Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

- - _._---- - ;~:5:."~r~·""~ la p a nd I kne w th at I h ad been very lucky to have stayed on the bike." Just like Christer Lindhol m's in one of the earlier races, the rear ax le of h is bike seemed to have been badly constructed by Ducati. Former Kawasaki World Superbike rider Rob Phillis didn't even finish the first lap . "The clutch stopped working." the racing veteran said. "Or actually, it was mv fau lt, beca use I ove rcooked it. This is on lv the second ti me this has happened i~ my whole caree r." RACE TWO With the exception of Casoli, w ho made an even better start than he had in the first race, the same men were once again lea d ing in the seco nd heat. As be fo re, Chi li was d oin g m o st o f th e wo rk up front, followed very closely by Caso li, Fog a r ty, Gob e r t, Slight and Kocinski. By the fourth lap, Sligh t took over entering the Stadi um and as Casoli dr opped back, a grou p of fou r formed up front. . A dassic battle was in th e making, wi th tw o Ducati rid ers (Chili and Kocinski) co nfron te d by th e two Castrol Hond a riders (Slight and Fogarty) . The RC45s had never looked .as fast as they did now, but man y expected the Ducatis to take revenge after the ir defeat in the first race. On t he fifth la p, Koci n ski started his cha rge, taking seco nd position . One lap later he pushed Chili from first place. But the two red, whi te and green Hondas were still in hot pursuit and looked like they we re even tightening their grip on the nu m be r -ll b ike of Kocinski . Behind the fas t foursome, Edwards and Casoli were fighting over fifth place, followed by another group consisting of Lindholm, Hale, McCarthy and Kellenberger. By this time an un fortunate Gobert was waitin g fo r th e a m bulance after having collide d with his teammate Crafar. "After my prob lems with th e rear tire in the first race, I pu t an oth er size on," Gobert said. "As soon as I was on the track I knew I could win this one." The Mu zz y team mates hooked onto each other while go ing through the Ostkurve, "We tried to outbrake each other at that point," Crafar said afterward. "But we hooked into each other. Only then I saw it was Anthony. I am just very sorry that it had to be my own (Opposite page ) carl Fogarty (1) beats Aaron Slig ht (3) and John Koc inski (11) to th e line In their epic World Superblke battle at Hockenhelm. Simon Crafar (6) gives ch ase en route to his fourth-place finish. (Abov e) PierFrancesco Chili (7) leads Slight and Troy Corser (2) In th e fi rst leg. (Left) Carl Fogarty won hi s first race of the season. teammate. When the bikes parted again, I looked to see if he was all right. I didn't even know that he was going to crash." Gobert was lucky enough to get away with nothing worse than stretched ligaments on both feet. With five lap s to go, another Aussie went down. Corser, who had been hanging on to sixth spot, missed an oil flag but fou nd the reason it was waving. "A stu pid accide nt," Cor ser said. "I crashe d on oil in the chican e. I had not seen th e first oil flag. Only wh en 1 Chili blazes to the front .fter the stop-and-go action in Mi.san o and the fast sweepe rs at Donington, the ultrafast Hockenheim circuit was the third battlefield for the WSB-riders. Those who had thought that the Japanese fours w ould make up ground on the Autobahn track near Mannheim proved to be w rong. During practice, Ducati rid ers sha ttered the 185 mph barrier on the long straights, with Pier-Francesco Chili the surprising winner of the high- speed battle with a top speed of 189:1 mph. The former Grand Prix rider benefited op timally from this minor speed advantage over his rivals and on Friday had already clocked an astonishing 2:00.33 (Fogarty' s official lap record is 2:02.59). Chili ended the first practice d ay 1.3 seconds faster than the rest of the pack. Despite slightly better (warmer) we ather conditions on Saturday and the fact that almost every ride r bettered his time of the day before, Chili got stuck at 2:00.27, with Troy Corser edging a litt le bit closer and signi ng on wi th 2:00.99. As it was, Chili stayed on pole po sition for the race. "I made my fastest time bein g drafted by Carl Fogarty most of the way," the Italian admitted. "Bu t toda y's 2:00.27 was done all on my own. That is wh y I feel very confident for the race. I know the battle is going to be very tough, and if everything works well, lap times of under two min utes will be possible. " Corser notched up the second-best time. "I have been concentrating on setting up th e bike inst ead of having the pol e," he sai d. "I never found a draft; if I had, 1:59s would have been p ossible today already. The chassis feels a lot more comfortable now ." Aaron Slight was third an d quite happy with that result: "We looked at the top speeds in the straights and it seem s th at my Honda is 5 km /h (3.1 mph) slowe r than the Ducati. We did some modifications on the injection, but you can only get the speed ou t of it that's in it. Longer gearing for slipstreaming would be of no use . On one bike, I ha d som e br aking prob lem s, but no thi ng that cou ld not be solved. Except for th e Du catis everything is looking very good for tom orrow." Despite a leg inju ry after a crash in a private practice session at Misano some days before the Germ an round and encountering heavy traffic on the ' Ring. John Kocinski qualified fourth. "It is very frus trating to be held up by slow traffic," he said. "An d the compu ter read ing said that it was 99 percen t sure we would have had the pole. I am very happy with the bike as it is, so we will not make any cha nge s for tomorrow." Of the fou r ride rs on the second row th ree of them had cras hed on their way to their fast practice time. Simon Crafar had gone down on Saturday morning, which A was in the corner and looked up I saw it. Changing direction I went off. After my crash in the firs t race I had had to take the other bike, with a slower engine. It handled the same but I could not really get a draft down the straight." Up fro nt things were beginning to get really hec tic, w ith Slight, Fogarty, Chil i and Kocinski constantly changing positions. With race down to three laps, Chili dropped well o f th e pace at th e back end of the circuit. With only one spark plug wo rking, he had to cruise back to the pit and notched u p his second non- finish of the day. . For the rem aining leaders, if all went d own to the last lap , and the last lon g stra ig ht befor e the sta dium. What no one had exp ecte d ha ppened: All of a sudden, leading man Kocinski saw the tw o H ond as stormi ng by. "Two la ps before th e end, I knew that I w as not go ing to w in this one," Kocinski sai d. "W hen the bike nearly sta lled o n the straight, I already prepared myself for a huge collision. Fortunately, Aaron and Ca rl avoided me and my engine kept running." The two CastroI Hondas came into the stadium almost side by side, with a slight ad vantage going to Fogarty. The reigning world champion would keep his slim margin to notch up his first victory. of the season and his first-ever on the RC45. " (It was) a kind of a gamble, really," Fogarty said. "We jacked up the rear of the bike before the second start. We would have tried that before during testing, but we always had rai n. This mod ification made away with the chatter I have been experiencing the whole seaso n and made the bike steer a lot easier. It fe lt a lot better an d I coul d see very well in the chicanes tha t I was a lot quicker than John Kocinski in chang ing direction ." p revented him from trying out some new things in the timed practice in the afternoon becau se of lack of time for the mechanics to fix the bike. ''I'm quite happy about the resu lt," the Kiwi said. "We had come here expecting a lot worse, because we are still a bit down on spee d . I tri ed to get into the slipstream of Chili for a fast lap, but ap parently he did not like that too much and slowed do wn as soo n as he noticed me behind. We have been try ing a dif ferent linka ge and with dif ferent offset settings in orde r to get some stability." Colin Edwards II kept his bike out of the gravel pits the wh ole time and beat his time of 1995 by more than a second on the first da y. "We have got a few things to work on with the suspension especially corning out of the first comer and corning out of the chicane," he said on Friday. The next da y, he improved his time despi te an unforeseen problem with the front end of the bike. "We run into some chatter problems of the front, which prevented me from doing some more hot laps, " the Texan said . "We think we know where the problem is. We will change the fork springs in order to try to put some more weight on the front. I did my fast lap taking McCarthy with me. I was on my very last lap, so I did no t worry too much. I noticed Kirk moved up some three places on the starting grid after that fast lap." Fogarty was the third man on the second row . "1 am so desperate to go faster but I am struggling to find the settings 1 am happy with. 1 am on the abso lute limit everywhere. We will keep testing as much as we can," promised Fogarty, who crashed on Friday morning when the back end came around as he exited the chicane. Anthony Gobert qualified eighth despite a crash in the last qu alifying session - at exactly the same place where he had done some off-road riding the da y before. "Compared to the Du catis the top speed is still a problem," he said. "We have to try to mak e up for the ground we lose on the straights on the rest of the track." McC arthy put th e first Suzuki in the 10th start ing po sition . "We trie d a lot of different tires," he said. "And we so ftene d th e front sus pe ns ion, which seemed to be a good so lu tion . We might try to go a little bit softe r even tomorrow during the warm up, but we ha ve to tak e care not to make the rear end of the bike too light. " Tea mmate John Reyn old s only got 32nd due to ba ck pain - a souven ir from h is Don ington crash. On Sunday m orning th e Briton eve n decided he wo uld n' t take part in the race. Mike Hale qu alified 13th and felt mo re an d more com fort abl e on the Pro motor Ducati. Non-sta rters were Nei l Hodgson and Wataru Yoshikawa. The Briton' s wrist injury from his Donin gt on crash had healed, but he was still suffering from cracked ribs, which cau sed a lot of troub le, especially w hile brakin g for th e chican es. Yoshikawa cras hed on Saturday morn ing, breaking his right wrist and injuring his left leg.

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