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Fabrizio Pirovano (2) leads Udo Mark (17), Rob Phillis (4), Baldassarre Monti (8) and Doug Polen ea rl y in the first race. Texan Doug Polen was untouchable in Spain, winning both races and tak in g the lead in th e World Championship. Not even Roche, tryi ng as hard as he could in race two, cou ld defeat him. And tha t says a lo t. Roche ha d problems with suspension on his factory Ducati that he hopes will be cured by , the next race, and perhaps then he can give the 30-year-old Texan a hard time. Very few others appear capable of it, though. Consider that in the two meetings so far , Polen has twice qualified on pole, won three races and DNF once. Compare that record with Merkel, who tumbled into the sandtrap a t the end of the front straight in each race. After fou r races and no finishes his hopes of a third World Cha mpionship look slim even at this early stage. At this point, Pol en 's closes t rivals for the championship are the consistent Fabrizio Pirovano and the unlucky R o b P h i ll is , whose Ka wasa k i ZXR750R was nailed by Mon ti in the firs t turn of race two while leadi ng. The Australian had finished second in the first race to temporari ly lead the championship. -In truth the crashes - mainly at the first gear first tum at the end of a sixth- . gear straight - spoiled it all on a day when the sun shone and as many as . 60,000 race-erazy fans came to the Madri d circuit. In the longer term, the sigh t of three Ducatis obli terating the rest in race two must have sent chills down thespine of teams campaigning japanese bikes. The Ducatis have less weight, extra capacity, better grunt out of turns and a t least equal horsepower to the best fours. It could be a long season for anyone not campaigning one of the Bologna blasters. Qualifying Polenreigns inSpain By Bruce Newton Photos by Joban Vandekerckhove "I 10 JARAMA, SPAIN, APR28 wasn't expecting to be leading the championship, bu t I was hopi ng," Do ug Polen said af ter the second ro und of the Diesel jeans Superbike Wo rld Championship at j arama. "The points have flip- flopped pretty radically, but th e championship is still in its very ear ly stages." True, but after taking pole and winning both races in dominant and convincing style on th e Fast By Ferracci Ducati, the Texan does have a 15-point lead , one that his riva ls helped him establish and may now struggle to bridge. Ra ymond Roche, Stephane Merte ns, Rob Phill is, Terry Rymer. Fred Merkel , Baldassarre Mo nti a nd many others all crashed a t least once - no less than nine bikes went down. in a first-corner crash in the first race while Polen sta yed on two wheels throughout and had a palpable advantage over everyo ne. That man Polen struck again and in even more dominant fashion than at Donington Park. Fastest right through Friday's unofficial sessions by nearly a second to Merkel 's Rumi Honda - and fastest again by over a second to Phillis in the first qualifier on the somewhat bumpy and sinewy track. . In the afternoon he concentrated on tir e testing for Sunday and his earlier one-minute, 37.529-second lap stood up easily despite the best efforts of Monti a nd Pirell i's qualifying tire , which co mbi ned with the RCM Rumi Ho nda clo sed to wi thin four -ten ths. Monti fought back well , considering he'd gone pl aying in the sandtraps upsid e down on Friday afternoon after smacking in to a slower rider while trying to outbrake him. Of. course, Polen was using a Dunlop qualifyin g tire, the ot hers said. Dunlop said no, merely a soft "tuned sta ndard tire" - whatever that may be. Certainly not one of the la test GP tires as there was not a six and a quarter inch ri m in sight, Roche gave Michelin some hope wi th third, despite problems with the lengthened version of the Cagiva GP bike's Ohlins inverted fork he has started using this year : " It' s so bad it's im possib le to drive," grumbled Roche. " Maybe we change to normal forks tomorrow. " In the end they didn't, Roche was also looking at rear suspens io n adjustments Sunday morning as some new Mich elins had turned up for he, Phill is and Pirovano to use and they ha d proved a little harder than what the 888 was set up for. Were they GP tires? The p it gossipers said yes, the Michelin men offered no comment, Merkel came n ex t, back to h is confident, cock y self after the disasters of Donington, while birthday boy Phillis rounded out the front row , receivi n g tuition from Kevin Magee , who was spending the weekend checking out the scene.