Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

__ BmmR~E~~~~~ ~_~_eR_W_d_h_a~&_~_S:R_o_oo_dl ~ _ '", Doug Polen led Terry Rymer at the start of the final lap of the first race and ' then scored the win after Rymer ran off the track in the last comer while leading. Doug Polen kicked off the World Championship Superbike Series by winning the first race aboard the Fast by Ferracci Ducati. It locked up in the second race. R racks up points ymer By Bruce Newton Photos byjohan Vandekeckhove DONINGTON, DERBY, ENGLAND, MAR. 31 lot of people were smiling and a few grimacing after the opening round of the Diesel Jeans World Championship Superbike Seri es a t Donington Park. Loc tite Yamaha's Terry Rymer leads the championship after going 2-4 o n his brand new and largel y uns orted fac to ry -su p ported Yamaha aWOl , while Australian Rob Phillis gave T eam Kawasaki someth ing to smile about with a 4-3 performan ce, good for second overa ll on the new Kawasaki ZXR750R. Ducati emerged with the wins in both races from new signings Doug Pol en and Stephane Mertens, but also a suspected broken thumb for defending World Champion Raymond Roche, two blown engines on race day and poor results from Giancarlo Falappa, who was obviously lacking fitness. But Honda was suffering the most , with the 1991 engines proving a real problem for Rurni 's Fred Merkel and Baldasarre Monti, the two of them suffering three crankshaft failures between -them in the two 25-lap races. That came on top of head gasket failures for all their 1991 engines in practice. A On the tire front , there were also winners and losers, and just as in the 500cc GP class the tables have been turned. Dunlop through Polen and - Pirelli through Mertens took a win apiece , wh ile Michelin stru ggled. Overall , the racing was terrific as usual, the depth in the class even better tha n ever. And as usual at Donington at Easter, the weather was ordinary at best. In qualifying on Sunday it was cold with occasional bursts of spi tting rai n, o n Monday the rain stayed away most of the time but the wind picked up. For more than one reason , Spain can't come soon enough. Qualifying A new year , a new champio nshi p, new bikes, new ,riders and a new man on the pole. Doug Pol en ; the ga rru lo us T exan who traded in his Suzuki for a Ducati over the winter, o u tsho ne everyo ne in the cold a nd someti mes damp conditions to pl ace hi s Eraldo Ferracci-tuned 888 at the head of the pack. And some pack it was, with II riders under Roche's year-old I minute, 38:87 second lap record. Pol en 's a lmos t Terry Rymer backed up his first race runner-up performance with a fourth place finish in the second race. He holds the lead in the serie:' point standings. mind-boggling 1:36:68 effo rt came in the afternoo n session aft er he'd also topped th e morning qualifier, albeit : o nly one second under the record. Dou g wasn 't th at excited either, ju st wa it, he warned, until he go t onto the late st Dunlops in Spain! Polen came up with the tim e in reply to Roche's 1:36:87 whi ch had temporarily put him on top of the pil e. Roche, fa ced w ith returnin g th e fav or , promp tly went o u t and cras hed a t Goddard as he ga ve a new rear tire too mu ch abuse too soon. To mak e matters wor se, he a lso suffered wh at he feared was a broken right thumb : ," I a m st u p id," h e grimaced afterwards, the hand heavily iced. Just to cap th e day off for Marco Lucchinelli 's team , Fal appa 's -Ieft thumb was also bein g iced aft er a highside at the same co rne r in the morning. H e was o n ly 22nd fastest a t the end of the day. The rest were led by Monti, Rym er and Merkel. The two Rumi riders were complaining about a lack of midrange pow er from their new factory-supplied RC30s while they were a lso being struc k by th e head gasket problems that cu rsed them here last year. Basically, the bikes had arr ived too late for the team to touch them. Rymer' s new awol required attention to chatteri ng Ohl ins fork s, but he had no comp laints about the increased pow er th e factory cylinder head and pipe were giving him. Then came Phillis, despite high-siding at Redgate in a spec tacu lar tumbling fashio n o n Sa turday after being caught out by cold tires. He escaped with a spra ined ri ght ankle and so me skin off. Fab ri zio Piro van o, hi s team renam ed CP Racing, was next and qu ite happy to avoid problem s in the iffy conditions. Rob McElnea, without the benefit o f the factory par ts su pp lied . to Rymer but usin g an cng ine built in Swe de n by Mor ospeed (An ders And ersson 's old su pp lier) was eighth and Sco t Brian Morrison an impressive ninth on h is new Drambuie awol. Mertens, hi s brow more furrowed and h is attitude mor e insular than ever, was 10th and seemingly still a little way to go befor e properly coming to grips' with the Ducati and Pirelli tir es. Not happy were Silkolene Honda 's Niall Mackenzie and Carl Fogarty, the form er graduall y getting on th e pa ce after a host of problems, th e latter appa rent ly completely lost , giving up his '91 fact or y bike for hi s '90. j ar i Suhonen was caugh t o ut by a \ shower and crashed at the Old Hairpin a nd broke the little finger on his right hand and became a non-starter, Jean Yves Mounier broke hi s right hand at the same po int in the afternoon and withdrew the Sonauto Yamaha, while Vittorio Scarola got the Bimota Tesi's World Ch ampionship debut off to an ignoble start by breaking his pelvis in th e very first session on Friday. The Italian went off to hospital and 29year-old Englishman, Steve Manley, came in to fill his place. He manfully battled to 27th , unsurprisingly finding th e cent er-hub vee-twin quite different to his Yam ah a . Germ an champ Andreas Hoffman went home after crashing twice in qualifying. Race One As expected, Polen was the winner, but there was nothing easy about it. A whole gaggle of riders came and went from the leading group before the Ducati riders and Rymer slugged it out over the final laps. It cam e down to the final corner. Rymer got the front, but couldn't stay on the track. While he managed to scramble back for second, Polen was already under the checkered flag and enjoying his first World Championship Superbike win since Sugo in 1989. The race had started with Rymer and McElnea flying in formation, Polen and Monti tucked in behind, and Mertens, Morrison, Pirovano, Phillis, Merkel and Roche rounding out the top 10. Mertens was th e big mover. He outbraked Rymer for the lead at the chicane oil lap five and began pulling a small gap. But the same tum was hi s undoing o n lap nine when he lost the front end and went sliding into the gravel trap, later blaming the wind and chattering forks for the fall. A new lap record 1:37:98 - wa s scant consola tio n. Tha t left Monti the leader, but on ly for a lap, as he cras hed o ut at Coppice, a fast right-hander, H e suspected a gust of wind was his undoing as well. That left Rymer heading Pol en , Pirovano, Phillis a nd Merkel. McElnea had dropped back into the clutches of Morrison as tendinitis in his right wri st restri cted hi s braking ability. During all this Roche had departed in a huge spray of oil and smoke as the Ducati let go in a big way: " I could have finished third or fourth," said the Wodd Champion as he examined his thumb afterwards. "I can brake but I cannot open the throttle." Merkel was next to go . The Honda had a leaky head gasket and was losing water from the third lap on in a virtual - - -- - - Continued on page 35

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