Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

RACER TEST Carl Fogarty's and Pier-Francesco Chili's Ducati 996 Superbikes By Alan Cathcart Photos by Kel Edge and Gu us van Goet hem n d o f a n era? Well , it co u ld be, af ter Du cati 's ru n of three World Su perbike titles in succession (and six in the past seven years) was broken at last by Hond a in 1997. A fte r m ore th an half a d ecad e of su perbike su premacy for the Itali an Vtwin s, punctu ated by a solitary title for Kawasaki, the balan ce of power in topclass four-stroke racing may perhaps be shifting away fro m the Italian marque. This comes, inci d entally, o n the 25 th an niversary of Du ca ti' s arriva l in the b ig-bike big time, when Pa ul Smart's historic victory in the 1972 lmola 200 triu mphant ly announced the new V-twin d esmo' s arriv al on th e world s tage. Is the p arty p erhaps over for th e bikes from Bologna? Possibly. Maybe it was no coincidence that, as the Wo rld Superbike series ma rks its 10th birthday, thi s was the first year Ducati was u nab le to b ump up t h e capacity of its trad emark 90-d egree Vtwin motors compared to the previous season, in the company's ongoing effort to keep pace wit h the development of its Japanese riva ls. Mind yo u, they d id n't lose the title for wa n t of trying. For the best p art of the season Ducati's lead rid er, Britain's Carl Foga rty, wa s in contention for the cham p ionshi p, in his comeback seaso n on the Italian V-twins on which he won two world titles in 1994 and '95, after an away year wit h Honda riding the V-four that would ironically w re s t the title from his clutches - and it was doubly ironic that it wa s now in the hands of the man with whom ' Carl s w a p pe d seats, John Kocin ski. At th e h alfwa y mark in th e 12round /24-race se ries, Fogarty held th e points lead, having never finished lower E than fourth in any race. But then it all went terribly wron g, as consistent Carl became a crasher, sli ding out o f conten tion no less fewer five times in to tal du rin g th e seco nd ha lf of the seaso n, thu s handing Kocinski the title on a bed of gravel. Ne ver mind that six-times-a-wi nner Foga rty a nd ' hi s fellow wo rks Du ca ti rid er Pi er- Fran cesco " Fra nkie " Ch ili w on nine races between them on th e desm o V-twi ns - the same as Kocinski (p lus a n ot h er th ree victories for h is Hond a teammate Aaron Slight). It has been in the car ds for a coup le of years that Honda would get the mea sure of its Italian riva ls sooner or later. T he ti ming couldn 't hav e been worse, either, from the po int of view of the com pany' s new owners, the America n TPG invest ors gro u p. Th is was its first full ye a r in th e Du cati driver' s seat. But was it that the Hondas got better, or the Ducatis go t worse? Or was it a bit of bot h? There was only one wa y to find out: Comparison-test the bikes of Fogarty and Chili on exactly the same Assen track where one yea r ago I'd d on e the same wit h the similar V-twin desmos of Corse r an d Kocins ki. So the day after the Carl 'n ' Frankie road show had ave nged their defeat by Kocinski an d Honda in race one on the Dutch track by cruising to a n untrou bled I-2 victory in race two, the Virgini o Ferrari a nd Team Ga t to lo ne sq ua ds fronted up their tw o w orks d esm os in pit lan e for me to compa re and contras t the strongest weapons in the twin-cylinder superbike arm ory. Tough job, isn 't it?! W~II. actually - yes, wh en the bike in qu esti on is as hard to handl e a n d a s d ownright unruly as the Fogarty Duke I sa m p led fir st, after a 20-la p wa rm u p a boa rd Ca r l's mat e Jamie Whitha m ' s works Suzu ki GSX-R. To be com pletely honest, up until then I'd taken Fogarty's well-publicized com plaints about the Vtwin's han dli ng w ith a pin ch of salt, figuring he nee ded time to rea ttune him self to rid ing a tw in after that away year with Hon da, and re membering how big a step-up ther e'd been in the power of th e 996cc motor when I'd ridd en the Du cat i a y ear a g o, com p ared to th e pussycat per formance of the '95 season's 955cc desm o with w hich Carl o won his last wo rld title. It wa s a bit like squeezing two yea rs of develop me nt into just one, as far as he was conce rne d . A yea r ago , I'd ma rveled a t the feat of Duca ti's d evelopmen t engineers in producing a big-bore motor tha t actually revved high er an d ha rd er tha n th e sma ller, old er engine. It was more like a two-s tro ke desmo GP race r than the trad ition al-styl e turbo tractors all previou s Du catis h ad been , w it h their meaty midrange, torquey traction and power to go all through the rev ra nge. The new '96 bike was a peakier rev hound, instead of a su per slugger, and you were encou raged to ride it acco rdingly. Maybe the '97 bike was the same, onl y more so. Was Carl having tro uble ad jus ting to it? Well, no . Bu t I was! After one s low lap to se tt le in a nd warm th e tir es, ex iti ng th e Assen chicane at aro und 6000 rpm, I crac ked open the th rottle as soo n as I was pointed in mor e or less th e right direction, and well, not much happened, Then , as the revs mounted rather slowly, the Ducati cle ared its throat at 7000 rp m and the powe r ca m e in fi ercely, s e nd ing m e rocketing off d own pi t straight as th e digital tache bu ilt nu mbers like a Co ncorde 's altimeter on takeoff. Sudd enly, it's reading 12,300 revs and it' s tim e 'to ch ange up by ta pp ing th e KLS s peed -s h ifte r, with its trademark ultra-sensitive Foggy se tting, to score a higher gear. Whose bike is best, Pier-Frances co Chili's (7) or Carl Fogarty's (4)? Acceleration is awesome by my real- , world standa rds . It's hard to believe the Honda is eve n qu icker off the mark . But still, it did tak e tim e to ge t go ing from low down, unl ike last year . Ok ay, I ge t it: 12 months of de velopment equals mor e power, but up high - I go lla use more re vs, so try hard er in the 1 turn or u s e a low er gea r . Nex t tim e , around, flip from one side to another in ' the chicane agai n (no ticing that it seems L harder wo rk making the V-tw in change d irection than I remember fro m before), gas it up hard and - w hoa ! Wha t happened ? Did so meo ne light the afterburn er? I never before go t such instant pickup from a four-stro ke motorcycle. I know thi s en gine is fue l injected a n d throttle respon se is sharper a nd crisper in consequence - bu t excuse me, I've been racing such bikes for the past eight yea rs, so I know what to expec t and this ai n' t it... Especially w he n the payoff for th is sudden blitz of beefy power is a wo bble a n d a weave as th e rear suspension p o g os up a n d d o wn, w h ile yo u' re slig htly leaned over for the rig h t-hand curve befor e the finis h line and you hit i the little dip in the road su rface exitin g the chicane hard on the gas. Or exiting ' the firs t turn on the Assen national cir- : cuit, w hen you hit the rid ge in the road s u r fa ce w hi le cr a n ke d ov er, ju s t as J you're gelling hard on th e gas . Sorry, but I don' t like power-sliding in off - ; cam ber tu rns. with the bike doing the I shimmy-shimmy-shake-shake - it's bad for my nerves. This happens again at the back of the circui t. I ha v en' t h a d a ; Ducati do all this to me since back at the v ery beginning of 916 d ev elopment, befo re Massim o Tamburini so rted out the handling in mid-'94.

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