"b"
03-29-2007, 01:32 PM
Reflecting On 20 Seasons of WSBK
Booming Ducs & Bacon Butties:
by tim huntington
Thursday, March 29, 2007
In 1988, I was living in the UK and spectating at a lot of bike races in the UK. My travel range included Oulton Park, Mallory Park, Silverstone, Darley Moor (a club track that attracted the likes of Carl Fogarty for their race of the year) and of course Donington Park.
Donington Park was cool for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it was 65 miles of fairly quiet, twisty country roads away from home, so it was a fun ride regardless of the destination and secondly Donington Park was a great spectator track; you could walk around nearly all the track on the outside and a fair bit on the inside, with virtually no catch fencing getting in the way of your view and quite a few places where you could get close enough to the track to really appreciate the speed and skill these guys racing around the track possessed.
My typical spectating events included the British (ACU) championship rounds and the British GP, with the odd endurance race and club meeting here and there. When I heard that a new World Superbike Championship was going to take place at Donington, I noted it on the calendar with a thought that if the weather was nice, I'd go along to watch as there were a lot of Brit championship regulars racing.
Well, the weather was nice enough and off I went on the Sunday to watch the races. Little did I realize that I was watching the first ever round of a world championship that in its best days would virtually be the equal of GP in worldwide popularity, and exceeded GP in popularity in certain countries (the US and UK in particular).
There are several things that stick in my mind from that day to this.
That day was the first time I really remember "getting" what Ducati lore was all about. Marco Luchinelli was riding the 851, and it was easily the loudest bike on the track. I vividly remember being down at the old hairpin, from where you can hear the bikes go down the start finish straight atop the hill in front of you, but they're over the crest, so you can't see them. The Ducati's exhaust note dominated the noise, and it sounded great doing it. I've been a fan of racing Ducatis since that day.
Two races in one day where you get to see the top guys seemed like one of those so obvious why didn't people think of it before ideas. However, the aggregate times to determine the winner made us spectators too reliant on the always excellent Fred Clarke and Chris Carter (commentating from the Spark Plug secondary commentary point down near the old hairpin). I'm glad they switched formats after that.
I got to see Bimotas racing (and winning)—having only really read about their exoticness in magazines before then.
And finally, I got to see the main Brit Superbike contenders beaten by a host of riders I didn't know that much about—some ex-GP racers and some guys I'd never heard of. Of course there were already rumors that the world rules were more liberal than the Brit rules, so the out of towners had a built in mechanical advantage. All these years later, I've no idea if there's any truth to that rumor—I just remember what that 851 sounded like.
I had enough fun that day that I started following the championship from then onwards. I managed to get to see a round (or more) in some country (or other) every year until they stopped coming to Laguna. Over those years I also have fond memories of being there when Russell dominated in the rain at Donington, Falappa dominated in the rain at Brands (uniquely officially the Irish round in 1993), camping above turn 9 at Laguna, Ben Bostrom starting his winning streak at Misano, standing inside Druids hairpin at Brands snapping photos, eating a fantastic bacon butty at Brands after having lived in the US for a few years, watching Gobert save his Kawasaki's front end through Rainey curve a couple of times before eventually the laws of physics took over and many others - and that's from just one or two rounds a year.
What a great championship. These days, in my book, it's almost back to its best—folks attending Donington this weekend are in for a treat.
Finally, a weird less than six degrees Soup World Superbike connection. When I got to witness Falappa dominate in the wet, I was there even though the weather forecast was very iffy (and correct) because I'd won a magazine prize drawing to watch the races from a hospitality suite. I got to the track early on race day and watched the warm ups from out on the GP part of the track. It then started to rain (a lot) so I retreated to the magazine's dry and warm hospitality suite and watched the two races from the outside of Clarke Curve. The magazine in question was a new-ish magazine called Road Racer, published and edited by Soup's own Julian Ryder. I still have every copy of that magazine ever published in a box in my Mum's house back in the UK.
ENDS
Booming Ducs & Bacon Butties:
by tim huntington
Thursday, March 29, 2007
In 1988, I was living in the UK and spectating at a lot of bike races in the UK. My travel range included Oulton Park, Mallory Park, Silverstone, Darley Moor (a club track that attracted the likes of Carl Fogarty for their race of the year) and of course Donington Park.
Donington Park was cool for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it was 65 miles of fairly quiet, twisty country roads away from home, so it was a fun ride regardless of the destination and secondly Donington Park was a great spectator track; you could walk around nearly all the track on the outside and a fair bit on the inside, with virtually no catch fencing getting in the way of your view and quite a few places where you could get close enough to the track to really appreciate the speed and skill these guys racing around the track possessed.
My typical spectating events included the British (ACU) championship rounds and the British GP, with the odd endurance race and club meeting here and there. When I heard that a new World Superbike Championship was going to take place at Donington, I noted it on the calendar with a thought that if the weather was nice, I'd go along to watch as there were a lot of Brit championship regulars racing.
Well, the weather was nice enough and off I went on the Sunday to watch the races. Little did I realize that I was watching the first ever round of a world championship that in its best days would virtually be the equal of GP in worldwide popularity, and exceeded GP in popularity in certain countries (the US and UK in particular).
There are several things that stick in my mind from that day to this.
That day was the first time I really remember "getting" what Ducati lore was all about. Marco Luchinelli was riding the 851, and it was easily the loudest bike on the track. I vividly remember being down at the old hairpin, from where you can hear the bikes go down the start finish straight atop the hill in front of you, but they're over the crest, so you can't see them. The Ducati's exhaust note dominated the noise, and it sounded great doing it. I've been a fan of racing Ducatis since that day.
Two races in one day where you get to see the top guys seemed like one of those so obvious why didn't people think of it before ideas. However, the aggregate times to determine the winner made us spectators too reliant on the always excellent Fred Clarke and Chris Carter (commentating from the Spark Plug secondary commentary point down near the old hairpin). I'm glad they switched formats after that.
I got to see Bimotas racing (and winning)—having only really read about their exoticness in magazines before then.
And finally, I got to see the main Brit Superbike contenders beaten by a host of riders I didn't know that much about—some ex-GP racers and some guys I'd never heard of. Of course there were already rumors that the world rules were more liberal than the Brit rules, so the out of towners had a built in mechanical advantage. All these years later, I've no idea if there's any truth to that rumor—I just remember what that 851 sounded like.
I had enough fun that day that I started following the championship from then onwards. I managed to get to see a round (or more) in some country (or other) every year until they stopped coming to Laguna. Over those years I also have fond memories of being there when Russell dominated in the rain at Donington, Falappa dominated in the rain at Brands (uniquely officially the Irish round in 1993), camping above turn 9 at Laguna, Ben Bostrom starting his winning streak at Misano, standing inside Druids hairpin at Brands snapping photos, eating a fantastic bacon butty at Brands after having lived in the US for a few years, watching Gobert save his Kawasaki's front end through Rainey curve a couple of times before eventually the laws of physics took over and many others - and that's from just one or two rounds a year.
What a great championship. These days, in my book, it's almost back to its best—folks attending Donington this weekend are in for a treat.
Finally, a weird less than six degrees Soup World Superbike connection. When I got to witness Falappa dominate in the wet, I was there even though the weather forecast was very iffy (and correct) because I'd won a magazine prize drawing to watch the races from a hospitality suite. I got to the track early on race day and watched the warm ups from out on the GP part of the track. It then started to rain (a lot) so I retreated to the magazine's dry and warm hospitality suite and watched the two races from the outside of Clarke Curve. The magazine in question was a new-ish magazine called Road Racer, published and edited by Soup's own Julian Ryder. I still have every copy of that magazine ever published in a box in my Mum's house back in the UK.
ENDS