Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

D D n n I Worl d S upe rbik e C hamp io n s h ip R o u nd 3 : P h illip Islan d. Australia Troy Corser. incensed that the race organization did not call off the second race in clear ly unsuitabl e conditions. took things into his own hand s and stood at the end of pit lane. stopping his peer group from going out on what he felt was a dangerous track surface . Getting into a verbal scrap with Ducat i team manag er Davide Tardozzi, runni ng up to race control to confront the race organizers and then explaining all afterward. Corser has thrown the whole world of rider politics wide open. "I've been saying for a while that we need a riders representative. who can go up to the organizers and say that the riders will refuse to race. no matt er what the organizers say about it." Corser said. "But it should never get to that poin t. The organizers should be big enough to say. 'l ook , it's too dangerous : but they won't do that when there is money involved, and right now they aren't making any mon ey , because we're not out there rac ing. That's the whol e botto m line here. I probably shouldn 't say it, but that's how it is, My life is worth more to me than money . They don't pay us shit com pared to what they are making off us, so they can't expect us to go out in conditions like that , it's ridiculous. Even if they had the communication better. it would be an imp rovement. What I expect should have happ ened is that the race-safety delegate, who is Roberto Nosetto, responsible for makin g decisions like thi s, should have come and got me . Frankie Chili , Colin Edwards, the top four guy s. basically . They should have taken us for a lap in the safety car togeth er, to look at the track at various places. Then we should have come back to the start line and said 'what is our decision?' Yes or no, we make the decision and that is the decision, The only way it was going to get done today was for me to go down to pit lane. If I didn' t, we would be racing right now, I'm just disappoint ed that the organizers don 't have the balls to make tho se deci sions. Th ey don't want to have the responsibility and they want to push the responsibili ty onto every body else," Corser said that plans are in place to have form er Dunlop tire man , Pirelli tir e man and a man well known in Grand Prix and World Superbike racing , Peter Ingley . work as a rid ers representati ve - with work set to begin as early as the next round. "I' m going to do is fly Peter (Ingley] to Japan on Thursday before the race. all the riders will meet him and he will tell us what he thin ks he can do for us - and we will make a decision there and then : Corser said. "That is the only way we'r e gonna be able to do it, From what he's said to me on the phone. he has values and reasons as to why he wants to do it - morals . He needs to stand up and say 'I can do this for you, I can't do that ,' then we will have a true idea of what will happen, Then we can have everything done by Thurs day afternoon. Today, Colin {Edwards] went out for a lap before the second race with my permiss ion, basically to mak e a sighting lap, Colin stopped before he went past me and called me over, He said 'they have asked me to do one sighting lap to let them know' and I said, 'Okay, but you only, you are my eyes on the track: I don't have to make a lap of the track, I know what the trac k is like in these conditions. Colin went out, I stood there when he came back he came up to me and said ' it's ridiculous . there are rivers everywhere. there is water sitting in all of the corners. we can't race in that: That was when I left Chambon standing there - the biggest man in the paddock! - to hold the fort for me . I went up to race control and told them what had happened. I said 'look, Colin's gone out and said "it' s not possible to race," So we're not racing, we're boycotting the race: " Corser was also a bit upset with the fact that he got into it with Tardozzi on pit lane, 'I'm really disappointed about the way Davide Tardozzi handled that situation in the pit lane: Corser said, "I don 't have to discuss what we spoke about , but he made a scene, A bigger scene than what I done. I think Davide was supporting me in not going to race, but he seemed to think it wasn't his way . therefore it wasn't the right way. Basically. he told his riders they had to go out on the track to make a sighting lap and then if they decided they would not race then they weren't going to race. If everybody was told that , then every single rider was not going to go out and say, 'no we won't race.' It would be a non-unanimous decision, so then it goes back to the organizers, they say 'we race,' so we race. They wouldn't have stopped the race once we had started. They would have let it go. I had some personal words with Roberto - I respect Roberto and I try to help him as muc h as possible, wit h all decisions . but I told him he was not making a correc t decision by not making any decision . He is in the position - it Is his job - to make the decision to abandon the race because of safety . Basically, he wasn't doing that. On his own grounds, he wasn't doing that. 1don't know how he could say that he it was not dangerous because he didn't make a lap of the track himself. He just stayed in the control tower. So this is not doing his job correctly, the only way to do it is to go around the track and look for him self. He sent out the Clerk of the Course, who came back and said 'I recommend that you abandon the race,' and Roberto said 'no.' Roberto blatantly went against the decision of the Clerk of the Course. The CoC came to me and told me that 'the Safety Direc tor did not accept my decision, so now you will have to go and conv ince them not to race.' That was how it worked. So tha t is when I m ade the decision that I would walk up to the top of pit la ne and sto p every body. It's crazy that he (Roberto ) disregarded the person he sent out there to inspect th e track . As far as I am concerned the riders abandoned the race as a group decis ion, and I was just the leader of the group . Every one else could have j ust kept riding through me. but they didn't. When they all cam e to a stop they wer e all hap py that we didn 't race, but felt obliged tha t we had to. That is what they are paid to do - go o ut and race . B ut I do n ' t get paid enough m oney to go out and race in th at and I do n' t get pa id a cent by F lamm i ni. I hav e spoken t o Pao lo Flammini and told him exactly what I think. He will go back to Roberto and find out where there was a com muni cati on breakd own. Tha t' s what I feel has happened. So I am waitin g for him to come back to me ." This one. as they say , will run and run. 16 MAY 2 ,200 1 • e ye I e n eVIls the consolation of the W o rld Cha mpi o nship po ints lead . " I a m just relieved t o h a v e f in ished w ith a podi u m - an d see the checkered fl a g , " j oked Okad a . " It was a race I wa nte d t o fi nish but, in the we t weather, anyth ing c a n hap pen , so I kn ew I had a ch an c e o f a strong f in ish . T o t a k e first and sec ond in th os e co n d it i o ns is a great resu lt fo r the t eam ." B a y li ss was less enthusias t ic , b ut st ill left t he place he ca lled h ome fo r so many yea rs b efore becoming a wandering racin g g ypsy with a fo u r point lead over C orser. " I bumped into Col in a b it hard at tu rn one an d then d id n ' t pu s h too hard when Co lin and Tady ca me pas t me, because I k new T ro y C o rser wa s struggling. Out there, it was about as d a ng e rous as y o u can make i t today." Some r id er s. it seemed . we re not a t all keen on even running i n race o ne, n ota b ly the pug i listic a n d u lti m ately p ivota l C orser, who splashed around to an u n st eady sixth . "That fi rs t race sh ou ld never have ta k en p lac e , b ut it did: Corser sa id . " I ju st rode ro u n d a n d t r ie d not t o crash - ther e was nothing else to d o. I d on 't k now w hat the organizers were th inking of to d ay. The rain and w ind grew stronger for t he first rac e and it seem ed obv ious to a II of i s that it wou ld be dangerous t o go ou t and race . But the org an ize rs seemed t o wan t us to go o ut. In t h e end, afte r some discussion , the rac e was abandoned, or c an c ell ed, o r whatever." Ben Bostrom had a miserable outing. The Ca lifornian was attempting to move in to 10th pl ace on the final lap when he crashed th e L&M Ducati . C orse r sto p ped v irtually eve ry b od y fr om al most ce rta in drowning b efore the start of race two , when he parked himself at t he end of p it lane as th e fiv e -m inute board ap pe are d, attemptin g to st op an y of his p eers fr om so much as a lo o k a t the c i r c u i t. He fa i led in a c oupl e of c a ses , but his p rotest ce rt ai n ly work ed. His m oti ve s we re enti rel y h o n o rabl e , but h is act ions w ere not a p p re c i a t ed mu ch b y , fo r ex a m pl e , D a vide Tardo zz i , t eam manager of th e ri v a l Duca ti In fo strad a te am . He insi sted that C o rser h a d no r ight t o d ep r iv e his r iders a look at the track from the sa dd le . to make th eir own m in ds up. Co rser was , however , adamant abo ut h is standpoint and for as much safety reasons as anything else , and he can be than ked ( w it h h indsight ) for b lo ck ing p it lan e, invading r a c e control and taking o n the responsibility for stopping the race . A ccording to Co r s e r , Rac e D ire c t o r R ob e rto N o setto h ad no in t ention of stopping th e ra c e (see Corser's Plea ). Initially , ra ce two w as d elayed for only 15 mi nu tes but, with sti ll no break in t he wea the r , the ra ce w a s s imply cancelled, a n d w ith it the sideca r event wh ich was schedu led to follow . A good d ay for Michelin ga ve th em all the podium slots in the lone Superbike race, making Akira Yan a gawa

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