Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

INTERVIEW Troy Corser By Henny Ray Abrams Photos by Gold & Goose ver since he's known what it was, Troy Corser has wanted to I win the 500cc World Championship. He gets it honestly. The 25-'year-old Aussie grew up in Wollongong, the same Sydney suburb that produced Wayne Gardner, the headstrong 1987 500cc World Champion. As Gardner's career declined, so ascended that of his teammate and fellow Aussie Mick Doohan. It would be 1994 before Doohan could claim the cup, and the top prize in motorcycle road racing has been a resident of Queensland, on the Gold Coast of Oz for the past two years, and probably 1996. If everything goes according to Corser's plan, it will be moving back south to Wollongong in a few years. "I feel that I'm ready to get on a 500 and start learning," said Corser, who has never hidden his aspirations. "Because they wi1l take at least 12 months to be as comfortable as what I am this year on the superbike." And that is very comfortable. In a very informal survey of some of the top team owners and riders at Mid-Ohio, Corser was the one rider mosUhought would succeed at the highest level of racing. Now in his second full year spearheading the Promotor Ducati World Superbike team, Corser is one of a handful of racers, Muzzy Kawasaki's Anthony Gobert and Yamaha World Superbike's Colin Edwards IT included, whose career trajectory will likely vault them into the seat of a works 500 in the next year or two. When they get there the golden age of racing begins anew, young World Superbike blood mixing with the Grand Prix veterans Doohan and Luca Cadalora and the ascendant Alex Criville and Loris Capirossi. Despite the fact that he's only been road racing professionally for five full years, he's already won two very prestigious championships, the Australian Superbike title in 1993 and the AMA Superbike crown the following year. The American campaign was a tight one that went right to the end and gave him the chance to showcase the skills that have served him well since. All the elements of grea'tness are manifest: intelligence; a willingness to listen, learn, and adapt; bulldog-like tenacity; and enough savvy to know when to put the past behind and move on. This year he's needed the last trait more than usual, and it all started here in America. It has been an almost equally up and down season, which actually started during the winter at Daytona where he ran second on the unofficial clocks to his new teammate Mike Hale at the Michelin tire tests. If he was worried he didn't show it, and when they returned for the Daytona 200 it was Corser on the pole with the new lap record' in his pocket and the new RoJex Daytona ,Chronograph on his wrist. The only thing he didn't leave with was the championship trophy, and that was because his machine failed. Lucky Strike Suzuki's Scott Russell, who took a photo-finish second, said that he felt Corser was the rider to beat on that day. At the airport the next morning it was clear that Corser had already put it behind him. What wasn't seen in the Daytona results was the effect that it had on the team. There were two tests of the new 1996 Ducali 916s planned after the initial date of the Daytona 200, but both were scrapped when the race was raindelayed for a week. Plus, the bikes were stuck in Florida for a week, which caused more headaches. "It really hurt me because I was comfortable with the bike and there was some material we had to test on the bike," the always-forthright Corser said. So when they arrived for the first round of the Superbike chase at Misano, on the Adriatic coast of Italy, the team was on all-new machinery, '96 bikes which hadn't been run or tested. The result wasn't bad, a pair of seconds, one due to a deteriorating rear tire. Life would improve dramaticaUy at the following round at Donington Park in England, the track where Corser made his World Superbike debut with an impressive ride that eventually earned him his Promotor seat. "I always find it more enjoyable to go to Donington. It's a bit more of a rider's circuit instead of straight-out horsepower and balls-out brakes and drafting and all that," Corser said. "I don't have fun when I'm just looking all the way at the end of the straightaway waiting for the next comer to come up because I know I can make time through the comer if I'm faster." And at Donington, he was. The first race was something of a runaway, the second more of a struggle. At the end of the perfect day he had moved into the lead in the World Championship. Then came a disastrous weekend in Germany.. The whale-shaped Hockenheimring is the fastest course of the year, a couple of long, flat-out straights interrupted by chicanes and joined at the top by the Oskurve, literally the "East Curve," a right-hand bend that's one of the fastest corners on the circuit. Add to that the stadium section, where passing is all but impossible, and the front straight, and there's not much to it. "I always feel hunched up when I'm tucked in on the straights, particularly here where you're tucked in for such a long time. I just hate sitting on the bike like that because it's uncomfortable," he said. More uncomfortable is the feeling of rushing off into the gravel trap in the daunting Ostkurve. That's where Corser ended the first race after rus rear tire broke loose slewing hard to the left, Corser somehow saving it, only to slide again and ride into the pebbles where he pitched it down. He also crashed ou t of the second race, the first time he'd crashed in both legs of a World Superbike race, this time due to oil in the second chicane. He never saw the oil flag. Next came Monza where he was in the hunt in both races, and finished close, only to be stymied by a tire problem in the first leg on his way to a very close fifth. The second leg was a classic, the. top four finishing within half a second of each other with Corser an unfortunate fourth after a momentary lapse of concentration on the final lap. With former series points leader John Kocinski getting shut out of both races, Corser was able to moved back into second place behind Castrol Honda's Aaron Slight after four of 15 races. When the season started he was thought by many to be the man to beat, but he was too clever to buy the hype. "I wouldn't class myself as the guy to beat," Corser said. '1 think there's a few guys, obviously, who are going to be battling at some tracks. I feel confident I can be in the top three every time." Last year, Corser continued, "I knew I could run with the front three guys or the front five. I knew I couId run with them and I could beat them if everything's going all right. Last year I was always trying to win, trying to win, trying to win. This year I know I can win the races. Now it's sort of a little bit easier for me because I can think about thing~.~ a bit more when I'm out there or.lfhe bike. ",' "The biggest advanta~-that I think

• Cover