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2011
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ZHUHAI - China 2nd May 2000 Didn’t we have a lovely time the day we went to China...Flying via Bangkok, we arrived in Hong Kong after the last ferry to Zhuhai had left...so it was a 4-hour bus trip across the border at Lok Ma Chow and - via the Great Circle Route - into Zhuhai. The hotel was excellent, snooker rooms, the whole deal. We were saluted by all the security guards and treated like royalty! Apart from all the dinner invitations (and some of the best Chinese food I have ever eaten - I’m not usually a fan of Chinese food but I’ve now changed my mind!), it was pretty hectic from the start - the circuit had staged a local 3 hour endurance race a few weeks previously but still all the administration details hadn’t been sorted out...and internet access from China was spotty at best, so the press and teams that updated their websites regularly were very frustrated. Just a mention to one of the racers in the Sports Production race, held on the Saturday…Loretta Tsui on a Honda RVF400was DEFINITELY the best looking girl at the track all weekend (including all the Brolly Dollies) and she would be pretty good at racing as well – if she didn’t keep rolling off the throttle halfway down the start/finish straight…come on, Loretta, trust your brakes!! Ok, qualifying and the race. Once again, everybody was playing catch-up to the Castrol SERT Suzuki No.3, in particular, rider Vincent Philippe, who went out on first qualifying and immediately set a time on Lap 3 that most teams would struggle to beat over the whole of qualifying. The heat was intense, humidity just as bad - but everyone agreed that it was a wonderful track but challenging, with stop-and-go corners and long straights to give the tyres a work-out. Pirelli had their Racing Manager Giorgio Barbier on hand, with Dunlop again having the services of Roland Wozniak...and privately they were pretty worried about the heat situation for the tyres. As the bikes spend a lot of their time upright at high speeds, the power is transmitted via only a small contact patch in the centre of the tyre, generating pretty high tyre core temperatures. Tyres start to delaminate at around 150-160 degrees - and the readout from the Phase One tyres in qualifying was already at 136...and we would see rear tyres shedding lumps of their tread during the race... Vincent Philippe set a fastest time of 1:35.067 – the only rider to record a time in the 1:35 bracket. Second was Yamaha GMT94’s David Checa on 1:36.405, and third was Gwen Giabbani for Yamaha Endurance Moto 38, lapping in 1:36.522. The fastest time through the speed trap was 218.8 km/h, set by Horst Saiger on the Yamaha Austria R1. The WRT Honda Austria Fireblade and the Suzuki Castrol GSX-R1000 both recorded a speed of 217.5 km/h, while the fastest Kawasaki ZX10R was Bolliger’s, at 215.5 km/h. Yamaha Phase One Endurance were troubled by a series of misfires in free practice which they traced to the cam position sensor and tip-over switch. Apparently, the tip-over switch needed to be horizontal in both the forward-back level as well as the side-to side level, which it wasn’t at Assen. Yamaha GMT94 team manager Christophe Guyot made a rare riding appearance in qualifying – he elected himself the team’s third rider for this event and qualified to race just in case Costes or Checa were injured - and he posted pretty respectable times for a rider who hasn’t raced for two years... Shell Endurance Academy (Phase One Junior Team) rider Henry Fincher was the first to test out the circuit’s first-aid facilities and visit Zhuhai hospital – he injured his knee dropping the bike while returning to pit lane. Apparently he had inadvertently run over the sharp edge of the tarmac. It looked pretty horrific, tearing all the skin back from over his kneecap and having to have not a few stitches, which meant that he wouldn’t be able to ride for the race...but the hospital treated him with virtual hero-worship.
Second qualifying in the afternoon was even hotter. Vincent Philippe had put the Suzuki Castrol GSX-R1000 onto pole position, not improving on his time set in the morning session. Yamaha GMT94 were second, and Yamaha Endurance Moto38 third. Castrol Suzuki’s riders thought that the race would be very fast and Vincent Philippe was well-impressed by the local Chinese teams who were riding 600cc machines. The Well Crown Man Lee Tat No.23 Yamaha squad had qualified in 23rd position (rider Billy Tang is a real track demon) with the No.31 Jailing Arlen Ness Kawasaki 600 in 25th, just behind ex-pat Hong Kong riders James Dawson, Nick Winthrope and the boss of Thailand’s TYGA Performance, Matt Patterson on the bog-stock Ducati Hong Kong No.29 999. Rider James Dawson was also roped in to do the pre-race stunt show and he didn’t do too badly, seeing as he isn’t a stunt rider...the officials were frantically signaling to him that his time was over but he wouldn’t leave the track until he’d destroyed his rear tyre...which the crowd REALLY appreciated! Most riders set their best times in the first qualifying session, when track temperatures were slightly cooler and grip was better. The afternoon session times were slower, but would probably be more representative of the race the next day. Yamaha GMT94 were very slightly faster than Suzuki Castrol in the afternoon, but the Suzuki team are expected to need fewer fuel stops (and their pit stops were incredibly fast)...the Yamaha Austria No.7 and Moto38 Yamahas in particular seemed to be pretty voracious on fuel... Kawasaki Bolliger had a generator failure which they discovered after removing and stripping the engine on their ZX10R but they managed to hold onto ninth place on the grid as very few riders were able to improve on their first session times. Two of those who did improve were Thomas Hinterreiter for Yamaha Austria and Steve Brogan for Yamaha Phase One. Provisional Top Ten Qualifying Positions
1st 3: Suzuki Castrol – FRA – Suzuki GSX-R1000 –
V.Phillipe - 1:35.067 Race day, and the morning’s warm up sessions saw the Suzuki Castrol, Yamaha GMT94 and Endurance Moto 38 once again putting in the quickest laps. Yamaha Phase One Endurance made some improvements overnight and moved up to a competitive fourth fastest. Diablo666 Kawasaki’s Mike Edwards discovered how deep the volcanic ash is that the circuit uses as “gravel” in the run off areas - apparently it stops you dead - but didn’t drop the bike. Yamaha Austria seemed to be having to work hard entering corners and rider Horst Saiger blamed it on the brakes being a little bit unpredictable. Benelli also had problems in warm-up, blowing up an engine and having to do some quick work to swap it with the engine that they used in Assen...and the Honda Austria No.5 Fireblade burnt out its wiring loom, which also had to be replaced. THE RACEEven on the start line there were clutch problems for the Benelli No.2 and they were looking to start from the pit lane...but were helped by a false start and a half-hour delay...the reasons for which weren’t clear at the time but most of the analysis seems to point to the fact that the crowd were chanting down the seconds in Chinese and one particular number sounded like “GO!” - either that or the organizers weren’t clear that the race should start on the flag and not on the lights. Stephane Mertens on the Suzuki Zongshen No.81 bike lead the opening laps with Sebastien Scarnato for Yamaha Phase One and Gwen Giabianni for Yamaha Endurance Moto 38 close behind. Erwin Wilding on the WRT Honda Austria bike had made a good start but crashed on lap 2 - Erwin was thrown in front of the bike and was run over by the front wheel and ended up in the middle of the track dodging oncoming bikes - he was ok but was forced to cruise back to the pits. Castrol Suzuki and Yamaha GMT94 both made poor starts but quickly fought through the field to catch the leading group. Suzuki Castrol took the lead on lap six, with Phase One tucking in behind and GMT94 closing in. The Ducati Hong Kong 999 had an early crash but got going again - only to grind to a halt a few laps later with suspected debris in the fuel injectors. Gwen Giabbani on the Moto38 Yamaha made an early pit-stop after only about 10 laps - his leathers didn’t have ventilation holes and he was suffering from heat exhaustion - but he recovered quickly and would be fine after his team-mates did their relays. After the first hour and first round of pit stops, the order was Castrol Suzuki, Yamaha GMT94, Zongshen 81, Kawasaki Bolliger, Yamaha Austria, Suzuki Fabi Corse and Yamaha Phase One Endurance – all the teams behind those seven had been lapped. As the race continued, a pattern of fuel stops was emerging – the Suzuki GSX-R1000s of Castrol Suzuki, Jet Team and Fabi Corse were stretching each tank of fuel further than their Yamaha competition. After ninety minutes all the teams except these three had made at least two stops, and after two and a half hours they had made only two stops to the other teams’ three. Although Yamaha GMT94, Yamaha Austria and Kawasaki Bolliger can lap at the same speed as Castrol Suzuki, they would inevitably lose time later in the race by making extra fuel stops. Castrol Suzuki and GMT94 pushed on at a very fast pace. Lap 75 saw the gap between them at only 4 seconds. Vincent Phillipe for Castrol Suzuki put in the fastest lap of the race on lap 89, only to see David Checa beat his time ten laps later, with Philippe setting an even faster time on the following lap.
WRT Honda Austria were still circulating, but around
nineteen laps behind the leaders. Rider Erwin Wilding was happy to have
survived the crash on the second lap and showed me his helmet and leathers,
the latter with huge tyre marks, the helmet not only with tyre rubber but also
a deep cut left by a front brake disc... By the end of the third hour, the Ducati Spring Team No.10 had retired from the race with ignition problems, the X-One Benelli Tornado was parked in the pits with a broken gearbox, the No.19 Zongshen bike of Bontempi and Nowland was out of the race with a broken clutch - one of the plates had disintegrated and left debris in the gearbox and the Zongshen No.81 had pitted with destroyed rear wheel bearings but was back racing after just a wheel change. With one hour to go Castrol Suzuki were holding onto first place despite continuous pressure from Yamaha GMT94; the only team who remained on the same lap as the leaders. Behind these two a big battle had developed between the Zongshen No.81, Yamaha Austria No.7, Bolliger No.8 and Endurance Moto38 who were all on the same lap, 4 laps down on the leaders with the positions changing constantly as teams made fuel and tyre stops. Stephane Mertens on the Zongshen No.81 had vomited inside his helmet...only a glucose drink, so not much mess...but it went all over the inside of his visor and he had to pit because he couldn’t see where he was going! With about half an hour to go it was a wild time in the pits...Phase One were in 7th place when they pitted with clutch problems and team manager Russell Benney decided to keep the bike there until a few laps from the end to save the clutch and score points. Immediately after they pitted, GMT94 came in for their last fuel stop - and the refueling rig got stuck in the tank. Over 100 refuelings with the new Sprugli rig and no problems - but this first one had dropped the team out of contention for the lead, losing them two more laps on the Castrol Suzuki. They rejoined the race still in second and rider David Checa decided that he could “showboat” the rest of the way to the chequered flag. Finally, it was the Castrol Suzuki No.3’s turn to have a problem - and it was a big one... The whole Castrol Suzuki team were looking desperately at the monitors to try to find out what had happened to Olivier Four after their final pit stop for new tyres and fuel, as Olivier hadn’t appeared past the timing box. The first information the team had was when both Olivier and the bike appeared at the back of the pits...Olivier had crashed on one of the hairpin corners on new tyres. The team rushed to clean up the bike to get it back out before the end of the race and with one lap to go, they managed it...but they would finish 6 laps down in 6th place. David Checa had no idea that the GMT94 Yamaha was leading and was still doing lurid slides around the track...“I didn’t know I was in the lead at the end of the race. In the last relay we know that we have a little problem with the gear box, and when I saw the board telling me to go slow I thought maybe it was because of that or the tyres. It wasn’t until I was going up the stairs to the podium that Christophe told me that we had won. At Assen I gave one hundred percent and we finished second and here again I pushed all the time so to finish first was unbelievable. This season I hoped to win with GMT94 so I am very happy.” The battle for second third and fourth place was just as closely fought with the Zongshen No.81 inheriting 2nd place, Yamaha Endurance Moto 38 catching and passing the Kawasaki Bolliger No.8 to take 3rd with only minutes to spare and finishing ahead of them by only 4 thousandths of a second at the line. Yamaha Austria finished fifth and Suzuki Castrol held onto sixth place. The crowd for the race wasn’t as big as had been expected - with a ticket price of about $10, it was the equivalent of a dinner at a top class restaurant for 10 people, a bit steep for the locals...and when the sun moved during the race, the crowd all moved to the parts of the grandstand that were shaded - up and up - until they were all concentrated in a very narrow band at the top and one extremely crowded area where there was shade from the control tower. RESULTS:
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