Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

ROAD RACE W RLDSU E O P RBIKE C AMPIONSH SERIES H IP W hitham finished fou rth, hi s best per form an ce of the seaso n, while Godda rd crosse d the finish line in fifth after having led the chas ing group for most of the race. "When you are at the head of a group like that , you have a grea t big target on you r back and everyone is out to get you," Godda rd said . "I knew someone would have a go and when Lavilla made his move, I wa ited a lap then tri ed to ' pass him back at the Mine Shaft, only to have Jam es dive up the inside and take me." Slig h t and Edwa rds fin ished a t th e back of that group, claiming eighth an d ninth, respectively. "I made a reall y bad sta rt and you can' t afford to do that, especia lly aro und here," Slig ht said . "Th e n I s u ffe red b rake tro u bl e fro m the s eco n d lap onward and it was just a battle to get to the checke red fl ag . I had either n o brakes or they would lock on as 1 tipped into the comer." Eight h place did, however, offer him first place in the point standings, wit h two p oint s m ore th an th e u nl ucky Corser. Edwards finished n in th in the race after su ffering from a lack of grip from his rea r tire for most of the race. "The bike felt so d ifferent to how it Briefl is a ~ ~ 20 felt in th is m o rn ing ' s warmu p ," th e Texa n said . "I had a lack of traction . I basically ma de the wrong tire choice. lt was not my greatest sta rt, bu t the rear tire really slowed me down later in the race anyway." • Scott Russell had to settle for LOth, u nable to follow his teamm ate Haga, w ho had clawed up to seventh after a poor start. " I ha d a.Iot of vi b ratio ns co m in g fro m the bike all around the circuit and it mad e it hard for me to see," Russell said. "I haven' t go t the bike sorted out pr ope rl y a n d i t seems li k e I'v e got n owh er e a ll w e e k e n d . I cou ld n' t cha nge my lines eit h er , becau se the bike was n' t s teeri ng we ll wi th th e vib ratio ns. I fo ug ht with it a n d d id manage to do some of the fas test times I ha ve done all weekend , but it' s rot enough." RACE TWO Desp erate to get his ch am pionship lead back, Corser dashed to the lead in the second heat. 'Th iS time the Du ca ti cha llenge was even mo re obvious than in the first race: For seven laps in a row, the three red factory riders were showing the way, wit h Corser lead ing and Fogarty and Chili batt ling it out behind the num ber-11 bike. . ••• For the first time since 1992 . the circuit of Kya lami hosted a World C hampionship motorcycle event . At one point , the best l ap t i m es were hovering around 1:39.5. but at the end of the year. Formula One safety inspectors asked the circuit owne rs to build a chicane in'order to get the speeds down . Cars raced there once more, in 1993 : and then turned their back on the venue as well . A s a result. a very slow chicane wa s adde d be fore the ' start / finish stra ight.' The best W orld Superb ike riders turned in times of around 1:45 with the new chicane. Most riders liked the layout of the track and only complained about the bumpy surface and the fact that the track is surrounded by hospitality and other buildings, whic h makes it 'd ifficult for them to concentrate on their braki ng points. The Kyalami organizers hope to host a Formula One car race ' in 1999 'as. wel l. ln' the mean t ime . the natio nal Welkom circuit. about 220 miles southwest of Johannesburg , is being prepared for a possib le retu rn of the Grand Prix circus . ' According to insiders , the owners ' projec ts to combine the road race circuit wit h an oval and some othe r infrast ructure improvements will have serious effects on the security c ompromises that will have to be struck before the Welkom circuit can be homolo gated for Grand Prix use. To cover the first Wo rld Championship motorcycle race at Kyala· rnim some five years. South African t elevision used no fewer than 27 ca m e ra s '(a record in its histcry of coverinq outdoor events) . incl uding the on -boa rd ca meras of Peter G od dard and Colin Edwards 1 ' " 1. . , ., New Ze alander Andre";' Stroud is havmq a lot more trou ble than he expect ed in his first season running a team'· a team for .which he is his own rider. At the end of last year. the BEARS specialist was believed to have bought one of the Doug C handler 'bikes'-Wh en he put the bike on the dyno jus t after the final AMA round at L.as Vegas. the engine dro pped a valve, damag ing many (Above left) Peter Goddard leads Gregorio Lavilla and Jamie Wh itham in their battle f o r T t hird place in the f irst leg . (Ab ove) Pier-F rancesco Ch ili seems t o be getting better w ith age . The Italian won f or t he fo urt h t ime in th e 1998 World Superbike season; it w as also Ch ili's f irst-ever double win, Behind them, things wen t very wrong on lap five, when Lavilla's engine seized . Yanagawa jus t ma naged to avoid him, but in his effort to keep from hitting LavilIa , th e Jap a nese rid er cou ld n' t hel p pushing Whitham into an impossible situation, wi th Slight followi ng too closely to avoid cras hi ng as w ell. Lavilla was dow n for the cou nt, bu t bot h Whit ham a nd Sligh t rem ou nt ed af te r d ra ggin g their bikes out of the gravel pi t, though Slight was the only one to finish the race as Whitham pulled off a few hu nd red yards later. A ft er sev en la p s, thi ngs finally cha nged up front as Corser started losing gro und ra pidly on his sliding tires. Chili took command, w ith Fogarty still hanging on as Haga, Edwards, Hod gson, Yanagawa a n d Go ddard were in ho t pu rsu it. Russell, mean while, was way back and soon got compa ny from Slight as th e Kiwi tr ied to recover from his spill. Chili's lead g rew more slim as the of the essential internal parts. After being'fixed by Rob M uzzy, the bike was taken to Australia and · 'aft er a disappointing national race " was put back on the dyno . There it show ed about 135 bhp. "We had to 'replace the cylinders, pisto ns, valves , crank shaft. etc .. with kit parts . " the Kiwi said on the first 'practice day in Kyalami afte r having scored his best results of the season (14th and 15th) in Mi sano two weeks earlier. "I am definitely learning a la ps ticked off, w it h both Fogart y an H ag a gaining g rou n d o n the It a lian w hile Edwa rds , Hod gson and Yanagaw d rop ped back an d into their own battl ove r fourth. In th e fina l five laps , th e to p thre we re stru ng nose to tail with Ch ili jus keepin g th e lead, tho u gh it a pp ea re that either Fogarty or Ha ga might mak a move at any time. . The ba tti e for fou rth heat ed u p a well, but it was now wi tho ut Kawasa rid er Hodgson, w ho parted cornpan wit h the group, once again as a result a technica l problem . " I had th e sa me p ro bl em as in th first race," Hodgson sa id . "The en gin just spluttered to a halt , bu t I was at lea: able to stop safely in the gravel trap." Tho ugh H od gson was gone, Yana gawa and Edwards were still left in th b attle for four th, w h ic h w a s fu r the spiced u p wh en Edward s overshot th chicane, thou gh he ma nage d to get bac on track with out losing the spot. and the injection bikes is bigg'er here than somewhere else. 'We try to compensate for the lower oxygen level purely on carburetion. Uke on all other circuits. we try bo th homologated carburetor sets (3gmm and 41 mrn), We .are using the smaller carburetors here. just like we did fo r instance at the Nurburgring . On the other hand. power is not so import ant on a twsty circuit like this. Having the chassis set up perfectly is much more vital. Besides. nowalot th is yea r. This is the fir st sea son I am runn ing my own te am . days most riders do not even feel a 5-bhp difference . because of and it turns out to ,be pretty difficult to conce ntrate on racing and · the layo ut of most circ uits ."the y brake at the same point. reaccelnot being confused by all the other stuff around it . But the biggest erate at the same point. It is the way the power is spread which proble m is of course the lack of powe r. You really need 150 bhp counts. The only other possibility we thought about before comi ng at least to mix it with the best privateers , On top of that, my spare here was to try to develop a hiqher-compre ssion engine, but on engine blew in Monza, so I have to try to get to the end of the the one hand this might have led to differen t problems and-on the other hand we j ust didn't have enough time to wo rk on this sort of , season with this one bike. Fortunately, we get good prices for the parts from the Ne;"" Zealand import er." ' an engine. For this first visit to Kyalami, we are mainly gathering data which we can work on next year . But as things lciok now , the Carburet ed b ikes such as the Yamaha VZF. the Kawasaki ZX·' high altitude does not seem to be much of a problem.7 and the Suzuki GSX,R we re up to an extra challenge compared to the injec tion·fed Ducati 916 and Honda RC45 . "The high altiAfew days befo re leavingllaly. the Ducati racing department tude the Kyalami circuit is situated at (some 5200 feetl does not received the fin'al okay to enter its new homologa ted ver sion of ' make things easier," admitted Fiorenzo Fanali, cinef mechanic of the 916 in the seco nd half of the Wcirld Superbike season . The the work s Yamaha team. " But we should not overdramatize this. new engine part s and chass is had already been put in the airThe atmo spheric conditions might. cos t the VZF some five bhp, transport boxes . as the homologation green light was expecte d but . that . is about the same thing fo r all the carbure ted bikes . ' for the American round one week ' after the Kyalami race and the except that the injection bikes lose some (amount) less power. team would not return to Italy between the two events. The days The bike also feels slowe r than on lower circuits . We can com leading up to the first practice sessions at Kyalami we re used to pensate for it partially by changing the ignition timing and the car: assemb le one " new " bike for each of the three factory riders . On buretionsettinqs. On the other hand, theoxyqen content of the Friday, Carl Fcigarty , Pier-Francesco Chili and Troy Corser used air is 'only one of the 'many elements the so-called kappa value is both of th e version s and unanlm ous lyopte d to use th e new made up of and which we use to calculate the perfect engine tun- , 'engine. " If we had had this engine in the beginning of the season, ing, But 'w e' will never get. it as good as the injec tion bikes that use ·'the results would have been a lot different ," sald Corser on Satursensors to modify' the engine characteristics ,constantly. " 'Harald · day morning. "The engine reacts more smoothly to the gas: wh ich Eckl. 'team manager at Kawasaki. had more or less the same make s it much easier to use. "' According to- team manager Vir. sto ry. "The big altitude is especia lly a pro blem with two-stroke ginio Ferrari. the ~ew engine allows more control, with the bike engines. whe re you lose much more horsepower." said the forreact ing much more predi ctably in low rev s (5 ,500·6: 200 rpm). mer Grand Prix 250cc rider. "I think we lose more than 5 bli p here " On the 'older engine: the 'riders ofte n had to keep' t he engine compared to other trac ks. but that gee's for almost everybody . 'I revving a bit higher." explained the Italian. ' which put more strain do,;'t have the imp ression that 'the gap betw een the .carbureted , on the rider; on the frame and on the suspension. The new 'engine

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