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RACE WATCH
World Superbike: Bostrom's back!
Ben Bostrom wants to be world champion. Which is why the 31-year-old Californian will be racing World Superbike on a Renegade Honda CBR1000RR this season.
It’s just the shot in the arm the series needs. In WSB’s formative years, grids were filled with street-based machines anyone could buy, tune and race on a global level. Unlike Grand Prix, the atmosphere was friendly, almost casual. More recently, however, WSB became a big, important series, laden with factory bikes and technology. Then, the Japanese manufacturers fell out with series organizers FGSport and turned their backs on it. For the final nail in the coffin, last season everyone was forced to use the same Pirelli tires.
So why didn’t the series simply die and go away?
Despite its problems, WSB proved hard to erase, even in the wake of MotoGP’s Valentino Rossi-led renaissance. The new rules-spec tires included-were a godsend, to the point that a new generation of Japanese inline-Fours, which cost about a third of a good-running customer Ducati, are competitive without extensive factory input.
When the racing gets under way in Qatar at the end of February, Ducati will field a handful of 999s, most prominently the factory machines for reigning champ James Toseland and teammate Regis Laconi. Dutch tour de force Ten Kate will lead the Honda charge with former World Supersport Champions Chris Vermeulen and Karl Muggeridge. Suzuki has 1996 WSB title-winner Troy Corser and exBritish Superbike frontrunner Yukio Kagayama on the all-new GSX-R1000.
Yamaha, absent from the series for four years, will field 2001 WSS champ Andrew Pitt and (even more appetizingly) Noriyuki Haga on YZF-Rls. The latter nearly won the championship in ’00 and is still a fan favorite. Longtime Grand Prix racer Norick Abe will also join the series, riding a Yamaha France-backed Rl.
On paper, Kawasaki, now led by the ex-Pier Francesco Chili PSG-1 Corse team, has the weakest thrust. Rider Chris Walker, despite 10 podium finishes, including a third on the Foggy Petronas FP-1 at Valencia, Spain, last season, has yet to win a race. His new teammate Mauro Sanchini hasn’t done much either-not unlike the existing ZX-10R runners from the Bertocchi squad.
Chili will be on a Honda, but not as Bostrom’s teammate. Fifth in the championship last year, the 40-year-old Italian joins German Max Neukirchner on the two-man Klaifi Honda squad. The Foggy Petronas effort, the Anglo-Malaysian bizzarity with its syncopating three-cylinder beat and lOOcc disadvantage, will motor on again in ’05. Team principal (and former series champ) Carl Fogarty has two new Aussie riders-Steve Martin and Garry McCoy.
What about the American interest in WSB? With former U.S. stop Laguna Seca now under the MotoGP big top and only one American rider in the series, the irony is not lost on anyone. In fact, if you consider America the birthplace of Superbike racing, WSB not coming to America is, well, un-American. The U.S.’s loss is no one’s gain, but if the rumors hold true, WSB may soon be under the billowing folds of Old Glory once again. -Gordon Ritchie
Fabrizio Meoni, 1957-2005
I begin, but finding the words is difficult. For two hours I have stared at my computer screen, yet it remains blank. The news is simple: Fabrizio Meoni has died.
On the 11th day of the 2005 Telefonica Dakar Rally, 114 miles into a special test, second-placed Meoni crashed hard in the sand, suffering a broken neck. Twenty minutes later, the medical helicopter arrived, but 45 minutes of cardiac massage was insufficient to resuscitate him. Meoni became the second fatality in this year’s rally, fellow KTM rider Jose Manuel Perez of Spain having perished the previous day.
These, however, are details, because when a friend dies, we would like only silence to remember the enjoyable moments.
Good and generous, Meoni left behind his family, friends and fans. Always a gentlemen, a real sportsman, he was not racing for the money. Having celebrated his 47th birthday as the rally got under way in Barcelona on New Year’s Eve, he considered himself lucky to be paid to do what he loved. He founded a children’s school in Dakar, and donated to humanitarian works in Senegal.
“I have gotten so much out of life, and am fortunate to be talented,” he said. “Now it’s right that I do something for those who have not been lucky like me.” Meoni was a man who could do the right thing.
The night before his accident, his last night, speaking with an old friend and mechanic, Meoni said, “I’m not able to risk it anymore. I look forward to finishing this last Dakar and going home to my wife and children.”
Ciao, Fabrizio. Send us your new GPS point when you can.
-Giuseppe Gori
