Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

ou t a big plan for the race. He cut his teeth on the Yamaha ; that is th e bike he's r id d en for fou r years n o w . H e developed his style around this motorcy cl e a n d it wo rks fo r him. Colin (Ed w ard s ) ro de the b ike all over the front en d of the bike. I don't; 1 sit u p. I always have. He rides all over the fro nt end of the bike. He's got a lot of entry speed th rough the corners, good en try speed, bad ang les . Like he'll brake into a corner and he'll come to outbrake so me. body and you'll see him way over and just pee l it th rou gh the apex. But he gets away wi th it. But so metimes he doesn't get away with it. So far I' m not su re how he' s really doing it yet. It'll work sometimes , so me times it won't. That's not the way the book says to do it." Kawasaki's Neil Hodgson is another rider who's impressed wi th Haga. "I think he's very, very, very talented on a mo torcycle," Hodgson said . "He 's got lots of confidence and big balls and all tog ether it is a fan ta st ic p acka ge very hard to beat. Those so rts of people - it's an aw fu l thing wh at I'm go ing to say - th ey're. a lm ost, not impossible to beat , because that' d be a real defeatist thing to say . You almost hop e they beat th em sel ves because he' s on th e ed ge. His confide nce is so high , you just keep thin king - I don 't wa nt an yo ne to crash, so I do n' t thin k abou t it that wa y. You almost think, 'I hope his confid ence gets kn oc ked so mehow, som e w ay: and it comes back to human level. Because at the moment the wa y he rid es is reall y fan tas tic . That was a w esome. He jus t stepped on the bike with very, very few miles on it. Blood y hell. It loo ked safe. He didn't look out of place." Haga d evelop ed his style of racing in the All-Japa n Superbike Cha m pions hip . He wo n the title in 1997 after finis hing eigh th the year before. That sa me year he teamed wi th Co lin Ed ward s lito win . the Suzuka 8 Hou rs. Th e s tart of hi s racin g ca reer came a board a p ock et bike a t the age of 4. He's been go ing fast ever since then . His firs t World Superbike win came last year at Sugo. Japan ese riders doing well in Japan don't im press man y people. Whe n they get on the world stage , their talen t often doesn ' t tra nslate. Haga is the excep tion. "I' m never surprised ," Du cati's PierFran cesco Ch ili said. "When I see him at Sugo last year, how he ride the bike, he can go everywhere." Kawasaki' s Ak ir a Yana gawa, w ho raced agains t Haga in Japan and is in his second yea r on the World Su per bike tour, didn't thi nk he'd adjus t this qu ickly. "I' m su rp rised , but not a big surprise becaus e last year he d id World Su perbike at Sugo and Indon esia and he di d well," Yanagawa said . "Then ma ybe he comes goo d result this yea r. But I canno t ex pect wi n . Hi s rid ing is quite good, ag gres sive always, li ke cra zy, I th ink possible to firs t year, this year my problem is not like that, too mu ch thinking. Last year I'm not thinking so mu ch and it's so easy. But this is m y problem an d 1 wa nt to thi nk he keep it up the who le season. Maybe Yamaha has a good chassis a nd th e Dunlop tires a re go od for tha t mach in e, for him a per fect. Since 1994 he s tart riding Yama ha and sa me machine - good combina tion." Having develop ed th e Ya maha for the past several years in Japa n has giv en him an edge, so me rid ers beli eve. The machine is his a nd he kno ws exactly what it, and the tires, wil l do. "I k n o w th e p e r fo rmanc e of th e mach ine and th e ch aracteristics of the machin e," he said . "This line is di fferent from other p eople. Th e original line is a n adva n tage, the best line with this machine." "Wh en An th ony (Go bert ) wa s fast (on the Honda RC45 in Australia or on the Mu zzy Kawasaki), he looked like he was out of shape because he was sliding i t goin g in and then he was on the gas," Tro y Corser sa id . 'That's when the rider's happy wi th wha t he's g o t underne ath him and h e uses what he's got. An d that' s how I can see Haga going . He spent so much lime on th e Yamaha in Japan, with Dunlop tires . For him, he's just ridi ng on ne w trac ks. "I think a lot of it has to d o with the tir es, beca use Anthony (Go b ert) u sed to look th e sam e. An y rid er who 's good can co me to a new track and go fa st; 1 pro ved th at in '9 5 and '96 - the first time on the track, b y th e end of Frid a y , ' Saturday, 1 was up on the first tw o rows or front row because I was happy w ith what I had underneath me - that's all I can say. H e ' s obvio u sl y a good rider, because he can rid e hard an d when everythi ng's going good he can !1Se it. " I th ink, a gain , th at' s h is tires. He's just using wh at he's got. He kn ows that he can go in her e and brake and turn it b e caus e the tire s le t h im . Where ou r things, we try to do it - no wa y. So we have to go out here and do thi s. You just us e what you go t and that's sort of the easies t way to do it. If you can use w hat yo u got to the best you can get ou t of it, yo u ' ll b e fa st. W h en yo u try to u s e so me th ing that it d oesn' t w ant to d o, that's when yo u cras h." Castrol Ho nda's Aaron Sligh t, ano ther World Superbike veteran , agrees wi th Corser. "He uses mainly his ow n lines," said Sligh t, "bu t if there's a gap he'll a ttac k and he'll suffer the consequence afterwa rds - if it's slow ou t of the corner or whatever. If there's a ga p, he'll go for it. Riding around th e track in qu ali fying, he 'll be on th e sa me lin e. Eve rybody goes on how slow he'd get into the corner, and in 1994, when I was on Dunlop, eve rybody was going on abou t Demington too, a nd they seem to forg e t it' s a di ff erent b ik e . Du nl o p ' s go t n o real e ng ine b rake g r ip, n o reverse gri p , where Mich elin has a bit mor e and .it's easier to hang it out." Fogarty, for one, isn ' t su rpris ed that Haga's been abl e to ge t the most out of the bike . "The Yamaha's al ways been a good bik e: ' Fogarty p oi n ted ou t. "It' s just now it's got so meo ne who's riding it to the best of its ability . It's always been probably the best-turning bike ou tthere and go od -hand lin g bike an d on m os t circuits that's good , apa rt from Hockenheim, an d we don ' t go there any mo re like Mon za, and that's go ne." The abili ty to go allout , regard less of the conseque nces, d oesn 't always prod u ce th e most co nsisten t results. The evidence has come wit h his erra tic finishes thi s yea r. Still, it wasn't until the Misano round that Haga failed to score points. "You guys have jus t see n a little flash in th e pa n ," Ca s tr ol H onda ' s Colin Edward s II sai d . "Two race s he's go ne exceptionally well. On e race' he cras hed h is bra ins ou t (in p ra ctice ). It ' s ju s t going to be a malle~ of so me tracks he's going to go good , so me tracks he's not going to go goo d . He made the Yama ha w in a nd h e d id rid e it o n th e edge . That's a lot put do wn to I' m not as crazy as h im . T hat 's t he m a in t hi ng ri gh t there. I'm no t willing to pu t my life on the li n e in every cor ne r, w he re as h e don ' t care. If he crashes, he cras hes ." For his part , Haga says, "This is not risk y rid ing; in order to get the cham pionship the first year I have to ride very hard." Haga realized after the fourt h race in Albace te that he cou ld n' t ride that way th e rest of the season. The bike isn ' t up to p a r w it h th e o thers, th o u g h h e' s d ip lom a tic in describ ing its sho rtcomings. "The bike is not very fast," he began. "Because the bike tha t cannot go past on straigh ts, I have to try and risk in d ifficult poin ts so I can pass (the ot her rid ers). In any case, Yam ah a makes a good engi ne and bike; th ey're always developing the bike. It's also why I am matching with the bike. The chassis is perfect. Th e eng ine , 1 wan t' more fro m eng ine . That they're trying to do." Having to rid e beyond the means of the eng ine caug ht him ou t in Monza , the thi rd race of th e se ason. Th e straigh tli ne speed of th e Castrol Ho nd as left everyo ne w heezi ng in th e ir w a k e. Ed wa rds wo n both races; Slight was second in the 'first a nd wou ld 've finis hed second in th e second race h ad he not blown up on the last lap. Du ring pra ctice Haga had high -sid ed hard , flying five yards u p in the air in a cras h he described as one of the fiv e wor st of his career. In ad di tion to hitting his face and head , he cu t the inside of h is mo u th, d a m ag ed h is righ t ha nd , ankle and kn ee, and hurt his back. He h ad difficul ty b r eat hing , b u t rod e nonetheless to a ninth and a 10th. "T h e re's a lim it and he go t awa y wi th it a few tim es," Fogarty said . "He did n' t ge t away with it at Monza." W h e re he goes fro m h ere will b e determined by how mu ch he's willing to ri s k. Wit h th e trend to w a rd slowe r tra cks w o rl d w id e, Haga h a s a good cha nce of fin ding success in many of the rem ainin g ro u nds, in clu ding Laguna Seen. How lo ng he' ll rem a in in Wo rl d Superbike has been a su bject of consi dera ble specula tion . Russell thi nks th at Yama ha should swap Haga for Yamaha Tea m Rainey's Norick Abe righ t away. "They sho uld have done it already," he s ays "T hey didn' t know . The n he co mes ov er a nd w ins the fir st th ree, leading the cham p io nship . Ma ybe it' s beller to w ait a year, give h im a yea r, an d h e' ll se e th e tracks , a nd then p u t hi m on so m e th ing tha t' s real - tha t'd prob ab ly b e th e bes t thi ng th ey could do." The re's no hurry to move up to the 500cc Gra nd Prix class, Ha ga says, even th ou gh h e im p ressed m any w it h h is thi rd -place ride in this year's Japanese GP at Suzuka. He expec ts to race su perbikes for two or three yea rs . "I' m in n o h urry. Give it th e time that' s need ed ," he says. The only shocking thing he said during two in tervi ew s was tha t he wanted to ride a Honda NSR500 four-cylinder . But it tu rns ou t that he was misunderstood. " I' d like to try a fou r-cyli nder 500 Ho nda, be cause 1 already tried a fourcylinder Yamaha," he said . "I thin k that anyo ne would like to try a four-cylind er Ho nda . I've hear d tha t this bike is very good . I'd like to know wha t it's like." But h e emphasizes that he has no d esir e to leave Yamaha for Hon da, even thou gh he's likely to be the most highl y valued commo dity on the market wh en 1.-:0; the season ends . 19

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