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/1545838
Szoke Stays Red Hot Jordan Szoke tied a 14-year-old record with victory in the fifth round of the Parts Canada Superbike Championship at Mosport Inter- national Raceway on July 16. Szoke took his Canadian Kawasaki Motors Kawasaki ZX-10R to a .526 of a second victory over the Team Toyota Yamaha/Picotte Per- formance Yamaha YZF-R1 of Pascal Picotte to complete a sweep of the doubleheader weekend at Mosport and maintain a perfect win record in the Superbike class this season. Szoke is the first rider since Steve Crevier in 1992 to win the first five rounds of the Canadian Superbike season. He also tied the record for most victories in a season, with two races still to go. "It's just been a fantastic year," said Szoke, the runaway leader in the Parts Canada Superbike series point standings. "It's almost too good to be true." Szoke took the lead on lap six of the 18-lap race and then held off a fierce challenge from Kevin Lacombe and later Picotte to complete his weekend sweep. "I felt I could control the pace and save my tires for the end," he said. "Then I put my head down on the last lap and set one of my fastest laps of the race." The win gives Szoke a command- ing 67-point lead over Lacombe, 267-200, heading into the penulti- mate round of the season at Atlantic Motorsport Park, August 11-13. Lacombe placed third on Sunday on the second Team Toyota Yamaha/ Picotte Performance Yamaha YZF- R1, just 1.8 seconds behind Szoke. In other action, Szoke edged clos- er to also clinching the Hindle Exhaust Pro 600 Sport Bike title with his second victory of the weekend on his Kawasaki ZX-6RR. In a thrilling 14-lap race Szoke edged the Yamaha YZF-R6s of Lacombe and Picotte. Fourteen-year-old Brett McCor- mick of Saskatoon dominated the International Motorcycle SUPER- SHOW Amateur 600 Sport Bike race on his Yamaha YZF-R6. Points leader Karl Daigle placed second on a Honda CBR600RR after a good bat- tle with the Suzuki GSX-R600 of Ross Millson, who finished third. Victoria's Oliver Jervis won his second straight Thunder twins fea- ture on his BMW R1200S and Paul Glenn of Keene, Ontario, Canada, won in Suzuki SV650 National Cup for the second race in a row. World Cup fever gripped most of those in the MotoGP paddock during the weekend off between the British and German GPs, none more so than Valentino Rossi. The World Champion, who lives in London, was at the Misano Circuit for the three-day Yamaha Fest on the weekend of the World Cup final between France and Italy. Rossi said that he was "together with all my friends and was very, very funny - from the match and later, also in Italy all the people coming crazy. It was a long night, yes." Rossi was happy that his team had vanquished France. "We lost a lot of time in the past so is very difficult team for us, for Italy," he said. "I think we are lucky because is possible one time in life to see your team win the champi- onship and was a great, great emotion." And Rossi said he's friends with Marco Matterazzi, the Italian who both scored Italy's lone goal and was later head-butted by the Frenchman Zinedine Zidane during extra time. "He's my fan and he play for my football team [Inter Milan]," Rossi said. "I think Zidane make a big mistake because he was tired, is maybe I think the last game of his life, is very important for him. So I think is normal one second of coming crazy. He don't hit Marco to make pain, but just because Marco say something strange. But you know, on a football match is normal." Fortuna Honda's Marco Melandri was also in his native Italy. His take was that "when we are riding it's difficult to do like that. But yeah, it's been not so nice to us. For sure [Materazzi] say something bad to Zidane. But always I think in football two different teams they have some problem. What I don't like, honestly, is to see Zidane has been the best football player of the World Cup after you make something like that, you win a cup for the best player. So I think is not so good for the people watch- ing, the young guys. Because you say you can play good, you can be very aggressive and you win anyway the cup. This is not so good." Unlike Rossi, Melandri didn't celebrate late into the night. What did he do? "Sleeping. I did not celebrate after Le Mans that I won. So next time I'm going to celebrate because I won something. I had to train the morning after, so I had to sleep." Henny Ray Abrams BMW will not be entering MotoGP next year, but they haven't ruled it out in the future, a BMW spokesman said at the German Grand Prix. "At the moment the decision is clear not to go to MotoGP, but this is not forever," BMW press officer Jurgen Stoffregen said at a BMW party at the Sachsenring. He went on to give a two to three year time frame for when they might reconsider entering the class. "I think that might be a time when we think about it yet. At the moment, we have no further plans," he said. Stoffregen pointed to BMW's explosive growth as a reason for not needing to enter racing at this level. "We've risen our retail from 31,000 to 97,000, always without MotoGP or road racing [over the past 12 years]," he said, adding, "We can say we're very, very suc- cessful on developing serious bikes." To make the point, he said that BMW had launched 12 new models in the past two years. "We are getting more sporty with our bikes, so we have to wait and see how our customers will take to this. With our devel- opment bike we wanted to make extreme tests, we wanted to make a bike without compromise to test new technology, like traction control." The MotoGP bike only broke cover twice, and then just barely. Irishman Jeremy McWilliams rode it at the Almeria circuit in Spain, but he was about six sec- onds off the pace. Italian Luca Cadalora rode it in Italy. Stoffregen wouldn't con- firm that it was a three-cylinder, though he said that was the accepted specula- tion. He also said that they would do more testing, though he didn't know when or where. "It is research and the research is ongo- ing," he said. Henny Ray Abrams No BMW - Yet! C Y C L E N E W S • JULY 26, 2006 13 30 Years Ago July 27, 1976... Sonny Burres was fea- tured on the cover of Cycle News 30 years ago. Hometown hero Chuck Joyner took the win at the Castle Rock national flat track, but privateer Burres ran down the fac- tory boys to take an impressive fourth-place finish on his privateer Triumph, enough to gar- ner him the cover... Pierre Karsmakers was the man at the 500cc Motorcross National in St. Peters, Missouri, going 1-4 on the day to take the overall win from Steve Stackable and Gary Semics... 18-year-old David Emde dominated the WERA National races at Ontario Motor Speedway, winning eight of the nine Expert races... After some rough results in the United States, Roger DeCoster bounced back to take the 500cc World MX win from Great Britain. 20 Years Ago July 30, 1986... Bob Hannah, Bubba Shobert and Ducati's all-new Paso 750 all shared the cover of Cycle News 20 years ago... Ducati's Paso was a revolutionary new sport- bike for the Italian manu- facturer, which we tested shod with Pirelli's latest radial tires at Laguna Seca Raceway... Shobert made the cover by virtue of his wire-to-wire win at the Parkersberg Half Mile National Flat Track race, while Hannah topped the 250cc National MX ranks at Unadilla with 2-1 finishes... Terry Vance won the NHRA Pro Stock National in Englishtown, New Jersey, setting a new ET class record of 8.140 seconds aboard his Suzuki GS... Georges Jobe won the French 500cc MX GP race, going 1-1 on the day. 10 Years Ago July 24, 1996... Alessandro Gramigni graced the cover of Cycle News 10 years ago. Gramigni took his Fast By Ferracci Ducati to the AMA Supebike win from Minnesota's Brainerd International Raceway from Miguel Duhamel and Tom Kipp. Duhamel bounced back to take the 600cc Supersport win on the weekend, while Rich Oliver won the 250cc GP class and Pascal Picotte took top honors in 750cc Supersport... The Amateur Dirt Track Nationals from I-96 Speedway featured some upcoming talent. Future road racers Roger Lee Hayden and Tony Meiring won the 125cc and 85 Modified (12-15) classes, respectively, while future National Flat Track winner Bryan Bigelow took the 500 and Open-class wins... Sebastian Tortelli went 1-1 to win the Belgian 125cc World MX round, moving him yet closer to the World title. CORRECTIONS: In our coverage of the AMA Supermoto Championship round at Waterford Hills Raceway in Michigan (Issue 28, July 19), we incorrectly referred to Chris Fillmore as riding a Graves Yamaha; Fillmore rides a Troy Lee Designs- backed Honda. Also, Marc de Reuver's photo credit on page 9 goes to S. Leroux. ETC. PHOTO BY GOLD & GOOSE Valentino Rossi donned a Marco Matterazzi soccer jersey on the podium in Germany. World Cup Fever: MotoGP Style