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Brno 6 Hours 16th June 2002 Qualifying
Saturday
qualifying was split into three sessions, one for each rider. Grid position in
World Endurance is calculated by an average of all riders' times and sometimes
changing weather conditions can pull a team up or push it down - in the case of
Brno, the first qualifying session saw the fastest times, on average. One puzzle was why the Dunlop Support people didn't turn up for Brno - it was going to be a costly mistake. QB Carbon Phase One (to give them their full name) had to drive 800 miles to and from Frankfurt in Germany to get enough tyres for the event! Race GMT94's Scarnato (on Michelins) got away in the lead but was soon caught and passed by the flying Warwick Nowland with Bonhuil 3rd, Austria's Karl Truchsess 4th on a Yamaha R1, Phase One's Pridmore 5th, Phase One Jnr's Freddy Moreira 6th, Shafer Endurance's Cyril Fernandez 7th, Moto38's Bernard Cuzin 8th, Herman Verboven's Dave Estok 9th and Bernard Garcia on the Piazza Corse Ducati 998R 10th.
By
the second lap, the top teams were already putting in 2' 09" laps, Red Kite
Racing's Russell Baker just outside the top ten doing fast 2' 11"s - and by
the fourth lap Nowland had stretched his lead to 1.7secs...but on the 5th lap he
lost the front, though not terminally - running off the track to rejoin the pack
and start the chase back up the order. Russell Baker also lost the front and
crashed the ex-Vito Guareshi Belgarda Yamaha YZF750 superbike and as the team
had brought no spares at all to Brno, their race was over. A pattern was starting to emerge, though - the Dunlops were giving no grip at the front on a track which had been washed clean by a late storm on the Saturday. The French Police Nationale team (No.22) popped into the pits with a loose electrical connection, the Pineapple Ducati team (No.16) pitted to replace a knee-slider and then a big crash about as far away from the pits as you can get - Swiss Bollinger Team rider Marcel Kellenberger lost the fron big-style and although he got the big Kawasaki ZX9R back to the pits, it was too badly damaged to continue. Although Marcel didn't want to talk to me at first, he was eventually talked into giving me a few words and although he put a brave face on it, you could tell he was pretty crushed with what happened...but it wasn't going to be the last front-end slide.
By
12:45 Jason Pridmore (now leading) was 6sec in front, chased by GMT94, the
charging Piazza Corse pilot Bernard Garcia in third (wearing another set of
Dario Marchetti's leathers, talk about confusing!), Replay Racing's R1-mounted
Karl Truchsess 4th, Zongshen 9 in 5th, Phase One Jnr in 6th, Warwick Nowland had
fought his way up to 7th, Shafer in 8th, Moto38 9th and Herman Verboven's Dave
Estok 10th. QB Phase One No.3's Mike Edwards took over from Jason Pridmore but didn't take the lead - Bernard Garcia was pushing the Piazza Corse Ducati's fuel consumption envelope and hadn't come in yet, so was leading the race. The Ducati was the only Dunlop-shod bike that wasn't shredding it's tyres, though the Ducati could be leaned over so hard in the corners that Bernards knee-sliders had worn down to the backing, with tatters flapping in the breeze...
Mike
Edwards was pushing hard but leaned the bike over a little too much...the engine
casing touched down and he was off into the gravel - not hurt - but after
decking the bike in practice, this was the last thing he wanted. He got the bike
back to the pits and repairs were done but the No.3 bike was now down to 17th
place. Slick pit stops were the order of the day for Zongshen and GMT94 but with Warwick Nowland's earlier excursion, it meant that GMT94 were leading (on Michelins, remember), Zongshen No.9 second, Replay Racing No.77 third and Warwick's Zongshen No.2 up to fourth. Replay Racing's race was particularly impressive because Czech rider Michal Bursa suffered a pretty bad get-off the day before, somersaulting and suffering light concussion, pretty bad road rash on his right arm and a little internal bleeding (the No.1 bike had a bent frame, forks, wheels, tank, exhaust, subframe...I saw all the bits - they had even suffered a crank bearing failure with the no.2 bike on the Saturday and had to swap the engine over from the No.1 bike which luckily, wasn't damaged!) - team-mate Karl Truchsess was trying to let Michal ride as little as the rules allowed and was quite prepared to pull out - but Bursa insisted on racing. Big respec' to Michal Bursa. Also riding injured was Shafer Endurance No.4 rider Hungarian Sandor Bitter - a rider crashed into him in the StockSport race earlier in the day and his right leg was giving him hell. By 14:07 it was GMT94 still leading and pulling away bit by bit, Zongshen 2 now up to second, Piazza Corse 3rd with the "real" Dario Marchetti on board, Zongshen 9 fourth, then Replay Racing No.77, QB Phase One Jnr No.10, Moto38, Police Nationale No.22, Herman Verboven No.5 and QB Phase One No.3 back up through the pack in tenth place. During the later part of the afternoon the race settled down somewhat, though only GMT94 on their Michelins seemed to be able to do consistent sub - 2' 10sec laps...Warwick Nowland could do them now and again but not constantly - the track seemed to have a 2 minute 10 second barrier to anybody on Dunlops. Although the Piazza Corse Ducati was also on Dunlops, the 998R was able to hold a much higher corner speed than the big SuperProduction Suzuki 1000's and that's where they made up ground. Trouble for the other Ducati in the race, though. The Pineapple-Ducati.com bike lost the front end (big surprise?...nope!) on lap 58 and after earlier losing 8 laps after breaking their exhaust - they were out...and Yamaha Austria No.18 were also out with a blown engine. Come 15:49 and the QB Phase One No.3 bike was in the pits again and lost a total of 7 minutes - Mike Edwards had finally asked too much of the front tyre and was yet another rider to lose the front - extremely unusual for "Spike", as he's the smoothest of fast riders. Mike spent the time in the pits doing some serious self-psychoanalysis (why is it that the best riders I've ever met take it so personally?...if they weren't "pushing the envelope" they wouldn't win, same as fighter aces). Jason Pridmore was back out, rejoining in 14th place with his confidence at a high following 2 wins in a row in the U.S. Formula Extreme Championship on a Suzuki GSXR 1100 and leading the American series at this time. Meanwhile, leaders GMT94 were slowly stretching their lead....
The
Herman Verboven Team No.5, with an all-American lineup of Dave Estok (New Smyrna
Beach, Florida), "Tripp" Nobles (so-called because he's Andrew Nobles
the 3rd) and Andy "Woody" Deatherage (Cleveland, Ohio - at this time
12th in the fiercely-contested American AMA series and in front of people like
Anthony Gobert, Larry Pegram and Kurtis Roberts) were keeping a steady 8th place
in the race when the bike was brought back to the pits with brake problems as
the final hour started. Towards the end of the race, the Piazza Corse Ducati was out-cornering everything and finally caught and passed the Zongshen No.9 Suzuki to take 3rd place despite everything that rider Bruno Bonhuil could do. Warwick Nowland was back on the Zongshen No2 bike and a lap ahead...but the GMT94 boys had eked out second upon second and led by far enough to come in for a "splash-and-dash" with 2 minutes to go... ...and that's how it finished - (no, I have no idea yet why Nolden Racing were "black flagged"!) And a special mention for Big Nick Yardley's Team Bikeshire - a line-up of all Polish riders, all Polish Superbike Champions with Polish TV fawning all over them...and Bikeshire continuing to finish higher and higher...and the always smiling Jim Agombar and the TrackDaze crew, well done Jim and wa-hey the lads!! The title lead has now changed with Zongshen leading...who would have predicted it? I did, actually!
Three different races, three different winners - who will be next a Suzuka?
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