Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

I Rom ucr~~~_~_~_S_~_~:_b_W_d_6 _ e Texan Doug Polen (23) leads Italian Fabrizio Pirovano (2) and the rest at Misano. Polen perfect in Ita ly By Bruce Newton Photos by Johan Vanderkechove MISANO, ITALY, AUG, 4 o ug Polen is now a stunning 50 points ahead of his nearest competitor in the Diesel Jeans Wor ld Superbi ke Championship after winnin g both races in the .San Marino ro und at Misano. If he j us t holds that ad vantage, wit h jus t six ro unds gone and seven to go, he's already more than one race's worth of points ahead of the rest; if he can maintain that marg in, th ere will be no need for team boss Eraldo Ferracci to she ll o ut the money for th e expe nsive trip to Australia for the fin al ro und. The budget is lo w, there's no doubt about that. Bu t tha t's all the team lacks . Polen has talent to bu rn , Ferracci knows the Ducati lik e most of us know the backs of our hands and between them th ey've go t enough racing savvy to ma ke the rest struggle. If the re was o ne guy who earned mor e respect than the ' rest at ' Misano th en it was Rob Phillis, the 35-yearold Australian going 2-3 on the Team Kawasaki ZXR750R to p ass Stephane Merten s fo r seco n d in the cham pionsh ip. The Belgian Ducati rider struggled on Pirell i tires that just refu sed to coo perate in the blistering August heat of the Riviera Adriatico. It all culminated sadl y for Mertens as he cras hed o n the last lap of race two wh ile battling Ital ian Yamaha rider Fabrizio Pirovan o for fourth . No t tha t Mert en s was th e on ly one to suffer. The o ther two Pirelli men Fred Merkel and Davide Tardozzi also had th eir dramas with rubber as well as o ther problems. Surprisingly on the surface, the head co un t of spectators was well do wn from wh at wa s expected, as potential race-crazy Italian Ducatophiles headed for the beach or sa t at home 'and watched both races live on TV as well as all the Bri tish G rand Prix from Donin gton Park. That ma y have been expensive for the promoters, but th e h ea t a lso destroyed o r burned up man y a n D 14 expensive engine , particularly among the less-than well heeled privateer brigade. Basicall y whoeve r came up with the idea for this race, o n this date, a t th is venue, shou ld regre t it. Nevert he less, racin g throughout the field was good, no tabl es besides Polen and Phillis, being a resurgent Ra ymon d Roche, a surprising ly competi tive Carl Fogarty and Sout h African Russell Wood, mak in g the Bimota Tesi ID look better than av~rage. But Polen remained the sta r. He beat Phillis na rrowl y in race one and the n dictated the pa ce in race two at a race trac k whi ch all h is riva ls know better tha n he. T he Texan has now won eig ht o ut of 10 starts and qualified o n pole four o u t of five times. The only thing he did n't do thi s weekend was set the lap record, which he has done everyw here else. That honor went to P hill is a nd ito Michelin , which was finally in resurgent form here. I ~&l' 'Q u a lifyi n g Polen has perfor med impressively th is year and never mo re so tha n when he's had to learn a new circuit. At Misano, not o nly was he faced with that prospect, but also the knowl edge th at th is was Ducati 's home track, where defendin g cha m p Roche, Falappa and Tardozzi tested and raced frequently, wh ere Mert ens kn ows hi s way around, as does Pi rov an o and a horde of o ther Ital ian s. Needless to say, none of tha t worried Polen, wh o after two days of practice and qualifying in the inten se heat of th e Ri viera Adriatico circ u it, was half a second clear of Mertens, threaten ing to go quicker and talking of sp litting from what was sha p i ng up as a bell icose pack . Such was hi s dominan ce that his Dunlop race tire times were almost as good as the Belgian 's besteffort on Pir elIi qualifyin g rubber. Polen 's best time o n qual ifiers was ' l-rninute, 18.381-seconds fo r a 99.325 mph lap on the 2.167-mile trac k. That was well under the best time and speed Polen was unbeatable, winning both races and extending his points lead to 50 points. recorded on a superbike sin ce the track was sligh tly altered and resurfaced, a 1:19 in testing by Tardozzi. This was Polen 's type of race track, a p lace of technical detail s rather tha n bravado; although it s long, curving straig h t was no pl ace for th e fainthearted, wh ere he felt he co uld eke o u t adva ntages constan tly and it seemed the rest were powerless to do anything abou t him . Mertens, his lower back ban daged aft er his Suzuka cras h, was more concern ed abou t Ohlins fork s that shuttered under brak ing. He'd trie d Brembo carbo n brakes o n Frida y o nly to abandon th em after th ey locked o n at the start of th e second sessio n. Tardozzi, Pirovan o and Roch e were fifth , sixth and seven th, th e first two go ing dizzy from the number of laps they were doing as they also had Italian Superbike Ch ampion sh ip duty, while the World Ch ampion was, as is becoming usua l, not a happy man. " I ha ve so many problem s with suspension and tires," Roche complain ed. " I think it wi ll be better tomorrow." At least he was fu lly fit fo r a cha nge. In fact by Sunday , Roche had opted for his spare bike, preferr in g the way that engine was geared. He was better off than team m ate Fal a p pa , who la ng uished in a miserable 16th p lace, wi th a persistent electrical problem ove r 8000 revs tha t refused to go aw ay, tire woes added to h is depression. Wh ile th is lot expected to go well but didn't, there were some unexpected sta rs. Phillis sho wed real gri t and heart to go third, pulling up from seventh in session one: " I kn ew I had to go faster, I rod e with my heart and not my head. " Phillis was the best-performed of th e Michelin runners, setting his fastest tim e on his softest option. The French com pany had an increased presence at Misano and brought som e new rears ; incl uding a harder compound version of the tire used at the GP in the spring and that was the Australian's choice ' for the race. Tires were a point of co ncern at T eam Rumi too , with the race fronts not ex pected to last long. Former cha m p Fred Merk el had a ra ther hect ic weekend, with reinforcements arriving from J apan in th e shape of four R&D engineers and a new engine . Merk el went faster using a new engine built by the team, but crashed that bike in the first Ita lian cham p io nsh ip race on Saturday after losing the front. It was repaired in tim e for the aft ernoon sessio n and Merk el was at his aggressive best, wh eelin g the Honda around for fourt h place and leaving pl enty of Pirelli q ual ifying rubber on the track behind him. Then th ere was Ca rl Fogarty, eigh th on th e 1990 Silk ol ene Honda RC30 at a trac k wh ich sui ted his street-figh ter attitude, Kawasak i-m ounted Italian Massim o Broccol i ninth, J ari Suhonen 10th despite a broken rib caused by an accident at home in Finland, Juan Lopez-Mella I I th usin g a rented Rumi en gi ne in th e Ni vea H onda , a nd Ru ssell Wo od 15th o n th e everimproving Bim ota. Disappointed were three of Yama ha 's best. T erry Rymer, only 12th after encou n tering front-end sus pe ns io n problem s in the fina l sessio n; Udo Ma rk unabl e to find hors epower because of the heat and J effrey De Vries, wobbl in g and sliding with an ill -sorted rear sus pe ns io n and al so witho ut his regular mechanic wh o wa s a last m in u te with draw al. Wor st off of the Yamaha men was Fren chman Bruno Bonhuil , 36th and last qual ifier, he cras hed heavil y rig h t at th e end of the fin al sessio n and packed up an d went home ea rly, hoping to get his Le Man s 24-H our winnin g awol prepared in tim e for the foll ow in g week end ' s ra ce i n Anderstor p. His absence moved Virgino Ferrari into the field o n the RM Kawasaki. It al so meant that Jean Yves Monnier's spare engi ne had a third hom e for the weekend. The Fren ch cha m p ion had loan ed it to Bonhuil, but after he crashed, it went to J ean-Michel Mat tioli, who was now riding an aWOl , after some unhappy p erformances earlier in the year o n a Kawasaki. R a ce one It was beach weather Sunday, which helped explain the patheti c crowd on hand to wat ch the Ducatis on home soil. Most of the teams would have preferred to have been at the beach too, the hottest race day of the year promoting fears for rid er, engine and tire endurance. , If the temperature wasn't high eno ugh, a bedr aggled start had a few riders hot under the colla r as Marlboro Honda rider Danny Amatriain burst into turn one first from row three with Kawasaki rid er Pier Giorgio Bontem pi

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