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/128376
Briefly... Troy Corser proved virtually perfect once more in Superpole, setting a best of I minute and 35.954 seconds, 0.449 ahead of Chris Vermeulen. Amazingly, it was Corser's first Superpole win of the year, but it was the 31 st of his long career. "It's never easy," Corser said. "I've got to thank the team. They've worked fantastically, not just this weekend but every weekend. We had a great test here before we went to Philip Island, and the result at Philip Island showed what we had achieved before we went there. I'm feeling confident. The bike is working fantastic on race tires, and it's all feeling good." Regis Laconi (Ducati Xerox) continued his good form in qualifying into Superpole, going third-fastest overall and starting from the front row of the grid. His experience was a marked, contrast to the woes suffered by his teammate, James Toseland, who failed to make the Superpole cut by seven places after another botched day of work on several fronts and more tire intrigue. The Valencia front row was com- starry-eyed Regis was nonetheless in place to watch his teammate, reigning World Champion James Toseland. It was a horror movie for the entire cast and crew of the crimson Xerox Ducati squad, although Toseland's fight through from 23rd starting place to eighth in race one was a sterling effort. The slow but blood-curdling regicide (no pun intended) being inflicted by both rider and team on themselves (not mention the crushing speed of the fast four-cylinders in the series this year) was horrible viewing, even for the neutrals in race two, "King James" was run off onto the gravel by the crashing and clashing Petronas of Garry McCoy and the la Glisse Yamaha of Ivan Silva. After this escapade, Toseland had to come in to have his front wheel changed. Lapped while in pit lane, he carried on to finish 19th - and last. Visor down, he strode past everyone in his wake after the races. No such troubles for Corser, the man who could be king again and who likes Valencia so much he took another double after his previous Aprilia success. Even as he won his fourth and fifth races of the 2005 season, his immaculate double just finished off an almost perfect weekend of race action for the 33-yearold Aussie, leading every session, taking Superpole win number 3 I, running up a total of 141 points from a possible 150. It was easy, even if Corser never thinks they are easy, but it sounded like he was the only person able to beat or undo himself. Well, he could have chucked it down the road during his outrageous tail-sliding corner exits on the victory lap of each race. "Conditions were very variable today due to the change in track temperature but we had done all the groundwork in qualifying and were ready for anything," Corser said, "I used the same rear tire for both races but it didn't work as well in race two, because the temperature was higher, The first race was pretty comfortable for me, and I just controlled things right from the start and left the rest to sort themselves out. In race two, I was a bit surprised to see Andrew [Pitt] get off the line ahead of me and lead into turn one. I wanted to pass him as soon as possible because I wanted to run my own race, so I overtook him on lap two. I then pushed quite hard for about eight laps and made a bit of a break, but in doing that I think I must have worn the rear tire out a bit. So, then I eased the pace, conserved the tires and kept and eye on my pit board. The wind in race two was a bit of a problem because it was different in different parts of the circuit." A double of another kind was achieved by Chris Vermeulen (Winston Ten Kate Honda), who proved the closest challenger to his countryman, taking his Honda to a brace of second places, albeit nine and five seconds down on the 1996 World Champion's race times, He had to fight for 'em, with a Yamaha in race one and a Kawasaki in race two. "That was really hard work," Vermeulen said. "The conditions were very slippery compared to last year's race, which was held earlier in the year. I think the higher temperatures here mean that the tires are haVing to work much harder, so grip is a problem for everyone, I knew Abe was behind me because I could hear his bike and my pit board was reading plus zero all the way through. Suddenly, it went to plus six, which is unfortunate for him, but my last lap was about three seconds slower as I just wanted to bring the bike home," Race two was just as hard for Vermeulen as race one, but at least he was able to stay relatively close to Corser. This time, PSG-I Kawasaki's Chris Walker was the one to keep Vermeulen busy. "Chris [Walker] showed what a good rider he is, but when I saw a yellow bike behind me, I assumed it would be Kagayama," Vermeulen said. "Chris put me under a lot of pressure, so it was important not to make a mistake. The Honda is pretty fast, so I knew I was okay pleted by rookie star-in-the-making Max Neukirchner, replicating his top-class performance in regulation qualifying, his third becoming a fourth after the single lap of qualifying. The 22-year-old German once more outperformed teammate Pier- Francesco Chili, who qualified 12th despite his recent collarbone surgery. The expected change to the World Superbike regulations, to ban "big-bang", "long-bang," or any other sort of big-pulse modifications to the engine firing order, were not long in coming. As of May S, the rules will be, "Three- and four-cylinder engines: The sequence in which the cylin- ders are fired (i.e. one-two-four-three) must remain as originally designed on the hqmologated model. Simultaneous firing of tw; cylinders is also forbidden if not adopted on the homologated motorcycle." The rules also state that "up to 5 degrees firing. difference in two cylinders is regarded as lsimultaneous firing.'" The whole move has been instigated to stop the four-cylinder runners from experimenting with firing orders to help with the tail-happy feeling of the fours entering corners and to help them drive out of corners as easily as possible, saving rear-tire wear. Also. the ban is to keep the technical rules as inexpensive as possible, stopping teams from having to get special cams and cranks made, shortening engine life as bigger pulses of power cause premature wear. And not least, it is to keep the all-important marketing link between the bike the spectators can buy and the ones racing in superbike. The speed of the change is in response to the altered firing orders used in Rob MacElnea's Virgin Yamaha R I s in the UK Championship, which have some theoretical advantages over a conventional four. As title sponsorship deals go, the Corona Extra title sponsorship of superbike has had few chances to propel itself into the mass consciousness of race-day fans so far for obvious reasons in Muslim Qatar, and for distance reasons in far-flung Australia. The first Euro round of the year, however, was a different story. as a massive rig. set to host the postrace press conferences and paddock show on one side and the Corona Extra hospitality unit on the other, was Continued on poge 3 J CYCLE NEWS • MAY 4,2005 29 ...