Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Round 1: Don ingtonPark was slower," Fogarty said. " After that, I passed them and put my head down." That would be on the 18th lap, with seven to go, but the order behind the leaders had already changed. Rym er carne off in the Old Hairpin, a fast righthander, laceratin g his right elbo w and suffering possible pelvic inju ries. He was taken to a hospital in Nottingham forovenUght observatio~ Once out front , Fogarty was edging away incremen tally. H is best lap of 1:36.02 had come on the 15th lap, but he was consistentl y in the low 36's while (Right) Fogarty (2), here Ie8dIng Troyeor.r (59). F.brlzlo Plrov.no (4) lIl1d Ru....1 (1), won the flrat leg, flnl.1led third In the HCOl1d .nd len Donlngton P.rk with the ....... polnts lead. (Left) Aaron Slight _ the runner-up In both legs. the others were more erratic. He had closed to two seconds on the 21st lap , then Corser closed it down by half a second a lap later and appeared to be making a charge. But on the 24th lap it all came undone when Corser ran into the back of Slight going into Melbourne. "I'm still ieaming the circuit," Corser said. "I still haven't put together a full lap yet." Corser's departure increased Fogarty's lead and settled the top three with Slight second, having moved past Russell on the 21st lap, and Pirovano third, the Italian getting by the world champ one lap later. Rus sell w ou ld end up fourth, Falappa fifth, and Team Rumi's Simon Crafar a distant sixth just in front of Piergiorgio Bontempi on the Kawasa. k:i Bertocchi bike. changes to the machine before the race, including fitting crashed out of the next, virtually ending his champia new engine and suspension changes at both ends. onship hopes. Fogary' was aboard the all-new Ducati 916 Malo Cinelli's Jamie Whitham was second fastest, the which he'd first seen the day before Thursday's free pracnewest Ducati recruit exactly half a second slower than tice. Like the Fast byFerracci AMA superbikes, it disRussell on what he considers his home track. But his places 955cc's, but the enginewasn't the problem, the cushion on third wasn't great, and the second through suspension was. ninth fastest riders were all on the same second. Then it "We 've got problems that we're trying to sort out," all came apart for Whitham in Sunday the 27-year-old Englishman said . "It doesn't flick as easy morning's warm-up when he high- as last year's bike. I'm finding it hard to carry corner sided on a cold tire exiting the hairpin speed." Fogatty explained that when they raised the onto the front straightaway, breaking 'back end of the bike it would steer quicker, but the back his right wrist. He's expected to miss end was sldtterish. the next two World Supexbike rounds, Fogarty's Ducati teammate, Giancarlo Falappa, led off returning for Misano. the second row, less than a tenIh of a second in front of Troy Corser was third fastest after New Zealander Aaron 5light, the first of the Honda RCcrashing his Ducati 916 at about 130 45 riders. Slight, teamed with Doug Polen on the factory mph in Craner Curves and switching Castrol Honda team, outshone his teammate on this day, to the spare 916 of Ducati's Fabrizio though he was at a loss to explain why. Pirovano (see box). Corser, who'd "We've done a lot of testing and found a good setup never before seen the track or the bike, for here. Doug and I ran the same settings," said Slight, and was returning to Michelin tires for who was making his Honda debut. the first time this year, made an Polen, however, had a different, though less immediimpressive late second-session run that ately successful, tack. Instead of going for the quicIc lap, carried him to the front row . "'That's all he was Iookingfor a way to make sure the bike was I wanted to do, n Corser said, adding properly set up for the two races. He ended up qualifythat it was "hard to find a c1ean trade ing 17th and admitted it wasn't the best place to come out there." / from. "At 1east it's not 35th," he said . "I'm confident I can run those times "We didn't really sort out the little problem that we tomorrow/ the 22-year-old Australian had . We found what the problem was, n though he said. He said that he might have bet- wouldn't divulge it, "but we didn't come up with a solutered his time at the end of the session, tion for it. It ended up costing us a reasonable amount of but made a mistake in the Melbounie time." Hairpin that cost him. "In the last corThe reigning AMA 5uperbike Champion said ner I tried to go in a bit more hard. The that he was mly given five of the tires that he expected backwheel was bouncing and I couldn't tip it in. I ended to race and needed to save threeof them for the two legs up running off," he said . and a possible back-up.. . Completing the front row was Britain's Carl Fogarty, "It's a matter of not where you start, but where you runner-up in last yeai"'schampionship and determined to finish the race, n Polen said. improve m that this year. Fogarty finished second in one There were 40 qualifiers among the 57 who attempted of the World Superbilce legs last year at Dooington,. t:I1erl to ma1ce the field for the first two races of the year. also .

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