaders would power up to full throttle and begin to race for real. With Baldwin smelling victory, though, the wheelies this year were few; and w ith onethird of the race completed. Mamola realized it was time to get serious.
With 10 laps left in the race. Mamola, cutting very quick lap times, had Baldwin firmíy in his cross hairs. What followed had even hardened Camel Pro observers slackjarred and wide-eyed. Baldwin and Mamola just plain hammered on each other, to the delight of the 40.000 or so fans in attendance. Using a steadv stream of lapped riders as a deadly backdrop (the Team Kool duo lapped everyone save third-place Ballington). they criss-crossed, slid and bumped their w;ay around the tw'o-mile circumference of the track in a display of truly w'orld-class riding talent. In the end. it was Baldwin, who had never won at Laguna, who refused to blink, taking the checkered flag tw'o-tenths of a second ahead of Mamola.
Later. Baldwin would sav that. yes. perhaps he had wanted this win just a little bit more than everyone else, quickly adding that it really was just a matter of luck, especially with so many lappees to shuffle through. Then he revealed the real secret to his win: “I dedicated every lap that I had on the track to going as fast as I possibly could.”
It showed. Michael, it showed.
The Lawson/Baldwin/M amóla confrontation was the certainly the center-ring attraction at Laguna Seca this year, but there were plenty of sideshows if you knew w here to look.
Item: Honda’s Wayne Rainey had his V-Three RS500 running well at times during the F-l race but fell victim to Laguna’s bike-gobbling Corkscrew section. Rainey’s fall, and the points he did not gain as a result, all but eliminated him from the F-l points chase, leaving Randy Renfrow and Kork Ballington to duke it out for the championship.
Item: At least Rainey was on form in the Superbike race. His win there put him one series point ahead of Fred Merkel, who was forced to put in a slashing, come-from-behind ride to finish third.
Item: Dirt-track star Bubba Shobert registered another impressive performance to finish second in the Superbike race. Although Shobert has Honda's full weight behind him when he's wearing a steel shoe, his roadrace deal is little more than a support ride. Honda gave Shobert one of last year’s Interceptor racebikes and a spare engine, but he pays out of his own pocket for a mechanic and transportation of the machine. Compared to the new' team Interceptors. Shobert’s bike is reportedly 10 horsepower shy and 20 pounds heavier, but Bubba’s not complaining. “I’m still learning, and right now the bike and I are about equal,” he said. Still. Shobert managed to get in a playful dig when Rainey accepted his mock offer to a showdown on a mile dirt-track: “Since I’m riding the old bike from last year. I’ll give him one of my old Harleys.”
Item: There was another dynamic duo on the track besides Baldw in and Mamola, albeit now here near as wellknown. Riding near-stock Suzuki GSX-Rs. Gary Goodfellow and Doug Polen finished fifth and sixth in F-l and sixth and seventh in Superbike. Goodfellow is a transplanted New Zealander who is now' based out of Vancouver, Canada. Polen is a Texan who gave up roadracing for two years before being lured out of retirement by the contingency money being offered in Suzuki’s GSX-R Cup series. Polen travels around the country, bikes in trailer, making as many races as he can; and with almost $30.000 in winnings this year, he can rightfully lav claim to being America's most successful club racer.
Item: Yoshimura Suzuki rider Kevin Schwantz. himself a Texan who rose from the club-racing ranks, didn’t have a particularly great weekend. His GSX-R’s engine gave up the ghost in a Superbike qualifying heat, and then, after propelling him to a win in the last-chance qualifier, did a similar disappearing act in the final. Neither did Schwantz endear himself to his sponsors when he decided to ride a Honda 250 in the Formula Two event. Schwantz, who has ridden Yamahas and Harley-Davidsons this year at dirt-track races, had never even sat on a 250-class roadracer before Laguna Seca, but was quickly up to speed with a heat-race win ahead of defending F-II champ Don Greene. Schwantz looked good in the final as well, trading the lead with Greene until he crashed, unhurt, in Turn Eight. Greene went on to win, assuring himself the F-Il championship with two races still remaining.
Item: Marco Lucchinelli. the Italian former world champion, not onlv won the Battle of the Twins race with ease, but logged a good ride on his VTwin Cagiva-Ducati in the Superbike final, finishing 1 1th. Lucchinelli had never ridden at Laguna before Friday’s practice, and when he got his first look at the infamous Corkscrew, could only mutter "Oh. wow.” In Italian, of course.
Item: Trying-the-Hardest-Withthe-Least award goes to Canadian Miles Baldwin. The Camel Pro veteran was soldiering along on an old Yamaha TZ750 that he had persuaded to run for yet another season, when he crashed heavily, coming to rest in the middle of the track and causing the race to be red-flagged. The tougher-than-nails "Milo” waved off the ambulance and walked the rest of the way into the pits to the applause of spectators.
Item: The hottest rider at Laguna Seca was Edwin Woo—literally. A Northern California club racer in only his second national, Woo got a little excited on the warm-up lap and attacked the Corkscrew with a bit too much bravado, resulting in a slideout. Gas dribbling from his bike's full fuel tank was ignited by a spark, and within seconds Woo’s bike was engulfed in flames. Much to the consternation of the corner workers. Woo w'aded up to the bike, flames lapping at his leathers, to pull the fuel tank off the bike before it exploded. "I had to,” he said later. "I just bought the bike for $15.000: it’s an ex-Steve Baker OW Yamaha and there are only five like it in the world. What would you have done?”
