Cycle News

WORLD SUPERBIKE CHAMPIONSHIP VOL. 51 ISSUE 17 APRIL 29, 2014 P79 ibility to go black. The race was stopped after three laps and it may have stood that way as the rains came and went but mostly came. Two track inspections later, the stoic and enthusiastic Dutch fans got their second race, and it was a start-to-finish win for Rea. Guintoli fell while chasing him and got back on to take ninth place and do damage limitation to his points score. Rea had been hacked off in race one not to have been able to challenge for the race win, and had re- signed himself to not being able to do so without bike improvements. All he needed was a cold shower in race two as he and his Honda won their first race since Silverstone last year, with an early push from new podium debu- tant - Voltcom Crescent Suzuki's Alex Lowes. "We had to have a good set-up to push like I did in the early laps of race two, but I know the bike and I were quite confident," said Rea after his 2.2-second win over Lowes. "When I got behind Tom [Sykes] in T5 he basically stopped the bike so I knew I had to go through and set my own pace." Lowes was a bit brilliant in his second race recov- ery from a first-race ninth, but in only 10 laps it was a tough ask to get any closer, even with Rea having to tangle with Kawasaki Evo backmarkers David Salom and Michel Fabrizio on the approach to the very final chicane. He made an audacious inside pass on both and held on for a popular win in front of the soaked but happy Ten Kate supporting Dutch people. Briefly... his license and a fine of 1000 Euros. Jules Cluzel was fined a single point for crashing into Kev Coghlan in the World Supersport race at Aragon. With race day looking like it would be wet after the rains arrived on Satur- day afternoon, many people had to double check that the race distanc- es would be decreased to keep the gaps between the races long enough to match in with the new Dorna early starting schedule. Teams were noti- fied that they would have to contend with 15 laps in World Superbike and 13 in World Supersport if the races were wet, not the planned 21 and 18, respectively, for dry conditions. The recently confirmed Malay- sian round of the World Superbike Championship will take place on June 8 and the circuit near Kuala Lumpur and will be on the calendar for another two years after that, with all race weekends to be held at ba- sically the same period in the sum- mer months. The hope was that the round could be combined with travel back from the Australian round, but that idea looks impossible given the fact Sepang has F1 in the spring and MotoGP in the autumn. World Super- bike has raced in Malaysia before – but not at Sepang - with two rounds at Shah Alam and two at Johor in the early years of the championship. Daniel Carrera admitted that extra track action at Sepang was possible but most likely on Friday. He was pri- marily happy to have added an Asian race to the calendar. "This is a really important race for the championship to expand the coverage this year," said Carrera. "Since we took the management of the championship SIGNED, SEALED, DELIVERED, I'M USED the end of the loose wire so that it does not flap around and move. That gives us a seal number. The half of the aluminum part that had the num- ber on it gets cut off quite randomly and the part that is cut off is stored so we can compare it to the mating half so that we can check it fits perfectly. "We seal the cam cover like this on two bolts, and on the other end of the cam cover we have these incred- ible stickers, which are epoxy based. When they get hot they weld them- selves to the engine. So if anything happens to the stickers, or the lock wires, we are covered on the other side. We then also lock the crank- cases so you cannot service any bearings or gearboxes." Teams are not allowed to break the seals on their engines even if the engine blows up, and the FIM can stop an engine being used if they feel it is unsafe to go on track. continued on next page

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