Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

ROAD ·RACE- World Superbike preseason tests By Johan Vandekerckhove reseason tes ts ten d to be p retty ted ious, events, with most competitors gently getti ng into their a lmos t- fo r gotte n hab it s of rubbing sho ulde rs with last year's rivals and desperately tryi ng to convince everyone that this will be their ye ar . Th e p resea son World Superbike tests - the first ones to be organized by Flammini - had all of this, with a little su rp rise on top of that. Only on e day be fore th e fo u r-s tro ke m achines howled for the fir st tim e in unison, an official press relea se from HRC sta ted that there wo uld be no second official Ho nda on the World Superbik e gri ds this year. 'Th e "pa r ting " of Doug Polen an d Team Castrol Hond a gave peopl e something to talk about. But it was not the only topic of con versation: The test s showed th at the Duc at is w ill once again be very hard to beat; that the Kawasakis will still be a force to be reckon e d w it h; that th e Ho n da(s?) are beco ming a real threat to the do mina nt du o of the last coup le of yea rs; and that the Yam ahas might ha ve some surprises in store in 1995. In short, the eighth season of World Superb ike racing starts off with at least five serious title-chasers. Lap tim es d o not tell the fu ll story; especially as some hotshots had turned up ra ther late (Scott Russell), or not at all (Anthony Go be r t, Fab rizio Pir ovano, Paolo Casoli). For Team Castrol Ho nda, the fun was over on Monday afternoon, when Aaron Slight p ut down his RC45 in the closing minutes of the first practice day, inju ring his h and in the process. Moreover, the va ria b le we ather condi tions with showers and sunshine did not encou rage the riders to go all the way. Possibl y, th in gs m igh t get a b it mor e hectic within a few days, when most top teams go to Monza for the ultima te p riva te test sessions, one week befo re the first race of the season, at Hockenheirn, May 7. Duc atis showed we ll on the Mis~ ano track, with Carl Fogarty setting the fastest tim e at one minute, 35.764 seconds, abou t two tenths faster than teamma te Mauro Lucch iari a t 1.35.960. Kawasaki-mounted Piergiorgio Bont emp i ran 1.36.560; Gianmaria Liverani on a Ducati, 1.36.598; Aaron Slight's Honda, 1.36.640; an d Du cali's Andreas Meklau a 1.36.704. P fore Srrokes (Above) Reigning World Superbike Champion Carl Fogarty cut a one minute, 35.764-second lap at Misano aboard the factory Ducati 916. Several late-breaking techn ical improvements on the bike may give Fogarty the edge he needs for a second straight title. (Right)Team Castrol/Ho~da 's testing was cut short when Aaron Slight (left) crashed on the raindampened track during the Monday session and suffered a broken bone in his hand. According to team manager Neil Tuxworth (right) no replacement rider has been named for the departed Doug Polen. HONDA DUCATI Next to Honda Castrol, Team Promotor is probably the team with the bus iest w inter test in g sch ed u le . It cos t th em some three engines in the last couple of weeks, but the Tardozzi-run team cam e to Misano with on ly one goa l: test in g tires. For everything else a good solution had been found. Like every other 916 team, Promotor struggled at first with , som e rear suspension problems, but accord ing to Troy Cor ser this is now a thin g of the past. "We found th e solu tion almost by accident in Daytona:' th e Australian said. "It was a matter of height, suspension and spring rates. Now the bike is handling perfectly. We are also working on reliab ility." And reas Meklau has seemed to be a little off the pace up until now, but that is to be blamed on his hand injury and the fact that he had to get used to a new b ike asweII as n ew Michelin tires . Andreas lost some time on Tuesday morning due to a problem with an oiltemperature sensor. In the afternoon, he could con centrate on testing tire s, and managed to ride constant high 1:36s . Both riders prefer different setups: Meklau is a hard braker (at so m e instances, he brakes so hard that the fron t wheel h it s th e leading cylinder head of the Ducati), whereas Troy Corser's real streng th is acceleration. " I fee l confi den t abo u t this ye ar, " Corser sai d. "I have gone one se con d faster than last yea r on th is track. And with th e chassis set up rig ht , 1 w ill be able to go faster still." Unlik e most other leading Superbike teams, Team Prom otor will not attend the Monza tests at the end of the week. They will go to Hockenheim next week with fresh engines in their bikes. . Carl Fogarty and Ma uro Lu cchiari had spent less time than their Prom otor colleagu es on the tracks du rin g the winter . It did not worry the world champion: "Som etimes you can .do too much testing," he said . At the sa me tim e, he admi tted that he had need ed som e time before getting in to th e groove during testing at Daytona, Rijeka and Misano. Fogarty does not expect a nyo ne to receive a 1000cc engine before the end of the season. But "I will not need th at to win the championship for a second consecutive year." Technical evo lution has been considerable over th e last cou p le ' of months, according to Ducati en gineer Domenicali. "We ha ve worked on two different chassis and on the en gin e during wi n- er to build into the bike, but is also faster in calculating, which allows us to control the engi ne in an even more detailed way. We are develop ing tha t CPU for racing now, bu t we will not be able to use it in the first couple of races." O f co u rse, so me eng in eers .a lso worked on getting even more horsepower from the engi ne. "We worked a lot on th e profil e of th e cams: ' accord ing to Domenicali. "This wo rk wa s made a lot eas ier than in the past, as we are using CNC tooling now . Now it takes us about two hours bet w een ' in ven tin g' a cam profile on the computer, takin g the disk to the CNC machine on the wo rk floor and getti ng a cam ready to test. I can assure you that we have quite a heap of cams lying in the du stbin now.." As to the performance of the factory engi nes , the Italian onl y wan ted to say tha t a gain of "more than 2 bhp" h as been found compared to the 150 bhp (at th e cra nkshaft) on Carl Fogarty's best bike at th e end o f last year. With this p ow erplant, the factory rid er s will be abl e to d o some 435 mil es before th e engines have to go back to the factory for a general rebuil d . At Misan o, however, nobody was thinkin g abo u t rebuilds. Mos t tea ms were inst ead com plaining ab out a la ck o f pa rts from Ducati. Apparently, some subcontractors are not able to keep up with the Bologna factory. Se ve ra l r ide rs (such a s Fabrizio Pirovano) left their bike at hom e as they did not want to use it too much before the Hockenheim race. They feared that if someth ing broke a t Misano, no spare par ts wo uld be available before the season gets un derway. Pierfrancesco Chili missed the second day of testin g at Misano for a s im ilar reason. The fo rme r 250cc Grand Prix star had destroyed one 916 at Monza a week before, and blew u p the eng ine of his seco nd bike after some laps on Tuesday mornin g at Misano . Wit h no sp a re p arts (or engine) available, Chili ha d to pack his thin gs on Tuesd ay morning. Still, the blond Italian h ad shown some good practice times at the .same track some weeks before, running 1:35.6. ter," he explains. "As to the chassis, the mai n wo rk was to ge t th e w ei ght down ...es peci a lly a t th e re ar. At th e beginning of this season, all the factory bikes are exactly the same as Carl Fogarty's bike at the end of last seaso n. There is a new sw ingarm, a complete ly n ew rear axle (bigger in size but wi th a smaller wall section an d a very light bearing), with d et ail improv em ents on the axle itself and on the pivot. The swingarm is the same as the magnesium one used by Carl Fogarty during the last three or four races . Ducat i can n ow also count full time on the servi ces of And ers Andersso n . Th e lik able Swede, who used to wo rk for Ohlins for several ye ars, has sign ed a contract with Ducati as the suspension specialist. On the engine side, a lot of work was done on the electronics. "New electronic map s have be en dev eloped," says Domenic ali. "Chan gin g an eng ine or a cams h aft or an exh aus t pipe will now not be suc h a big problem ; we will be ' able to change the electronic data very quickly now. On top of that, we have a new CPU (Co n tro l Processing Unit), which is also used with the stock 916twin seat. It is sm aller, lighter and the pow er module is integrated in the box. Because of that, the uni t is not only easi- One of the main top ics of conversati on in th e Misano p a d d o ck was, of course, the firing of Dou g Polen. Everybod y expecte d John Kocinski to show up on the Texan's bikes, which were stowed aw ay in the team tru ck at Misano. "Ma ny peo p le have asked me wh y we have brought all the bikes and all the mechanics to Misano. Officially, we have only been informed last week about the deci sion of HRC," sai d Neil Tuxw orth, m an ager of the official Honda Ca strol team. "We had the bike s already in the truck for a one-day test at Donington, and we have come directly from there to Misano. There was no time to unl oad the bikes . The official HRC press release states that Aaron will be the only rider for our team in 1995. Desp ite the rumors, 1 can assure you that no other rider will use Doug's bikes here in Misan o, nor in the. Monza tests (April 28-29) nor in the first WSC round in Hockenheim. " When asked if any mechanics would be fired if Honda was really, to continue with one rider only, Tuxworth said that there wa s plenty of work to do for the wh ole team... Honda will also be su pportin g Simon Crafar (Team Rumi) more than in 1995, with an official engine being delivered to th e" team, albeit o n ly after the WSC round at Misano. Up to now, the team has received some parts which had been used in the ·factory bikes in 1994. Several Honda people found it a better idea to provide the team wi th the Polen bikes

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