Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

World Superbike Championship Round 10: Brands Hatch full hospitality access and general red-carpet treatment. The Benelli, Ducati Infostrada, CastroI Honda, Aistare Suzuki. Kawasaki Racing and PlayStation 2 Aprilia teams took part, as did the sidecar contingent. BRIEFLY••• The real story in qualifying was not the times set by the top riders, but the mess left behind by "the accident," which involved Troy Bayliss and Ruben Xaus in the second timed section, Satur· day moming, An out·lap collision between the World Champion and his Ducati Infostrada teammate meant that Bayliss did not set a time in the final qualifying session, as he underwent checks for a damaged back and ribs, His injuries proved to be a cracked 12th rib on his right side, a bashed foot and· as bad as anything else· an aggravation of his Laguna back injury, now haVing spread toward his right kidney area as well. The incident. as each rider approached the braking area toward Druids, was re·run time and again on trackside video, As usual, opinions differ as to who was the prime insti· gator, but it appeared that Xaus, just cruising, weaving to get heat into his brand·new tires. drifted toward the outside of the track, just as the rapidly closing Bayliss was on the racing line to enter the braking area, They hit. Bayliss fell and bounced into and along the trackside barriers, Xaus continued on with a broken left footpeg, and the session was stopped, Bayliss missed most of that but went on to do a chunk of the aftemoon untimed session and finish fourth in Superpole, eight places ahead of an uninjured, but virus-ridden, Xaus, After falling over themseives on the track, Bayliss fell over himself to ensure he blamed no one. "First. I would like to say that it was no one's fault. it was just one of those things that can happen and I just wish that I wasn't involved in it." Bayliss survived reason· ably well. in his own opinion, "I'm just very happy that I've come away from the crash feeling how I do. as it was a big one, I knew that Ruben was in front of me on the inside of the track, and I started to go fast down Paddock Hill Bend and, as I started to go up the hill into Druids, he started to come across and then there was no room for me, I was off the edge of the track in the grass and that was the end of it. I knew I was in trouble then, I didn't think that I was even going to be able to ride in the Superpole, but I got strapped up and did a lot of the free practice session before it. It's unbelievable, This moming, my back felt the best it has been since the crash at Laguna Seca two weeks ago, so it was incredible to go out there today and only be able to make two comers, I'm pretty sore, I must say, We'll try a couple of things tomorrow morning and I'm keen for the races, There's nothing I can do for it at the moment other than rest, I know that we can improve the bike a lot more, as we are a bit behind with our preparation now after being in the medical center all day," Xaus was less repen· tant, seeming to blame only one person, "I was just warming up the tires when Troy came up on me from behind. I didn't even know he was there, • Proof that the British Superbike Championship is still as competitive as ever came from the fact that Shane Byrne and Michael Rutter, not even the leaders at home, put up such a good fight against the visiting demi-gods, Fifth and sixth, ahead of the luckless Bayliss, the Brit duo were occa· sionally setting times a little faster than their typical BSB ones, but not by much, Brit·based Aussie Glen Richards went well enough pre-Superpole to place himself ahead of the factory ZX-7RRs of Chris Walker and Hitoyasu Izutsu, Richards was especially keen to get into this meeting, feeling that Silverstone in May did not do him or his team justice, 'The way things worked out at Silverstone wasn't really representative of how successful the weekend had been," explained Richards, "We went there with the view of having nothing to lose and everything to gain - as long as we got some track time to set up the Hawk Kawasaki that was fine, and if we'd got a result then it would have been a bonus, We'll be taking the same attitude to this round. I leamed a lot about the bike over those three days, and it really helped my performance in the British Superbike Championship, which remains my number-one priority." Gregorio Lavilla entered the Brands meeting carrying the legacy of the injuries he suffered at Laguna Seca, which were severe enough at the time to prevent him from racing, They did cramp his style somewhat, finishing only a little ahead of British privateer Dean Ellison and his cooking Ducati 996RS in Superpole, Laguna Seca endowed the run up to Brands with one thing the series had been missing for some time: the expectation of some decent racing, Neil Hodgson was charged by his scraps with Edwards and especially Bayliss, "I'm definitely in the right frame of mind for this event," said Hodgson, "Getting on the podium at the last two rounds - especially mixing it with Bayliss and Edwards· has really boosted my confidence, I've managed to stretch the points gap so that things are looking good for third place overall by the end of the season - if I can maintain the same level of consistency. " An unusual promotional e-mail plea was sent out before the Brands Hatch weekend by none other than Robert Ulm - a man of many teams this season, but currently without a ride in SBK or WSS, Advertising Ulm's services, the press release mapped out his recent rides, and even contained some comments sent to Ulm from his 2002 team managers, Commendably self-promoting, the release included such lines as "Robert Ulm is searching for a new job in the Supersport World Championships or in the Superbike World Championships, in the MotoGP series or in national series in Great Britain, Italy, the USA or Germany, or as a test rider," All bases covered then, The e-mail also contained copies of the letters of simultaneous gentle rejection for more immediate rides and agreement to act as referees for other team managers, The letters were sent to Robert from Roger Harvey (Honda UKl and Ronald Ten Kate (of that ilk), two of the teams he has ridden for in 2002, Aussie NCR Ducati rider Broc Parkes had the uncomfortable experience of having a hard head knock on day one, falling from his Ducati at Graham Hill Comer, "In the morning, I crashed and hit my head, and I've been a little bit out of it for some time. The guys wonked very hard to rebuild my bike, and I started the session with it neariy set up, Tomorrow, I must push hard to get something good," Parkes finally qualified 26th and last. discounting non·qualifier Yann Gyger, The warm English weather contributed to a large pre-race crowd and unprecedented levels of spectators inside the track early in the weekend, With predicted temperatures of 85 degrees for raceday (which came true), there were huge numbers of spectators inside the circuit from before 7 a,m, Jamie Whitham's band, the Po' Boys, played on raceday's eve again, with the party ended in fine style by an impressive fireworks display. Loved by the punters, Brands is generally dreaded by almost all the SBK regulars, with the price paid to race at one of the most classically sculpted, and the fiat-out best·attended races on the calendar, costing dear in terms of hassles and the great distance traveled from pitlane to the motorhomes, hospitality units, or even half-decent toilet facilities, Modem it ain't. generally well organized it certainly ain't. One example? 1V crews, media and team members had to wait up to 25 minutes on Satunday morning for someone to amble along and open the pedestrian tunnel linking the outside world to pitlane, as no-one on site could find the key holder, A co-operative competition between the main teams in SBK and British weekly MCN saw a group of winners join their chosen teams for the weekend - first as mechanics and then as VIP guests, with 32 AUGUST 7,2002' III Y III I III n e .... s With a large crowd at Donington Park two weeks previous to the Brands SBK race to witness their first sight of four-stroke MotoGP action, there were fears that the Brands crowd would be adversely affected, Early signs showed that to be false, plus other empirical evidence, A BBC online competition, announced during the Laguna Seca coverage on Britain's national broadcasting network, offered Brands weekend tickets as the prize, The BBC received over 50 percent more entries than any other similar competition run by the corporation for any sport whatsoever, The Common· wealth Athletic games, held at Manchester on the same weekend as the Brands race, was expected to hit the 1V coverage of the race and had already affected some BBC plans to extend the pre-race build-up, No sooner had the SBK weekend got out of the blocks, as it were, than it was stopped, Geoffrey Nadze in the Superstock class fell three minutes after the start of the very first session, dragging dirt onto the track and causing a red fiag to be shown, also partly to test the air-fence integrity after his hard, but injury-free, hit. His crash was notable in many ways, due to a very small number of practice falls; only 15 in all classes after the second day. With no machine to race properly, the Foggy Petronas FP1 (right) team had to settle for a scheduled few laps of demos on Sunday, Their machines were undergoing tests at the Bruntingthorpe aerodrome (two miles of straight tarmac) for shakedown trials before the machine's first public appear· ance on Sunday, The team had their very swish new hospitali· ty unit operational at Brands, complete with reception area, offices, and an upstairs viewing suite. They also had the use of a pit garage and their team trucks· to the surprise of some . in the overly small Brands pitlane, Colin Edwards, the winner of one race at Laguna, was allowed to run his stars and stripes livery for one more day at Brands, to let the British public see it up close, The reaction to the one-off paintjob at Laguna was immense and it filtered back to the UK, fueling demand for the team to have just one more day of red, white and blue before reverting to their more usual red, green and white, Fabien Foret was rumored to have a signed Kawasaki Supersport contract secreted about his body at Brands Hatch, as the man of the moment became the primary target for a manufacturer squad - which may be about to lose its number-one asset to the big, bad world of MotoGP in any case - if Andrew Pitt does head to another, bigger paddock, Kawasaki France, the new custodians of the WSS gig, would also be more than keen to have not just a rider of Foret's skill, but nationality as well on board, The second rider could be anyone of a dozen, but Piergiorgio Bontempi, Stuart Easton, Steve Plater and Frenchman Boris Chambon are two main possibilities, Castrol Honda rider Colin Edwards was being monitored by scientists from the English National Sports Research Center, lillieshall during the Superbike weekend, Blood tests and heart-rate monitors were as much of the fabric of the Honda pit at Brands as tire warmers and paddock stands, Castrol Honda's plans for 2003 are still somewhat unsettled, due to a meeting in Japan not eliciting a final answer to the request to run two riders in SBK next season, This also affects the prospects of the Honda UK team, which may retum to national competition in 2003 when an all-new CBR600 comes out. Aprilla is in the process of retaining its only rider, Noriyuki Haga, for the next year at least. but talk of Ben or Eric Bostrom joining the Italian manufacturer, although possible, may flounder on the salary demands of either Bostrom, With one so-far unsuccessful MotoGP machine soon to become two in 2003, there will be only so much money for the Noale factory to spread around, although team memo bers at Brands stressed that the MotoGP and Superbike projects are completely separate in that respect. Aprilia, which really wants to run two Superbikes next season, may have to get a less glamorous rider involved, Rumors of them swapping to Michelin appear to be coming to little, primarily due to the fact that all the hard work behind the scenes put in by current suppliers Dunlop has to come to something sooner or later. The GSE Racing team may soon announce its plans for 2003, with Brits Mank Heckles and or Chris Walker possible inclusions in the squad, A small-scale Open Paddock day took place at Brands Hatch on Thursday the 25th. The proceeds of a charity auction went to Riders for health as usual. A post·race auction raised $15,755, over $11,042 of it from Colin Edwards memorabilia alone, The Foggy Petronas machine's tests at Bruntingthorpe went well, according to team manager Nigel Bosworth, with only some minor overheating problems reported by the team, With the pressure of a road homologation now passed for the time being, the team is not scheduled to have its first major track outing until the end of August. Final design tweaks are expected to be instigated in the next few days, with things like the battery (currently inside the belly pan) being moved to more permanent positions in front of the rearward·canted cylinders. This year, at the biggest race of tl1e season, we were denied the talents of Steve Hislop - the British Championship leader on his Monstermob Ducati, due to a old injury and the focus on the British Championship - and Reynolds - who's lying sixth, due to the fact that he's running the Rizla Suzuki GSXR-1 000 a year early for WSB, We were even missing the number two in the series, Sean Emmett on the IFC Ducati. due to a lack of budget. The Renegade Ducati team is already talking about a move to WSB in 2003, despite only being in the British Championship for one year, What is clear is that they have a very good package and a team that is working well. With some of the WSB regulars starting to think about the overall championship, the adoring British crowd could really have something to cheer about. Steve Webster and Paul Woodhead (Liveonscreen,com Racing) took an emphatic sidecar victory at Brands Hatch using the ali-new Suzuki GSXR·1000 engine for the first time under racing conditions, This victory is the first for the British pairing since round two in South Africa and keeps their slim chance of securing a ninth World title in 2002 alive,

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