From: ai598@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Mike Sturdevant)
Subject: Late Assen report
Reply-To: ai598@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Mike Sturdevant)
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 92 15:33:57 GMT



I didn't do it in a timely fashion and it's too long - so sue me.

        Went to Assen for the TT a couple weeks ago but just got time to write 
about it. See another post here about how I spent last weekend.
        Amy the Wonder Wife and I flew from Cleveland to Chicago to Newark to 
London to Amsterdam (can you say "cheap seats"?) where we boarded a train to 
Groningen, Netherlands. Groningen is about 20 Km north of Assen, a good 
distance for easy accesibility without the danger of being so caught up in the 
festivities that we'd never get any sleep. This was intended to be a relatively 
relaxing vacation after all. Fred (old racing buddy from Sweden)met us there 
and ferried us about for the next four days as we went to watch practice for 
the GP during the days (some purty boring vintage racing too) and hung out at 
the cafes during the evenings. Uhhh, you know what I mean "cafe" right? In 
Holland, possesion of reefer isn't illegal. Got me how they get away with 
selling it from looseleaf notebooks in little tiny ziplocks held in photo 
album pages. Each page a different flavor and price. Good beer available too. 
Although the Dentergems that was recommended by a netter I can't place was 
actually lemon flavored goat piss I think. Definately not beer no matter what 
it said on the bottle.
        The night before the race is known as the "Night of Assen". Catchy 
name. I wouldn't have believed it though if I hadn't seen it. 120,000 drunk and 
stoned bikers and a town that had completely shut itself down to accomodate 
them. There was a nice, polite billboard warning against wheelies and burnouts 
and riding with no helmet, otherwise I never saw a cop or security guy except 
at the main route/town route junction where they were helping direct traffic. 
We didn't see everything that was happening in the town as we wanted to get to 
the track fairly early to see the morning warmups. We left Assen about 2:30AM. 
What we did see was - three different bandstands with a Megadeath clone, a 
Jefferson Airplane clone, and some slightly punk, too hip band on them 
respectively. A pro trials over some earthmoving equipment. A pro kart race 
with 125cc 6-speed karts going up and back a residential street at 2:00 in the 
morning, one hay bale away from 15,000 spectators. Rolmops - sorta half a fish 
with a yucky looking but good tasting cream sauce. French fries with mayo.  
More T-shirt stands than even Daytona. Lotsa Holland babes with huge cha-cha-
bingos. Seems it's hereditary.
        Oh yea, the babes. They all got Winnebagos and the European brassiere 
technology seems to be lagging behind that in the Americas cause they don't 
seem to do much in the way of "containing" those beasts. Some purty serious 
speed wobbles.
        So you wanta know about the racing right? We couldn't understand the 
announcements so we missed a bunch but what we didn't miss was - 
        Lawson op pole. That was the headline  and we figured out it meant 
Lawson was on pole. Doohon crashed during Friday qualifying and took himself 
out for a couple races. Rainey tried to practice Thursday but his wrist, 
injured in Germany the previous race, was not good enough to race with and he 
went home. Bet he regrets that now as he certainly could have collected some 
points. Gardner crashed on Friday and saw stars for the next two days and so 
DNS. 
        Race day started out a bit nuts. Seems the Yurpean football (soccer) 
championship final was the night before and the Danes had beat the till then 
dominant Germans. The Danes travelled in packs of 4 or 5, beers in hand, 
singing Danish fight songs or something at the top of their lungs. The Germans, 
liking to march, replied with their song. In the stands, 4 or 5 of either crew 
would stand, belt out a tune, and finish with 20 or 30 others helping them out. 
Then the other side (Germans-Danes)would take their turn. Sorta reminded me of 
chanting "the other side sucks" at the crowd on the other side of the track at 
Unadilla.  
        At the start of the race, Schwantz (cue-tip), Lawson, Barros, and 
Chandler freight trained away from the rest of the field. Chandler fell leaving 
the other three 5 or 6 seconds up on forth. I was going nuts yelling at Lawson 
to pass that MF and win one on the Cagiva. Lap 7 (maybe8?) and Lawson goes up 
the inside of Schwantz down the front straight - we were seated at the final 
chicane and had a fair view of this. But then they went under the pedestrian 
bridge and all we saw was some dust clouds and the crowd got real quiet. Lawson 
and Schwantz had taken each other out with Schwantz staying down and being 
carried off on a stretcher. Lawson stalked back to the pits, obviously po'd 
judging by the view thru the binoculars. This left Barros with about an 8 
second lead over the trio of Criville, Garriga, and Kocinski. Too bad young 
Alexandre doesn't know how to go that fast by himself as I was still rooting 
for a Cagiva victory. The trio gradually caught him though with it then 
becoming a four way battle. Garriga fell off the pace a bit but the lead trio 
was tight till the end, Criville making an agressive move past Kocinski to 
regain the lead, holding it till the end. From 125's to 500 race winner - not 
bad. 
        Today's trivia question. Who was the last non-English speaking native 
to win a 500 GP race?
        We spent another couple days riding bicycles and drinking beer at the 
outdoor brasseries (and watching Dutch hooters). A short train ride to Aachen 
Germany and we were watching homo's on horseback - also known as dressage. Amy 
the Wonder Wife was in Nirvana while I was coming down.
       I rode a bicycle around searching out an expansion chamber for my RD60 
while Amy watched one of the biggest dressage events of the year. There was 
also jumping but it was ill attended (by the riders, not the spectators) due to 
the impending Olympics. 
        My recommendation for youse guys that miss the USGP - go to yurp. It's 
more interesting getting into the local culture a bit - a real vacation. Even 
listening to the nightly news on BBC shortwave is totally different and will 
help you understand how the rest of the world thinks and feels.
        An hour and a half after we got in the door back at the Ranch, Brent 
Schuster called and asked if I'd be willing to ride the 24 HR at Nelson Ledges. 
This weekend. (Last weekend now). I like Brent so I said "sure, what team?"
"TKO with a guy that says he knows you from some e-mail thing - Steve Doolin"
But that's another story.




-- 
Go fast. Take chances.

	Mike S.