Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

had a great battle with Haga in race one, but I had no problems passing him. The bike's perfect, I feel that I'm racing quite well, but for the moment it's still frustrating not to be able to race for the win." Haga could have taken a pair of sixth places on his booming Aprilia, after some excellent showings in each race, but he actually only finished the second 25-lapper, crashing after his rear wheel locked as he entered a left-hand turn in race one. "Compared to Phillip Island," said Haga, "this was much better, but we still do not have best solution. While the tire was working very well, I had no rivals. Now we must work to keep a good rhythm for all the races." His dramatic day continued when he was struck by a bird while leading BRIEFLY••• Ruben Xaus and Pier-Francesco Chili had an unexplainable pre·race warm·up coming-together, which saw the most experienced rider in the class fall at the entrance to Nashua, and be ruled out of the race, Chili had been in Front across the line, and then took his hand off the handlebar to look behind at the pursuing Xaus, on the left kink beFore Nashua corner, The Spaniard assumed that Chili was slowing, because he had rolled off and looked behind in an unusual place (the curving entrance to a short straight entering Nashua). Xaus assumed that Chili was slowing and went inside to pass on the brakes at Nashua itselF. It appeared that Chili then speeded up again, or did not realize that Xaus was either so close or even there at all. Xaus appeared to drift right to adopt a normal position For comer, assuming that Chili would be slower at the end of the braking point. The net result was both riders ended up braking for the comer side by side, with Chili on the outside, They touched, Chili's front end wobbled and· still hard on the brakes· the front pitched him over the bars, and hard on to his left shoulder, Xaus carried on but was later brought before the race direction personnel to explain the incident. The original ruling was that it was a normal racing incident. and no action was taken against either rider, although Xaus received a written warning later in the day. The report from the medical center indicated that Chili's left collarbone was broken at the distal end, right at the end of the previous repair plate, Chili will have an operation on the collarbone at Imola on Wednesday, to fit a longer plate and possibly undergo a small bone graft. Chili·s version of events went thus: .. Xaus made a mistake in the evaluation of our relative speed; when I saw him, I left him space running onto the curb, [because] it was only the warm-up, and I close a little bit the gas, but not completely closed, I was thinking that Ruben would overtake me, but at the end of the curb I was still side·by·side to me and when I used the brake the bike fiew way, I am very sorry for the guys of the team, they made a fantastic job last night. I have to say that, after the accident. engi· neer Cecchinelli of Ducati Corse came, with a kind sensibility, into our garage to bring us the excuses on behalf of all the team; that's all, that shouldn't happen, but unfortunately it happened to me." Xaus was penitent. but felt that he was not to blame, being foxed by Chili's rolling off and looking behind and then not slowing more. "I said I am very sorry for Pier-Francesco, but there is no problem between us, We are friends and before the first race he came up to see me and said, 'Go out and have some good races for me,'" A short pre-race communique from the Rumi team on Sunday morning indicated that, because they had broken all their VTR 1000 privateer engines, they would be withdrawing from the Kyalami event. They are expected back for the Sugo race, Colin Edwards was laboring under some small degree of pain at Kyalami, from a nasty rope burn on his left arm, sustained when the American was rock climbing with his old friend and on-track rival Ben Bostrom. It did not hold him back on the track, despite the gory skin abrasions under his T·shirt, Johannesburg's reputation for violence and crime was rein- forced on Saturday morning, at the hotel in Midrand where the Michelin crew was staying, While the French tire men were enjoying breakfast. the air was rent with screams, then filled with gun· shots prompting those hotel guests on the balcony adjacent to the hotel reception to jump to safety. An attempted robbery in the hotel left one person dead, before the bloodstains and mess were cleared up and the guests could exit via the lobby to go about their business. The Kawasaki Bertocchi team, the same team that suffered so badly with rider injuries and replacements in 2001, had a tough Kyalami race before it had even started. Mauro Sanchini was struggling with a nasty fiu long before he qualified 19th for the race, but Ivano Clementi had even more serious problems, A mountain-bike accident damaged his right shoulder, cracking the collarbone, Clementi was allowed to take part in the first qualify· ing session, but his obvious pain and fatigue saw him declared unfit after the first day. Kyalaml's high altitude, nearly 5000 feet above sea level. caused its annual cull of Superbike horsepower outputs, with even the full-factory runners dropping their peak·power figures by up to 15 percent. solely due to the thin air, Honda addressed this problem by bringing over one of their in-house HRC fuel-injection experts to keep Edwards' SP-2 in top fettle, just for this race. All the riders really notice the drop in power, but the main people to on lap one of the second race, but he dropped back to finish sixth. The bird he hit simply exploded on his crash helmet, sending a smokescreen of feathers into the chasing pack of five riders, with Bayliss the main recipient of this gift from the skies. Haga did, however, take a new lap record on the third lap of race two, 1:42.178, after also breaking the old race lap record in race one. suffer, according to Harald Eckl, are the four-cylinder runners, "For sure it affects us worse than the twin-cylinder teams, We have gone faster than we did last year, but they seem to have gained even more than us. It is the same old reason - the rules, It is not good for the team or the riders to keep motivation when we know we have no chance. M Kawasaki is more than ever expected to pull out of World Superbike in 2002, in a fully official capacity at least. as they concentrate their efforts on their new MotoGP machine. According to unsubstantiated rumor in the Kyalami paddock, Suzuki may even pull the plug on their World Superbike effort after the Sugo race, such is their lack of results in the Superbike class. The lesser Ducati privateers were at it again at Kyalami, with the likes of Lucio Pedercini and Juan Bo~a proving that the 2002 customer Ducati (designated the 998 RS), based on the factory Testastretta design, is a far more competitive piece of kit than the previous customer versions. Their top-' 0 qualifying results. even given the reduction in the numbers of factory machines from almost all manufacturers, has been extremely noticeable throughout 2002. Of the other non-official entries. only Neil Hodgson, James Toseland and Pier-Francesco Chili have 2001-factory spec Testastrettas (998 FO') at their disposal, with the rest of the non· works bikes being 998 RS customer machines. The 2002 factory Dukes are called 998 F02, and only Bayliss, Xaus and Bostrom are equipped with the massively over square' 04mm·bore machine. At Kyalami, Dunlop brought along new tires across the board, utilizing softer compounds than in previous rounds. The new tires were available for Phillip Island, but the highly abrasive track in Australia, plus the high temperatures that were expected down under, delayed their introduction until Kyalami. Ben Bostrom was an instant fan. "I really like this Kyalami track and the tires are working so much better than in the previous races." He was to possibly rue his words afterward. The South African circuit is not nearly as tough on tires as Phillip Island, despite the hi9h ambient and track temperatures expected. A new mix of rubber has allowed Dunlop to use softer, gripper compounds than before, yet still go full race distance, Dunlop tries to run their tires, in full race conditions, at between 100 and 125~C, a temperature range that optimizes grip without overheating the tires. At somewhere like Kyalami. this temperature is reached after four or five laps, assuming that the tire warmers have been on long enough to make the rubber reach 75~C or thereabouts. On certain tracks, which have a predominance of either right- or left-hand comers, temperature differentials of 50~C can be experienced between one side of the tire and the other, which is why dual or even tricompounds are used at some circuits. Both Dunlop and Michelin conducted tests at Kyaiami over the winter months and a Michelin spokesman reckoned that Kyalami was one of the less demanding tracks to design tires for, "At Kyalami. tires wear very evenly, In January, we tested extensively there and the tests were very good. We were able to develop our products well, for qualifying as well as for the race." The universal opinion among riders at Kyalami is that the track is getting bumpier with every visit. and is not as grippy as most circuits. "The track seems to get bumpier each time we come here, but I suppose that adds character to the place," said Bayliss. "I'm sure that we will go faster as the weekend goes on, The track is in good condition, but it just seems to take a while to get up to speed." Bumpy or not, Kyalami is rated highly as an excellent rider's track, with every section presenting real challenges. Neil Hodgson was effusive about what is clearly one of his favorite circuits, "The track here is older in design, and very different from some of the more modern European circuits we race on - which are very featureless and flat." He continued, "Some people say that this circuit is dangerous in places, but the impression of speed through the area where the hospitality units are located is something that all of the top riders enjoy. We are riders and we like the adrenaline buzz of going fast. I love the place," James Whitham was another with strong feelings about the classy South African tarmac. "I really like this track, and I was unlucky not to get a podium finish here when I rode a Suzuki Superbike in 1998, I don't know what is about the track that I like so much. Do you ever know why you like anything so much? You just do or you don't. " The doors of Kyalami were thrown wide open on Thursday, with free entry for the locals to see the SBK circus up close. The effort, a replica of the Imola Open Day in 2001, was a more-thanfair success, despite there being no official head count. The numbers of spectators through the gate was, by definition, an His most noticeable contribution was to pester all the top men in both races, and his engine and tires permitting, he was in fiery mood. Pushing Bayliss with his elbow down the straight three times at the start of race two, Haga claimed he was only retaliating for Bayliss' push on him in the first corners. HM Plant Ducati's James Toseland was once more good for his experi- unknown quantity, but the gate staff counted 6500 cars on the day, making for anything up to 10,000 or more people appearing at the track before a wheel had even been turned in anger. Colin Edwards, the most successful rider in the four years of competition at Kyalami, with three wins, was singled out for a question about his old sparring partner Noriyuki Haga at the prerace press conference. Asked if he was happy that Haga had returned to the World Superbike Series, Edwards sent the press conference into peals of laughter with his answer - "I sure missed his sexy ass bouncing away in front of mel" Edwards answered the follow-up question, regarding how much of a pain the constant rounds of PR were at each of the races during the season with the refreshing reply that, "When all the press and public are here, the weather's nice and everyone is in a good mood, then doing all the PR jobs is a pleasure, not a chore," Neil Hodgson's Kyalami weekend started off in decent form. "It's good that we're so close to Troy so early on, The factory teams have all tested here previously and already have 99 percent of their settings sorted, HM Plant Ducati hasn't been here since last year's race, so to be fifth fastest [on day one] despite being at an apparent disadvantage is encouraging. This is only the first day of three, and I always improve as the weekend progresses." He did improve his time, but he was still fifth after Superpole, Ducati and Honda were high-profile. preseason Kyalami testers, but the Kawasaki Superbike and Supersport squads were in attendance at Kyalami for Dunlop tests at the end of last year. Even still, Hitoyasu Izutsu toiled in the initial part of the twoday qualifying. "It was a bit of a struggle this morning, but we made some big steps forward prior to the qualifying session this aftemoon, We're now back on the settings we used during preseason testing and the bike feels a lot better for it. " Chris Walker's trouble with paralyzed face muscles is still persisting, but he has at least found some relieF from sweat stinging his left eye, which he cannot blink properly at present. ''I'm pretty happy with how the day has gone, though, especially as the sweatband under the helmet appears to be working quite well; stopping the sweat running into my eyes, I also feel a lot more comfortable on the bike than I have previously. The reformed slide-master, Noriyuki Haga, was sliding again in early qualifying at Kyalami, but not for the reasons you may imagine. His bike, chattering and bouncing from the front. caused him to ride without 1DO-percent smoothness - until a solution was found before Superpole, "In the moming, we were in difficulty," said Haga, "It was impossible to push hard because the front was jumping in the comers, In the afternoon, the situation was sud· denly better, I don't know exactiy what the technicians did, but it was a very good job. In the warm-up, I will choose between two different types of rear tires. With race tires, I had a good rhythm but it will be very hard in the race," Ruben Xaus was once more flattering to deceive in practice. going fast in regulation qualifying and then dropping to the third row after a mistake-laden Superpole, He himself realized that this is wrecking his championship, "I should work much harder in Superpole because I know I can go fast. I have shown that all weekend, I need to be able to do this because I am losing the races because of Superpole, You can't start the race from row three and hope to do battle with the leaders," In the previous races, this has been Xaus' fate, as he has bumed his tires trying to get back on terms after less-than·stunning start poSitions, His troubles were to continue in the Kyalami races, despite taking two podium finishes. Klaus Klaffenbock may have led the early laps at Kyalami, but Steve Webster spent little time tailing him and the man second away at the flag, Jorg Steinhausen. The Englishman was in sparkling form and broke the lap record in his fifth lap, as he plotted his escape from Klaffenbock. Webster's new best lap time of 1:48.343, was 1,5 seconds faster than the previous best. set by Klaus Klaffenbock in 2000. Webster was feeling the affects of Kyalami's near 5000-foot altitude, and had to raise his visor to get more air in his lungs toward the end. "That wasn't as easy as it looked. There is a serious lack of oxygen here - it's like racing around Mount Everest!" Klaffenbock rode like the World Champion his is in his pursuit of Webster, eliciting frequent slides from the drive wheel of his Yamaha-powered OPCM sponsored machine. Despite his determination, Klaffenbock's problems with his transmission - not to mention the experience and corner speed of Webster - told in the end, with Webster 4,980 seconds clear at the end of the 19-lap race. cue I e n e _ s APRIL 17, 2002 31

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