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Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128102
" I h igh s id ed go ing in to Lu ke y Heigh ts with o ne lap to go ," Bostrom said. "I was go ing to foll ow [Martin ] Craggill into the corner and then take him o n t h e s tra ight wh en it happen ed." On a day whe n everyone is a loser , due to unse emly c onfront at ions, atro cio us weathe r, and all manner of clim at ic ab e rrat ion s, th e w inners of e q ual h a lve s o f th e sp oils were undoubtedl y Honda and Honda , with no e ngi ne problems reported , a perfe c t d isp la y of pod ium avarice and C o lin Edward s up to th ird in the cha m pions hip battle. Ro ll on Sugo , reckons Edwards. "Ca n' t wait," said Okada. RACE ON E W ith C hi li h av ing t o st art his war m - u p lap fro m pit lan e o n his s pa re bike , his poor weekend continued early o n S u nd ay , con s ig ne d to ride the even more re ca lcitr a nt one of his brace of GSX-Rs when he line d up the grid for rea I. With the tra ck fully wet, Neil Hodgson 's good work in qualifying came to naught when he inadvertently spun the rear tire to the poi nt of bu rn out, and was enveloped complete ly by his peers . Ba yliss , out to win a t home e ve n in t he rain , s hot int o th e lead at tu rn o ne, close ly fo llowed by Okada and Ed wa rd s . the top- scoring four cylinder a nd Dun lop rider with his fourth plac e. The best privat eer was a surprise Bro c Parkes . Th e 19-year -ol d Aus trali an wa s on to p for m in th e sodden rac e , th en cras hed a nd remount ed to finish fifth a nd receive a huge a mount of credib ility - a ll in fro nt of his m en tor Way ne Ga rdn er. Pier- Fra ncesco Chili, a spectacular cra s her in the m orning war m up , wa s subdued by h is un c oope rative Suzu ki, allowing his inexpe rienced teammat e Stephane Cham bon to get within one s e cond of him. Wet or dry, the new Suzuki flatters to deceive, even with a whole raft of ne w engine and chassis parts stuffed into it this weekend . Chili was , in all fa irness, o utward ly nonplussed but spe echless. Th e we irdness of the firs t race was pe rfectly illustrat ed by Neil Hod gson , who c rashed b ig time on his GS E racing Ducati, ye t re m o unte d a nd finished the race in 11 t h p lace. Not 20th , no t even just out the points in 16th, b u t wit h five who le po ints . Unlucky he may ha ve be e n , but gutsy he prove d himself to also be , by getti ng back on during a race when everyone e lse was just getting off. E very on e of th e 30 riders wh o qua lified ha d a fra ught time, slipping down to te rra su b marina like th e y were crash ing fo r fu n , al though Edwards smiles brightly dull day In Australia. The Wo rld Champ ion , stung into action by the sight of one of his main c ha m pio ns hip rival s sitting in front of him , was in th e lead by th e end of the first tou r, an d m ade tha t position - his favoite one - his own until the end of the 22 laps. Impressive to watch as Edwards was , the action behind was where it was at, with Ba yliss squeez ing past O kada at the end of the main stra ight on the second circuit only for Okada to lance back ahead at every opportunity - s lick surface or not. Joyousl y for the loca ls , privateer Steve Martin was in va ng ua rd of the top riders , sitting fourth for two laps until demoted first by Akira Yanag aw a and th en a t rio of ri d er s Parkes , J ua n Borja and Xaus . Hodgs on 's bad s tart failed t o dimin ish h is ardor fo r the fight, but he pa id th e p r ic e for tr ying t o c ha rge thr ou g h the pa c k and crashed on the exi t of MG , o n ly to remoun t s e c o nd to la st. No one re t ir e d un t il Lu c io Pederecini on lap three , and n o one c ras he d terminally u ntil la p fo ur , whe n Hitoyasu Izutsu 's lates t Worl d Supe rbik e da llia nc e e nded with him slipping off at high s peed on the exit of turn one. Whether it was he or anothe r ride r who's crashing mach ine la id e ither oil o r petro l o n the tr a c k a t tha t po int , on a rather Ludovic Hulon d idn 't get to start at a ll for te c hnical re asons . A moment of drama for Chili s a w h im s tart the wa rm - up lap from pit la ne, after s ufferi ng p rob lem s on his othe r bike . His spare came to th e re sc ue, ot herwise we wo uld have been in a si t uation wh ere th e re rea lly were less ride rs who m a de the finis h th a n tho se wh o fai led to. Farcical reall y bu t, if acci dents had to ha p pen with this freque ncy , then better they ha p pen at s uch a safe and forgiving track. The fa ste st man in the race, Rub en Xaus , crashed in an almost p redicta ble fash ion , having just set a time of 1:46.456 before ending up in the dirt . J ust like half the field , of course. "I don't know wha t happened when I fell ," Xaus sa id . "I thought I was going p re tty calmly in fourth p la ce , but obviously I wasn 't." It was sad tha t everybody will proba bly remember this race for the bad things , like the ra in, the fre qu ent crashes and the virtual rider's strike . It may , however , mean th a t rider power will be t a ke n more seriously than ever before, which is seldom a bad thi ng . Be n Bostrom , winner at Kyala mi , wa s a d irt -di g g ing c rasher in Australia . With several high-profile engine breakdowns suffered by the Honda RC51 in the opening races of the season , the project leade r, Tetsuo Suzuki, and his staff have been even busier than ever. Despite constan t rumors to the contrary, Suzuki maintained that there is no material or design problem with the VTR engine, although the machines appear to have been eating crankshafts. There have been many engine failures on the VfR engine recently. What has been the cause? It depends on the electronics. Electronics is very wide and involves many things. Ignition timing syste m, fuel injection system , many other systems, and when we finished at Kyalami the machines went back to HRC in J apan and were checked. One or two problems have been found. We discovered one or two things but I cannot go into any more detail. Without giving too much away, what areas of the engine are affected. The crankshaft or valves, or what? The basic problem is with electronic control, not the engine. How did you find the problem? We have many brand-new engines at HRC and we did many tests on bench dyno. Most are running fi ne, but one or two developed the p roblem , Another factor is that there have been many changes between last year's bike and this year's, so we have not had that much time to check and test everything individually. HRC and Honda do many test s over the winter, yet you only develop these problems at races. Did you have no problems over the winter, or change the specificat ion before the start of the season? There were no problems. There is no pattern to the problem now. Maybe one engine can go 150 km and develop a problem - maybe the other one can do 1000km before a problem appears. In the All -Japan Championship we have had no problem. The specification is exact ly the sam e. Nicky Hayden's machine had a problem in the AMA race at Dayto na, however. There seem s to be no pattern . So now the problem is fmished and this weekend the machine will be perfect? Maybe! We did not shorten the life of the engine either. The machine is designed to run 3,000 km [1860 miles]. It is the same engine we have designed for the Suzuka EightHour and Le Mans endurance . The 200 1-spec engine is more powerful than the 2000 version, at the top? Or the bottom? Everywhere. But by how much is top secret! Are you continuing development of the VfR 1OOOSP? Yes, of course. Next year the VTR continues. We made seven different stages of development with the VTR in 2000. Almost a change at every race last year. Suzuki's statements w ill assuage the conspiracy theorists little, with the fault almost certain ly big-end bearing failure. The fact that HRC has had many of their best technicians working flat ou t to find the problem. atbeit at a pace dictated by the nature of detective work, is proof of their concern for their rep utation. Rumors that the ri ders wo uld be required to k nock off a coup le of thousa nd rpm to save the engines w ere denied by the team, however. c ue ' e n e _ S • M AY 2 ,200 1 17