Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

all give feedback into the team." What worried him was that when he would get up behind them, they'd just pull away from him. "Which is a little bit what happened at Hockenheim (the first race of the season)," Corser noticed. There is one thing and one thing only that matters at the Hockenheimring and that is brute horsepower. Carl Fogarty had it and no one else, including Corser, did. "Just straight out horsepower was a little bit lower than Carl's, in particular. I later found out that Carl had a '94 motor at Hockenheim, which, there's 110 difference, but they've got different characteristics in the way the horsepower comes in. In the race situation it didn't work out as good as what Carl's bike had," Corser said. Having had nearly limitless success the two previous years, during which time he won the Australian and American Championships, it was somewhat humbling for a rider to find himself in the middle of a pack of 10 riders when he's supposed to be on the very fastest of works machinery. Hockenheim has a way of doing that to men and motorcycles. "You go so fast, then you've got your chicanes and everyone close back up again and then it's another drag to the next set of corners. It's a track where you have to be on it every lap, you've got to know wl1.en to get on the throttle and when to get off it, and when to get off the brakes. Unfortunately, if you're just a little bit off it makes a big differ~ ence in you lap times, especially when you've got so many people behind you. If you're in front, they can drag you backwards so fast. I think I could have been in the front of the pack. Once I got up there the bike just wasn't fast enough to get away and go. I'd just end up at the back of the pack. Whereas, the other guys, they could get a draft and peel out. Every time I tried to get up beside one of them they'd just keep going. And if I did, then the next straight they'd just blast past me again." What he didn't know at the time was that his engine was overheating and putting him amid the pack of riders he should be able to distinguish himself from. Not that he isn't respectful of the competition. "I noticed that the pace in America was not as fast straight away from the green light. In World Superbike you've got to be doing lap-record times first lap. In Misano (the second race of the year), the times we did were faster than what I qualified at, and almost what pole position was, that Carl had on the second lap of the race, and we did it for 10 laps in a row. That was when I discovered that the riders got to the times real fast and they lap until the tire is worn out. Where, in America, it was basically start a little bit slower and then you start going faster at the end of the race." Because of the less stressful pace of racing in the United States, Corser wasn't under as much pressure to learn the tracks quickly, which is one of his natural talents. On the world tour, he has to learn tracks, tires, and setup, all in the four one-hour sessions leading up to Sunday's races. And, early in the year, and to a lesser extent now, he was having to adapt to the new 916-based Ducat!. "Last year, in America, I didn't really have to do a lot at all," Corser explained. "I just had whatever Doug (Polen) had the year before and just changed one or two clicks for how I preferred it and it was perfect. Here, we're starting with a new bike. So I've got to start all over again, which I'm liking because I'm starting to understand the bike'a bit more and get things set up." The difference between last year's 888-based 955 and this year's 916-based bike is something you notice "when you sit on the bike. The 888 was more of a sit back and relax' position. The 916 is more of a Grand Prix bike; you're sort of up on the handlebars a bit more and a bit more forward on the front forks. You notice the difference in chicanes and stuff like that. When you brake, they seem to dive on the front end more than otherwise. The 888 brakes really flat. On acceleration and then on the brakes it never used to change geometry so much, where the 916, when you brake, you actually feel it on the front." Misano was a good race for Corser, who scored a pair of thirds as part of a Ducati sweep of the top four places in each race. Then came Donington. In the first race Corser burned up his tire after a slow start and didn't have enough rubber for a late-race push. The second start was better and his interval behind Fogarty was rarely as much as a second. Fogarty continued to roll in the next round at Monza, with Corser doing a little rolling himself. His was on the ground, though, after a tumble early in qualifying that left him with a minor fracture to a bone in his right ankle. "I got the bike sideways as I exited turn seven leading onto the back straight and, for a moment, I thought I had saved it. But the rear tire gripped and threw me off," Corser said at the time. Third on the grid, Corser led both legs, before crashing out of each race. The first crash was simple overexuberance, running into the chicane too hard and taking' out fellow Aussie, and former teammate, Anthony Gobert. The secant:! one was the one that hurt, though. "I got hit from behind by (Piergiorgio) Bontempi's bike and it sent me flying about two meters in to the air. I landed facefirst onto the road and then slid over the trackside ripple stri ps on my ribs. I'm a bit bruised and sore, but that's racing, I suppose. All I have to do now is concen trate on next weekend's race at Albacete (Spain) and pick up a couple of strong finishes.': Which is exactly what he did. Starting from the pole position at the Albacete circuit in southern Spain, Corser led for the first 18 of 28 laps before his soft compound rear tire went off: Though he fell to third, he was less than .8 second from race winner Aaron Slight and just behind Fogarty. A harder compound tire was chosen for the second race and it worked for about five laps, then "just went off really quick. So I think that it may have just been a dud tire. At one stage it felt as though it was losing pressure and it nearly threw me over the handlebars as it slid exiting the chicane." A dud tire and a sore ankle, from the crash in Monza the previous weekend, eventually relegated him to fifth with Fogarty clearing out and winning by close to five seconds. . The next two races should help the Australian move up from fifth place in the standings after five of 12 rounds. First is the Salzburgring, where he's raced an Austrian national, then comes Laguna Seca, a track he'll visit as the World Superbike regular with the most success, having finished second there last year. It wasn't a track he adapted to immediately and he found the elevation changes hard to adjust to. But, this year he's ready, and so is his machine. And he should be in the hunt from the start. "They (Ducatis) drive so good out of the slow corners in first, second, and third gears," he says. CN

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