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Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128001
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12
When Fogarty finall y made his move
- a daring bu t clea n one up the insid e
under braking at the end of the straight
befo re the Tra mo nto com er - it loo ked
like he was going to disappear into the
distance beca use he was cer ta inly ge ttiRg mo re ou t of his Ducati tha n Corser
was ou t of his. Th ankfu lly for all the
neutra ls in the crowd, it wasn ' t to be,
even if there wa s clear da ylight between
the number 1 and the number 11 for the
remaining laps.
Yanagawa h ad , b y lap seven ,
repassed Ha ga, who wa s s truggli ng
with gri p, and the Kawasaki rid er was
about to embark on a lo nely voyage
towa rd a clearly fad ing Sligh t and third
place. Yanagawa's journey was to ge t
even lonelier as he finished well ahead
of not just the Ho nda rider, but Chili,
who was to depose Sligh t on lap 18.
All the top b ik e s were evenly
matched for speed , and it was sheer
determination against the odds w hich
took Chili past Edwards on lap ni ne at
Cu rva Del Ca r ro, and .t h e n sheer
po wer which sli p ped him past Haga
on lap 13.
Isaacs was having the race of his life
to depose Fujiwara, moving up to 12th
on lap 11, a position from which he
would never be dislodged.
Lap 15 provedto be an unlucky one
for Slight, as a small slip allowed Yanagawa to brush past in a vain attempt at
catching the leaders. Lavilla chose this
juncture to put in his fastest lap so far,
maintaining a strong cha rg e that saw
him finish the 25-lap race just feet away
from Edwards.
Godda rd and Guareschi were another warring faction, with th e eventual
result go in g to th e noticeabl y m o re
aggressive Italian.
By la p 16 Fogart y had stretched a
slight .8-of-a-second lead over Corser
and it looked like it was all over. With
five laps left, though, Corser, who later
claimed to be conserving his tires for a
final push on Fogarty, started red ucing
the gap s lo w ly but s u rely, c has in g
Foga rty - the red -color ed hare.
By lap 22 the ga p was.3 of a second;
by lap 24 it was n oth ing as th e tw o
Duca tis settled in for a fina l ga me of
wits and gu ile. Fogarty was to prove the
cleverer, or ma ybe just the more fortunate, because Corser's da ring cha rge up
th e inside at Tra monto took him past
Fogarty bu t also sufficiently wid e so
that Foga rty could repass on the ins ide.
This move was vital because there can
sel dom be a more defensible se ries of
ensuing comers than the last few at Misano.
Thus Foggy held on to "in by .126 of
a second, w ith Yanagawa 10 sec onds
down and Chili, the conqu eror of Sligh t,
the ma n in fourth, a further six seconds
back.
The Honda duo of Ed wards a nd
Slight came next, with Lavilla making a
stro ng a tt ac k in th e las t lap bu t just
being outru n by Edwards.
A disappointing race result for Haga
saw the one-time potential winner way,
way down in eigh th , w ith Guareschi
getting the better of Goddard for ninth.
A dull race on th e whole. But race
two had to be better, right?
RACE TWO
Or maybe not.
With Foga rty buoyed by his win at
his most disliked track of the year, he
took the hol es hot in the second leg to
subsequently see his name on top of the
timesheets every lap thereafter.
An a lm ost processional race was
sa v ed by the in te rven tio n of one
oriyuki Haga, the wild man on the R7
having clicked his adrenal gland up yet
Stephane
Chambon (1)
leads the way In
the World
Supersport final
at Mlsano. The
race was
eventually won
by Ruben Xau.
(23).
another notch from ra ce o ne to full
d eath-or-glory mode. He even ha d th e
temerity to overtake Fogarty momentarily on lap one before Foggy returned the
compliment and made it stick.
Haga then had to tum his attention
to Corser after the Australian deposed
him on la p th ree, with a breathta kin g
maneuver a t the first of the se ries of
three lefts which cu1minate in the awesomely fast Curvone Veloce, an apt title
if there ever was one.
He was to save his best move for lap
eight and a little further along the fast
curve when he audaciously went underneath Corser yet ag ain, this tim e in a
spot no o rd inary mortal wou ld even
con te mpla te: th e entrance to th e la st
kin k on the Curvone Veloce - the daddy
of 'em al1
His move stuck for three laps until he
fina lly di sappeared off the radar when
he lost the front at the apex of Curva Del
Tramonto.
Being passed by Corser was obviously too much for Haga and his attem pt to
get ba ck on terms ju st ended up like
many of his races this year, in the dust.
Th is tim e th e near-one-second gap
between leader Fogarty a nd ch ase r
Corser wa s not to di minish - it wa s to
g ro w, as further down the field th e
lower-ord er w o r ks men ba ttled for
su p remacy and the last of the big, fa t
poin ts scores .
Yanagawa was once more on the case
and took his Kawasaki to another fine
th ird , with Slight faring better than in
race one with fourt h, just ahead of Lavil-
lao
Slight d id actually ha ve a go at repassing Yanagawa at one point bu t had
to drop back as his brake-bi nd ing problem returned with a furi ous vengeance
and helped send his tires off the deep
end of th e slip periness scale. Ed wa rd s
and Chili 's ba ttle for sixth went to Chi1i
d espite his physical problems.
At the front, Fogarty was enjoying
the lu xu ry of a three-second ga p on
Corser at the halfway stage.
Fujiwara, after a miserable first race,
Brieflv...
.
.
.Honda has announced its team lineups for the S uz uka 8 Hours race
and it carries few surprises. just the stdl·remarkable pairing of John Kocinski and ' Fast' Freddie Spencer. Castro! Honda's recently made-up pair.
ing of Aaron Slight and Colin Edwards II will run Castro! colors on their
bike. joined in livery' by the aforementioned unlikely duo of Spencer and . .
Kocinski. LUcky Strike co lors will adorn the works AC45 s of Tadayuki
Okada and AleX Barros. plus those of previous winners Shinichi Itoh and
TOOru Ukawa. Pere Riba and Kurtis Roberts have made the list of reserve
ndEltS. but Aiba's injury from the race now rules him out.
A well ·polished t rack s u rfaca . evident before recent M isano test s
featuring Yamaha and Ducati. forced the circuit organizers to bring in a
sandlilasting rn.3ctune to rough up the top layer of tarmac before proper
testing could begin . An unforeseen problem of grit clogging up the
pores of the tarmac left the surface (of the Variante del Aio in partic ular)
just as sfick 8S ever. forc ing the track to be washed free of all the grit.
All this simply lifted rubber from the surface. reducing grip still further.
Even the runnin g of an Italian Superbike National race the weekend
before had no beneficial effect of laying rubber down on the surface. as
it rained for the ~e meeting. The net result of that race . as Davide
Tardozzi put it. was. 'They put down more fainngs than rubber .' The
problem carried on all through practice and race day. where. the eomparatively low times in both Supersport and Superbike were blamed on
poor adhesion on all parts of the track . Carl Fog rty. for example.
~ a second per lap slower in qualifying than what he was during winter testing in March.
managed to edge out privateer Ulm on
the very last lap, a feat which pal es into
insignificance compared to the six-second ma rgin of victory enjoyed by Fogarty , taking his third double win of the
year.
_
Autodromo Santamon lca
Mlsa no Ad riatlco, Italy
Results: June 27. 1999 (Rou nd 7 of 13)
SUPE R BIKE QUALIFYING : I. Cu i Fogarty
(1:33.995); 2. Troy CDner (1:34.2091; 3. Am. Yanagawa
(I:34.411 ~ 4. Noriyuki Ildga (1:34.460); S. Aaron Sli ght
(1:34.465); 6. COOn Edwa rd . II (1:34.592> 7. Robert Ulm
;
(1:34.767); g. Kalsuaki Fujiw ara (I:35.370~ 9. Vittoriano
G ua ...chi (1:35.375); 10. /'i