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Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128109
Wor ld S u per b ike Ch a mpio n s h ip
Round 7 : E u r oS p e e d way Lsusitz Circuit, Germany
others. Edwards even tually took the
la st pod ium place . 20 seconds behind
There was no question what tires the
teams would run in the rainy
conditions in race two. Here, Ne il
Hodgson' s GSE Ducatl team prepares
his bike on the grid.
Visibly ecstatic after h is race w in .
Bayliss sh ot onto th e banking fo r a b it
o f a c el ebration and h ad a wha le of a
t ime d o in g bu rn - o ut s and punching
the a ir w ith his fists.
lead w ith the 2 0 po in ts he scored fo r
second . push ing him 14 points ahead
of E d w a rd s - and about to be more
after race two .
The top pri vateer pro ved to be
Marty Craggill , on the Paci fi c Ducati in
13th. with Bro c Parkes 14 t h and Steve
Martin sq ueaking home two seconds
from h is fellow battling Aussies.
Chasing him all the way in the 24lap race was the rapid Neil Hodgson
w ith his precise style a great co ntra st
to that of the fast and lo os e Ba yliss .
Try as he might. Hod g so n could not
g et close enough to Ba yl is s o n th e
last lap , having looked too far out of
tou ch at one stage to g et an ywhere
near the flying Bay liss.
C olin Edwa rd s. slow to get started
RACE 2
A u stra l i a n T r o y B a y lis s won his
t hi rd race of th e se a son a t L aus it z,
taking an ea rly lead o n the wet trac k
and toughing it o ut to the end as a dry
line d eve loped a lo ng the entire circuit.
(12th on the first lap) rode a champi o n's race and forc ed h imself t h ro ugh
to th ird after onl y si x laps . no m e an
feat o n a track which was sta rti ng to
dry in plac es . but w as treach erou s in
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WInner: Kevin Curtain .
t he leading duo and two se conds
ahead of Hitoyasu Izutsu in fourth .
The Japanese rider proved to be
the fastest of the three fac tory
Kawasaki sta rs . with Gregorio Lavilla
finis hing i n 16th a nd ou t o f th e
p o in t s , and Akira Yan ag awa en di n g
up tenth .
F ifth wa s Chili , o n t he fi rst of the
Alsta re facto ry Suzukis, w ith the tra il ing Ruben Xaus a couple of seconds
down on h im after cooking h is w et wea ther tires . Corser had another
race of relative woe. starting strongly
but slippin g back through the fie ld to
finish seventh.
Corser' s performance gives him a
total of 163 points and th ird overa ll in
th e c h am p io n ship, w ith Ba yliss lead ing o n 205 and Edw ards seco n d on
182 points .
Stephane Cham bo n , in eig hth, d id
well to stave off the prese nce of
T adayuki O kada . o n the second Castrol Honda . who was in turn struggling
with a lac k o f confidence in his front ti re grip . even on the drying track.
With Yanagawa tenth. Robert Ulm
m ade up for h is d isappo inting first
ra c e to fi ni sh just one pla c e outside
the top ten , ahead of his fellow priva teer Mauro Sanchin i . who quite
as ton ish ingly set the fastest lap of the
rain -affected race, a 1:5 2 .6 7 2.
Regis Laconi was 13th on h is fac tory Aprilia, an ot her rider who shows
pro m ise a n d th en suffers with p o o r
results , with St ev e Martin 14 th on h is
p riv ate D uc at i and B ertrand Stey tak in g t he last p o int fo r 15th p lac e.
eN
tires and hydrop laning after the first part of the race, was
held in th e dry.
Tha t in itself had som e notab le points of discusion , not
least for the clear pol e m en Fabien Foret and Pere Riba.
Quick away from the line like litt le scalded yello w bananas,
Ten Kate riders Foret and Riba looked to be scooti ng to a 1-2
fini sh, until Foret was flagged in for a stop-go penalty after
clearly creeping forward over the starting line.
Before he had even come in for his penalty, however .
Riba had crashed. cla nging his engine cases off the perm anent curb stones.
Th e Kings in the dry were the Alstare duo of Katsuaki
Fujiwara and Karl Muggeridge, who looked to be taking over
from the Ten Kate boys until both raised their hands when
the rains came .
T he Phill ip Island Supersport rac e finishing order was
rep eated in the Sup ersport eve nt at Lausitz, when Kev in
Curta in , Adam Ferg usson and Andrew Pitt made it an all
Aussies podium , with Vitt o Guareschi turn ing it into a true
Phillip Island replica quartet, with his fou rth place - j ust like
the last time it was pouring rain in a Supers port race. What
does this tell us? Well , that the four guys m entioned above
are good in the rain , but also that the much -feared floodi ng
of the track was not goi ng to be as bad as expected dependi ng on whom you spoke to about it.
" I was co nfident in the grip from the tires and I didn't
have any big mom ents , even th ough it look ed as if th ere
were about one and a half inc hes of water on the track."
Kevin Curta in said, "This is a great feeling, especially as it
is my first year in Supersport and I have won two races:
But long be fo re we had th e ra i n , we had th e dry ,
because we only ended up on the contentious world of wet
28
JUNE
20 . 2001 •
c
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e
I
e
With the second part of the race being run in full y wet
conditions, there were several get -offs , including that of Fujiwara, who lost his best chance of a podium finish this year as
a result.
Earl y leg-two leader Jorg Teuchert ran off when he
hydroplaned at the end of th e sho rt ba c k straight and
crashed gently into the gravel as he tried to regain the track,
only to remount and finish seventh , bitter ly disappointed with
his luck.
"I am very angry because I had a good chance to eam 20
or 25 point s today ," Teuc hert said . "I ran off the t rack
because the bike aquaplaned on me at the end of the back
straight. I had brak ed early and went down the gears, but still
the back tire came off the track and I had to let the brakes
off. I finally toppled over but I got started again and m ade up
some places to take seventh. I know the championship battl e
has now tightened up, but I really knew I could get even
more points:
Kevin Curtain, throwi ng caut ion to the wind, was away
and clear in the lead, runni ng ahead of another man from the
land of the platypu s, Adam Fergusson, who in tum was leading yet another Aussie - Andrew Pitt.
With Guareschi workin g his way into fourth plac e at just
after half total race distance (which was, by the way. the sum
of six dry and 17 wet laps) the finishing order was not only
set. but set in the spooky finishing order of the other SBK
Waterworld sound stage. Phillip Island.
nevvs
Euro Speedway
Lausilz, Germany
Results: June 10.2001
Q(JAUFYING: I. Neil Hodgson ( I :4 0. 20 5 ): 2.
Troy Corser ( 1:4 0 .3 16 ) ; 3. Colin Edwa rds
(1 :40 .356): 4 . Tedeyuk i Okede (1 :40.364): 5. Ben
Bo stro m (1 :4 0 .3 68 ) ; 6 . Pie r -Fr encee c c Chili
(I :4 0. 4 3 1): 7.
Steve Mortin (I :4 0 .4 5 8 ): 8 . Troy
Bayliss (1 :40.495): 9. Reg Is Lacon ! (1 :40.600): 10.
Akira Yanag aw" (1 :40 .719); 11. Gre 90rio Levl lle
(1 :40.912): 12 . Robert