Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

J ames H ay d o n and Steve Pla ter - ven tu re d to foreign shores , with mixed rewards for their troubles. Hay d o n ' s 12th on th e opener was the best an y of Tri bune . Haga q u i c k l y nipped past him on the next straight, an d even by lap one, the leading trio of Edw ard s, Haga and Chili had gap ped the rest by a small-but-visible amount, with time of 1:59 .885 as early as la p t wo . them , with Reynolds finish ing neither and Plater managing a g o o d 14th i n race one and a D NF in the second. T h e locals , namely Jurgen O elsh laeg er and Markus Barth , h ad differing fortunes, with Troy Bayliss eventually detach ing h imself from the clutches of the second group of riders to follow the speed figure of 198 mph was a whole five and a half mph faster than t he next best rider, Troy Bayliss. front -running wave. Despite the lack of a slipstream to hel p him, the Aussie made up ground o n the front At t h e d a w n of lap five, Bayli ss had squeezed another second o ut of O el sc h laeg e r out of the points, bu t B a r t h picking up the last o ne in each rac e . B im ota 's effo rts were once a g a i n p o intl e s s , (scori ng n o points that is) with Gobert re tiring in both rac es. One st u nni ng race w eek end, in any m ea surable fas h ion, with sub- t wo- mi n ute laps , close rac ing a nd the form book once more ren t asunder - a long with the F IM ru le book, de pending on who happens to be defending any p a rt i c u l a r opinion abou t Check out the rear tire and back end of PierFran c esco Ch ili's Suz u k i . The Italia n 's tire b lew s pectac ularty In the first race, taking some fibe rgl ass (and nearty Noriyukl Haga) w ith it. each race. "It felt good to beat all t he g uys I was slipstreaming w ith - b ut it felt real good to beat Bo rj a : admitted Bo st ro m . Vi tto Guareschi an d Si mon Crafa r ha d a pr ivate co n tes t to s e e who wou ld b e al most t he slow est w o rks m an of the w ee k end, with each tryin g out something simi lar to wha t th ey had b efo re - a n ew inject io n system for Gu ar esch i' s Yamaha , a nd a w hole n e w but p ro ba b ly not - t h a t- m uc hchanged K awasa k i fo r Crafa r , an exfacto ry Superbik e m an of some note. Wi th th e British Su perb ike Cham pi on ship not r u nn in g th is p arti cul ar weeken d du e to t he TT races g o in g on at t h e I s l e of M an , th r e e Br it Su p erb ik e regu lars - John Reyno lds, Hag a at anyone t im e . A ssum i ng his ban s tays in force (a nd nobody from Yamaha seems to be d o i n g that) one thing is sure: the championship battle for the foreseeable future is in the same state as C h il i' s Dunlop in race one - tatters to be precise. Edwards is now leading with four corrected wi ns and 202 points ahead o f Chili , w ith 16 1 an d Hag a (looking a t m is sin g o ut o n another potential 100 p o ints if h e misses Mi sano a nd V a len ci a ) , w ith 137. Politics, scandal, bl o od -feuds , sa d dle-swa p pi n g - you ca n k eep th em a ll, b ec au se t here w as enou g h ra cing in te res t to keep u s a ll in conversatio n topic s until M isano . RACE 1 It wa s Co r se r, B a yli s s , E dwards a n d Ha ga f or th e h o l e sh ot , wi t h Edwards b last in g h is w ay th roug h to the lead at the entra nce to the Sud For the fourt h race in succession, Colin Edwards scored full marks for his Superpole perform ance, pipping Infostrada Ducati new boy Tr oy Bayl iss and Aprilia's Tr oy Corser. Yanagawa. an always-competitive fourth , was ahead of Noriyu ki Haga, who had parti cular problems with his rear Dunl op , which developed a blister and sent his R7 into wild gyrations on every right hander, So close to crashing on several occasions, Haga was lucky to finish the lap , never mind take the first position on the second row. Pier-Francesco Chili was a subdued sixth, with Al essandro Antonello, impres sive once again, in a great seventh. Robert Ulm had a less-successful time, running straig ht on at the first chicane and ending up 16th and last. Ju an Borj a was in even worse trouble, faili ng to make Superpole at all - a real embarrassment in his first race for the official squad. Ben Bostrom , on the other hand, was happy enough to make 14th on the grid, althoug h happy is not a word he knows well right now, cont inuing to refuse to speak to journalists even after Superpol e. Bostrom's Superpo le lap was all the more rem arkable because his NCR Ducati was blow ing oil out of the exhaust, causing him to look around as soon as he finis hed his lap, punching the air in disgust. He was also running Vance and Hines leathers, but whether this was some form of protest at his treatment by the Infostrada guys or simply due to a sponsorship clas h - bet ween Infostrada and Vodacom (NCR's major spo nsor) - is not known, because Bostrom wasn't saying. Coli n Edwards had been last m an away, after his stunning second qualifying practice time of 1:59.99 1, the first ti me an offici al Superbik e lap has dipped under two min utes. His fourth Superpole in a row puts him only two mo re away from the $300 ,000 bonus payment offered by the WSBK m anagement, to any rider who can take six Superpoles co nsec ut ively. "A couple of guys befor e me had set a tough target to beat." Edward s said. "But I knew I had it in me, and the bike is definitely capable of it. I'm confid ent of being in the right place for a couple of wins.' Ya nagawa himself was o n t h e warpath now, with the leading bunch looking like they would soon becom e untouchable. Yanagawa 's fastest top - men , most notably at the entrance to Agip , the first corner after the fast t he p ack, and by lap six t he D uca ti man had taken Chili and Edwa rd s in successive corners to tail new leader woodland section, where B ay li ss was to prove awesome in later tussles. B y H a g a for a bout half a lap befo r e Edward s shot back into second, clos- lap three Bayliss w a s al most w ith t h em , t he enti re qua rtet ove r t h ree seconds clea r o f t he trai lin g gro u p , headed by A k ir a Yanaga w a. the process. On the fo llowing la p, a ll t h r ee o f them - Edw ard s, B a yli ss a nd Ch il i - A t t hi s stage t here w ere a l rea dy four rid er s out - G ob ert , Re yn o ld s , Karban and Jagg i. Most si gnifica n t, however, was the pace o f Chili, set- had swept p a st th e J apan e se man , w ith Ba y liss g o in g second , a nd then fir st, one la p later, bl o w i n g pa s t Edwards at Clark Chicane in im p res- ting a n e w a ll - t im e Su pe rb ike best si ve style. ing Ha g a ' s half-second advantage in After yet another round of mob ile wrestling from the Supersport boys, one thing has become clear: The guys at the front are becoming the same guys every weekend , as the podiu ms and the points tabl es are demo nstrating fairly well. Whitha m, Teuchert , Chambon, Casoli, Kellner. MacPherson , Meregalli , Mugge ridge and Xaus are the names which form the top nine places in the Cham pionship standings, and for the m ajority of this race at Hockenheim (and with the exceptio n of an off-colo r Meregall i) these were the guys who could have won as easily as each othe r. But , as the fates wou ld have it, we had our first doub le race -winner of the year at Hockenheim , the hugely popular local rider Jorg Teuchert who was dow n and out in 12th place in the first laps, not even close to the leading group before he slipstreamed his way back into c ontenti on . A quic k barg ing session with Paolo Casali in the final lap inside the stadium gave Teuch ert the win , with Casoli complaining that his approach was a little too for ceful , although to the outside observers, they had all been a little on the boisterous side for all 14 lap s. Teuchert, on the oth er hand . was as am azed as anyon e that he had made it through . "I got a very bad start, and for the first few laps I thought that there was no way I could get back up with the leading riders ," Teuchert said. "Then I started to pass people really easily because my bike was very fast, and I was working the slipstream well. I knew I had to develop a good tact ic for the last lap, and I went from third to second and then overtook Casoli, I think , on the entrance to the Motod rom . He ran a little wide and I kept my line. but it was really close at the flag, with only 0.026 seconds between us.' Up to five abreast on the strai ghts as they jostled and weaved for position (in what was no more th an a lig htly glorifi ed gam e of chicken at 170 mph) , Paolo Casoli was the first of the Supersport wildmen to do mu ch leading . with Stephane Chambon the next across the lin e at th e head of the pack. Onl y th ose two , plus Christian Kelln er and eventuall y Teuchert, were to get their names at the top of the lap charts as leaders across the line, but at any other part of the track they cou ld be demoted to sixth in one comer entry . In the last-l ap dust -up. Kell ner went fro m the lead to seventh . with Xaus slipping through to second, ahead of Cham bon. Ian MacPherson. whose Kawasaki was buck ing and wobbling alarmingly on the bumps on the fast comer s, finished fifth, just ahead of a disconsolate Casoli and a philosophical Whitham . "You win som e, you lose some,' Whith am said. "Finishing down in sixth was part me and part the tire. Th e rear was a little too soft for the hot conditions, and m y technique through the chica ne wasn't so good . The main thing is that I've kept my championship lead, despite those co uple of problems." Raging at his m isfortune afte r losi ng several places in t he u nti dy ar ea wh i ch the stad iu m became on the last lap, Christian Kell ner still managed seventh and the fastest lap of the race, a new record of 2:06.323 - nearly a second faster than the previous best of Macp he rson from 19 99 . "Not good!" he said. "I was in front at the end of 13 laps, but I knew it was a bad idea to be ahead from the Ostkurve onwards, because of all the slipstreaming which goes on from there to the Motodrom. Fi rst Teuchert and then Chambon came past me, and then I was pushed a bit wide by Xaus and lost mo re piaces because of all the confusion in the Mot o drom. I'm not happy because I had a real cha nce to win the race." The result of what was another wonderful dip in the Supersport pool is that Whitham , agai n losing points to his closest chaser Chamb on, now has two riders on his tail. Chambon and Teu chert share sec- Ruben Xaus pett) congratulates ond with 80 points, whil e Whitham has 88 , and a Supersport w inner Jorg knowledg e that keeping the lead all season will be Teuchert, while Stephane a hard job to pull off. Chambon looks on. cu e I e n e _ sa • J UNE 14, 2000 19

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