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IMOLA April 28th World Championship Round 1 After the 2001 World Champions Wim Motors broke a crank on the Honda VTR1000 SP2 Superbike and had camshaft problems in qualifying, team manager Joost Jochems decided to run an SP1 engine for the race but their qualifying had already been shot...the World Champions qualifying in a lowly 20th place. The top teams had early fears of locals displaying superior track knowledge assuaged as only Biassono Racing were able to get into the top tem in qualifying - although they did it will ALL THREE of their varied entries, their 2 Suzuki GSXR1000 Stocksport machines out-qualifying the Ducati 998 Superbike. A late charge put Giovanni Bussei on pole with the Chinese No.2 Zongshen GSXR by only a few hundredths of a second from Brits QB Carbon Phase One on the No. 3 GSXR, qualifying sorted by an average of the best qualifying times of the riders. The French GMT94 GSXR third with The Dutch Herman Verboven No. 5 GSXR in fourth. At the start, both Zongshen machines got great starts along with Herman Verboven No.5 and Phase One...though GMT94 didn't get a great start and finished the first lap in 16th place - but that wasn't as bad as the WIM Motors Honda which ended lap one in last place and never got higher than 46th place, suffering major suspension problems and having to pull out by lap 26. On lap four..now don't take this as gospel, but I think it was No.23, the Italian Anyway Racing GSXR1000 Superproduction machine...one bike crashed big-time at Variante Bassa, the final turn onto the main straight and dumped what seemed like it's entire crankcase of oil onto the track...the big loser was GMT94 who, along with 9 or 10 other bikes slid into the air-fence, which had to be replaced as the pace car came out for 4 laps - I should say 2 pace cars, as they should have been half a lap between the cars - only there wasn't. They were right behind each other...which meant that when GMT94 rejoined the race they had lost an extra half lap. Christophe Guyot, team manager was not amused. The crash also saw one piece of footage which should be seen worldwide by everybody at some time...one of the bikes slid but the rider stayed on board, though perched on the side of the machine standing upright while the bike slid up the main stariaght...SURFING, dude :) The crash hadn't involved the leading Zongshen, Phase One and Herman Verboven machines but Australian Warwick Nowland and Italian Giovanni Bussei had gear selection problems and had to pit, dropping them down the order and they re-joined in33rd place and started to really up the pace to get back in contention...which took them most of the race while the lead battle swapped back and forth between Americans Mike Barnes and Mike Ceccotto on the Herman Verboven bike and American Jason Pridmore and Britains Mike "Spike" Edwards on the QB Carbon Phase One machine, with the British Phase One team always having the upper hand due to their pit-stop slickness and clever strategy. The second Zongshen GSXR1000 No.9 bike with superfast Slovenian Igor Jerman and France's massively experienced Bruno Bonhuil were always just behind but couldn't pull the fighting pair in and Phase One took the win in impressive style, Herman Verboven second with their best result in 4 years Zongshen No.9 and Zongshen No.2 third and fourth. Babe
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