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Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128168
World Endurance Championship Round 4: 25th Coca-COla Suzuka B Hours rider. In the end, it was all a moot point. The team miscalculated fuel consumption and the gas tank in Polen's Honda CBR954RR dried up in Degner Curve, 42 minutes after the race started. Which is about as long as it took Polen to walk back to the pits. RACE Through practice and qualifying, Edwards thought the six-stop strategy was mad, and denounced it the day before the race. "I think we're going to be forced to do seven pit stops," the Texan said. "I think probably all the Honda teams are. It was a goal of Honda to get six pit stops. I know what my fuel consumption is, and it ain't worth a shit. Kato's is maybe a little bit better than mine, but still not good enough. There might be a splash and dash at the end." The weather at Suzuka is always hot. Sure enough, rain fell on Saturday night, and by Sunday morning strength-sapping humidity had everyone in a sweat before the 9 a.m. warm-up practice started. With a chance of rain forecasted in the last three hours of the race, weather was the talk of the paddock. Murphy was also there on Sunday morning, at least for two hapless teams. First to find Murphy was Pridmore via a leaky radiator on the warm-up lap. Second to get a visit was the FCC ZIP-FM Racing team, when their Honda started running on three cylinders while on the warm-up lap. Both teams pulled their bikes from the grid. Polen made a perfect getaway from the 13th position of the Le Mans grid and lunged into the lead. Though a Le Mans start was used - where riders run across the track after a clock counts down - many thought that Polen must have done something illegal. "The FCC ZIP-FM guys that were right in front of us, right next to us in 12th," explained Polen, "they had to pull the bike off the grid because they had a problem with it, they had a cylinder go bad. So they pushed their bike off the grid. I've got a huge gap now. So I told my guys to turn the bike, go heading down the track instead of heading out [across] and turning. They moved it enough, but I didn't want it to be too obvious. But they moved it enough that it was good. I hit the starter button and, 'bam!' I was gone. And those guys hadn't moved yet." To say that many were surprised that 42-year-old Polen was in the lead is an understatement. The circuit announcer was at a loss for words, shouting, "DOUG POLENI DOUG POLENI" endlessly. Polen's Cinderella start came to an end quickly. Exiting Degner 2, Polen was overtaken by Ryo under the bridge. Polen stayed tough, and remained second by .765 of a second when the 68 bikes on the track screamed past the grandstands. Dead last among the bikes on the track was Corona Extra Suzuki rider Adam Fergusson. "We had a problem from the start. I ran across and jumped on the bike. We were venting the tank to stop any fuel from flowing out. We had a bit of a rag in [the dry break coupler]. When we went to pull the rag out, it ripped the edge of it off and it stuck in there. So, when I took off, gas was pouring all over me. I had to stop at the exit of turn two, and sit there and fumble around with it for 20 or 30 seconds to try and dig it out." The running order started to shake itself out on the second lap. Ryo was still in front, flying. Keiichi Kitagawa, on a GSX-R1000 in the promoter's prototype class, passed Polen in the S-curves. Tamada, Takeda, and Kato all helped themselves to a position off of Polen, dropping the Texan to sixth by the conclusion of the second lap. the Casio Triangle. The two speedy Suzukis were being followed closely by the Hondas of Tamada and Kato. Takeda was fifth, but three seconds away from Kato, unable to keep pace after the diminutive Japanese ace turned a 2:08.633 lap. Ryo didn't let Kitagawa take him at tum one a third time. Kitagawa blasted down the back straight and pulled out alongside Ryo. It wasn't a pass, it was the Suzukis taking formation to keep the Hondas behind. But Tamada cut off Kitagawa at the Casio Triangle for second, and a shot at Ryo. The spectators on the hill over the Casio Triangle had the best seats in the house. The next time around, Tamada carved up Ryo at the Casio Triangle, and out of the chicane it was Honda-Suzuki-Honda-Suzuki. Ryo wound up the Suzuki on the front straight and used the slipstream to regain the lead from Tamada. Tamada stayed on Ryo's tail for the rest of the lap, and for the first time in five laps there was no passing attempt at the Casio Triangle. Kato had dispatched Kita- "I knew I'd go backwards," Polen confessed. "We had some issues with the bike as far as the setup and stuff. With race tires, it didn't work as good as it did with the softer tires. It chattered a lot in places that I just couldn't go fast. As soon as I'd get aggressive with it, it'd go skittering out, off line. As soon as I'd not be aggressive with it and just ride, it was reasonably rideable. But it was still hard - too hard." Kitagawa went inside and around Ryo on the third visit to tum one. Ryo hammered the throttle hard coming out of Spoon Curve for the back straight, and the rear wheel stepped out. Tamada gave Ryo look as the riders approached the 130R corner from the back straight, but let Ryo go. And go Ryo did, right up and under Kitagawa as the race reached the Casio Triangle chicane. The fourth lap was a copy of the third. Kitagawa drafted Ryo down the front straight and took turn one; later, Ryo slipped underneath Kitagawa at gawa a lap earlier, and as the frontrunners went in to the S-curves on lap eight Kato passed Tamada, and then Ryo. Tamada dived under Ryo at the Casio Triangle, causing the Suzuki star to lose two spots within a lap. One second covered the top four riders. Takeda held fifth, five seconds down and chased by Yoshikawa and Shinichi Nakatomi, riding a Sakuri Honda VTR1000SPW. The leaders started finding the backmarkers on lap lOin the Scurves, and the little breathing room the two Hondas had on Ryo was then gone. Ryo tailed the Hondas, and the. attack on Tamada eventually happened on the front straight. As Tamada looked over his left shoulder for Ryo, Ryo went around on the right. Kitagawa was then getting gapped, and looked unable or unwilling to do anything about it. On lap 14, the freckled-face Kitagawa was the first of the big-name fallers with a crash at the tight, low-speed hairpin. It was 'the first of three falls the team would Alex Barros won the provisional pole, the pole, and set the fastest lap of the race, onl)' for his teammateto take him out of the running with unspectacular track performances each time he went out.