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Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127693
plug, and Simon Crafar s trugg led to 10th with a front suspens ion problem. Doug Polen fini sh ed 11th: " In the b eginning of the race, th e throttle wouldn 't shut off . Af ter som e scary moments, I decided to slow down just a little bit. The last thing I wanted to do was to stop and lose my fourth position in the cha mpionship. In the final six or seven laps, th e throttle w orked we ll ag ai n, an d I immediately wen t so me two full seconds faster tha n before. But by that time, the rear had begun to slide and I couldn't catch up with Simon Crafar anymore." RACE TWO There were no tou gh tire choices to be made for the second ra ce, as the 21,500 spectator s slowly got to their boiling point under the blazing sun - all setfor a gra ndiose finale to the season. Russell had no choice but to ge t away fro m the s ta rt and hope th at Fogarty woul d not finis h fou rth or higher. The Wo rld Ch ampion d id just that, takin g Gober t w ith h im. Th e two Mu zzy Kawasaki riders looked as if they were going to get awa y, but Fogar ty quickl y closed in. Fogarty moved into second on the se venth lap, only to be passed by Russell aga in on lap 10. The American held his position for six more laps, but then he started to lose gro und rapidly . "I s ta rte d off well, but the rear tir e never came in. It just went apa rt," Russell said . The Georg ian pulled in fou r laps from the end for a new rear tire, but he cou ld only manage a 17th-place finis.h - the last rid ~ not to be lap ped by his new teammate... For Gobert, this victory was the icing on the cake: "Originally, Scott wanted to esca pe right from the start, w ith me following him. It worked out all right, but p retty soon he was holding me up a little, an d Fogarty was getting closer and closer. I didn't wa n t to make the sa me mis take as in the first heat an d let Fogarty by. I got past Scott and got into my own rhythm, hoping that he would hold on and get aw ay with me. After a few la ps, I noticed tha t Scott was reall y strug gling. I looked at my pit crew, hoping tha t they could tell me what to d o. A lap later, they showed me the pit board telling me to go for it - Scott had pu lled in. That opened up the wa y for me to get my first victory." Foga rty crossed th e lin e in sec ond posi tion , assuring him se lf o f a fi rs t Superbike World Championship. "I knew that I'd d one the hard work in the first heat," the Brit said. "But still I wanted to push hard; otherwise I might have lost concentration. I was happy to be able to sta y with the Kawasakis, but it w as only after I had gone past Scott, and when my pit crew showed me the boa rd that he had gone into the pit, that I knew that the title was mine." Corser finished third after a ba ttle with Slight. "I had the same rear on as in the first heat, but then (because of fron tend problems) I hadn't noticed that it ma de the bike slide aroun d a lot," Slight said . "Still, I felt confi dent tha t I cou ld get th ird p osi tion. But in the closing stages, we were slipstrearning behind a lapped rider before sta rt and finish, and I missed my pit board - telling me tha t we were on the last lap. Tha t's w hy I didn' t put in a final attack on Troy in that lap ." " McCarthy finished fifth, from Crafar ,' Shawn Giles and Pirovano. With his two excellen t results, Rumi rider Crafar took fifth position in the final point standings, just five points adrift from Honda works"rider Polen, who scored another d isa p pointing result. Meklau, who fin,ished sixth in the championship, also (Abo ve) Carl Fogarty did everything he had to do to wi n his first World Champ io nsh ip ; the Brit wen t out and won the fi rst leg and t hen rode to a cautious second place In the last race of the season. (Left) Scott Russe ll had miserable luck in Au strali a. The Georgian finished seco nd behind Fog arty In the fi rst leg, but tire pro blems fo rced him to pit In race two • end ing all hopes for a second ti tl e. Surp_rise ole ---.--- - - - - - _ - to Gobert P ractice results don't count towards the World Championship, and perhaps that is why the Austalians and New Zealanders were as quick as they were. Their zeal resulted in one minor crash (Troy Corser) and six top-10 places after the two practice sessions. The b iggest surprise was, of course, pole position from Anthony Gobert (right), who had done only some 20 lap s on his new Muzzy Kawasaki before rolling it out on Frid ay morning for free practice. "I hadn't really expected to get pole position," the freshly promoted factory rider said. "I wasn't keeping track of wh at the others were d oing , excep t in the last couple of minutes wh en Carl (Fogarty) tried to get his pole back. " Fogarty had indeed looked set to regain pole positonduring the first and part of the second session, before making a tactical error. "1 had not expected anybody to go faster than my best time from the morning session ," the Briton admitted. "And when it started to rain a bit , I came into the p its and just waited pretty confiden tly until the end of the session. But then Anthony gave me a reason to go out again." " Fogarty took pole position again for just a few minutes, but in the end it was Gobert who claimed the best starting position. His teammate Scott Russell was alongside him, not qui te being able to put down the same lap times as he had done one week before during p rivate testing. "I'm not surprised that I couldn't go around any faster," the reigning champion said. "There's a lot of traffic out there. Still, it w,as good to have done some pr~ctice here before. We've got c the bike good where we thought it would be good, and we got it even a little more stable." The Muzzy Kawasaki rider had also been one of the few riders to go out during the Sunday morning warm-up, which was held in a steady rain. "1only hope it will be dry this afternoon," Russell said. "We've found a good tire for the race, bu t in the wet it's a big gamble. The Dunlops react differently on different tracks, and the few laps I did this morning were not enough to give me an idea of their performance. And I also had some minor brake problems, which didn't allow me to really start testing the tires ." Troy Corser took the fourth-quickest time, despite a minor crash in the morning session. Aaron Slight was happy to complete row one, after practice had not gone as we ll as the Honda team had hoped. "We've been running in circles since we began our two-day private practice here last week. We've changed everything back to where we started the year with and that seems to do the trick on Phillip Island. The surface here is a lot bumpier than in the past." Kir kMcCarthy, a worthy replacement for Gobert on the HRC Honda , took sixth on the grid frorn the hew World Endurance Champion Adrien Morillas, Piergiorgio Bontempi, Mat M1adin and Simon Crafar, Crafar, who was still in the running for fifth and possibly fourth position in the point standings (wi th Doug Polen, Andreas Mek lau and Crafar) was using a new electronics system which allowed him to get on the gas a little sooner. Polen was not very happy with 11th place. "During our p rivate p ractice sessions last week, I did low 1:37s without any problems. But when we arrived here again on Friday morning, the bike just didn't want to go into the fast turns, which was probably caused by the heavy winds." James Whitham (19th) and Andreas Meklau (21st) clearly had some trouble finding the best racing lines on this techni cal track, and bo th riders ended up crashing. Italian Paolo Casoli, who ha d qualified his Yamaha on 13th spot, was a non-starter on Sunday as he was hit by a flu that made racing impossible.