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/128617
FI M Wo r ld S u p e r b ik e C h a m p io n s h ip R o u n d 6 : Hock en heimrin g BRIEFLY••• Peter Goddard was . as many had suspected. prese nt at Hock enheim. although it was Kawa saki UK teamm ate S t e ve Plater who was taking his place on track . simply due to the fact that Goddard has yet to find the same sort of co mpetitiveness on the Kawasa ki as his rooki e Superbike teammate. Sliding impressively. Plater got roars of approval from the small-but-voca l crowd in the stadium in prac tice . as he bac ked the rear e nd in on the brake s and spun the rear out under power. Impressive to watc h. but relatively ineffective without work s horse pow er. Thus Plater missed Superpole by tw o places and only a 10th o f a seco nd. Plater was not the only B rit is h Superbike regula r out fo r another shot at the W orld Superbike big guns in Germ any . wi th the Red Bull Reve Du cati pairing of J ohn Reynolds and James Haydon running their machines in what is expecte d to be the fir st of four WSB meet ings at Brands Hatc h. A ssen and (poss ibly) Imola. Both made Sup erpole. although Haydon ended up all over the place aft er hitti ng a curb and almos t c rashing . Even more fru strated by his ow n Superpole performance wa s Robert Ulm. who overs hot at the first chicane and finished dead last. Ii seems that the future o f Hockenheim is in something of a quandary. after plans we re unveiled recently for short ening the circui t to accommodate the desires of the Formula O ne wo rld . The move is seen as essential to batt le against the under-con structi on Lauzits ring in fo rmer East Germany for the right to hold the Genman F1 race . but there are tho se (notab ly in the local governm ent and the Hockenhei m managem ent) wh o loath to los e the circuit' s uniqueness - at any pric e . The Ap rili a facto ry ra c e e Ho rt. now a viable two-man threat to the other top riders in WSB wit h '96 champ Troy Cors er and the relatively pacey Alessandro Ant onello , were right on the early pace at Hoc kenheim. Having been at the same pre-Hockenheim M isano tests as the D ucati and Yamaha WS B teams. neither fou nd much to help them with the particu lar demands of Hock enheim. "We found a few small thi ngs which were better. but none of them are much help here. " said C orser . "O ne of our bikes wa s set up for Monza . and that one was pretty much right for Hoc kenheim. This is a lot faster than M onza. though - fas ter in and out of the chicanes and much fast er on the corners . It' s a bit of a co mpro mise to set the bike up for the slow bits in the stadium and the fast bit s out in the trees . There are a lot of undulating bumps now as well. Not litt le stuttering ones. but big . rolling dips. and that tends to make the bike unstable at speed." Davide Tardozzi . a man with much on his mind at Hockenheim, had time to reassure the press that he did not envisage any major problems with tires despite the searing temperatures experienced on the firs t two days in Germ any . " Last year wa s the first time at Hockenheim for the tire manuf acturers for a while. so they didn't know what to expec t. " he said. "This year they have come up with solutions fo r a track as fast as this , but we wi ll have to see what happens on raceday." A photo s h o ot on race-day morn ing , to take overhead picture s of the impre ssively full Heeke heim paddo ck for the W SB organi zers to use as pro motio nal mate rial. was judged a great success by some . and a bit of a faux pas by others . A s the helicop ter circled low over the paddock . it sent various objec ts scattering under the downdraft from its rotor blades . including a huge pane of glass in a deserted area . It also caused a few tent s to be dislodged in the camp site and one poor marshall to be hit by his lightw eight medical stretcher bef ore the pilot eased up a litt le. of the data afte r eac h practice session now. and the throttle respon se is a bit better. " said the Italian, who has been st ruggling badly at some races this year, wi th a recalcitrant engine on transient thro ttle . " The likeable G uaresc hi had a small moment in Superpole w hich cost him dearly. and gave an insight into one of the problems peculiar to Hockenheim. ..I must have lo st about half a second in the first chicane in my Sup erp ole lap when I ran in way t oo fast and struggled to make it round." said the Italian. " It's so hot here that you act ually have to sit jus t a litt le out from being tucked in clos e behind the ride r you are following. or else the engine tem perature starts to rise. and it starts to lose power. eve n after tw o laps . " Haruchlka A oki was a h igh- p rofile a bsentee at Hockenheim , with the R&D Bieffe rider missing due to a lack of spare part s according to some or simply a lack of budget acco rding to others. Blowing three motors in M onza did not help the team ' s efforts, but the clincher is suspecte d to be that Ben Bo strom is now rece iving all the works spares going . and whatever backdoor help that could nor mally be counted on by the satellite teams wa s all used up. Aaron S lig ht. ente ring the Ostkurve at a high rate of knots in qualifying: wa s tu rfed oH b y a backmarker in practi ce . de stroying mo st of the machine's ancillary equipment. M ost wo rry ing was the fac t that wh en the bashed-up bike reappeared. it had no CO l box. but no one could see how it was po ssible for the unit to have been ripped off in the crash. Perhap s it was ripped off later - in all senses of the word . The Ca strol Hond a tea m go t very excited by the appe arance of th e magica l 200 mph figure appearing on their telemetry readout s in prac tice . Only afte r much calculation and delib erat ion did the real speed trap reado ut. of ju st over 190 mph. become accepted as gos pel whe n thi ngs like tire growt h and altering rolling tire diameters were taken into acco unt. The Hockenheim race cloc ked up 150 World Superbike race weekends since the very first one way back in 1988 at Don ingt on Park. Although always run in a tw o-race format, in those days the overall results were calculated on an aggregate of each race time. Hence the firs t ever race-leg wi nner. Dav ide Tardozzi CBimota YB4l. is not really the first W orld Superbike race w inner . because leg-two w inne r Ma rco Lucchinelli had a better aggregate time on the original 85 1. and Tardozzi retired in the seco nd eve nt. S imon C rafa r had a by-and-Iarge successful retu rn to his WS B alma mat er. the wo rks Kawasaki squad. but one major inciden t ruined his otherwi se happy practice sessions. A blown engine. complete with half a gallon of oil spew ing all over his right leg and boot. was the result of Hock enheim' s merciless. engine-strai ning nature. " I'm not happy w ith the suspe nsion yet." said C rafar afte r the first qualifying sessio n. but for my first time bac k on a Kawasaki for ages . it' s not too bad. " C hrister lindholm , who suHered snapped ligame nt s in his right knee at M onza w hen Fabrizio Pirovanos Suzuki followed him into the airfe nce . did not appear at Hockenheim. decid ing it was better to have his resto rative operation earlier than planned, Taking his place wa s Eric M ahe. an experienced Supersport and Endurance rider. Ruben Xaus almost caused an ugly incid e n t in final Wo rld Supersport' s untimed qualifying. when he pulled out to pass W illiam C ostes on the entrance to the stad ium , braked hard and late and then moved over to regain his line - righ t into the path of Ca ste s. The tir e rubbing wh ich ensued saw Xaus hauled up before the stewards. warned about his move and told that his every lap would be watched in the final timed session. P a u l Young had a hard time in WS S qualifying . takin9 his BKM Yamaha to 29 th po sition on the time sheets in his firs t ride for the team. P e re Riba crashed at the firs t chic ane in final qualify ing . hig hsiding on a new rear tir e. He knocke d himself out and brok e toes on his right foot . and was in the hospital on Sat urday night. His injuries turned out to be less serious than wa s fir st thought. but his bang on the head meant that Riba declined to race on S unday. wh ich all wh o had seen him described as a wise decision . In a bid to increase the status of th e World Supersport a nd Superstock champio n s h ip s sti ll furt her . the World Supe rbike organ izers have instigated a press co nference exclusive ly for the S upersport top thre e. and the Supe rstock winner. right after the races on Sunday. Form erly . the World Supe rsport wi nner alone join ed in with the Superb ike press conference. a mere sideshow to the main event. The s c orching w e a ther in pract ice 'at Hockenheim had severa l effe cts. one of the mos t eso teric of which was that the media center (an ove rgrown greenhouse w ith a tin-and-glass roo f and glass walls). was voted the hottest place in the wh ole circuit. The recorded temperature on Sat urday at 9:30 a.m. was 35 ° C (95 'FJ. Such has been the intere st in World S uperbike racing in t he UK this season, Fogarty or no Fogarty. that the BBC (which transmits delayed coverage of WSB on its entire netw ork on the same day as the race itself) has now decided to show the Brands Hatch round live. Having only started its coverage this year. the BBC have been expenencing consistent growth in its wee k-by-week viewing figures. In World S uperstoc k ra c ing . you ng Briti sh rider Chris Burn s pulled off a clear three -second win in the European Supe rstock champi onship race . heading a four-rider squabble for seco nd involving Katja Poensge n. Markus Weg sheider . Benny J erezenbeck and Dario Tosolini. Poensgen 's machine. patently faster than the o thers . made all the difference to the hometown heroine on the straights . but on the final run through the stadium sec tion. Poensgen lost out. with W egsheid er and Jerezenbeck taking the final two pod ium place s. and Poesgen 5th. Burns' win put him furth er ahead in the championship race with 61 points . with Wegscheider carrying 40 and To solini, winn er at Monza , wit h 38 . Fra n kie Chili . a crasher in the stadium section on the final day of practice. was' severely irked when his damaged mach ine. bashed on the edge s but not des troyed. was subjec ted to some rou gh treatmen t at the hands of the recovery teams sent out to collect it. Once more the s ideca r race w as brought to a premature st o p . this time due to an acc ident involvin q Hanks and Biggs. Wi th their outfi t upside down and beached in the Sachs Kurve sandtrap, it proved immova ble and prese nted enough of a danger to riders and marshalls for the stewards to call the race on lap 10 of 14 - fortu itously for J org St einhausen as it turned out. as he was leading at the time. from St eve W ebster and Klaus Klaffen boc k. and wa s thus awarded the race . He deserved it as much as anyo ne. eve n if Klaffe nbock was less than pleased to miss out on the chance to at least try to go into the lead. Klaffy certainly cou ld have. because once they all got into their stri de . the three o f them were having a real scrap for the lead. fully 13 seco nds ahead of the pursuing Hauzenberger. Steinhausens firs t-ever World Sidecar wi n co uld not have come at a bette r time. as the Ge rman national anthem played twice on the same day after Teuchert 's Supersport 600 success . The three -whee led J org nearly made it a clean sweep by taking Superpole but miss ing out on th e lap record . which still stands to Steve Abbott fro m 1999 . All four top sidecar outfits were pow ered by Suz uki engines . Vittoriano Guare schi. devel oping the 2001 kit parts for Yamaha during his seco nd season on S idecar racer ..Jorg Steinhausen pulled off a significant public ity co up by invitinq all of those the R7. swapped to a M itsubishi fuel injection sys tem at Hoc kenheim, having experienced never ending thrott le-response problems with the prev ious M otec syst em. " I can make some more sense brave or mad eno ugh to take a ride in the chair of his outfit afte r Friday qualifying. A few brave souls had a go and even survived to tell the tale later . Aaron Slight has been honored in the British Queen 's Birthday Honors list. Award ed the M ember of the New Zealand Order of Merit. Slight was bow led ove r. " This has taken me completely by surprise." he said. "I'm not in the game for honors . but I'm prou d to be given this title. It' s great to know that New Zealand spo rt has been recognized in this way. " 18 ..JUN E 14. 2000' cue I e ne""s