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World Championship Road Race Series Round By MICHAEL SCOTT PHOTOS BY GOLD & GOOSE UBCHESTER,ENGLAND,JULY14 • an nothing stop Valentino Rossi? His luck seemed to have turned 'l!rt at Donington Park, after a first-day crash that left him concussed and with a fracture in his left hand. Only one day later, he was back, at laprecord speed and on pole position. One day after that, he claimed his seventh victory in eight races. With his nearest championship rival, Repsol Honda teammate Tohru Ukawa, out injured after his own huge crash on the first morning, Rossi hit the halfway point of the 16-round season with a staggering lead of almost 90 points. He has produced a towering performance all year long, and the British Grand Prix was no exception. Conditions were perfect for the eighth race of the year, warm and sunny, with a crowd of 60,000 (the biggest for 10 years) signaling a major revival of interest in the British GP, which has played second fiddle in recent years to World Superbike racing. Rossi didn't want to disappoint them with a bland, runaway win, and stuck in second for 17 of the 30 laps of the 2.5-mile Donington Park circuit outside Derby, shadowing the Marlboro Yamaha of Carlos Checa, with 34 JULv24. 2002' cue. _ s: Donington PaN<: (Above) Carlos Checa (7) and his factory Marlboro Yamaha looked strong early In the race. Here, he leads the patient Valentino Rossi (46), Max Biaggi (3) and the rest of the pack. (Right) Not even a big crash on Saturday could keep Rossi off the top of the podium on Sunday. the second red bike of Max Biaggi close behind him in third. Then Checa relieved Rossi of having to decide where to overtake, slipping off at the bumpy final hairpin, Goddards - one of many to fall victim to its bumps and low-grip surface in a weekend with no less than 59 crashes. Rossi had already broken the longstanding 1989 lap record on the fourth lap as Checa set a cracking pace. Then he started to stretch his legs again, pulling comfortably clear of Biaggi to win by more than two seconds. He slashed 20 seconds off his race average of last year, and in fact the first three were inside that time. "I was a little quicker than Checa through the fast section, and slower through the tighter turns," said Rossi. "If he hadn't crashed, I don't know what would have happened at the end." It was Rossi's 100th GP and his 46th win, reflecting his racing number n __ s 46. He is now the sixth most successful rider in GP history... at the age of only 23. Biaggi was second, satisfied that he had given 100 percent. "I tried to pass Rossi early on, but he was just too fast," he said. "My bike was losing agility in the fast section, so I worked at staying concentrated. The pace was very high," he said. Checa was unhurt after his fall, remounted, but only to retire. "I wasn't even thinking about win- ning the race - just concentrating on being smooth, and the bike was getting better as the fuel load went down. I didn't feel like I was on the limit, but I held on to the front brake a little longer than 'usual on that corner, and that's when I lost it." It left a second-consecutive rostrum finish to the hero of the Dutch IT, Alex Barros, who felt he might have been fighting for victory but for a slow start that stuck him behind other riders while the leaders escaped.