1996 World Superbike Championship /
000
-"
By Johan Vandekerckhove
Photos by Gold & Goose
few things are ve ry clear as
.
th e 1996 World Superbike
Cha mpio nship quick ly
ap proach es. For only th e
second time in five years,
the number-one p late will not adorn the
front of a Ducati; for the first time since
the creation of World Superbike racing,
th e Ducatis will not have a weight
a dvanta ge over their fou r -cylinder
rivals; and for th e firs t time in racing
hist ory, the Bologna motorcycle manu-
A
facturer will have to face op position
from the Japa nese "Gan g of Four."
Still, we won't be surprised if Ducati
. ends up wit h anothe r title at the end of
the 1996 racing season. Who wil l be atop
the riders' cha mp ionship, however, is a
much more difficult question to answer.
With a seasoned John Kocinski taking on the four-stroke sp ecialists in his
bid to make a comeback into the glam orou s world of tw o-st ro ke ra cin g in
1997, Tro y Corser, the favorite to tak e
the title before his m ore experienced
riva l showed up, and Mike Hale, de termined to make waves in his first inter-
(Left) World
Champion Carl
Fogarty has
sw itched from
Ducatl to Honda
for the 1996 World
Superblke
Championship.
He'll be under
pressure from
both John
Kocinski (right)
and Troy Corser
(below). Kocinsk i
comes to the
ser ies after a oneyear hiatus from
Grand Prix racing.
Corser is back for
his soph omore
seaso n In the
ser ies.
~REM
REGISTRATORI Df OSSA ' alLA
