Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128175
hat a thoroughly nice couple of blokes made an epic of the World Superbike Championship. What a thoroughly good championship it was. It would be hard to see how a feel-good scriptwriter could have improved on it. And feel-good is fashionable enough, with the world more than usually poised on the brink of war, economic collapse, etc., etc. Just as appropriately, the climax at Imola had more than a slight endof-an-era feel. Next year, one of the two heroes of the V-twin Cup is destined for GP racing. Perhaps both of them will go. Better both than just Troy Bayliss, for the good of the sport. Colin Edwards left alone in World Superbike would surely soon become lonely, at least on the current form of his opponents. And the last thing World Superbike needs, at this perilous stage of its own life, is a predictable dominant season as an anticlimax after this year's gripper. The correct outcome, in a world of tinue their so far hugely uplifting nice-guys battle. With Edwards' current contract position far from clear, it could still happen. But probably won't. Two-man rivalry whether between nice guys or proper devils W (or, more perfectly, one of each) are the very meat and drink of racing. While watching the action unfold among the dark forests and sweeping hillsides of lmola, I dredged a few epics from my memory. Schwantz and Rainey, of course, each winning first-season races in a time when the 500cc-c1ass opposition was particularly tough. Eddie Lawson and Freddie Spencer. Mike Hailwood and Giacomo Agostini. Phil Read and almost everyone he ever raced against: Hailwood, Billy Ivy, Ago and Jim Redman included. And another with a lot of parallels: new kid Fast Freddie Spencer and reigning King Kenny Roberts. This one was also played out at Imola, in a pivotal final race of 1983. Kenny's teammate, the rookie Lawson, was cast in the role played by Ruben Xaus in Sunday's final showdown. Like Xaus, he wasn't quite up to the job. Were they both thoroughly nice guys? The atmosphere on that rostrum was pretty frosty: Spencer happy enough, but Roberts looking rather distant. What a contrast on Sunday. natural justice, would be for Edwards and Bayliss to move to GPs. There, like fellow former American Superbike tooth-and-nail rivals Kevin Schwantz and Wayne Rainey, they might spend their first year scrapping it out as they find their feet, then move on to take their place among the rostrum regulars, to con- Bayliss, after rising to the heights of dominance mid-season, then enduring a painful and nerve-racking slide down again to an ultimate second place, was as jolly as you like, wreathed in entirely genuine smiles, breaking into happy laughter. A lovely bloke, however you look at it. Edwards, ice-cool in the run-up, was magnanimous in victory, spontaneously hugging the man he had just pinned to the wall. Probably for the last time. Edwards had spent the weekend freely badmouthing Honda, mainly for giving upstart Nicky Hayden a factory V-five next year while his years of loyalty and now two World Championships went unrewarded. This would suggest some burning of the bridges. Unless one of the satellite Honda V -five teams come up with something (and some rumors link him with Max Biaggi in the Pramac team), there's not many places for Edwards in the GPs right now. He's drawing ever closer to a Ducati Superbike for next year. And that lonely season. But it wasn't just the riders with an end-of-era aura. There was also the major question about Honda. Just what is going to happen to their magnificently victorious England-run factory team next season? HRC has kept its mouth tight shut, but pessimists see significance in the way Edwards won the title this year. For the first half of the season, he rode with his usual accuracy and flair, but couldn't match the wild-andloose Bayliss and the Duke. For the second part of the season, after he'd won the Eight-Hour race, his big V-twin Honda was transformed. Now it was Bayliss who couldn't beat the American. Which is the underlying reason for the epic fightback. Honda had decided that they were not going to be beaten. So they put in all the resources it took to give Edwards the bike to do it. Was this because they knew it was their swan song? It seems inconceivable that Honda won't have some sort of presence in World Superbike, but at the moment it is hard to see what it might be. The outcome, you might say, is uncertain. Just like the championship. And that ended up as not just a good laugh all around, but among the great title battles in any class in motorcycle racing history. I:N • TwIn Ring Motegl MotoGP • Ohio GNCC • AJSA Del Mar Dirt Track RnalefDnwanl txt 112 OCTOBER 9, 2002' cue • • n .. vv s 3D YEARS ABO•.• ot:TIJIIE/l17, 197Z An anonymous motorcyclist's silhouette was featured on the cover of Issue 4140 as he raced All-American MC's Marathon at Fremont Raceway in the California city of the same name. The Marathon was four hours long and was won by Chris Willems (Cl) ... Ake Jonsson (Mai) won round three of the Trans-AMA MX Series, held in St. Louis, MisSOUri. HeJkkl Mikkola (Hus) and Hans Maisch (Mai) rounded out the top three overall. Brad Lackey (Kaw) WllS the first American, in sixth overall. Bob Grossi and Jim West made it a one-two Husqvarna sweep in the 250cc Support event... Lany Pfutzenreuter won the 2200 annual Check Chase in Parker, Arizona ... Dave ~ was the fastest guy at the Sacramento Half Mile. He won both the 15-lap main and the Trophy Dash. ZO rEARS AIlO_ ot:mBER '3, 11111Z RIc:ky Graham (H-D) was placed on the cover d Issue 4140 in honor of IUs clinching the AMA Grand National Championship at the final round on the Ascot half mile. Graham took eighth, while his main title rival, Jay Springsteen (H-D), finished sixth, which wasn't good enough to overtake Graham. Graham won by two points, 221-219. Randy Goss (H-D) won the main event... Round two of the CMC/Miller High Ufe Trans-Cal MX Series, held in Hollister, Califomia, was won by George Holland (125cc Pro), Broc Glover (25Occ Pro) and Alan KiIIg (SOOcc Pro). Palll Denis won the Mini Expert event... Mike Baldwin, Eddie Lawson, and Steve Wise went one-two-three at round 10 of the AMA Superblke Series, held at Daytona International Raceway. Lawson held on to the points lead, however... Team USA finished a history-best second place at the 57th ISDE in Czechoslovakia, after two protests against the host Czech team were controversially voided. The Czech team was awarded the victory in the end. 10 YEARS ABO... OCTOBER '4, '99Z An engineer's drawing of Yamaha's newest street design, the 1993 GTS 1000, complete with a front swingarm suspension system, was placed on the cover of Issue 4140 after its unveiling ... Also on the cover was Mike Kiedrowski (Kaw), who went 2-3 at the Budds Creek National Motocross season finale to win the 500cc title over Jeff Stanton by three points. Stanton went I-Ion the day. In the 125cc class, Mike laRocco's season ended in disaster as he DNFed his third straight moto, effectively handing the class championship to Jeff Emig (Yam), who went 1- 1 for the overalL.. Scott Parker (H -D) won the Sacramento Mile under the lights, round 16 of the AMA Grand National Championships. Chris Carr and Larry Pegram rounded out the top three... Twen· ty-year·old Danny Hamel (Kaw) clinched the AMA National Hare & Hound Series Championship by winning round six in Wendover, Nevada ... Damon Huffman (Suz) swept the 125 and 250cc Pro-class overalls at round four of the CMC TransCal series at Glen Helen Raceway.