Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Road Race (Left) Over 120,000 people packed Brands Hatch in hopes of seeing the ir man Fogarty win. He didn 't . (Above) Tro y Corser (11) didn't have a very good day at Brands. The Australian ended up fifth and 13th after enco unter ing tire problems. 8 Haga 's midrace d ip in form . Chili, moving ev er forward after a slow start in the first th ree laps , left a big black line up the hill to Su rtees comer as he hun ted down Corser, finally passin g a t Pa ddock on la p 10 - jus t as Slight went pas t Foga rty at Su rtees af ter the Eng lis hman h a d s trayed to o close to hom e soil and ru n onto the grass on the exit of the preceding G raham Hill bend. The fighting ins tincts of Fogarty saw him tr y in g to r e p a ss a t th e fa st Haw th orn corner im media tely, but it was a clea n move , an d Slight sta rted to attack Edw ards' lead. ' Chil i got the better of Fogarty on lap 11, at Padd ock once more, as the race order started to settle int o its final shape in the first three positions. Lap 13 was unlucky for Lavilla, wh o cras hed after losing the front at Druid s hairpin. Yanaga w a 's fas tes t lap of th e race came on la p 15 as he started overha uling bo th Mackenzie and Haga to finis h sixth. Chili's determined assault on Sligh t came a litt le u nstuc k wh en the Italian lost the rear of his Suzu ki at th e d rop d own Padd ock Hill as his rear Du nlop we nt off. His rear tire woes wer e nothin g compared to Foga rty, who wa s sta rting to cu t 1:29 secon d laps , dropping p ace with ever y lap. On lap 17, Fogarty pitted, and the grief from the crowd was pa lpab le . Th e almos t unprecedented move of replaci ng th e rear tire too k place.rand Fogarty, a lap down, rejoined the fra y on ly to finis h out of the points in 19th. Th e Brit ish ex ci te me n t turn ed to Reynold s and Macken zie for th e final la ps, w it h Reyno lds finding true grip fro m his rear Micheli n when all others were losing theirs. A real scrap between him , Yanagawa and Mackenzie develo ped over t h e n ex t three laps with e lbows a n d s tra nge co rner ing line s exc ha nged lik e pl easantri es between d iplomats, just before the dec laration of total war. It ended with Reyn olds scoo ting away into the dis tance from lap 20, lapp ing in to the 1:27s on occasion, but he wa s too far behind the fading Chili to catch him for wha t wo uld have been a crowd-pleasing podiu m finish . He did, ho wev er, have th e intense pleasure of overha uling a wo rks Duca ti on the wa y, n ip p in g un d er Cor se r at Paddock to send the crowd back into cheering mode once more. With Haga showing eno ugh pride to attack back at Mackenzie and lead him over the finis h lin e, one of the bigges t chee rs of the d ay went up for Walker, w ho scyt hed throu gh the field from his pit lane start at the rate of five riders a lap for the first two times across the line - and one rid er a lap un til mid-d istan ce. James Ha yd on hada somewha t lone- ly race in the latter stages, lead ing Walker over the finis h line by four second s, after doi ng the entire race on his teammate Ma rty Craggill 's spa re bike . Wa lker, on his own spare mach ine, held off Andy Meklau, wit h the Aust rian delighted wi th his 11th place on a circuit he ha s never ridden before. Goddard 's broken shift lever equaled brok en hearts for the Aprilia team, who had the RSV ri ght o n the lower o rder works pace all weekend. Cors er had ' th e h onor o f s et ti n g a new lap record at the remodeled Brand s Hatch, and eve n saw it last the da y, as his 1:27.774 tim e wasn 't beaten in th e second race. RACE TWO Wit h temperatures soari ng both on track and in the Ducati ga rage after race one, it was little su rprise that Foga rty set off like a scold ed cat to lead in to the first tu m in race two. In a repeat of the first start, the reigning champ io n fired o ff th e lin e better tha n anyone else to lead round Pad d ock, bu t in a cha ng e from the earlier scri p t he held the lead for more tha n a lap. Mean while, it was Walker muscling hi s wa y past a raft of series regulars from 10th on the grid to take a su rp rise and popular - second. But it wasn' t to last. Haga, who mu st have been pray ing to the same Gods as Foga rty 'a fte r his mi serab le firs t ra ce, swept throu gh from third to first within the confines of the second lap. An d how . His boldness at divin g u nder lead er Fogar ty at Surtees nearly cost him and the Brit on d ea rly , h o w e ve r , for ju s t moments after taking the lead Haga' s rear wheel spat s id e ways and nearly had the 24-year-old off. With Fogarty a bo u t a foo t off his back wheel and in rea l danger of ramming Haga, the cro wd held its collective breat h for a frac tion, until both regained the ir co m posu re - ju st in tim e to see Edwards swee p through to the lead, and me taphorically off int o the distance. He wo u ld n't be pa ss ed b efore the flag, though not for lack of trying from Slight an d Chili . The Italian wa s next to pass Fogarty, scyt hing past at the steeply sloped Pad dock Hill bend on lap three, at the start of a charge that would see him come his cl o sest ye t to a w in . Hi s bra very prompted Slight to have a go, and he too swept past just ya rds lat er at Druids. Fogarty' s ga m ble on using a 16.5-in ch rear tire instead of the 17-inch er in race one looked to have failed, though eve ry o bser ver wou ld h a v e agre ed n ot a s . mu ch as teammat e Co rser who made th e same switch - he was lan guishin g d own in eig hth on lap thr ee, and would even tu ally trail home in 13th wit h all so rts of 'problems from the fron t of his b ik e . A s us pec ted ja m med s teeri ng 'd a m p e r was late r b lam ed fo r t he wrestli ng match he performed with the bike thr ou gh out the race. Up front a proper race wa s brewing. Ed wa rds, Haga, Chi li a nd Slight were stre tching away from the rest, wi th just .6 of a second coverin g the qu artet at lap five. All four we re laying darkies exiting corners, and eve ntually something had to give, you felt. In the fullness of time it would for Chili, and in dramatic sty le. The Italian was harrying Edwards for the lead after passing Haga on lap 12 at Dr u ids , a nd , s a n d w ich e d between Edwards and Sligh t who took third on lap 13, was lucky to esca pe injury when his rear tire all bu t exp loded on lap 22. Lumps of ru bb er can do particul ar damage to brittle carbon-fiber bod ywork, as shown by the smashed rear cowling of Chili's bike as he toured into the pits, a dejected sou l. How the tire s tay ed infl at ed few will know , b u t Chili 's challenge wa s over, ano ther victim of tire woes. It was pl ain sa ili ng for the Castrol boys from here, with Slight's lat e challen ge just a few yards short of taking the wi n ahead of Edwards, who held on to from the front row, making it Fogarty, Colin Edwards II. Pier-Francesco Chiliand Slight In the top four positions, Another great benefactor was Peter Goddard, who disposed of his laps quickly, yet still moved from J·Hh after his single Superpole iap to Fogarty shows his mettle S but didn ' t pu sh too hard because I was convinced th a t the ra in was somewha t prem aturel y as it turn ed o u t.The rain , part of a thund er - going to get hard er. Towards the end of the session I didn't have enough laps left." uperpole qualifying was interrupted for the second time this year by rain, making fur a 50-minute "wet" Superpole qualifying session, with each rider gelling a maximum of 12 laps in which to set his ultimate qualifying time. Eight riders had already completed their single flyi ng laps, when a spit of rain came on and halted proceedings, storm which merely skirted the Brands circuit, lasted a short time and accor d ing to most rid ers, mad e no d iffer ence to the gr ip. The 50-minute Superpole made a big difference to the final grid posi tions , wi th Ca rl Foga rty se ndi ng the cro wd wild with a stu n ning lap J5 minutes from the end that no other rider could match, to take his fourth pole of the season. "It fel t just like winning a race that did," said Fogarty shortly after entering pit lane, punching the air in delight. The only man with a realistic chance of stopping him turned out 10 be Aaron Slight, the only top rider left at the end who had enough laps left to depose Fogarty. He only managed 10 depose Akira Yanagawa eighth aft er the "wet" session, held in dry condition s. "We've been turning consistently good lap times all weekend, but i chose not the be tire to qualify with," Goddard said. "l used a better st one in th e last sessi on a nd that tens in the grid pos ition. It's great to be on the second row again, especially after being fifth in Superpole in America." Troy Corser was an unhappy sixth. "I started out with qualifiers on The top rid ers in the se ries lashed out at Superpolc on ce mo re aft er half of them risked all on their single lap only to have to do another 50 minutes of qualifying, increasing their workload and stress levels still further. "We are not paid enough money to do this amount of riding. They play so much with us," said Chili. his sentiments backed up by Fogarty and Edwards. Edwa rds was espe cially virulent in his cri ticism of the orga niz ers - yet again - even though he finishe second fastest under the replaced ment Superpole rules. "The level of education doesn't seem to be all it should be," he said.

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