Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

~ TEST Ducati888 Sup_erb_ike_. • n IS ute By Alan Cathcart Photos by Kyoichi Nakamura hen Marco Lucchinelli rode his Ducati to victory in the newlyinstituted World Champion-· ship Superbike Series at Donington on Easter weekend, 1988, there were plenty of people ready to dismiss it as a lucky fluke. After all, fellow-Italian Davide Tardozzi handed' him the win on a plate by crashing his four-cylinder Bimota YB4 on the last lap while vying W to conjecture, depending of course which side of the fence you find yourself on. The teams who run japanese fours naturally blame their inability to stem the tide of rolling red thunder on the rules which favor the booming Italian twins, whereas Ducati rightly points out that the rules are the same for everybody, and the fact that they were the only factory to. opt for the twin-cylinder route back when the class was first conceived five years ago shouldn't be held against them _ or • am Ion ing on the depih of your pockets and your chosen arena/performance level, Ducati will sell you an 888-replica with various levels of specification, up to and including what they claim to be a mechanically-exact copy of their factory race bike, with only one key difference: extra weight - 334 pounds for this year's 888 Corsa production racer, compared to 312 pounds for Polen's World Champion. And as Carl Fogarty has proved this season, Ducati's customers can expect to win World. enheim when Polen limped home with a broken crankcase in the second race which necessitated a swift return to base, and again.at Mugello, after Polen was confirmed as a runaway champion in his first season of racing outside the U.S.A. or japan. Then, torrential rain prevented the test, but third time lucky saw Polen's 1992 mount front at Misano with the sun shining and the tarmac hot and dry. By now, Polen was racing under former World Champion Franco Uncini's Police sunglasses- The dar befo~e this issue went to press, Doug Polen captured the 1992 World Superbike Championship aboard this Ducati 888 Superbike, the third straight title for Ducati. for a second win; nice to see Ducati getting a bit of reward for daring'to be different with their desmo V-twin 'otto valvole', went the current of perceived wisdom in the paddock, but don't expect it to last.· Once the japanese factories get up to speed, Ducati will just be making up the numbers, same as they always did in 'IT Formula I racing. A European factory taking on ,the japanese and beating them at four-stroke racing, without using an engine made Out East - like Bimota? Pull the other leg. . . . Well, five years later.the improbable has become reality, and superbike racing at World Championship level has practi<;ally become a Ducati rrionomarque

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