Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

_ _ _ __ _ W_or_ld_€_ha_mpionShi~_er_bi_ke_S_eri_es_:R _d_9 _O_UD Fabrizio Pirovano (4) leads Baldassarre Monti (8), Alex Vieira (15), Stephane Mertens, and Jamie James at Le Mans. Jamie James finished second in the first leg, but crashed out of the second race; James opted to go to Le Mans rather than the Kansas round of the AMA series. r Nobody could stop Frenchman Raymond Roche as he won both legs at his home round of the series to further extend his championship point lead. Roche wins in F rance By Bruce Newton Photos by Johan Vandekerckhove 20 LE MANS, FRANCE, SEPT. 9 aymond Roch e may not think so yet, but the truth is that he has just about locked up the Diesel J eans World Superbike Cha mpionship. R Two emphatic wins in round nine on home territory at Le Mans have given him a 55-point advantage over rival Step hane Mertens. Roch e scored his wins in typical style, starting poorl y and then co mi ng th ro ugh th e pack , exp loi ting th e Ducati's po wer and his own skill to the utmost. Mertens co uld manage o nly two thirds on the T otal /Bel-Ray Honda, behi nd visiti ng America n J am ie Jam es in race o ne and Fabrizio Pirovano in race two. He hasn 't gi ven up the fight, but Roche will ha ve to do something stupid to lose now. After a nearl y flawless season there's no reaso n to suspect the Frenchman is about to wilt under the pressu re. James was havi ng the perfect weekend up until the 10th lap of the second race when he crashed the Ducati out of a close fourth , the America n doin g little damage to himself, fortunately. Qualifying With the series moving bac k to Europe, a full field was on hand. French riders filled ou t the entry list, but few of them posed a threat against .the series regulars. Missing for the second race in a row, thanks to two bro ken vertebrae in his -neck, was Fred Merkel. T he Rumi team has now resigned itself to the fact that it won 't be retaining its exclusive hold o ver the cha m p io n sh ip , althou gh Merkel desperately wanted to be at the Bugatti Circuit, seeking three doctors op inio ns (including Dr. David Kieffer's) before accep ting the inevitable. It was a series regular who took the po le posi tio n, but o ne who up until very r ecently hasn 't posed a threat to the lead ers either. Baldassarre Monti is flourish ing in the cont in ued absence of his team ma te Merkel and his latest feat was to stea l po le pos itio n o ut from under the nose of Roche. The Fren ch man had prod uced a seem ingly un challen gab le I minu te, 45.7-second lap time (I :47.2 was the lap record) in the first sessio n with Monti second at 1:46.19. But with just minut es to go in sessio n two, Monti got close with a 1:45.76 and then wheeled the Honda into the pits and a Pirelli q ualifyin g tir e was slipped on th e rear wh eel. The result was a I:45.4 lap. Roch e was left with too little time to rep ly, as he recorded a 1:45.88 as the . checkered flag fell. Form er Grand Prix ace Rob McElnea benefitted from arriving early in the week and after plenty of testing on the Loctite Yamaha he was third fastest. James,-like Monti, a first time visitor to Le Mans claimed fourth place on the second factory Ducati. " I like the circu it," James said. "I've changed the front end some here, made it a lot softer and more similar to the _ bike I race in the U.S. Goi ng back to what I'm comfortable with. " Mertens was fifth, bu t unable to im pro ve in the second session because of tire problems. The team worked flat. o u t just ge tt ing to Le Mans after repai ring the considerable crash damage from Sugo. Honda France's Alex Vieira was sixth, benefitting from a better rear Mich elin in the second qualifier to improve his time by .55 of a second. Race one Somewhat predictably, Pi ro van o lau nched the STO Yamaha from the second row to lead Monti int o the first chicane. Behi nd them as they com pleted the first lap Came Vieira, Mert ens, Jam es, McEln ea, Rymer, Phillis and Roche. Quickly the two Italians and Mertens and James began breaking away from the rest, with Roche, as usual, picking them off one by one after his tardy start. Roche had just cleared the battling foursom e of Vieira, Terry R ymer, McElnea and Rob Phillis when Rymer tried to go around the outside of Vieira in the first of Le Mans ' horseshoe bends, they hooked up and the new British Supercup Champion was dum ped un ceremoniously to the ground and out of the race. James was mo ving for ward an d inherited the lead on lap seven when Pirovan o's dry clu tch failed, much to the pleasure of the pro-Ducati crowd. Vieira got involved in an incident with McElnea on the same lap. This resulted in a big get-off in the sixth -gear first corner, the French rider hit ting the big Bri t's Yama ha and bendi ng its exhaust p ipe and closing up the mou th , before h itting the deck and ska ting off. He fortuna tely escaped serious injury. McEln ea sho t across the gravel pit and up the old circuit, missing the chicane altogether, and rejo ini ng in front of Phill is without losin g a place. In front of them, Roche was steadily picking up the lead group, tak ing Mon ti on lap 14, then havi ng a good battle with Mertens before dispo sing of him on lap 16 and taking the lead from his teammate o n lap 18. From there to the fini sh , the order remained unchanged as Monti dro pped back, whi le Ph illis eventually took a clear fifth from a problem-beset McElnea, struggling with a flat engine thanks to the dinged pipe, his still sore wris t and then a bolt fell out of the gearsh ift mechanism with three laps to go, making down- shifting difficult, The battle of the locals went to the Gauloises Blondes Yamaha of Christian Lavielle ahead of Honda Fran ce's Jean' Michel Mattioli . Stephano Caracchi came throug h for a clear ninth on the Compagnucci Ducati w'hile Jari Suhonen just nipped Anders Andersson for lOth . T eam Sh in Etsu Kawasaki Int ernatio na l's team man ager Peter Do yle lodged a protest against the carburetors of Monti and Mertens after the first leg on the grounds that they aren 't the same ones specifi ed in the homologation documents supplied to the FIM by H onda. The protest came about after Doyle saw hom ologation papers showing the complete assem bly, previously only documents showing on e carburetor had been circulated. The assembl y allegedl y differed to the carbs mounted on the Rumi and Mertens bikes, which had been spread apart about five millimeters to fit their ROlOs, which have shortened inlet tracts. "All we want to know is what the carburetor ru le is," Doyle explained. " Whether it's standard or anything goes." The carbs were marked and put back on the bikes. The FIM then checked the

• Cover