Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

ROAD RACE . . .W C orld hampionship Superbike R R Series oad ace Round3: Donin to g nPark, England from Fogar ty , Jamie Whitham, Troy Corser, Piergiorgio Bontempi and Slight. After three laps, however, everyone was quickly reminded that the Du catis seem unbeatable in 1995: Foga rty too k command of the lead, with Russell d ropping to fourth in only a few miles. The Georgia n was sufferi ng w ith a foo t injury and his rea r tire had alread y starte d to lose grip; he .w ould eventually d rop to sixth place. At o ne-third -d ista nce things sta rted to tak e sha pe at the front. Fogarty was lead in g co m fo rta b ly, and Co rser had fought his way back to seco nd place. Beh ind th em, four rid er s we re battling for third - Wh itham, Slight, Bon tem pi and Pier-Francesco C hili - in a race that would go t he d istan ce. Fa b r izio Pirovano joined in for a while, bu t sta rted losing ground because of a rear tire that was losing g rip. Ditto for Simon Crafar on the second Castrol Honda, who would eventually d rop back to eighth, but initially had two Kawasakis on his tail wi th Ru ssell struggling to keep John Re ynolds at ba y . Muzzy Kawasaki's number-two man, A nt hony Gobert , was still fur ther down the leaderboard. And so were the two factory Yarnahas, ridden by Coli n Edwards II and Yasutomo agai. Five laps before the end, thi ngs really heated up. After C hili crashed in onds' lead . And history has taught me that when you try to attack Donington, it will attack you ..." Corser, meanwhile, finished a secure second. "Because of my bad start, I had to use a lot of my tire to catch up again. After I got in second posi tion I didn' t try to d o any thing foolis h anymore ." A th ird Du cati, rid den by Whi tha m, eventually gra bbed th e third spot in the fina l laps. "The tir es w en t off quite early," he said. "And I was afraid not to be able to keep up in the d osing stag es. But fortunat ely it w orked ou t all right. " Sli ght finished fourth after a ferocious ba ttle with Whitham and Bontempi. With th e bikes slithering and slid ing a ro u n d , th e New Z eal a nd er ' s ha nd sta rted hurting a nd he was forced to slow a little . His new teammate, Crafar, finished eighth, complaining later that his tires had go ne .off. Gober t finished 10th, despi te the Kawasaki 's lack of ho rsepower, and Edwards brought the factory Yamaha home in 18th. "We were so far off the rig h t setting," the young Texan said . "It's my fault really, but things could have looked a bit better if we had 'some private .testing here. For the second race we'll cha nge the rea r spring and add so me rebound, but actually it's all a bit of a g uessing game. We' ll see wha t ha ppens." (Left) Carl Fogarty did the double al Doninglon Park , winning both legs of hi s home race in lhe Wor ld Super bike Series. (Below) Home-boy Fogarty leaves lhe line in the fiirst leg with Scott Russell (2), Jamie Whitha m (69) and Tr oy Corser (11) in low. RACE TWO Altho ugh the Muzzy Kawasaki team had nothing to celebrate ab out after the first heat , th in gs only go t wors e a few hours later . Russell left the pit lan e too lat e at th e st art of th e second race, and conseq uen tly m issed th e sig hti ng lap . Mcl.ea n's, o nly Wh it ha m , Slight and Bon tempi remained in the struggle for th ir d place. Ru ss ell, m eanwhile, h ad fina lly managed to put a co m fo rta ble cus hion between himself and Reynolds. A t th e end, Fogarty had logged his third vic to ry of th e season : "Th e front end chatter problem w as better now," Foga rty sai d . "1 kept go ing until I had so me four seco n ds' le ad ; I co u ld n' t affo rd to go an y faster , as I would have taken too many ris ks. In the last couple of laps, I w as happy to stay two sec- And that marked th e beginnin g of the end for the Georgian. "M y crew was still w orking o n the bik e when the lights went gree n for the sighting lap. I had to go str aight to my p lace on th e starting grid. A cou p le of minutes later, I took off for the warm-up lap, and then th e carbure tor needle clip fell off. If I'd done the sighting lap, my mechanics would have had th e tim e to fix the problem. Now it was just no use to try to repair th e thing. I would have lost at leas t one lap before I cou ld start By Johan Vandekerckhove Phol os by Gold & Goose OONINGTON PARK. ENGLAND, MAY 28 ven m ore so tha n la st year, the factory and semi-factory Du cati 916s are steamrollerin g the World Superbike C ha m pio ns hip. Carl Fogarty scored his second do uble victory of the season in fro nt of a p artisan crowd of Briti sh racing fans at Do ning ton Park, just a week af ter his tea mma te Mauro Lu cch iari pu lled off a simila r fea t in front of his home crowd in Ital y. And with o n ly three of 13 round s in th e book, Fogarty ha s es ta blishe d a ra th er imposin g 68-po in t lead over Lucch iari and the rest of the pack. And if yo u're not on a Du cati at this point, yo u ' re definitely well behind . Castrol H onda' s Aaron Slight is the first of the four-cylinder men in th e point stand ing s - and he ' s already 82 points behind hi s British rival. But after the d isaster in Misano, the official Honda RC45 is o nce agai n s h o w ing t h e thre at it began to display la st year a s Slight ended the day with a 4-3 tally from the two ra ces . While H onda wa s a ble to tum its fortune a round, things contin- E 12 ued to worsen for the Muzzy Kawasaki sq ua d a nd Donin gt on Pa rk provided ano ther maj or disappo intmen t. After a hopeful sixth place in the firs t race, form er World Ch ampi on Sco tt Ru ss ell didn't even get to the sta rting g rid for the second race. RACE ONE At least for a few laps, things see med to h ave turn ed a ro und fo r Fogarty's biggest riv als of a season ago . After th e firs t of 25 laps, it wa s Russell leading

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