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round - and didn't stop. So I ran off into the gravel. After that the bike started to vibrate, like the tire had moved on the rim, so the left-handers were very diffi- cult. I am disappointed for the team and myself, because that was a possible race win. Pitt was riding very well, but if I did- n't run on we could have been second in the championship - not just third. I gave it my all this weekend, got pole position, second place in race one, and I am just going to try like this until the end." With all the splintered fiberglass or dusty tires now cleaned up, the top of the championship table has seen some major upheavals, none of which make good reading for anyone with championship ambitions. Bayliss now leads Haga, 254-160 with Toseland third on 157 points. Corser, after his disaster of a weekend, is fourth with 149. Barros lies in fifth, on 146, with Pitt on 128. No one else is even into the hundreds yet. If the second half of the season is any- thing like the last race of part one, it will be just fine by the neutrals - as pre- dictability was punctured by the riders themselves. One new race winner a week wouldn't hurt either, now that Bayliss has shown he is human after all. Sadly for the championship race, Corser was unlucky, but in Italy most of the claimed 61,000- weekend crowd were quite happy with the way things were going for Ducati-man Bayliss. "I am very frustrated and disappointed today," Corser said. "The problems we had would've been solved if I had been able to take part in the recent Brno tests. Missing that test has hurt us a lot. In the first race, the bike just jumped out of gear going in Querca corner and I was spat off the bike. I was pretty com- fortable leading the second race, but after about five laps, the bike started jumping out of a gear a bit again and that made me a bit nervous in the turns. At the final chicane there was a lot of cement dust [put down from an earlier crash] and it was right on my line. In order to avoid it, I had to change my line and run a bit wide and, on one lap - I must've run a bit too wide and when I tried to make the turn again the tire ran out of grip and down I went. And that was the end of a disastrous day." CN WORLD SUPERBIKE MISANO, ITALY RESULTS: JUNE 25, 2006 WORLD SUPERBIKE QUALIFYING: 1 James Toseland (1:33.833); 2. Troy Corser (1:33.866); 3 Andrew Pitt (1:34.031); 4. Steve Martin (1:34.178); 5. Chris Walker (1:34.472); 6. Noriyuki Haga (1:34.487); 7. Troy Bayliss (1:34.523); 8. Lorenzo Lanzi (1:34.556); 9. Regis Laconi (1:34.648); 10. Yukio Kagayama (1:34.685); 11. Alex Barros (1:34.787); 12. Michel Fabrizio (1:34.814); 13. Shinichi Naktomi (1:35.003); 14. Fonsi Nieto (1:35.007); 15. Roberto Rolfo (1:35.410); 16. Mac Neukirchner (1:35.222); 17. Ruben Xauz (1:35.693); 18. Fabien Foret (1:35.694); 19. Sebastian Gimbert (1:35.781); 20. Karl Muggeridge (1:35.864). WORLD SUPERBIKE RACE ONE: 1. Troy Bayliss (Duc); 2. James Toseland (Hon); 3. Yukio Kagayama (Suz); 4. Alex Barros (Hon); 5. Noriyuki Haga (Yam); 6. Regis Laconi (Kaw); 7. Lorenzo Lanzi (Duc); 8. Fonsi Nieto (Kaw); 9. Ruben Xaus (Duc); 10. Norick Abe (Yam); 11. Karl Muggeridge (Hon); 12. Sebastien Gimbert (Yam); 13. Fabien Foret (Suz); 14. Vittorio Iannuzzo (Suz); 15. Roberto Rolfo (Duc); 16. Andrew Pitt (Yam); 17. Ivan Clementi (Duc); 18. Josh Brookes (Kaw); 19. Norine Brignola (Duc); 20. Pierfrancesco Chili (Hon). Time: 40 min., 6 sec. Distance: 25 Laps, 62.620 miles Average Speed: 94.140 mph Margin of Victory: 6.943 sec. WORLD SUPERBIKE RACE TWO: 1. Andrew Pitt (Yam); 2. Alex Barros (Hon); 3. Noriyuki Haga (Yam); 4. Chris Walker (Kaw); 5. Yukio Kagayama (Suz); 6. Michel Fabrizio (Hon); 7. Lorsenzo Lanzi (Duc); 8. James Tosland (Hon); 9. Ruben Xaus (Duc); 10. Fabien Foret (Suz); 11. Fonsi Nieto (Kaw); 12. Troy Bayliss (Duc); 13. Norike Abe (Yam); 14. Karl Muggeridge (Hon); 15. Roberto Rolfo (Duc); 16. Vittorio Iannuzzo (Suz); 17. Steve Martin (Pet); 18. Shinichi Naktomi (Yam); 19. Regis Laconi (Kaw); 20. Ivan Clementi (Duc). Time: 40 min., 18 sec. Distance: 25 Laps, 62.620 miles Average Speed: 93.666 mph Margin of Victory: 2.717 sec. WORLD SUPERBIKE CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS STANDINGS (After 6 of 12 Rounds): 1. Troy Bayliss (254); 2. Noriyuki Haga (160); 3. James Toseland (157); 4. Troy Corser (149); 5. Alex Barros (146); 6. Andrew Pitt (128); 7. Lorenzo Lanzi (80); 8. Ruben Xaus (70); 9. Chris Walker (64); 10. Fonsi Nieto (61). UPCOMING ROUNDS: Round 7 - Brno, Czech Republic, July 23 Round 8 - Brands Hatch, Great Britain, August 6 C Y C L E N E W S • JULY 5, 2006 29 Pier-Francesco Chili returned from injury at his home circuit, but was so weak from inactivity while his pelvis repaired itself, and his left collarbone was still weak from that existing injury, that he was a shadow in the 20s most of the time, qualifying a final 23rd. Gianulca Nannelli, the third rider for the DFX Honda team this weekend (qualified 24th), is expected to be given no further opportunities to race again this year, as Chili should be back to his usual self at Brno. Troy Corser had a serious bout of chicken- pox before Misano (caught from his kids) - so severe that he missed the previous week's Brno test. He was still suffering from a serious outbreak of spots on his chest during the Misano weekend, but still qualified second in Superpole, and claimed to not be bothered either way. Max Neukirchner 's weekend at Misano was one of the better ones from his cash- strapped team, and he was as high as sixth in regulation qualifying, before finally quali- fying ninth, then falling when oil got on his rear tire - missing out on Superpole and dropping to 16th on the grid. A moot point, as he had to withdraw from the race in any case. Heat and dust you get in the desert, but heat and humidity were the sticky bed- fellows at Misano, on the Adriatic coast. With temperatures well into the 90s, humidity on the high side, the track tem- peratures were well into the melting zone, bringing out the latest new big guns from Pirelli. Three fronts and four rear tires showed up, with two rears in 200 section. An 'A' front was the new one, and the two new rears were both 200 section. Most riders opted for these, just to get more rubber on the track, to help with tire life, at the expense of pushing the fronts harder, and making the bikes harder to turn in. A new 190 qualifier was used with great effi- cacy by some, but Lorenzo Lanzi stated that his rear in Superpole was not like the one he had tried a short time earlier in free practice, and Fonsi Nieto simply did not get on with the 190 after running 200s in every other session. The announcement that Misano would host a MotoGP event in 2007 and then for some years afterward, brought the question of future Italian World Superbike circuits into sharp focus. Monza seems bolted in for 2007, but Misano either is or is not, depending on whom you asked. It seems most likely that Misano will keep its June date for 2007, with MotoGP moving to September, to avoid it being held to close to the traditional Mugello date in the late spring/early summer. Imola is an exist- ing World Superbike circuit, but Vallelunga, which is being extensively revamped now, in both track layout and facilities, is a new wild card. The renovation work will be completed by the springtime, and with FGSport based in Rome (30 minutes from Vallelunga) and already hosting a World Endurance round there, it is a distinct pos- sible it will be on the World Superbike dance card for 2007. The joker in the pack is Mugello, with consistent rumors of a pos- sible Superbike race there, doing the rounds at each World Superbike race this year. Colin Edwards and Noriyuki Haga are rumored to be planning to run the Suzuka 8-Hour race again this year, and that very pairing won the event outright in 1996, when they rode for the official Yamaha team. Rumors at Misano had Edwards back in World Superbike in 2007, running a Honda again, but more feasibly as Haga's partner in the official Yamaha Motor Italia squad. The best rumor, the one that really got the imaginations going, was that Edwards has already agreed terms to ride for the Alstare Corona Extra Suzuki. Later in the weekend news filtered through that Abe was to be teamed up with Haga, not Edwards, though that was later killed by a press release from Yamaha putting Haga with Edwards. Final qualifying, still on race tires, looked like providing an upset or two, but in the final result the same top three that topped the first Q session, topped the second - with Troy Bayliss from Troy Corser and Regis Laconi. Chris Walker, who had been fourth went down to 11th, and was replaced by the unlikely figure of Steve Martin, on the lead Petronas. Despite a late crash, Roberto Rolfo clung onto 15th and Shinichi Nakatomi, only cleared to ride shortly before the race weekend, was 16th. Bayliss was still well shy of the circuit best, but using race tires. According to Alex Barros, there is a possi- bility of there being a race at Interlagos, Sao Paolo in Brazil next season. The circuit would have to be run in the opposite direc- tion (just like Misano is supposed to be when MotoGP comes to the seaside again). Rio is out, as parts of the track are current- ly undergoing work to become a swimming venue for the Pan American Games, but the track is supposed to be redesigned and reinstated at some point afterward. "They have to make some extra work at Interla- gos, but there has been contact and inter- est to have a Superbike race there," said Barros on Friday at Misano. Thanks to Bar- ros' presence in Superbike, World Super- bike is broadcast on two major TV chan- nels. With 148 World Superbike-race starts to his credit currently, the two from Misano put Steve Martin close to 10th in the all- time participants' charts. The leader is Pier- Francesco Chili with 262 race starts, pre- Misano, followed by Troy Corser, on 238. Ducatis seem to go well at Misano, and have scored 56 podium places, an absolute record for any manufacturer on any individ- ual track. They also have a track record of 22 race wins at Misano. No other machine except Ducati has won at Misano since 2001, with Regis Laconi the double winner in 2005. Briefly... Continued from page 27 Andrew Pitt soaks up his first World Superbike win.