Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Wa lker knew his first ra ce podi um was a fortunate one bu t a well-rewarded o ne for the team unde r siege, Foggy Petronas. " I can't believe it. I neve r imagine d I w o uld get t his re sult on my first race on the FP I," sa id a grinn ing Wa lker. "My mechanics have be e n stars t his weekend . Halfway t hrough the race I thought there was a chance o f a podium , so I tried to stay with Frankie C hili. Then, when I saw smoke coming out o f Mart in's Ducati, I knew t hat all had to do was to bring the bike home. I am not usually the luckiest ride r in the world, so for once my luck was in." The third place for t he Foggy Petro nas tea m sent them into paroxysms of joy, w ith Fogarty hopping over the pit wall to stand on the trackside, waving his arms and yelling in full view o f the TV cameras and pit lane marshals , for a second or two at least. Wit h Toseland having led for t he ma jority of the race, he resisted the pressure of Martin and finally Chili to win the first 23- lapper by an almost easy 4 .698 seconds, over Ch ili on his old 998 again. Said Toseland after his day's work was done: " It was a st range race. First Haga came past me, and I t ho ught I was go ing down when Co rser crashed ne xt to me . For the race I chose a wet fro nt and an intermediate rear. To be honest I'd never raced in the wet with Pirellis before, so we went a bit on the safe side, but luckily they held out to the flag. I was struggling in qualifying and practice w ith th e setup for the dry, but Nori rode fantastically well, and we went with what we knew. It's been a nerve-wracking weekend, but I'm just glad to have come out on top and get two consistent finishes in the first round. I made a bit of an aggressive move on [Leon] Has lam on the first lap and lost a bit of time, and t hen I couldn't do anymore. It's all turned out well." After a w inter of emot io nal pain. crashes and des pair, Chi li was bubbling w ith joy, even if he was d isgust ed w ith the hand ling o f a race t hat was for so me reason neither declared "w et" - in w hich case it would not be sto pped if t he rains fell again - or dry - in which case it could be stopped to allow tho se on slicks to change t hem. That went contrary to what some competitors such as Garry McCoy were to ld, and he am o ng others was livid after the race, especially when the rain came down a little hard er on lap five and his pleas for a halt were ignore d. It seemed like a case of someo ne , somewhere, abd icating responsi bility and leaving the choices up to the riders . Said C hili. " I th ink that they have made a big m istake because at I I a.m . t hey to ld us tha t it would be a wet race. and then they did not tell us if it was a wet race or not when we got onto the startline . But t he result fo r m e was great. I really need it after t his winter and the t ro uble I have had . You can see from all the other riders that on the 999 they have to go in on the brakes, run wide on it , then I flick it over and big throttle o n the way o ut . For my style. this is not my sty le. For sure I w ill try to use the 999 and make it work for me, but right now the 998 is bet ter." McCoy was less happy still. "We were to ld on the startline that if it rained , then the race would be stopped, even though they had not said it would be a wet race," he said. "T he re were people putting raincoats on halfway through, putting up umbrellas, so they might have noticed that it was raining. Every time we do something wrong, the slightest little thing , we get fined fo r it, but nothing happens when they make a mistake. I'm glad we had a dry race in the second one, and I'm getting used to the bike now, even if we really need to do some more testing. But we're straight to Phillip Island after t his, and I hope we can improve the results there. " Whatever the reality of the "wet-not -wet" situation in the halls of power, those on slicks lost out, even if the track was not fully wet or dry. Those with an intermediate rear - like the top three - were the big wi nners. The lap times, usually in the I:50 range, demonstrated the lack o f track grip per se, no matter the various grades and fo rms of Pirellis t hat were used . Haga lost his chance to continue his bo ld progress, having gearbox problems and be ing forced out after 18 laps . McCoy set the fast est circu it of all, I:43.323 on lap 23 as the t rack was drying. One of many regu latory co ncerns saw Vermeulen e nter the pits. Having reset his EFI system by hitt ing his kill switch by m istake (according to his team) as he slid and fought highside s on his slick rear, the system took a pressure measurement from the airbox at high speed . Normally this is set at standstill , w ith no pressure in the airbox, and this confused the on board computer. Vermeu len pitted on lap 15, his bike was stopped and started again , the computer res et properly, and he carried on . Dav ide Tardozzi from Fila Ducati was one of those who - if stopping short of a protest at Vermeulen's being allowed to con tinue - was certainly not happy about it. According to the Te n Kate team, even though his bike d id cross the red line into t he pit box, no one worked o n t he bike , o nly stopped and restarted it. Thus he was du ly adjudged to have made a legal stop, and he swept up a few poi nts in 12th w hen he re-joined. Not great fo r the new C BR and Vermeulen , but it was to get bett e r. Much better despite an atrocious start in race two, as he would finish inside t he top five . beating McCoy by fo ur seconds and Walker by a similar amount. " I don't know what happened in race one, but I was o ut o f t he seat and over the screen a couple of times. and t hen t he bike started to give me a strange eng ine re sponse, bu rbling and not rewi ng pro perl y," said Ve rmeu le n. " I came into the pits, the bike re started, so I went back out. In the second race Igot a terrible start, p ro bably the worst ever, and that was a real nightmare. I really had to play catch-up from the n on , but it worked ou t pretty well, as I got fifth place . O nce I go t th e re , I d idn't www.cyclenews.com Briefly... There were two Craig Jon ese s on display at Valencia. First there was Triumph-riding Jones, the young Englishman in the single rider ValMoto Daytona 600 factory machine, run by former V&M Raci ng personnel. He was not on the World pace on day one at least but was a welcome one-off entry in any case. The other Craig Jones, professional stunt rider Craig Jones, was due to go for the world record for a long "stopple ." He is the kingof the discipline already, but he plans to up the record from its present level of 266 meters to over 300. He failed in the high winds on Saturday. After some concerns about the supply of specific choices of Pirelli tires for use by the teams at Valencia, Pirelli has produced not thre e but four specs of rea r tires for use in Spain. The problem was most noticed by the Foggy Petronas team , in the form of chatter with any of the originally proposed Valencia slicks. All riders in all classes will have the choice of any tire this year (allowing for the limitations in use of tires overall ). so Pirelli brought around 100 of the newer batch to supply anyone who also experi enced chatter pro blems. The 100 extra tires bring the total of Pirellihoops, for all classes, up to SooO per round . Pie r-Francesco Chili, strugglinghorribly on day one on his new 999, was forced to use his old 998 once more as a back-up bike, thanks to a lack of spares and fresh engines for his new bike. Having crashed three times in preseason qualifying, Chili still had no confidence to make the move into the top eche lons on the timesheets. He used his old bike to set a ninth-fastest time in qualifying on Saturday, stillway down on his usual pote ntial. "I am finding it difficult to get the feel from the bike I need . It is very heavy at the front for me, on braking, turn in midcorner, everything. O Uf new bike costs a lot more money to ma intain than the 998, and the engine mileage is also shorter. I have one older engine and one fresh one. so I have had to use myoid bike - just as a backup - rather than put miles on the engine." Chili was nonetheless forced to use his old bike when his new one conked out on track rnidtimed session on Saturday morning. He used his 998 in Superpole and finished a disappointing 13th fastest. With finishes in bot h races on Sunday, Chili is now tied in second place for the most finishes of a World Superbike career, with 219. His level-pegging pal is Carl Fogarty, but the daddy of them all in te rms of appearances is Aaron Slight, on 229. CYCLE NEWS • MAR 10,2004 CH 15

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