Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Coronation Dav lor ,-,-- ~~~~ c=~R L a..Il'""I" stare Corona Extra Suzuki's Troy Corser took his second World Championship in unexpected and potentially contentious circumstances after the second race at the Imola circuit was canceled before it had started, due to torrential rain. The race was already delayed due to both the need for a 15minute practice session and the late running of the Supersport race, sandwiched as always between Superbike races one and two. With over an hour having elapsed between even the proposed delayed start and the decision to cancel, it was the most tense period of the season, as the majority of the riders - including the championship combatants - came to the conclusion that for safety reasons, race two could not go ahead. "It was too dangerous to race, too much standing water and the bike was aqua planing everywhere," Corser sad. "When you are on your own and you could see, it was okay. But there was water 2 inches deep running down the hills." A 34 OCTOBER 12,2005 • It deprived Chris Vermeulen of the slim chance of halting Corser's inexorable run to champion status once again, or at least taking the battle to the final day in France next weekend. "To be honest, I'm not too disappointed about the championship," Vermeulen said. "It was always a long shot, and even if we'd managed to get some more points off Troy [Corser) in race two, he would still go to Magny-Cours with a big lead. All I could do was win races, and that's been happening recendy. I think that shows just how much we've developed the bike during the course of the season. Ididn't really want to stop the race, but safety always has to be the most important thing. Some parts of the track were especially dangerous, like coming out of the Variante Alta chicane, where the track slopes away and it was underwater. Behind that is a concrete wall, so it was the right decision. We'll just go to Magny-Cours next weekend and try for two more wins. In race one, it was pretty tough, and perhaps the intermediate front was not the wisest choice. But it helped me get past a CYCLE NEWS BVGoRDON RITCHIE PHOTOS BV GoLD & GooSE few guys at the start, and I was able to push relatively hard early on. But by mid-race distance, the track was dry and I really started to struggle. The last few laps got a bit hairy in places." The riders had lined up for the start, but as the fastest front-row riders - Regis Laconi, Vermeulen and Corser - looked at one another across the grid, they realized that the already risky conditions, which existed in the sighting lap, had worsened by the time they did their final pre-race lap. In this final warmup lap, wildcard rider Paurizio Prattichizzo had fallen and several riders did not see him, causing some late avoidances and heart-in-mouth moments. It was the last floating straw for some of the top names. Laconi was first to react, jumping off his machine as Vermeulen and he gesticulated to have the race start delayed again. Even in pit lane, Gerrit Ten Kate, with the most to lose from the cancellation of the race, seemed resigned to the race being canceled, if Race Direction ordered it. "It is the lack of visibility and the standing water in most places," Ten Kate said, before pointing at a cracked and submerged tarmac section in pit lane to say, "It is like this." The notoriously aged, fissured and patched Imola tarmac was simply not washing the water away, and the trackside drainage holes were overwhelmed by the rain, which continued even more forcefully after the "dust" had setded and darkness fell. Winston Ten Kate Honda's Vermeulen, the only man who had an mathematical chance of stopping Corser's surge to the crown, had won the earlier 21 lap race, but with Corser in second, it was always going to be an uphill battle to secure the overall championship, even if race two had gone ahead. After a long delay to allow for both the weather to improve enough to let racing start, and for the big three of Corser, Vermeulen and Laconi to go around in the course car on their own (Corser in the driving seat, in more ways than one), Race Direction eventually called off the event to a reluctant halt. Corser is now an unassailable 55 points ahead of Vermeulen, 409 to 3S4. The first race would go to Vermeulen, but the lead changed between' Corser and himself as they took it in tum to head ~ff from a chasing early pack. Crashes and technical issues told on the following riders, and after a tough fight between Yamaha Team ltalia's Noriyuki Haga and outgoing champion James Toseland on the Ducati Xerox, an off-track excursion by the Englishman put him in fourth, allOWing Haga a clear run. "The first race I was quite happy, because in the end, we found a good race tire," Haga said. "My lap times were as good

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