Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

GROA DRACE World Championshi~_erb_ike_Se_ries_: _RO_Ull_d 3 _ ~ The start of the Canadian round of the World Superbike Championship gets underway with Steve Crevier (73) and Yves Brisson (13) getting the jump on the field. Kipp, Picotte win at Mosport as the regularsstay away By Bruce Newton Photos by Johan Vandeckerchove M OSPORT, ONT, CANADA, JUNE 2 he internationa l riders stuck to their word and didn't show up for the Canadian ro und of the World Championship Su perb ike Series at Mospo rt. Circuit owner Harvey Hudes stuck to his guns and ran the race anyway. As a result , Linnley Clarke and Yves T Brisson emerged as the top points scorers, taki ng a second and a fourth apiece wh ile T om Kipp and Pascal Pico tte split the wins as well as a DNF each . It was a ' truly strange weekend, the discussion to and fro between aggrieved Canadians and the foreign press, superbike championship organizers and others over the absence of the " Eu ropea ns" as the missin g riders were termed - Polen, Merkel an d Phillis' origins apparently forgotten - dominating the raci ng. At least that was somethi ng to talk about, because there wasn't all that The Mosnort controversY--:-'--_ _---:M 16 ospo rt circui t owner, Harvey Hudes, has rejected international rider claims that their decision to stay away from round three of the Diesel Jeans Superb ike World Championship was prompted by concerns over track safety. "My feeling is that we have a pow er struggle going on between the riders and the FIM ," he said. "The riders obviously don't respect the ability' of the FIM to properly homologate circuits, they are challenging that authority. T here is a po wer str uggle going on I think for authority and I th ink unti l thai is settled th is situa tion will likely happen again, cleverly disguised as a safely issue but probably having another agenda." The riders themselves would reject th at th is is anything other tha n a safety issue, yet H udes is convinced there is more to this than meets the eye. The sorry saga starts at last year's Canadian round where the riders drew up a two-p age list of safety improvements. th at needed to be completed before they came back and raced at Mosport again. This list included more work at turn one, turn three and turn four as well as resurfacing to eradicate the bumps wh ich proliferate at th e circu it and to improve grip in the wet. There were other complaints such as lack of restroo m and shower facilities. On top of this there was a general di ssat isfaction among the riders and teams about the way the meetings were being run and they were being treated. The list was taken to the FIM Congress in Budapest last October, where Hudes, FIM Road Racing Commission President Jos Zegwaard, Superbike Racing Association riders representative Anders Andersson and Canadian Motorcycle Assoaation (CMA) officials met to discuss the future of the event and hear the riders's grievances. At that meeting, Hudes says the long list was reduced to a short list of work required for 1991 - not by the FIM which had already homologated the circuit up to 1992 - but by the riders. It was agreed that turn three - where Giaricarlo Falappa crashed and broke his wrist - would have a gravel trap installed and there would be resurfacing between three and four as well as some bumps shaved. And that, Hudes says, was it: "Before the meeting ended I read my list so there would be no question in anyone's mind what I had to do and we came home and did it. Obviously there was another story told to the riders after the fact, otherwise how would they be so up in arms about this matter?" Hudes draws that conclusion because when Rob McElnea - who replaced Andersson as riders rep after the Swede retired from racing at the end of 1990 - arrived to inspect the circuit in April he brought up the issue of turns one and four and the resurfacing of the entire track. Hudes was under the impression, an incorrect one according to the riders themselves, that McElnea's only rriandate was to inspect ~or1C' agreed to at the much excitement on the track with Picotte 's and Kipp's wins being taken in convincing style. The first race was truly forgetta ble, the second enlivened by an exciting finish. The results were obviously irrelevant as far as the World Championship goes bu t a t least those who did show ~ ,....-- Con gress. " He all of a sudden developed a new agenda," Hudes said. "He wanted to do a full track inspection and he identified com er one and comer four as major problems and he further said the track was very bumpy and needed resur facing." Hudes said he agreed to consider work on one and four as projects for the fall, but tha t th ere was no way he could comp lete them before a meeting scheduled for the end of May. McElnea went back to England, wrote his report and the riders subseq uen tly decided not to attend a meeting at th e Spanish round in late April. As far as Hudes is concerned, he's the innocent victim. He's done more than the FIM required to meet th e standards set, yet still the riders didn 't come. Thus the conspiracy th eory. " Some of the riders race at the Isle of Man wh ere there are telephone posts every 150 feet, or trees, with no protection whatsoever," Hudes said. "Some of the riders will run at Daytona where they come out of the chicane and climb up a 32-degree bank and have their leathers scrape against a concrete wall at 180 mph. If you want to check those events you will find some of these riders who protest Mosport on a safety basis are riding in some very dangerous . circumstances by definition. Now why is it safe to ride those events and by comparison, is this that much more dangerous or that much more safe? .. "My position is very simple. it is much more safe and that's not me being subjective, anyone can go out and inspect the circuit with those criteria in mind and this is the safest circuit in the world if that be the comparison. There is no such thing as a safe circuit, motor racing is dangerous, we forget that; we make the circuit as safe as we can and that is what we are trying to do." Hudes still wants to run World Superbike races, but he believes the FIM, which neither demanded circuit sa(ety improvements nor tried to dissuade riders from missing the Canadian round, now has to take a more active role. "If the FIM homologate a circuit and list a date then there has to be some responsibility on their part to ensure that a proper grid will ~ticipate in the event. We don't want any individual rider disciplined here. I think I respect what they 've done. I don't really think they've done it right. If they've tried to make a point, they've made it and we're damaged by it very critically. " Motorcycle racing sponsorships in this part of the country, I think, are under tremendous hazard right now for the future. And the only way we could go forward to our sponsors for future events is if I can say to them the FIM has done the ' following and we are guaranteed X number of international riders as part of our even t." And how could the FIM make muse guarantees? "I think they have to find ways and means Of giving that kind of assurance. after tIiey, do . mders." an.

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