Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Former 250cc Grand Prlx star carlos Cardus made his superblke debut In Albacete. fi ni shi ng 13th and eig hth. RACE ONE In front of a crowd of some 25,000 enthusiastic Spanish spectators and amidst tropica l heat, Fogarty took command of the opera tion right from the green ligh t. He wa s followed into the first corner by Piergiorgio Bont em pi, Polen and Fabrizio Pirovano, who had finally learned how to produce his typical rocket start (from the fifth row!) on a Ducati twin. Unfortunately, the diminutive Italian, who now resides in ta xfriendly Monaco, didn't stay in the running for too long; he pulled in on the fifth lap with what turned out to be a defective spark plug. "We have ha d nothing but bad luck si n ce we arrived here," Pirovano explained. "During the first practice session I had to run back to the pits after a pl ug had broken and caused an oil leak on my Ducati 916. A few ho urs later, I broke. m y gearbox during the se cond session, condemning my mechanics to work even later on Saturday evening. On tod ay's warm-up, my bike got stuck once again halfwa y (around) the circuit with an electrical problem, and no w a spa rk plug puts me out of conten tion." By tha t time, Fogarty already had some three seconds over the rest of the bunch, with Russell, Bonternpi, Polen, Sligh t and James Whitham lead ing the rest of the pack. Russell soon escaped the clutches of that group, and seemed certain to ride to a lonely second place. Not so for Slight, who took some time to shake off the battling duo of Whitham and Bontempi. Just when the positions in this pretty dull race sta rted to settle, something went very wrong with championship leader Russell. On lap 16, the American cras hed his bike after hitting the oil of a Ducati-m ounted backmarker. . "To be quite honest, I d on 't think I w o u ld ha ve won th e race," Russell ad mitted after beating the d us t ou t of his dark - and extremely hot - leathers. "Of course, I was unhap py not to be able to catch up with Carl, but I settled for second. And then I got right onto the oil, which hadn't been indicated by any oil flags." Slight was thus promoted to second, but was some 15 seconds behind Fogarty. At the same time, Whitham finally got the best of Bontempi. Nothing else changed in the top-eight positions after Russe ll's crash. Muzzy Kawasaki 's Terry Rymer took a fine fifth position, in fro nt of Polen, Andreas Meklau and Simon Crafar. For Fogarty, who has been the most arduous opponent of Russell's since the beginning of last year, this second victory of the season was some kind of a revenge for fate having been so cruel to his teammate Giancarlo Falappa one week before. "My only problem was my sliding all over the place," the Briton said . "When I go t the 15-second lead on the board from m y p it crew, I started to sl ow do wn a little bit. It was also then that I got my biggest scare in the race. The oil Scott would crash in was very poorly ind icated by the marsha lls, and it alm ost ended my race as well." Slight and Whitham finished second and third, respectively, while Po len ended up six th, behind Bontempi and Rymer. "This race was oka y," Po le n said after a pretty lonesome rid e due to a wrongly chosen final gear ratio. RACE TWO Unfortunately, the second heat didn't offer much excitement, either. Surprisingly, Polen got the holeshot. "You'll see mo re of this," the Texan later said. "Now I' ve finally found the best technique to get' away fast with an RC45. I can't tell you the secret, bu t it's a matter of feed ing in jus t enough power at the right time and holdin g the clutch lever in exact ly the right posi tion." His lead wo uld last for one and a half laps.. Then it was Fogarty, steamrollering past and pulling away in an imp ressive manner. Russell, on the o the r h a n d , was stru gglin g. After having dented the frame of his best bike a few hours earlier, he was forced to use h is spare Kawasaki for the second race. "That bike hadn't worked well all weekend lo ng; being d own o n to p ' speed," Russell said later. "And on lap 10, the front end let go wi thout wa rnin g. I kind of hate this circuit. Since I came to Euro pe to contest the World Champions hip, I've never crashed during a race - excep t here. This wa s my fourth race crash here... Fortunately, I don't have to worry too much about m y championship lead. There's sti ll a large ga p between me and the rest of the world! And worrying doesn't help, does it?" On the track, everybody seemed content with thei r positions. Foga rty was once again leading with a big advantage over a lonely Slight, an eq ually lone ly Whitham, and Rym er, who was joined by Meklau in the last coup le of laps. The Briton would eventually be passed by the Austrian charger on the very last lap. 'EQgarty all the way_ uneasy. Perhaps the chip we were using made the eng ine a little bit more nervous than usual." Alb acete lived up to its reputation of being a very tough track on tires as nearly everybody complained of not getti ng he ba d news of his dis enough traction from the rear. This mad e the tire choice even q ualifi cation from t he mo re difficult than at the other tracks. Russe ll end ed up second Doning to n Park round quickest. "Perhaps our engine is a bit too peaky for this circuit," Rusd idn ' t stop Aaron Sli g h t fr om showing h is us u al sell said. "There's just not enough race track out there for me - I aggression on Fri day afterget more sideways than I like to. On my last (and best) lap, I had noon, when 42 riders wen t a final go at Carl 's time, but I got into turn one a little bit too out for free practice. Team wide. I couldn't catch up the time lost there in the last miles." Castrol Honda had sp en t a The Georgian would, of cou rse, have liked to continue his day on the Alb acete circuit unbea ten record of pole positions for this year, but had to admit just one week before the race, that the Ducatis had done a good job d uring private tests on and it showed: thei r Kiwi this track a week before. "We spent som e time in Japan the last r ider n o tch ed up the best couple of weeks ," Russell said. "We were testing the new bikes time on Friday, in fr ont of for the 8-hour at Suzuka. We concentrated mainly on the fuel Carl Fogarty, Scott Russell, consumption of the ZXR. Things are looking pretty good now." James Whitham parked his Moto Cinelli-Ducati in the midJa m ie Whitham and Doug Polen. die of the multi-brand front row, showing that he was back on The official Hondas were now equipped with a d ifferent form after the injury sustained at Donington. Fou rth place went exhaust and a revised electrical system to go with the bigger to Slight and fifth to the astonishing Paolo Casoli, who was all airbox that had been introduced in Misano a few weeks before. set to make his World Superbike debut at Alba cete. UnfortuIt is believed that this new system adapts the duration of the nately, the former 250cc Grand Prix rider crashed his official injection better to the bigger airflow, even though the Japanese Belgarda-Yarnaha in the last minutes of the second practice sesengineers kept quiet about the change. The main objective " get- sion and took himself out of the race. ting more bottom-end power - seemed to have been obtained, Spaniard Carlos Cardus, another ex-250-rider, steered his ' official Ducati 916 to eighth pIacebehind Piergiorgio Bontempi ,jud ging from ~ reactioru;,ofSlight and Polen. '" saturday; nowever(,things were differen~at the front of ' \ and Terry Rymer, and in front ~f~imo'Meregalli. Polen was the grid. Fogarty had loo¥ed unbeatable in.the morning session, 11th fastest, but was quite COrifidentwith t:he growing potential and he stayed that way in the second outing- despite having to of the RC45. ' ss use his spare bike when things got hectic; , "Today we played aroundwiththe~xand the injec"I crashed my number-one bike during the first session, and tion, n the Texan said. "This bike is still in a development stage, it was so heavily damaged that my mechanics only got it ready and I don't want to change things too drastically. Anyway, this when the checkered flag came out to end practice," Fogarty circuit will always need a compromise. Tomorrow, you will see explained. "1 felt I was going pretty slow ~nd I felt quite a lot of riders sliding around from halfway onward.n T < on ,< ' , " < 15

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