WORLD SUPERBIKE
Round 4
t
oy
7, 2006
World
SuperbikE
ChampionshiP
BY
GoRDoN
REaHTE
PHoros BY GorD & GoosE
e
can adopt any view-
point
we
please to
look at
the way
Troy
Bayliss
secured his
latest two wins
in dle
World Superbike
Championship,
but we
should
probably adopt one of
resrgnatron
when it comes to
realizing that no matter
how many
good
riders
you
stuff into the
or the entire
you still find that
the best ones come out
on
top.
You can hold onto the belief
that
all the
200 hp bikes in
World
Superbike
should
be equal now, but some
bikes are
plainly
more equal than others.
Especially
those
like the factory
Ducati and the
pretty-much-factory
SuzLrki.
This is racing,
and until such
time as
even
podium class
riders like Alex Barros,
lames
Toseland,
Regis Lrconi and many
others
get
all
the trickest kits ofthe facto-
ry dudes,
or
get
the factory dudes to sur-
their
at
door,
we
can
get
used to
Bayliss and
Corser
winning most of the time,
and the
rest makinS veiled and unveiled
requests
to
please
have some
more
-
more
tech_
nologr, and more
predictable,
reliable
bikes and setups.
They could also
make
a request for
less crashing
at the
first l''lonza chicane,
but with
30 bikes
launching themselves
into a bottlene(k
of microscopic
propor-
tions, at
a circuit where no drafting
imme-
diately
afterward
generally means
no
Gianluca
Nannelli appeared
to start
a chain reac-
tion which sq/thed
through
the midfield.
It was a
shame to
lose seven riders
in
one
go
as,
against
many
predictions,
the
weather
proved
to
be
gloriously
sunny,
but as the
results show
it shone brightest
of all
on Bayliss
and his Ducati Xerox
as
the
pairing
scored
the wins
in
race
one
and two-
The sun also shone
on a big
crowd,
a claimed
96,000 over the
week-
end, but as these
things
go, it was less
than that. Btrt still
very respectable
and
voluble.
you
can
E
-
G
t
!-
It
\------
-
't
Ifit
L
t.
t
rl
T
I
a
s
E
:)
---
n
--:
I
l\
?
I
,l*"
5
l)
f
-t\
I
I
ti
\
L
\..
I
rl
I
lil
,\
{rs
e
tr
\
l,
\
fr
i!
a
-.-,-,
'LD
r
-4.
THE II
N
D
I
I
I
32 MAY 17,2@6
.
cYcLE NEWS