Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

eROAD RACE e World Championship Superbike Series: Round 4 Ducati-mounted Belgian Stephane Mertens was twice th ird, continuing his record of finishing on the rostrum in each of the three Brainerd rounds of the championship. Race one , As far as the race for th e lead went, it was all over th e moment the light went green, wi th Polen launching into a lead he was never to lose. Pirovano was momentarily second, but a big slide out of o ne dropped him way back , leaving Russell to slot in behind the Texan, a position he safely defended to th e checkered flag, " This ti me I decided I was going to run hard ri gh t through the race and see wh ere that left me," explained Polen . "It wasn't easy. I rode hard from th e start, bu t I won by a comforta ble margin and that did make it a lo t easier." Doug Polen (23 ) leads Scott Russell (22 ), Baldassarre Monti and Fred Merkel on the opening lap of the second leg. Polen continues with the hot handat Brainerd m By Bruce Newton P hotos by Paul Carruthers and Johan Vandeckerckove B RAINERD, M N,JUNE 9 en Ra ymond Roc he won eigh t of the first 18 races in last year's Diesel Jeans Wor ld Superbike Ch ampionship Series, we though t he was hot. This year , Doug Polen is five for eig ht an d has won every race he's Mertens steals the }1ole from Polen T wOaccidents dominated qualifying day. The first in session one claimed World Champion Raymond Roche, the second Terry Rymer. Their inj uries were not severe, but enough to put them out for the weekend and cast som e gloom over a meeting which everyone no rmally enjoys. As far as the results sheet went, though, the situation was seemingly normal when the int ernational superbike riders made the ir belated appea rance on North American soil at Brainerd. Once again, Ducatis ruled the roost but this time it was Stepha ne Mertens (right), rather than Doug Polen, taking the number one position. ' The Total Du cati rider had languished back in eighth after the first session but as usual gradually develo ped the bike and im proved his times. At the end of the second final session he slotted a Pirelli qualifier in and snatched the pole from Polen, by a mere .025-of·a-seco nd . " I didn't try to get pole position, it's not very important to me," explained Mertens. He was encouraged by his race tire testing which had seen him post consistent one-minute, 42-second lap times and he was looking forward to the contest: "I have always been as fast as Polen, but I iha d problems, maybe now we see." Polen had set the time which saw him on tOB of Duii1op, but come time to put another ,one.;ot!'.~i';tli that it had been mounted on the wrong his first session's one. Merkel was less than half-a-secolld."I)e~~~ RCM Honda, squeezing aU he could out (jf w most of the weeItenc:t. He missed most d,Frida)" problerii wliich ~it fin ished. What does that make him? Untoucha ble. Pol en was just tha t at Brainerd ' International Raceway, leading the first 20-lappe r from go to whoa and then comi ng out on top in race two after it was twice stopped because of cras hes. As is becoming usual, Polen and the Fast By Ferracci Ducati were in control whi le those around him struck problems, or in th e case of Roche and T erry Rymer, didn 't even make it to the start line (see sidebar). Pol en led an Ameri can double in front of an estimat ed 20,000 road race en th usiasts, with Scott Russell doing a superb job on the Mu zzy Kawasaki to take two seco n ds whi le T o ta l Polen's only real drama had come ear ly in the rac e when the wind blew . him off the track between turns one and two, but he negotiated his return wi th aplomb , still pulling half a second a lap on Russell and one second a lap on the rest, After Rymer's tire failure on Saturday , Polen and Dunlop had 'been forced into a rethink about tire choice, but that worked out well enough for him to break the lap record with a 1:40.87-second best around the 2.996mile road course. Mertens set the second fastest time, some .B-of-asecond slower. . Polen got away slowly, a slipping clutch letting himdown, and he was seventh at the end of lap one behind the battling foursome of Giancarlo Falappa, Baldassarre Monti, Rob Phill is and Fred Merkel. . Mertens moved up to head this group by the end of lap three, with Fabrizio Pirovano also coming through, while Monti and Falappa dropped back, but already Polen was three seconds ahead of Russell, wh o in tum had a four-second break. " I saw that th e gap was already too big:' Mert ens said. " I was also having a lot of trouble keeping Phillis and Pirovano behind me, but I managed to make a gap in the last couple of laps."

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