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/128321
Continued from page 21 will keep him in Australiathis year at least. The Ten Kate Team denied this, a spokesman saying that there had been discussionswith his team boss, if not personal manager, but that it would be almost impossibleto justify to main paymaster Honda Europe that another Aussie (Brookes would make four out of four Australians in Ten Kate) would come into the team . The Ten Kate team, without a title sponsor in Superbike or Supersport, despite being champions for the past two years in the riders standings,are already hard-pressed with their new Superbike project - even if they are having more initial success than virtually anyone expected . commitments, commitments that not to get their win, as t hey gam bled on wetter con ditions, not d rier, and had high hop es after t heir wet practice and race-one advent ures . Ano th er peculiar ra ce ha d t he increasingly competitive Sanchini lead ing for a full four laps at the start of the race, d rawing gasps from even the Italian crowd. The final result was not gasps, but absolute hero worship . T here may have been far fewer than the 45 ,000 claimed spectators in attendance, primarily due to t he dull and unlovely weather, but those who were in town for the race we nt ape w he n Ch ili overhauled Lacon i and held him off by 1.5 seconds. Th e close race, almost a contact sport over the last two laps, was an incredible sight to see, with Lacon i's hard -compound rear wet slithering all over but never quite bre aking up or failing. C hili, emotional afte r the de at h of his grandmother, won his first race since Laguna Seca in 2003 an d was visibly moved by his experience, e specially as a native of Bologna, he lives close by the Misano circ uit , and has a bus ine ss near by. " I ho nestly got t he choice of t he tire fro m t his guy up stairs (poin ting upwa rd) ," Ch ili said . "My grandmot her died last week, so she he lpe d me with the cho ice. She was with me on t he bike all t he race. She said to me , ' Don't worry, we're going to win, just wait at the begin ning, and we'll help each other to w in.' So I give this present to her. Thank you for my team, which makes it possible to give me this emotion again." This revamped World Superbike business proved to be somewhat vibrant and incident-packed at Misano in general and had winner number five in six rac es . The return match is to be in Monza, May 14-16. Speed will be king there, while in Italy The news that Anthony Gobert had been released by his latest team was met with shrugged shoulders in the World Superbike pit, but some had pangs of sadness that one of the brightest talents that World Superbike had ever witnessed passing over its threshold would end up in another messy divorce from another spurned part ner. Gobert made his international name in World Superb ike, winning a race in Australia on a Muzzy Kawasaki in 1994. to day C hili was t he king, especially as he left with a 20- point cham pionship lead over Toseland , w ith Laconi and Verme ulen tied in third, both with 70 points. Haga lurks a single point behind, with McCoy on 55 and Martin 54. The final twist was that Chili's win made it six out of six for Ducati , but the stony expressions in the Ducati factory team/marketing camp, showed that a converted streetbike - even a homologation special in the wet - beating not only the factory machi nes , but any 999, was not something they could get worked up abo ut. Especially given the cont roversy surrounding whether o r no t Chili ran a 999 streetbike engine in it or a racepre pped version of the streetbike or some other dev ice. Talk o f unho mo logated throttle bodies and hybrids was the ec ho t hat rang out after the cheers, so maybe t he Ch ili999/998 saga, three races old and coun ting, is nowhere near finished yet . The most re liable vers ion of the story was that Chili used the 104mm-bo re 998R engine, with work don e to make it more raceable, fitt e d into the 998R chassis, with as many race parts (suspension and body work, etc.) as t he rules allow. This one will run and run, and it shows wh at can be done in t he new version of World Superbike, if you have the knowledge, the backup and a rider like Chili on the machine itself. MUGGERlDGE RULES TI-IE ROOST A de luge of rain shortly after the mere lightly falling variety tha t stopped the first 5uperbike race a few laps early, saw to it that the Supe rsp ort race was delayed by a whopping 40 minutes, to allow the track to sta bilize and be cleaned of whatever foul slippery stuff had bee n dropped there on the exit of t he last C urvone corner. This brought about a uniquely Italian phenomenon, the mass influx of team bigwigs and lesse r hangers -o n into the press office to watch the races on TV - in glorious Mediascope , you could say. With the Supersport race delayed, there was the pecul iar sight of World Supersport races be ing shown on the circuit TV screens, while the first round of the much-anticipated Moto GP race at We lkom ran on the screens normally used for the second page of live re sults. It made for an entertaining afternoon, as the boos, hisses and gasps were re served for the MotoGP race in t he main. The huge round of app lause t hat followed Valentino Rossi's win in Africa was thus followed by an ec hoing patter o f palms when Karl Muggeridge crossed t he line in his ow n race, eliciting w ry smiles all around at the long-d istance trans pos ition of the re lative sta tus , geography and level of pen etra tion of eac h class into the general racing firmam ent . As Biaggi and Co . realize, so metimes there is just no alternative but be ing sec on d best to the Moto GP phenomenon and we don 't mean MotoGP itse lf in this instance . The Supersport action itself, conducted on a far wetter track than the Superbike racers wou ld have to deal with for the most part, was started by a near stoppage, as three riders fell in the first corne r. During the big crash in turn one, Steve Brogan, Max Neukirchner and wildcard Maurizio Tumminello scooped each other out, with the trouble starting with a colli- The Foggy Petronas team has been beset by setbacks and problems for what is now a couple of years, but its increasingly bright seaso n is turning upward at a rate of knots. The ridingduo of Chris Walker and Troy Corser went second and third in the second timed qualifying practice session, in fairlywet damp conditions. This proved two things, especially a, it was backed up by good times in the drier cond ition s as well. One, that the chassis package is peachy, and two that a parallel development of tire technology for the triple (and increasingly the Bertocchi Kawasaki ZXlOs) are both paying dividendsfor the team. All other teams can use the tires, but they seem to work best for the Petronas' stiffchassis package. The nonparticipation of GSE Racing in the World Superbike Championship has had some other effects, with the stafffinding gainful employ in other ways. Freelance engine guru Stewart Johnstone, a long-time member of the GSEgang, not onlyworks for the Crescent Suzuki team in the British Championship, but now also prepares engines for the Renegade Ducati team. Yamaha will be making a bit of PRmileage from a race bike/mo tocross cross over. Leading the Superpsort Championship at present, Jurgen van den Goorbergh (Yamaha ltalia) will be showing motocross legend Stefan Everts the way around Manu on his R6, with VDG about to try out Everts' machi ne soo n as well. The previous race in Australia, which witnessed heavy rainson the day after the race, provided an unexpected surprise for some of the World Superbike teams. Some found that water had made ingress into their packingcrates, to the point that some components had suffered corrosion , and Continued o n page 25 www.cyclenEWs.co m CYCLE NEWS • APRIL 28, 2004 23