Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

eR A E ODRAC Su erbike Series:Round 5 e Carl Fogarty (4), leads Aldeo Presciutti (70), Fabrizio Furlan (23) and Giancarlo Falappa (9) on a rainy Austrian day. Fala a, Meklau win in Austrian rain By Joh an Van d ek erck h ove ZELTWEG, AUSTRIA, JULY II he Austrian round of the World Superbike Series, which is traditionally held on the infamous Zeltweg track, has always been a race which was greeted with mixed feelings by the rid ers . The high-speed Oesterreichri ng is highly appreciated for its technicality; this is a track that separates the boys from the men . In the fast comers, it's all about taking the perfect line in orde r to be launched as fast as possi ble on the followin g straights. On the other hand, it is also the track where men like Giancarlo Falappa a n d Baldassarre Monti almost lost their lives. This time, however, everybody agreed that they had rather stayed at home. Atrocious weather conditions led to some surprising results in the first leg and even made the course director stop the second leg five laps before the end. In addition, the sidecar teams did not even get the chance to appear in what was meant to be their fourth World Championship race of the season. At the end of the miserable day, two winners emerged - Ducati's Giancarlo Falappa and Andreas Meklau. But both races turned out to be somewhat of a crap shoot because of the poor racing conditions. All in all, the rnain titie chasers got aw ay fairly scot free from the Austrian round. The point gaps between the top four rema ined nearly id en tica l, and nobody got hurt on the treacherous track, where streams of water ran down the hills around and on the asphalt. . Moreover, the premature end of the second leg turned out to be a real fly in the ointment for statisticians in the series: since only 75% of the race distance had been covered, only half points were to be distnbuted. Falappa maintained his lead with 135points, over Scott Russell (131.5), Aaron Slight (116) and Carl Fogarty (109.5). The rest of the top seven, however , had a horrible weekend. Fabrizio Pirovano had two DNFs, Stephane Mertens only earned seven points and Juan Garriga announced his retirement from racing altogether! This was only one of the many surprises which kept the riders and the rest of the paddock population on their toes in Austria. Daniel Amatriain was another very unlucky superbike specialist in the pad- T 22 dock. The Marlboro rider had become unemployed when Ducati turned out not to be able to provide him with a new factory engine after he broke his eighth cylinder of the year at Misano . "This is a very strange affair," Ama triain said. "As none of the other factory riders had the same amo unt of technical mishap. That is why I want to have a thorough d isc ussion wit h th e people at Ducati. Marlborojmd me wan t to have the same works material at ou r d isposal as Giancarlo Falappa and his o ther official collea gu es . As long as Ducati can not guarantee that, I will not ride anymore." The battle for Garriga's bikes wa s won this time by Mauro Lucchiari, the third rider on the Tardozzi team and the only other serious rival to Amatriain.. Qualifying Another product from Ducati created an even bigger surprise a t th e Oesterreichring. Edgar Schnyder, th e Swiss tuner and electroni cs expert wh o is responsible for the bikes of Edwin Weibel and Andreas Meklau, arrived with two bikes for Meklau , a surp rise for the Austrian, who had to do with only one bike until now. But things got even more intriguing when Schnyder was seen in the Grottini Ducati pits, asking Tardozzi for a spare cylinder head from one of his big works engines. At the last couple of races, the works riders have been using bigger engines (reportedly over 92Occ), while all the privateers and semi-official riders su ch as Fred Merkel had to make do with the standard 888cc engines. Schnyder, however, had developed his own 'big' engine, but questioned if the thing would last the race distance in its first appearance. He would find out on Sunday, as Tardozzi could not provide him with the works cylinder head. By Saturday evening, Meklau had given already a glimpse at the potential of the "Schnyder Special," clocking the seventh fastest time. During practice, which was run in sunny conditions, Scott Rus sell had taken pole position with a one-minute, 51.10S-second lap, staying well outside of the lap record set by Rob Phillis in 1992 (1:50.707/117.983 mph) . Like at Misano, Russell was very tired when he a rrive d at Zeltweg, after having his flight from Japan canceled . Russell had done some testing with the Formula One Kawasaki in p repa ration for the Suzuka 8-Hour, which is to be held on July 25. "It's quite a change to ride my superbike again," Russell said. "The ZXR we will be using in Suzuka is totally handmad e and very different from this bike as to geometry and feeling. To be honest, I loo k forward to using superbikes in Suzuka next year." . The Muzzy Kawasaki rider had been confronted with some front -end chatter problems during free practice, but was impressed with the circuit: "It's a great track; I just love the fast comers and the elevations. Still, at some points I tried to temper my enthusiasm. I guess it can hurt a lot when you leave the asphalt at tho se places. But the bike is working extremely well here; we used about the sa me setup as in Daytona, and during practice the on-bike computer recorded a top speed of 174 mph . [ didn 't expect to take pole, especially as we had not co mpletely sorted out the front end chattering and the sligh t ins tability of the bike. During warm-up, we will try some d ifferent springs." Falappa, who held pole pos ition for a long time, had only been topped in the • last min utes of the second pra ctice session by his ma in rival in the championsh ip. The Italian, who almost got killed in a crash on the sam e circu it in 1990, clocked a 1:51.337 with a bike that , had virtually not changed since Misano . He and his teammate Carl Fogarty only used a different rear suspension setup, which provided some more stabili ty during braking.The third fastest time went to Russell's teammate Aaron Slight (1:51.509), who had suffered from a rear suspension that was too soft. The New Zealander, who is starting to come to grips with the Dunlop tires, used racing tires rather than qualifiers during the two practice sessions. . The fourth man on the front row (an d last man in the same second as polesitter Russell) was Fogarty, who still did not find the 16.5-inch wheels to his liking: "I am a guy who just needs a little more time to adapt to new things," the Brit said . Fabrizio Furlan was a surprise fifth fastest after practice, riding a well-prepared Kawa sak i ZXR like a man posse ssed. H is co u n try man Fabriz io Pirovano clocked sixth time, a rema rkabl e practice result to the little man's own standards. The pocket rocket from Milan had Meklau, Terry Ryme r and Lucchiari next to him. Man y had high hopes for Rymer, who had gotte n a B-kit fromYamaha in the days preceding the Austrian event. "Hold your horses," the Londoner said in an effort to mi tigate the optimism of many observers. "We only rec eived the trick parts on Thursday evening, and we have only had the time to put on the new exhaust. We have already received a different airbox too, but as this can be used on ly with the other carburetor settings, we hav e left the box in the truck." Fred Merkel was 11th fastest, and was pretty pleased with that result: "This factory 888 is not so different from a standard 888. 1know , [rode them both the last couple of weeks . But now I also have a second bike, which makes life a bit easier. Compa red to the 'real' official Ducati riders, this bike lacks acceleration, the thing which mad e Ducati famous . Stephane Mertens, who is behind me

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