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World Superbike: Healthy, wealthy and wise?
Much has changed in World Superbike this year. For the first time since the class went global in 1988, non-restricted 1000cc four-cylinder bikes are allowed to compete alongside the perennial favorite Ducati V-Twins. Spec tires were introduced, as well, so everyone is now on level footing (no pun intended). Yet due to political intrigues, the avaricious MotoGP money pit and sometimes-unwitting gunboat diplomacy skills of series organizers FGSport, none of the Japanese bike-makers has officially turned up. Nevertheless, with more than half the 11-round, 22-race season complete, there is an increasingly virile pulse in WSB. Despite a rapid and pre-
carious fall from the all-time high of blanket factory participation in ’02, it really does seem the radical steps pundits said would kill the series now almost certainly won’t. The pared-down/costsdown regimen will possibly even assure both shortand long-term survival.
The Ducati Fila pairing of championship leader Regis Laconi and his closely
tailing teammate James Toseland may have won races and be leading the title fight, but there have been six different winners in 12 races, all on merit. Racewinner at Laguna Seca in ’03, PierFrancesco Chili (on a hybrid 999-engined 998RS) and former MotoGP winner Garry McCoy (Xerox Scuderia Caracchi Ducati 999RS) are among them.
This past June at Britain’s Silverstone circuit, a larger-than-expected crowd enjoyed a genuine spectacle of fairingclanging and high-speed risk across the old battlefront of Ducati versus Honda. Significantly, the private Renegade Ducati 999RS of Noriyuki Haga and privately entered (but largely Honda Europe-financed) Ten Kate Honda CBR1000RR of reigning World Supersport champ Chris Vermeulen traded wins. (More significant still, almost all of the riders, bikes and teams-with the exception of Haga-are WSB-class rookies.) With podium-toppers
Haga and Vermeulen ringing in the changes in the championship dynamics on track, the event proved WSB could happily exist alongside MotoGP. By winning the second race, bringing Honda its first victory since Colin Edwards at Imola, Italy, in 2002, the Ten Kate machine may have signaled the end of the cruelly titled “Ducati Cup." But will the Japanese ever return in a factory capacity to WSB? Like it or not, some of them are already there. -Gordon Ritchie
“I’m back,"says Ricky Carmichael, keeps winning
Knee surgery sidelined Ricky Carmichael for four and a half months, the longest off-bike break the 24-year-old Floridian has endured since turning Pro eight years ago. But rather than brood over lost opportunities-namely losing out on a chance at a fourth AMA Supercross title-Carmichael took pleasure in his hiatus, and savored the time off. I le even spectated at a handful of races, but found it difficult to watch from the sidelines. “It’s not fun, especially when you think you have a chance to win,” he says. “I’m glad to be back.”
Not that his competition-specifically, fellow Honda rider Kevin Windham and newly crowned SX champ Chad Reed-is particularly pleased. Carmichael dominated the first three rounds of the AMA Motocross Championship, notching flagto-flag and come-from-behind victories in Sacramento, California, Mt. Morris, Pennsylvania, and Southwick, Massachusetts-even though his knee is only 85 percent recovered! “The knee is no problem on the motorcycle,” Carmichael declares. “It gets a little sore, but that’s to be expected.” For the first time in his career, Carmichael is racing a four-stroke, having traded the two-stroke CR250R he rode to a perfect season in 2002 and his seventh outdoor title in '03 for a CRF450R. The transition has been easy, he reports. “It was good to come back on the four-stroke because you can't be quite as aggressive with it as you can on the twostroke. You have to be more patient,” Carmichael says. ”On the two-stroke, at our level, you have to ride it so hard to perform well. The four-stroke has a lot more power-torque and top end. You can relax and really enjoy it.”
Not that he is married to the concept. When the ’05 AMA Supercross season gets under way in January, Carmichael will most likely be two-stroke-mounted. It won’t, however, be a Honda. Earlier this year, he inked a two-year, multimillion-dollar contract with Suzuki to campaign both SX and MX.
"Two-strokes are the best for SX," he says. "They're more nimble. But having said that, in the future I think it's going to be all four-strokes."
Carmichael says there are other differences between the two disciplines. “Outdoors is naturally a bit easier for me. But it takes me a little longer to get up to speed because it’s a lot more open, and not as aggressive. With the races being shorter, SX is more of a sprint. And it takes more practice. But they both have their fun points.”
Which is why you won’t likely see Carmichael running just one series, a la Jeremy McGrath or, now, Mike LaRocco. “I enjoy both series,” he says. “I get paid to do both, and that’s what I’ll keep doing.”
But for how long? Though still not old enough to officially rent a car, Carmichael can envision the end of his racing career. “Obviously, the end is a lot closer now than it was five years ago,” he notes. “When you do both series, it wears on you, especially when you’re winning titles. It takes a lot out of you mentally. I won’t have a 15-year career. Ten would be good.”
For the moment, Carmichael is focused on racing. “I want to win the outdoor title this year, and start fresh for SX,” he says.
The ’05 SX series won’t be a cakewalk, at least on paper. Reed is certain to challenge, and James “Bubba” Stewart will be making his 250cc debut. Adding spice to the mix, both of those riders’ contracts are up at the conclusion of the outdoor season. At presstime, Reed had re-signed with Yamaha, but whether Stewart would re-up with Kawasaki was unsure.
None of this concerns Carmichael. “I’m not going to worry about Stewart until Anaheim,” he says. “I have one thing to do: Take care of myself. 1 need to win races and win the series. And that’s what I’m going to do.” -Matthew Miles
Harley super-tuner Bill Werner calls it quits
Proving the truth of the lesson that when one door closes, another opens, one day in 1966 Bill Werner, a delivery truck driver and amateur dirt-track racer, applied for a job in the Harley-Davidson paint shop.
They never called back.
Some weeks later, a pal told Werner there was an ad in the paper. H-D’s racing department was looking for help. Werner snatched up the paper, called the department and left his number.
“And they called me back.”
Werner got the job. That was 38 years, 150 national championship race wins and 13 national titles (shared with three riders) ago.
That’s history, a mark that surely will never be equaled and a mark that came to a close on July 1, 2004, when Werner officially retired.
It’s not quite fair to say all this sur-
prised him. Werner has always had (a justified, surely) faith in his own ability to work hard and think clearly. But he raced motorcycles because that’s what guys did in that time and place. He earned enough AMA points to qualify for his Expert license, but he never ran in the top class because by then it was clear that other riders could do better with his equipment than he could.
“I enjoyed racing,” he says now, “but I never expected to be a star.”
Instead, Team Manager Dick O’Brien spotted Werner’s talents and let him explore, working on team machines during work hours and his own bikes at home; Werner built the factory’s first XR-750, using XL Sportster parts, before the official version was introduced.
There was also the right place and the right time and people. Werner was assigned to tune for Gary Scott, a talented and fierce competitor and one of the few who could beat Kenny Roberts in a fair fight.
Werner and Scott won the AMA Grand National Championship in 1975. Scott and O’Brien had a falling-out, Scott quit the team...and Werner was teamed with the incomparable Jay Springsteen, which led to three more titles in 1976, ’77 and ’78. Then came the dark ages, with Springsteen sick, not too sick to win races but out of contention for the title.
Springsteen resigned and H-D had budget worries. Junior team member Scott Parker was given some expense money and turned loose, so he hired
Werner despite grumbles from management, who never liked Werner’s work with the union. (Presumably the team’s nine AMA titles made things better.)
Then Parker retired and Werner teamed with Rich King, for more wins; as a going-away present, King won the Springfield Mile this past May, as Werner went public with his retirement.
Has it all been Up Up Up? No. There was the feud with Scott, there was sadness with Springsteen’s illness, and Parker needed his attorneys to get Werner for his team.
Perhaps the lowest point came last year, when King's winning engine proved oversize, the wrong crank in the legal cases. Werner admitted to a dumb mis take and waited out a short suspension, while his fans accepted his error and some others displayed more envy than made them look good.
More subtly, what Werner doesn’t like to discuss, Harley-Davidson has changed over 38 years. Racing is now under the control of marketing, not engineering, and one gets a sense of overseers with more power than knowledge, which has to gall someone who’s done the best ever done in his field.
So, what next? Werner has always enjoyed his wife and family, he has a breadth of knowledge and interests far beyond racing, and he’s tempted to keyboard his memoirs.
Or not. There was the day he was prepping one of Springer’s bikes and he looked up and commented, “Ya know, if it wasn’t for racing, we’d probably be driving UPS trucks.”
Pause for effect.
“And we'd still be having fun.”
-Allan Girdler
