Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

R n ou d2:D g onin tonPark By Johan Vandekerckhove Photos by Go ld & Goose DONINGTON PARK, ENGLAND, APR. 28 ohn Kocinski is not invincible after all. After his impressive debut in Misan o, the Ame rican never came to grips w ith his Du cati on the Don ington circuit. He managed to score a reasonable number of po ints wit h seven th- and sixth-place fini shes, but he wa s never close to double winner Troy Corser. The Du cati -m ounted Australian s im p ly dominat ed the Brit ish r ound o f th e World Superbike Championship, leaving with a pair of fir st-plac e fini sh es ev en after a strong seco nd -ra ce chal leng e from the leading member of the four-cylinder brigade, Cast rol Honda's . Aaron Slight. After a fifth-place finis h in the first heat , Slight was vocal abou t the fact tha t he still considers the Ducatis to be at an adva n tage - d espite th e fact th at the wei ght limits between the twins and fours are no w equal - and used his ire to mount a dr amatic challenge during race two. Sligh t managed to secure the lead for a few lap s, but Corser struck back, relegati ng the Hond a rid er to second place at the flag. Third both times ou t, An thony Gobert faced his share of problems on race d ay, mo st ly w ith h is fast Mu z z y Kawasaki teammate Simon Crafar, who sco re d his best-ever World Superbi ke result with his second-place finis h in race one. Confident he could back up his J earlier performa nce, Crafa r' s luck took a tum for the worse in the second outing wit h a mechanical failure that left him coasting to a stop with nine lap s to go. Corser' s comm and per form anc e moves him into th e se ries point s lead with 90 points, 21 a hea d of se co ndplaced Kocinski. Italian Pier-Francesco Chili is third , with 56, after finis hing fourth and fifth on the d ay. RACE ONE Troy Corser had wa rned the opposition after the two practice sessions: He would try to d o 1:33s and get away from the pack during the opening laps. And so he did. His one-second lead after the first lap was diligently stretched to some five seco nds a fte r the fift h . A t tha t mom ent, everybody knew that thi ngs wo u ld have to go ve ry badly for th e Australian to miss ou t on his first victory of the seaso n. Behind the Promotor rider, a group of five led by Gobert formed in hot pursu it. Crafar, Co lin Edwards II, Slight and Chili were righ t there and each one had his m ind se t on the second spot. Hanging on in seventh was Carl Fogar ty, with Kocinski trying to boun ce back from a fairly poor start in eighth. After seven laps Co rser was s till leading very comfortably, with the battle for second losing two of its players as Ed wa r ds a nd Ch ili bo th lo st so me gro und. Crafar had taken over the run ner-u p spot and was simply on a tear, at one point even collid ing with And ers Rasmussen, tho ugh he was for tu na te e no ug h to s ta y on hi s whee ls. After Gobert had d ropped back to fifth due to brake problems, the New Zealander firm ly held on to second place, desp ite fierce attacks from Slight. At that time, Kocinski had also passed Fogarty. A few laps be for e the end , things . really heated up . First and seco nd seemed secu re, bu t not so for third place . Sligh t had climbed ba ck fro m sixt h to third in the second ha lf of the race after an off-road excu rsion, and at the sa me tim e Gobert seemed to have regained his s p irits a nd wa s ge tting closer to the du o of Slight and Chili. The th reesome waged a n inc redi bly tight battle in the closing stages, with Gobert diving inside of Chili on the penultimate lap to take third position. For Corser, the first-hea t victory was just a logical conseque nce of his imp ressive peiforma nce during practice. "I d id what I planned to d o," he sai d. "After my practice. result fro m yes te rday, I knew that I could d o fast lap times in the firs t laps . In the seco nd half of the race I se nsed that my tires we re going down and I slowed down. For the whole race I did not push it harder into 1:325, even if 1 thou ght it possible." Crafar had th e best r esult of his career . "My main concern was trying to hold the rear tir e un til th e end," sa id Crafar. "The only moment I had was the clash with Ras mussen; comi ng ou t of the comer I went wide and I had to keep the sliding u nd er control. Unfortunately, Rasmussen didn 't completely go to the outside of the track and I could n' t av oid touching him . I feel really sorry. for that. " After th e second heat , both men were found in C rafar' s camper wa tching the video of the collision. Gobert had a pretty difficult race. "I want ed to go away with Troy, because that was the onl y way to keep in touch with him," Gobert said . "Unfortu nately, Simo n got in the way, which was pretty di sappointing for me - a teammate is a lmos t a big ger riva l than an y othe r rid er. I had trouble with the front brake, which started to fade from lap two." Slight finished fifth just behind Chili. "My biggest probl em is the rules," said Slight. " It is impossible to compete with the Ducatis. Last week, Kocinski was one second faster tha n me; th is week it is Troy Corser. This is impossible; they cannot be this much better. Look at Carl Fogarty . He says that the Honda was made for me, but tha t' s not th e only reason why he's not really in front now . When are they going to realize that with these statistics (40 wins for DucatiJ something is wrong with the rules. In the race, I got off th e tra ck on ce. Wh en Rasmuss en went off, I had to avoid him, which cost me abou t 2.5 seconds . I had to go hard to make up for the lost ground. It was raining a little bit at the back of the track. I mad e a lap of 1:34.7, but the rear tire was going, so I almost lost the bike and I had to go on the grass ." Edwards finished sixth. "I am pretty pleased with this race," the Texan said . "Unfortu na tely, when I was coming up on Gobe rt, I went dirt tra ckin g in th e chican e."

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