Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

World S u p e r b ik e Championship Round 5: Monza . Italy BRIEFLY••• wor k. " Corser said, " It' s really reluctant to steer at high spee d, which is obviously a problem round here. Our top speed is good but our punch out of the come rs is no t as good as the others ," The eage rly-awaited re sult s ot Nor iyuki Haga's "B' samp le urine test, after his 'A ' sample was found to contain illegally high levels of ephedrine at the South African W orid Superbike round. have been published by the FIM . A transcript of the findings is run. verbatim . below . " Follow ing the. anti-do ping co ntrols carried out at the Superbike World Championship round held in Kyalaml. South Afri ca. on April 2 last . the A sample of Japanese rider Noriyuk i Haga was found not in accordance with the anti-doping rules of the FIM Me dical Code. with a concentration of 12 mg/m l of ephedrine. Mr. Haga requested a counter-tes t with the B sample in a laboratory of his choice. The result of this count er-test shows a concentration of ephedrine about 13.4 rnq/ml. confirming the result of the A sample analysis. The case will now be submitte d to the International Jury in the next coming days." A meet ing of the Kyalami Internatio nal Ju ry will conve ne afte r M onza to discuss the next cou rse of action. although it is expected that if the findings are upheld. Haga will face some sort of punishment most likely to affect his championship. No comment was forthcoming from Yamaha or Haga himsel f and all attempts to specu late on po ssible outcomes we re quashed by all sides . Even FIM President Franco Zerbi indicated that it was too early to say what wo uld happen. " The meeti ng o f the Internat ional Ju ry . the same one w hich was in Kyalami. will dec ide if there should be a punishment. although it is not entitled to giv e ou t big sanctio ns," he sa id. " Then the ult ima te dec ision will then be referred to the FIM International Disciplinary Co urt. which can give out a ban of up to three month s. There is no possibility of M r . Haga lo sing his pr esent poi nts or having them dedu cted , because the rules do not allow for it. There will be a decision within 30 days from the end of the meetings. It is possible the Disciplinary Court can give a maximum ban, but also less. but the decision will be up to them. " A new sponsor for the Superbike World Championship appeared at , Monza with a British motorcycle Interne t site MB 4U.com (Mo torbikes For You. in other wo rds) displaying logos on the TV pictures and W orld Superbike stationery for the first time. The tie up sees MB4U declared the offic ial Information tech nology supplier to the Superbike Championship. MB4U are already the name sponsor of the Brit ish Superbike Championship. and ope rate Ca rl Fogarty ' s off icial webs ite , A lessand ro A ntone llo, Troy Corser 's teammate and Aprilia' s long-term ASV Sup erbike test rider, put his prev ious experience of racing the Aprilia at Monza last year to good use by slamming the bike in amongst the Worl d Superb ike reguiars in practice , Eighth fastes t afte r two timed sess ions, he even outperformed his illustrious teammate Corser, who up until Superpole had been struggling by his ow n standards. A~ many are fou nd to wi stf ully remark, Monza is as much of an attra ctio n fo r the au ral nerve c en te rs as the visual. The near 60 .00 0 -seat grandstands and all pervadi ng gree nery of M onza ma ke it a t rap fo r so u nd . wit h th e impe nd ing boo m of th e Ducatis/ Aprilias/ RC51sand Bimota contrast ing against the sharper sou nding transverse four s · all of wh ich howl in and out of view long afte r the first sounds of their approach are heard. " I love coming to M o nza . eve n if I have a bad res ult ." said James Whi th am . " because it' s justw hat racing is all about : High speed , classic layout. built in a park inside a town, It' s an amazing trac k, and there are too few places like them left ." Monza is Europe's oldest permanent race circuit. with only the disused Brook lands in England. and the still thriving Indianapolis Motor Speedway predating it. Troy Baylis s was given a second chance to shine on Fogarty' s under-used Ducati after his bad iuck at Sugo (he was taken out twice in the opening laps). and a poor level of aggressio n from Luca Cadalora at Donington, convinced Ducat i that they had chose n the wro ng man for th e Don ingt on race not Sugo. I'm loving riding here for the Wo rld Superbike team. they've made me really weicome. but I think I'm going to slip into some form of permanent jetlag soon !" joked Bayliss. who has been racking up the air miles big ti me recently , fly ing to and fro m Europe. J apan and the United States to cover his exist ing AMA and new World Superbike commitment s. A n impressive third fastest qualifier after the tim ed sessions. Bayliss made a decent fist of Superpole to finish fifth. > Rumors regarding Carl Fo g a rty' s healt h and whethe r he wo uld return abounded at M onza, w it h everything fro m "h e has retired, " to " he is still unsur e of the damage done dur ing his bou t of unconsciousness." to "he will be back to win at Brands Hatch himself" being bandied about at Monza. It is known that Fogarty is more concerned about his head knock than anyt hing. an understandable view point when you cons ider the problems Aaron Slight's (non-raeing related ) injuries posed him. N A visito r to Saturday practice at M onza was none ot her than M ax Biaggi. crui sing the pit lane and genera lly enjoy ing a non-pre ssured day at the race s. Or as one paddock wit put it. doing his homework for w hen GP s go four -stroke . Altho ugh he wa sn ' t pressed into any parti cular public relations role on the day, being in front of cameras in Italy meant that he still managed to attract more media atte ntion than almost the who le paddock put together at the height of a qualifying session. Honda ' s ceaselessly impressive RCS 1 (or at least the wo rks SPW version) proved to have speed aplenty at Monza. In fine Honda tradition, the engineers at HRC have imbued the RC5 1 with a topend performance that no one else could quite match on the opening day at Monza. Stradd ling the res t like a tw o-head ed co lossus. Edwards .and Slight made full use of their high terminal velocities to go one-two on the time sheets in official qualifying. Edwards. dete rmined to blot out the memory of 25 lost points after his Donington cras h, was almost half a second faster than Slight , on a time of 1:46.582 , "W e didn't know how quick the VTR wo uld be at a high speed circuit. but it' s wo rking well." Edwards said. "We' ve got a bit of fine tuning to do with the setup. but other than that. I have to be happy after what the bike showed it could dotoday," Not to be outdo ne by Yamaha, Apr ilia arranged a publicity stun t which had Tetsuya Harada riding three differe ntly-colored RSV M ille streetbikes around the circuit after the first Superbike race, with Marco Melandri, deemed too young to ride such a big stree tbike by his (surely over-anxious) em ployees , acting as a one-man pit crew, The Dorna / Fla m m in i ri va lry for the hearts and minds of the racing publi c may have taken a tum w ith th e new s that Octagon, ow ners of SBK Int ernat io nal, have made moves o n their muc hrumored plans to buy out Do m a. Oc tagon owner s, the massive Interpublic organizatio n, are known to question the logic of com pe ting against another full World Championship when they can buy both and either kill one or at least present them in a fashion which is complimentary. as opposed to confrontational. FIM President Franco Zerbi wa s present at M onza, attending a dinner throw n by the Flammini bro thers. Maurizio and Paolo . for national and international joumalists on Friday night. and then hanging around for all the action on race day. Speaking about the confusion that may exist after G Ps go to fou r-strokes. Z erbi was forth rig ht in his views o n what should hap pen . " In my op inion, it is impossible for there not to be a co nfus ion. I have a dream that there would be two Wo rld Champions hips. in their present format. but run at separate parts of the year. Therefore we wo uld have no clashes of dates, no sponsorship clashes. no confusion. In my opinion it wou ld then be very easy to indicate th e television audience which is Superbike and which is GP. It will be difficult to work out the schedule. but it is po ssible. In the future. three or four years at the maximum . I think this is how it must be . " Anthony Gobert retu rned to actio n aft er his one -race hiatu s, but was st ruggling physically at M onza, w ith not only his previously publicized fr actures, but with a massive bum o n his leg suffered when his Bimota's brake roto r melted through his leathers as he lay prostrate at Sugo, with the machine on top of him. St ruggling, he finished combi ned qualifying 23rd, and of course. out of the Superpole. ·We'r e having problems with a lot of things right now , and the suspe nsion is defin itely a bit hard round here. · Gob ert said. He was lapped in rac e on e, and reti red in race two when th e bike' s penchant for eating its exhausts alive caused Gobert to sto p in a small trail of smoke, With Colin Edward s grow ing more effusive by the second about how good his RC5 1 is. Aaron Slight has proved to be a bit more difficu lt to convince. ''I' ve done the same sort of time s as I have today on the RC45 . so there' s a long way to go yet. " Slight said. Slight. no fan of tw ins or differential race formu las, wa s lukewarm at least at the pro spect of racing a tw in, and it appears that he is still unconvinced about the idea, Riding for the CastroI Honda team and trying to win on wh atev er they put his way is entirely another matter. as his obviously deep-seated satisfaction at returning to the fray as early as he has, "It's great to be back racing , and I just want to forget all about the whole affair now and get on with it. " If Monza prom ises one thing, it is that all you really need is a bik e that goes roughly wh ere yo u point it and a nuclear reactor for a mo to r. Hence the top Ducati privateers like Robert Ul m and A nd y Meklau found themselves in the thick of the action in qualifying. finishing fifth and seventh, ahead of the majority of the wo rks men. Troy Corser appeared to hit something of a brick wall in the devel- Only marginally slower than Hock enheim. M onza is the second fastest c ircuit on the 2000 calendar, The contrast with the much opment of the RSV M ille at Monza. chasing a setup that never quite made it beyond the co mpro mise stage in pract ice, and eve n driving him to a co mplete chass is re-think afte r the secon d timed practice on Sunday mornin g, ..So far we 've been moving the development of th e machine forwa rd in big chunks, but right now we've been tryi ng lots of suspension and setup alternatives to try and make the bike 8 M AY 3 1 , 2000' .. U .. I e n e VV slowe r, undulating and endless ly curvaceous natu re of D oningten Park the prev ious we ekend was star k to say th e least. w ith Doninq to n prov iding average speeds of 95 mph at bes t. but M onza tim es almost breaching the 125 mph barrier, The faste st man in the first day of practice was Aaron Slight - running 191 mph, s A rumor doi ng the rounds at Manza indicat es that th e prop osed kit eng i ne spec ifica tio n rules may be sc rappe d ov e r the wtnter.. OPPOSition from the work s teams. plus the equally important factor of W orld Superbike not wanting to lose an even greater lap time differential to th eir rival G P show, have been indicated as th e main .reaso ns. There was also serious doub t that any of the manufacturers . with the exception o f Ducati and Honda, could produce the required numbers of kit engines at a pric e and specification w hich would allow them to be competitive without taking a loss on each kit . It w as also seen as a move that wo uld discourage smaller manufacturer s joini ng the se ries in the future. In an interview with Franco Zerbi, President of the FIM. the issue of exactly what i s o r is not a prototype part fitt ed to any proposed new four-str oke GP bike wa s cleared up. " There is no po ssibility of any part fr om a produ cti on mot orc ycle , ev en in heavily mod ified form . appearing on a GP machine. " he said. "A prot otype part is completely new produ ced specifically for a GP machine. A GP proto type part can be used in series product ion afte rwards. but not the other w ay round. " Ducati. with its 200 0 W orld Superbike campa ign in tatters. is expec ted to give the unemployed J ohn Ko cinski and the very much employed Neil Hodgso n a test at Mi sano to replace Troy Bayliss. who has to compete in the third round of the AMA series at Road Atlanta. The problem Ducati faces is whether or not they believe Fogarty will be out for so long that they need to replace him semi-permanently w ith another rider, ruining that rider' s chance of a dom esti c championship win. An othe r alterna tive is to draft- in one of the semi-works men, like Juan Borja or Haruchika Aoki. Based on prese nt results. podiums may still elude them anyway. Rube n Xau s' reput at ion as a no-compromises rider was redo ubled in final qualifying. Wi th a busy track full of World Supersport men trying to set times, they cou ldn' t help but trip each other up. A tangle betwe en Xaus and German R6 rider Christian Kellner ended with the pair touchi ng in the final chicane , wit h Xaus shout ing and ges tic ulating madly at Ke llner. w ho lat er descr ibed Xaus as a "Cra zy man. I was off line going slow and he ran into the side of me . Then he st arte d screaming at me like it wa s my fault! " Xaus eve ntually took po le pos ition . despi te crashing whi le overtaking Fabrizio Pirovano aro und the outs ide , and w ith virtually all the top riders impro ving their best ti mes w hile Xaus was ge tti ng himself back to the pit s. A dramatic end to the World Sup erstock competit ion came even after th e race was over, with the wi nner Barry Ve nema n, fro m Holland, disqualified for having a slotted camshaft on his Yamaha R1, The distr aught Venernan's excuse - that he knew nothing about it and that it was his tuner 's fault - cut no ice with the jury, and he was disbarred from' the results . A great deal of excitement developed during the race itself with Spaniard Francisco Riquelme crashing on lap one, wh ile D ominique Du chene was fo rced to take avo iding act io n acro ss the grave l. Benjamin Nabert and Koe n Vl eugels were next t o crash in t o t he sc en e ry , o n the secon d lap , w ith Alessandro Scorta joining them in the pits after mechanical problems one iap iater . At the front . the battl ing duo of Fabbio Capriotti . on pole , and Daria Tosolini wa s shaping up to be a fine sc rap, had Capriotti not fallen off on lap four, destroyi ng a good chance for a wi n in fron t of his hom e crowd , D aniel O live r, a to p Superstock c ontender last yea r, was in th e thick of it this race . co ming through from sixth. with a particularly fine pass on Olivier Four at the Parabolica. Gyreg Yann waited until the second part of the final lap before crashing out. by which time Chris Burns had made his way to fourt h. with M arkus We gscheider third and Tosolini second - although each of them was due to move up one spo t with the excl usion of Ve nema n. A t hr illi ng , tw o-part S idecar ra ce mad e near tr ag ed y w he n Guy and Peach c rashed and flipped over wit h Peach br eak ing his leg. The crash was serious enough to bring out the red flag, wi th the incident jus t the latest in many such accide nts to affl ict the class this year, W ith aggregate time s coming int o play. there were ma ny ca lculation s t o perf o rm , not least be cau se J o r g Steinhausen , his teammate Web ster, and Klaffenbo ck were in a fair old scrap at the fron t . with S te ve Ab bot getting involved despite falling out of fourt h gear on occasion . Things got a littl e too close fo r com fo rt for Ab bot as he and Austrian Hauzenberger overtook each o ther on the entrance to the Parabo lica , with each rider nudging the ot her on the way past . He was not the on ly man in tro uble. as the puffs of black smo ke fro m Steinhe usen's ma chine were a portent t o doom that c ame on lap eigh t. With Klaff enbock and Hanni only 1.5 seco nds down on Web ster. he had to keep the thro tt le open to stay ahead righ t unti l the last lap. when KlaFfenbock deveioped a minor fault and droppe d back to finish 9.4 seconds down at the flag. · We had to keep goi ng hard right to the end . " said Web ster. " J org Steinha us en was r iding rea lly we ll before he b lew up and because I'm his teammate. I didn 't want to do anything too silly that might drop us bo th out of it. St eve Abboty was w it h us earlier. but I kno w he had a little prob lem as well. It' s great to win. and go clear in the championship table. " W ebst er lead s Klaff enbock by nine points. with the unluck y St einh ausen 3 8 poi nt s adrift of the English pairing .

• Cover