Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Leon Hasla m had to have a new chassis fitted to his Renegade Ducatl alter a big crash in Valencia . The chass is was lound to be true enough in terms of measurement, but it was changed nonethe less lor safety 's sake. Noriyuki Haga , ever a sensitive rider fo r machine posi tion, has had new handlebar clamps made to bring the angle of the bars more steeply toward him and to ge t the grip secti on to run closer to the actual fork tubes, reduci ng the leverage ratio when turning. Kev in Curtain's fast p re -race crash in World Supersport may have been largely due to a bird strike out on the track. Unsure of why he fell in the first place, Curtain discovered feathers stuck to the right hand side of his leathers, making it poss ible that his bike hit a bird and his leathers copped the residue. The pre-race warm-up was spiced up by a small duel between Reg is Laco ni a nd Jam e s Tos e lan d , the e lder leading the younger around. Each rider was using massively different lines, with the Frenchman more neat and tidy and Toseland visibly struggl ing still w ith his fro nt end . (Ab o v e) Tosela n d (52) a nd Steve Ma rtin (99) b a ttle in race o n e , w ith Toseland e n d in g up thi rd and M artin fou rth . (Left ) Chris Ve r m eule n wa s th e man of the m eetin g, fin ishin g seco nd twice o n h is Ten Kate Honda CBR100 0RR. in a class of his own after an early race dust-up with his teammate Toseland and DFX Ducati's Martin, not to mention t he hard-charging Leon Haslam , who . hit the front for seven-eighths of a lap before his bike went for a metallurgical misadventure. "T h is is the first race I finished this year, an d I won the race, so I am quite happy," Laconi sa id . " Fo r su re after Valencia it was not so funny on Sunday night. I tried hard not to push too hard, but I made a good lap time all the time and never made any mistakes." A superb fight for second between Toseland and Martin ensued, du ring which smokescreens of tire residue were exchanged by lots of the top riders as a four-way battle for second place supremacy was played out on the final circu its of the first race. The home crowd, bas king in sunshine after being blown insensible on Friday and Saturday, were in Aussie heaven when Vermeulen and his Ten Kate Honda CBRI OOORR pounced to secure his first podi um finish in World Superbike - on a bike with many new parts since Valencia but still no slipper clutch or a fully expanded dyno figure. An interim tuned engine, st ill nowhere near full potential, was used to full effect by Vermeulen, as he made an opportunistic fina l r ace-o ne pass on Martin - or a mugging , as it could be called in some quarters. "The first race was a lot cooler, and the track got a lot hotter in the second race, so it made the tires slide a lot - but we got on the podium for a second time in two races," Vermeulen said. "The bike is getting better all the time; the team has done a great job. We've already had two podiums, so we'll wait and see what happens at the ne xt few races. It' s been great today, so I hope we ca n keep this up . Th e track was slippery in the afternoons, and I went w ith the setup I had in the first race, so that meant I was having some problems with the front. I w as trying to do as well as I could but keep it upright." Behind him , the hard-charging Toseland, who was le aving huge plumes of t ire smoke in h is wake as he attacked the th ro ttle , all despite an im pe rfect bike setu p, ended his firs t race in third place. "I pulled a bit o f a gap at the beginning o f the race, but I started struggling, and they caught me up a bit ," Toseland said . " I tried to keep it smooth. I just hung onto the back o f them and made a mistake with six laps to go, dug deep and 1 could see Chris was looking to pass Steve, so he opened a ga p fo r me at t he hairpin, Ka r l Mugge ri d ge made some telling pre-race comments at the Superpole press conference when speaking of his race tire experience at Valencia. Regarding his rear tire , swapped before the start 01 the race by the FIM as per the new rules for one which he claimed was nothing like it should have been, Muggeridge stated that "I think that rule is crap. Just in general. There is no real way to cheat. You get your tire, and that's it. It's bringing politics back into the sport, and that's not a good thing." His comments were obviously meant to hit the mark, with both Flammini brothers in the room at the time. The logistic figures of the first long haul of the year, and the only long haul for all the Supersport as well as Superbike teams, show that 9 7 t ons o f e q uip m e nt - fuel, bikes, equipment and tires - were air-fre ighted to Phillip Island, filling the inside of one complete Boeing 747 cargo aircraft. World Superbike collects the equipment from each individual team, takes it to Turin airport and then returns it - minus the luel o bviously - when the race is completed. By some curious twist of reality, the airport the stuff lands at in Australia is Melbourne Avalon, the same airport owned by the new owner of the Phillip Island circuit itself. The pre-race press conference was held in the unlikely environs of a lully working sheep-shearing shed, close by the Phillip Island circuit. Owned by outgoing circuit owner Fergus Cameron, the shed was used lor the new PR novelty of a Merino shee p " Shear-Off," during w hich three teams (Aussie World Superbike regulars, International World Superbike regulars, and World Supersport Aussies) competed against the clock for the honor 01 being fastest at shearing and processing a fleece. Thus we were treated to the sight of w inning international team member Regis Laconi plunging into a stall lull 01 sheep, emerging triumphant with a lair-sized woolyback befo re James Toseland (assisted lor the most part) finished shearing it, and the rest 01 the team members, includ ing Chris Walker and Noriyuki Haga , threw the fleece onto the traditional lolding table , turning it into a slightly misshapen but otherwise sellable commodity pure new wool. The pre-race press conference provided some other unwittingly comedic moments. Master 01 ceremonies AMeN editor Ken Wootton asked Broc Pa r kes how much help his mentor Wayne Gardner had been to his career. Parkes , smiling at the cheek of his own comments, declared, "Th is year at least ... not that much real ly.," to gales of laughte r Irom the assembled press. Gardner was , however, present at Phillip Island on Sunday, helping Parkes in a practical, as well as supportive, lashio n. Dejection in the Ducati Fila ranks seemed evident alter the first day 01 action in Phillip Island. The cause was not James Toseland's morning-session crash on Friday or his second one in the alternoon, but it came Irom the ino pe rative espresso mac hine in the Ducati pit garage. The Ducati team, like most Italian outfits, runs on a SO/SO mix 01caffeine and adrenaline, and with the equipment out o f action, there were serious e fforts put in to ensure its rapid repair - with more people involved in that than working on the bikes at one stage. Only in Italy. The lorm 01Ste ve Ma rti n in Valencia made him a serious race-winning threat in Austral ia, but the commonly held beliel that part of the reason he 's last is that he has intimate knowledge 01 th is year's control rubber, Pirelli, was rubbished by the man himself. Said Martin, "We aren't part 01 the Pirelli development program any more; we're not one of the test teams. Also, the tires we had last year were made in a whole dillerent place , in a whole different way than the ones we use th is year. So I don't think we have any advantage." Nonethele ss, he and his teammate Marco Bo rciani secured top spots in qua lilying, with Bo rciani just slipping down the order alter Superpole. James Toseland, still attempting to find a good feeling from the front end 01 his lactory Ducati 999, suffered two crashes on the opening day. One in the untimed morning sessio n, one in the timed, putting him down in 10th place after the first official session. Pirelli went as lar as making one of its choices of three front t ires to suit those front-end sensitive riders like 'Ioseland, but according to a Pirelli spokesman, the yo ung Brito n was eventually more keen on using the same spe cs as most other riders, eliciting some frustratio n fro m the Pire lli personnel. www.cy clenews.com CYCLE NEWS • APR IL7,2004 15

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