v19.07 2019 Season Review WorldSBK BSB MotoAmerica ASBK SBK Travel and more
SBK Journal | version 19.07
Welcome to issue seven of SBK Journal. The end of the season always takes me by surprise. That seems a ridiculous thing to say when it’s what we have been building up to all year. However, the final two to three months of the racing calendar seem to just disappear in a whirlwind of travel, races, recovery and inevitabley additional small jobs, all whilst trying to balance home and family life. With WorldSBK it was a familiar ending with Jonathan Rea clinching the title at Magny Cours. If you had asked me in June if this is where would have been crowning a champion I would have said probably, but not JR. At that point Alvaro Bautista was in the driving seat to give Ducati it’s first WorldSBK title since 2011. However the wheels fell of the Panigale V4R’s wagon and it wasn’t to be. It was a different story elsewhere in the world though. BeWiser Ducati team-mates Scott Redding and Josh Brookes went into the final round of the Showdown at Brands Hatch in a head to head dual for the title. In the end Redding won in his rookie, and possibly only, BSB season. The Englishman is heading to WorldSBK to replace Bautista in the Aruba.it squad for the 2020 season. Ducati were also victorious in the Australian Superbike Championship and the Italian CiV, salvaging some pride for what was a massive racing effort by the Italian marque. In this issue we look over those championship deciders before turning our eyes towards 2020. Graeme Brown
As with summertime, the old man was bouncing back and forward across the globe. The European WorldSBK events were finished and an epic trip to Argentina, via Chile, preceded the final round in Qatar. There is no time to rest, however, as November sees the first winter tests in WorldSBK at Motorland and Jerez.
Jamie Morris spent the end of the season concentrating on BSB. He was back at his favourite track, Brands Hatch, for the final round of the Showdown before a last hurrah in WorldSBK at his favourite building site, Qatar. Jamie now needs to recover over the winter as weeks of sleepless nights are ahead. Good luck fella. If GeeBee complains about travelling too much, he has nothing on Vaclav Duska Jnr. Jnr has been working in WorldSBK and MotoGP this year so after completing a busy weekend at Magny Cours he headed to Thailand, from where he flew directly to Santiago to meet up with GeeBee and drive through the Andes to San Juan. It was a mad dash back to Santiago on Sunday night and straight on to Japan to begin the MotoGP triple weekend run at Motegi, Phillip Island and Sepang. We are now worried he may look as old as GeeBee.
Good Night WorldSBK 2019. The 2019 WorldSBK season closed the final chapter at the familiar floodlit Losail International Circuit in Doha. Jonathan Rea continued his domination of the second half of the season with a triple win, but there were encouraging results for Chaz Davies, who returned to the podium and Alex Lowes as he raced for the final time with Yamaha.
BSB Golden Hour. The British Superbike Championship headed down Brands Hatch way for the final round of the Showdown to crown the 2019 Champion. As befits the October date the weather was mixed, which brought with it some dramatic skies at the end of each day.
Crash Pic of the Year 2019? To capture a great crash picture you firstly have to be in the right place at the right time. Then you have to have the sharpest reactions to get the key moment. Jamie Morris nailed it in Qatar as the sparks flew from Alessandro Del Bianco’s Honda. Fortunately Del Bianco was fine and back on the bike in the next session - rubber side down.
Just Champion. There can’t be a much better situation than to have a multiple WorldSBK and racing legend in your corner. Troy Bayliss makes sure he captures the moment as his rider Mike Jones clinched the Australian Superbike Championship at the Sydney Motorsport Park.
The long and winding road. Travelling the world to photograph the WorldSBK Championship takes us to some amazing locations. El Paso Internacional Los Libertadores on the Chilean side of the border with Argentina is probably one of the most dramatic sections of highway we will travel all year.
Rain stops play. Most Championship are coming to an end but the FIM Endurance World Championship has restarted for it’s 2019/2020 season. The first round, the Bol D’Or, took place at a very wet Paul Ricard in October. It was so wet that racing was suspended on Saturday afternoon, only resuming on Sunday morning when conditions had improved.
Pictures: Graeme Brown, Jamie Morris, Vaclav Duska Jnr
If you had asked in June where the 2019 Superbike World Championship would go, I would suggest most people would have bet their life on Alvaro Bautista. The Spaniard had a 43 point lead over Jonathan Rea having won 11 races in a row from the start of the season. Rea had begun a fight back, winning at a rain soaked Imola but the wheels dramatically fell of the Ducati wagon in race two at Jerez when Bautista crashed out of the lead. He would crash again in Misano whilst leading, by which time Rea and Kawasaki had picked up their momentum. The reigning champion embarked on a ruthless streak of wins whilst Bautista crashed a again in Laguna and would only visit the podium a handful of times in the final 6 races of the season.
One aspect of the swing in fortunes in the second half of the season was the imporved performance of a number of other riders.
Chief amongst them was Toprak Razgatlioglu. The Turkish Kawasaki rider had slowly improved his results from the start of the season and from round five at Imola he was on the podium every weekend execpt the final round in Qatar. He took his maiden victory in the Superbike class in Magny Cours and would pick up points from Bautista that meant Jonathan Rea arrived in again with the Championship all but secured. Razgatlioglu was also part of Kawasaki’s team that won the Suzuka 8Hrs race in July. However, he was not used for riding duties in the final reckoning and this upset his manager and mentor Kenan Sofuolgu who took to social media to lambast the Kawasaki management, accusing them of a great degree of disrespect towards his rider.
The rift was never healed and whilst Razgatlioglu clinched the private teams award for Kawasaki, and helped clinch a fifth manufacturers title for the Japanese, he duly jumped ship and signed for Yamaha for the 2020 season Bautista had done enough in the early part of the season to secure the runner up spot in the championship but the battle for third raged on behind him between the Yamaha team-mates of Alex Lowes and Michael VD Mark. Lowes started the season well with solid results in Australia and Thailand, including to third places at Buriram. VD Mark bounced back however and following victory in Jerez he sat 46 points ahead of Lowes. The Dutchman would fall and injure himself in Free Practice at the next round in Misano (round seven) and ruled himself out of action for the weekend.
He returned next time out at Donington Park but was not fully fit. After another DNF in the US, Lowes regained the advantage and would hang on until the end of the season, making it his best place finish in the championship since his rookie year in 2014. It was ironic that it is his last year with the Crecsent Racing squad that brought him into WorldSBK and the decision was not without a slice of controversy. There had been reports that Yamaha would retain the services of which ever rider entered the summer break in July the highest in the standings between Lowes and VD Mark. Lowes left the US with a slender five point advantage over VD Mark. Enough to put pen to paper? Apparently not.
As the season wore on it became clear that VD Mark was the favoured rider and Lowes was looking for a new seat. It took until the penultimate round in Argentina before the pieces fell into place. Rea’s team-mate Leon Haslam had had a troubled year in the KRT squad fighting for consistency after moving from the BSB-spec Kawasaki to the full factory KRT machine. In the end the team chose not to renew his contract for 2020. To many this was always the plan as Razgatlioglu was being groomed as a future Kawasaki Champion. However, after the Suzuka affair it seemed Haslam was destined for another season in the championship winning team. However, in Magny Cours we learned he would be moving on and speculation began as to who would replace him. Step up Alex Lowes. It was an almost perfect shuffling of the deck with a neat rider swap between Yamaha and Kawasaki. Haslam, however, looked down and out and till the last few weeks. The 2018 BSB Champions has secured a seat in the newly restructed HRC squad alongside Alvaro Bautista. What you could say as a win, win, win for all. By season’s end JR65 had re-written the history books. Again. Seventeen race wins, 88 in total in his career and 663 points, 165 ahead of Bautista, give Rea an unprecedent fifth WorldSBK title, the first rider to achieve the feat, let alone five in a row.
Pictures: Jamie Morris
The 2019 British Superbike season came with it’s usual mixture of intrigue and controversy. The biggest talking point back in April when things got underway was the arrival of MotoGP refugee Scott Redding. Redding had been vocal in his feelings that he would quit motorcycle racing altogether until the PBM BeWiser squad offered him a ride on the 2019 Ducati Panigale V4R. It was steady away for the first races, including a crash in the first round at Silverstone, but by round three at Donington he was up to speed and took the first of a number of wins that saw him lead the standings as they headed into the Showdown. In those early races Redding’s teammate Josh Brookes was trading blows with Oxford Ducati rider Tommy Bridewell in the championship race but the open nature of the BSB regulations meant that none of the top teams’ riders could be discounted with Tarran MacKenzie (McAMS Yamaha), Xavi Fores (Honda), Danny Buchan (FS3 Kawasaki) and Dan Linfoot (Yamaha) amonsgt those knocking on the door of the podium. In amongst all that Redding remained consistant however, knocking out wins and podiums and slowly building an advantage in the overall standings. One result that made a lot of people sit up and take note was Andrew Irwin’s race one win at round seven Thruxton on the ageing Honda.
He backed it up with a second place in race two but by the next round at Cadwell Park he had turned from hero to villain when he was sanctioned for causing a crash involving Redding. It made for one of those viral social media videos where Redding berated Irwin on his decision making. The other intirguing aspect to the season was the dramatic loss of form in the Quattro Plant JG Speedfit Kawasaki squad. Following the championship win with Leon Haslam in 2018 the team signed Irishman Glenn Irwin and Australian Ben Currie for the 2019 campaign. Both riders would languish down the field each weekend and by mid-season Irwin had acrimonusly split from the team. Spaniard Hector Barbera was drafted in to replace him but results failed to improve. By August it was widely known that they were to be replaced by the FS3 squad as the official Kawasaki UK entrant for 2020. Former Superbike Magazine Editor Kenny Pryde asked where it all went wrong.
After 2018 had seen Quattro Plant Bournemouth Kawasaki win the British superbike championship with Leon Haslam, more of the same – or something close – was expected in 2019. Alas, things haven’t worked out that way. Words: Kenny Pryde
It’s a sporting truism to say that winning a title is ‘easy’ and that the hard bit is actually repeating the feat the following season. Those who find this puzzling might like to consider the plight of the Quattro Plant Speedfit Bournemouth Kawasaki team in 2019. Championship winners with Leon Haslam on a Kawasaki ZX-10R in 2018 and, how to put this delicately? Nowhere in 2019. The truth is that if it hadn’t been for Danny Buchan flying the green flag for FS-3 Kawasaki, things would have been worse for Kawasaki Motor UK. “It’s been tough for us,” acknowledged Bournemouth Kawasaki team general manager Jack Valentine. “Hector Barbera was learning tracks and getting injured, though when he was fit, he was fast and our other rider was a youngster, so you can’t expect too much from him.” Clearly, Valentine hasn’t had his troubles to look for in 2019 and, as the season neared its end, Bournemouth Kawasaki found itself ready to scale down in 2020, or rather, not be the officially supported Kawasaki team in the BSB championship. Valentine, as befits a man of his experience, is stoical.
“Team owner Pete Extance was coming under some pressure from Kawasaki Motor UK (KMUK) who officially support the team, asking him what his plans were and Pete wasn’t in a position to commit, because he’s working on expanding his Kawasaki dealership in Southampton. Plus, KMUK is looking to spread its UK racing budget around a bit more, which put a dent in any superbike racing budget. So Pete told KMUK that they should look elsewhere, but its not like there’s been a big falling out,” insisted Valentine. Although plans are far from finalised, it would seem likely that Kawasaki Bournemouth will run with a single rider in the superbike class in 2020. Would the fact of having much less support from KMUK have a major impact? Valentine insists its far from essential, though obviously a good thing to have Kawasaki in your corner. “It’s not like it was a ‘factory’ team, that’s not how it works. Like most of the bigger teams, it’s ‘manufacturer supported’ not ‘factory’ which means you get discounted bikes and parts, but you get nothing for nothing, it’s not like that at all, not like some people think!” laughed Valentine. “We had a really good relationship with Kawasaki Racing in 2018 because Leon (Haslam) is well connected, so we had more or less direct access to people and information. But since we were running MoTec, not Magneti-Marelli engine management – on different spec engines - and using Ohlins not Showa suspension, there was limited information.
But what was good was that you could always ask advice about anything, like a bit of chatter or vibration or something, it was more about having access and being part of a bigger Kawasaki racing network.” In the end, this network of support couldn’t help Kawasaki Bournemouth this season, when tensions in the garage led to a parting of the ways with rider Glenn Irwin halfway through the season. Valentine is discreet, but it was no secret in the BSB paddock that Irwin and his experienced team failed to hit it off. “The thing is, when a rider finishes third in the championship (as Irwin did in 2018), you expect him to be able to get into the top six for the shoot-out, on just about any bike, but it didn’t happen. We had Jeremy McWilliams overseeing the bike and setup at one point and he couldn’t see any big issues with anything. Then we had Phil Marron (winning as a crew chief with Toprak Razgatlioglu on a Kawasaki in WSBK) in and he worked with Glenn for a couple of rounds as well, which was great.” None of which prevented Irwin and Bournemouth parting ways, as the saying has it, ‘by mutual consent’ in July, after six rounds of the championship. At which point, the Bournemouth Kawasaki team’s season is as good as done.
Irwin found a berth with Tyco BMW which lasted four rounds before they too, parted. Hardly a happy ending for anyone, though. With Bournemouth Kawasaki scaling back its effort, it leaves Valentine without a job in 2020 though it’s hard to imagine a British superbike race scene without Valentine. “Well, at the moment, I’ve got nothing lined up, which means I might be riding my pushbike more in 2020. We’ll see...”.
Words: Tim Allen Pictures: MotoAmerica/Brian J. Nelson
Coming in to the 2019 EBC Brakes MotoAmerica season, the question on everyone’s mind was, is it going to be Yoshimura Suzuki’s Toni Elias or Monster Energy Yamaha Racing’s Cameron Beaubier who takes the MotoAmerica Superbike crown? Or, could it be one of a pack of other promising riders such as Josh Herrin, Garrett Gerloff, JD Beach or Mathew Scholtz that upsets the status quo? With Beaubier taking three out of the last four seasonchampionships, the smart money was on him. Certainly, the 2019 MotoAmerica Superbike season was sure to be one to remember. The season started out with a bang as Beaubier took the opening round of the season at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta with Elias, JD Beach and Mathew Scholtz rounding out the top 4. Championship contenders Josh Herrin (Yoshimura Suzuki) and Garrett Gerloff (Monster Energy Yamaha Factory Racing) put themselves in an early hole to start the season, each with a DNF in race one. Race 2 saw Elias grab the lead and hold on over Westby Racing’s Scholtz and third place Beaubier. The second weekend of the season saw the riders take on the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas sharing the spotlight with the stars of MotoGP. As it was at Atlanta, Elias and Beaubier battled the whole way with Elias taking the checkered flag to win his second race of the season with Beaubier and Gerloff rounding out the podium. Race 2 saw Josh Herrin charge to his first victory of the season, and first as a Yoshimura Suzuki rider, with Elias and Beaubier finishing second and third respectively. As the series headed to Virginia International Raceway, it was Elias and Beaubier head and shoulders above the pack with only 8 points separating the two. Race one at VIR was much of the same as Beaubier and Elias finished one-two with the hard charging Garrett Gerloff rounding out the podium.
Gerloff was beginning to show signs that he wasn’t too far away from winning his first superbike race and it was going to be only a matter of time. Race two saw a surprise at the top of the podium as JD Beach (Attack Performance Estenson Racing Yamaha), the two-time MotoAmerica Supersport champion, charged out to a commanding lead and took home his first superbike win with Gerloff and Elias close behind. Cameron Beaubier had a disastrous race, crashing his Monster Energy Yamaha Factory Racing YZF-R1 and not being able to finish. The Road America round saw a rainsoaked Saturday morning qualifying round with the skies clearing just in time for race one. Elias showed his mettle as he edged out Beaubier and Gerloff by less than a second to claim the 25 points. The sun made a return for Sunday and Yoshimura Suzuki’s Josh Herrin took advantage of a mistake by teammate Elias in the final turn to win a thrilling race two with Beaubier and Gerloff rounding out the podium. With summer heating up and the series heading west to Utah, Elias and Beaubier were separated by only 9 points with Gerloff a distant third.
Pic: GeeBee Images
Race one at the Championship of Utah saw a surprise on the podium as South African, Mathew Scholtz scored a second-place finish behind Elias, with Gerloff securing yet another third-place finish. Sunday saw things return to normal as it was Elias, Beaubier and Gerloff on the podium once again. Halfway through the season and it looked to be Toni Elias and Cameron Beaubier as the class of the field. But Garrett Gerloff had other ideas. Similar to what MotoAmerica did in Austin, this time the series shared the spotlight alongside World SBK at the Laguna Seca circuit. Saturday saw Elias take home the 25 points with Gerloff and Beaubier just behind. On Sunday, Monster Energy Yamaha Factory rider Garrett Gerloff finally broke through for his first MotoAmerica superbike win running away from Elias and Beaubier. As MotoAmerica headed into a fourweek break before heading North to Sonoma Raceway it was Elias pulling away in the championship standings from Beaubier and Gerloff, with JD Beach a distant fourth followed by Josh Herrin, Jake Lewis and Mathew Scholtz. Race one in Sonoma saw Gerloff take his second race win over Elias and Scholtz with a large number of riders not being able to finish, including Beaubier and Herrin. Race two saw Sonoma Raceway claim Toni Elias, Kyle Wyman (Ducati Richmond/ KWR Ducati) and Max Flinders among its casualties with Beaubier, Gerloff and Herrin finishing 1, 2, 3.
Round eight took the series back East to Pittsburgh International Race Complex. In race one, Gerloff picked up where he left off in Sonoma to claim a narrow victory over Beaubier and Elias. Race two on Sunday didn’t go as planned for Gerloff as he suffered another DNF and saw Elias, Beaubier and Herrin claim the podium spots. With only two rounds remaining, Elias had a sizeable 35-point lead over Beaubier with Gerloff still holding down third place. With the series’ penultimate weekend arriving at New Jersey Motorsports Park, Garrett Gerloff still had hopes of a championship. But it was JD Beach that had his best weekend of the season. Saturday saw Gerloff continue his hot streak with another race win over Beaubier and JD Beach for a Yamaha sweep of the podium. On Sunday, Gerloff wouldn’t be so lucky as he suffered yet another DNF and saw his slight hopes of a championship start to slip away. The podium on Sunday featured a couple of riders that hadn’t been there on a regular basis this year as Beaubier took home the win with JD Beach and Mathew Scholtz finishing P2 and P3 respectively.
As the series headed to its final weekend at Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, Alabama, Toni Elias’ lead had been cut down to only 16 points. Beaubier had a shot to grab the championship from Elias if everything went according to plan. Race one saw the usual suspects on the podium but Beaubier’s first place finish ahead of Gerloff and Elias meant that the lead was now down to 7 points heading into the final race of the season. On Sunday, a hard charging Cameron Beaubier was not going to be denied. His close first place finish over teammate Garret Gerloff, coupled with Toni Elias’ finishing off the podium in fourth place, meant the championship was his. Beaubier won his fourth MotoAmerica Superbike crown by only 5 points over Toni Elias, with Garrett Gerloff finishing a distant third.
In Australia, like MotoAmerica, the championship went down to the wire. As the season went into the final race weekend at Sydney Motorsport Park the top three contenders, Troy Herfoss, Wayne Maxwell and Mike Jones were separated by just four and a half points. Jones took the spoils in race one to cut the gap to Herfoss to just half a point. It couldn’t have been closer. The tension continued all the way through the final race of the season, until the last lap. When Herfoss made his move to take the lead he ran wide and left Jones with only a few corners left to seal the race and championship win.
Pic: Russell Colvin
Pictures: Yamaha Racing, Kawasaki, Suzuki
It only seemed like yesterday that SRC Kawasaki France were spraying the victory Champagne at that famous Suzuka 8Hr race, celebrating a memorable win in the 2018/19 FIM Endurance World Championship. However, in the third week in September the teams had reconvened at the Paul Ricard circuit in southern France to kick off a new season. The FIM EWC has turned into a winter series with races spread between September one year and July the next. Round one in 2019 was the famous Bol D’Or 24 hour race, and bucket list event for many bike racing fans, and a staple of the French motorcyle racing calendar. The race has had many homes including Le Mans and Magny Cours but from the late seventies and for 22 years it at a home at Paul Ricard. In 2016 it returned and now stands as the EWC season opener in September. This year the weather gods played havoc. Heavy thunderstorms persisted throughout Saturday afternoon and at 6pm race direction took the decision to suspend the race due to unsafe track conditions. This was the third time racing had been halted in the Bol D’Or, due to the weather, 1988 and 1996, with the later race being ultimately halted. Racing finally resumed at 6am on Sunday morning, still on a wet track, but the drama didn’t end there.
The leading F.C.C. Honda team suffered an engine failure as the track dried out and racing got back to it’s normal pace. Hot on the heels of the Honda, YART Yamaha’s Loris Baz and Erwan Nigon of the SRC Kawasaki squad had no time to react and crashed on the resulting oil spill with the bikes erupting into flames as they smashed into the safety barrier. That interrupted racing again, bringing out the safety car. In the final shake up the SERT team of Vincent Philippe, Anthony Delhalle and Etienne Masson won the race on their Suzuki GSX-R1000 securing the first 60 points in the title race. Round two of the championship takes place at Sepang in Malaysia for an 8-Hour race on December 14.
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South America has a certain allure. A land filled with unique sights, cultures and traditions. In 2018 when the WorldSBK calendar included a race at the newly build Circuito Villicum San Juan in Argentina, there was a bristling anticipation in the paddock to head off on a new adventure. It immediately piqued my curiosity and I was Googling everything I could about the best places to visit in that corner of the world. San Juan is not the easiest place to get to. It does have it’s own airport but flight are few and far between and a trip from Europe can mean up to three flight connections and a full 24 hours of travel to get there. An easier flight journey is the the next nearest city of Mendoza. The frequency of flights is greater but most connect in Buenos Aires or Sao Paulo in Brazil. Once in Mendoza it’s still a two hour drive to San Jaun. The option I settled for was a bit more epic, on all scales. A direct flight from London took me to Santiago in Chile. A strange choice it would seem but it afforded the opportunity to travel through the Andes mountains to get to San Juan. You can’t go to the west side of South America and not spend time in the Andes Mountains. Last year I met up with US photographer Corey Coulter and we drove to Mendoza before renting a couple of small trail bikes and spending three days exploring the countryside. That was itself eventful with the trip being truncated due to some technical issues with the bike, so in 2019 I wanted to partly retrace my steps, albiet by car and be able to have another look around.
This time I met Vaclav Duska in Santiago. He would be working wth me on the weekend, and we set off into the mountains. The first epic sight you come to is the 30 or so hairpin bends of the Paso Los Libertadores that cling to the side of the mountain just below the border with Argentina. At around bend 17 you get such a spectacular view down the pass that the outside of the bend has become an unofficial viewing area and is constantly filled with cars, tourist buses and motorbikes. The asphalt road continues upward to an altitude of around 3000m before heading through a tunnel that opens into Argentina. However, I had been recommended to take the original dirt road up to the top of the pass at almost 4000m where the statue of Cristo Redentor de los Andes stands proud over the border. When we cut off the main road just before the first section of tunnel there was a small sign at the side of the route proclaiming ‘Camino Cerrado’. I hesitated but my Czech travel mate announced in mischevious mirth “I am a tourist. I don’t understand. Keep going’. We did. The road wasn’t physically blocked and in any case if we came across an obstruction it would just mean we turn around and head back down again. It was pretty rough going but our little Chevrolet Spark rental car plugged on admirably, until 500m, and a couple of switchbacks, from the top when a huge wall of ice blocked our path. We had come so far we decided to walk up to the top of the pass and it was in all senses breathtaking. I have never felt the effects of altitude like that but it was slow going, but worth it. It was like standing on the top of the world with Chile on one side and Argentina on the other. I always marvel of the forces of the earth that meant these mountain tops were pushed up from the seabed to a height of 4kms, and still rising.
With selfies done it was time to head back down from whence we came and head through the tunnel to the border and Argentinian customs. Making our way down Jnr, in the passenger seat, quipped that there was a JCB blocking the road. He wasn’t joking and we arrived at the junction as the last bucket of earth was being deposited. Yer man was less than chuffed, but after a bit of a standoff and some shouting he relented and cleared a path for us. We explained that we had passed four BMW motorbikes and their support vehicle going up the pass and to wait for them but I think he was at the end of his tether by that point. We knew one of the BMW guys on the way up, they were basically doing the same as us but on an offically supported trip, and we were keen to know that they got off the mountain safely. In the end the road was blocked but with a combitation of off-road excursions and 4 wheel drive they made it. For us it was a long evening journey through the valley to the east of the main Andes mountain range to reach our overnight halt in Barreal. Our second day of travels took us east through the next mountain range and on to San Juan for the race weekend. The night before we had ended the trip from Uspallata to Barreal on 50km of a long, flat, straight gravel road, so to start the day on a relatively newly laid tarmac road was a pleasure.
We wound our way along the valley floor towards Calingasta in the shade of the mountian range directly to our east. On the other side of the valley the sun was lighting up the highest, snow capped peaks of the Andes. When we finally turned in an eastward direction we joined a brand new, wide and perfectly smooth tarmac road. I had been here last year on the bike and it is such a great driving/riding road that winds it way up through the mountains. Every now and then we would pass another vehicle, generally a delivery truck of some sort and on the whole we were greeted with a parp on the airhorn and a friendly wave. Otherwise when we stopped to take a photograph it was incredibly noticable how peaceful it was. There was nothing other than the sounds of nature; honey bees buzzing past searching for nectar and the breeze that was blowing off the mountain sides. Absolutely idyllic.
Travelling around the countryside in San Juan you are conscious of large collections of plastic bottles at the road side, if you are travelling slowly enough you also get a glimpse of a shrine. My initial reaction was that drivers had stopped for a break at the shrine and had chosen to empty their vehicle of any rubbish and in the current age where we are aware of the amount of plastic waste we generate I was a bit annoyed. However, last year on my motorcycle trip I had a puncture on this same stretch of road from Calingasta to San Juan. It meant we had to stop at the top of this pass where there was a huge pile of bottles and a large, makeshift shrine.
Whilst I was fussing around trying to put some tyre sealant in my rear tyre, someone stopped in a pick-up truck. He got out, said nothing, walked around the truck then took a bottle to the shrine, placed it carefully on the pile and offered a prayer and blessing. He then came over and spoke to Corey and myself and checked we were ok. It looked like a very curious practice and I was determinded to find out more. A year on and armed with the knowledge of Difunta Correa I felt I had to return to the same spot and on the way there tell the story to Vaclav.
Legend has it that the husband of Deolinda Correa was forcibly recruited to fight with the Montoneras in the Argentine civil wars around 1840. He became sick and was subsequently abandoned. News reached Deolinda of her husband’s plight and she set off with their newly born baby son to find him. She was following in the track of the Montoneras, through the deserts of San Jaun, when she herself ran out of supplies. Her body was found days later by a band of gauchos who were driving their cattle through the region. To their astonishment they found the dead woman’s baby was still alive, suckling on her ‘miraculously’ ever-full breast. The men buried Deolinda’s body in the present-day village of Vallecito just north of San Juan city, and carried on with their cattle, taking the baby with them.
Once the tale became known the story of the deceased Deolinda Correa, the Difunta Correa, passed into folklore and she became an unofficial popular saint, not recognised by the Catholic Church, but believed to perform miracles, the first being the survival of her child. Cattle drovers and then truck drivers disseminated the story of the Difunta Correa and over time the wayside shrines appeared on many roads throughout the country. Travellers will stop by the shrine and leave an offering of water to quench her eternal thirst in the hope of safe passage on the road. Having left our own offerings we set off for the final part of the journey to the Villicum circuit at San Juan. I’m a pleased to report that we made it there, and also back to Santiago on Sunday night with no dramas. Muchas Gracias Correa.
From Pit Lane To Memory Lane Words and Pictures: Graeme Brown
At the time of writing the complete 2020 WorldSBK calendar was still to be announced. Some dates were coming through and one that was given it’s own fanfare was the return of the series to Oschersleben in Germany after a period of 15 years. It is expected that the schedule for 2020 will see some major changes with the races in Buriram in Thailand and at Laguna Seca in the US being dropped. That leaves a couple of holes in the calendar and the need to find some new venues. There has also been a long standing need to reduce the length of the summer break in July and August and so it will be that Oschersleben will fill both of those gaps. The last time the race visited the purpose built circuit in the eastern part of Germany was 2004 and it hosted the race in the middle of the season, at the end of May.
The thing I remember most about Oschersleben is the journey to and from the track. It is situated in the Saxony region of eastern Germany and the nearest major cities are Hannover, 140km to the west or Berlin, 190km to the north east. It therefore meant a long drive along the fabled German Autobahn where the limits of the rental car were tested. Magdeburg is the nearest large town, 30km to the north, and where most people from the track would stay. When WorldSBK first went their in 2000 it was only 12 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall and German re-unification and there was still a feeling that we were still visiting the old German Democratic Republic. The restaurants and bars in Magdeburg would close at 8 or 9pm in the evening and if you were lucky, 10pm on Saturday. There was an eerie feeling travelling through such a large town like Magdeburg in the late evening and there was no one around.
The championship itself was in the heart of it’s transitional period after the Japanese manufacturers had withdrawn their support for the series and Pirelli had been installed as the sole tyre supplier. There was only one ‘factory’ team competing in the form of the FILA Ducati squad. The Foggy Petronas team fell into a strange situation in that they were both the race team and the manufacturer but their inclusion in the series was not without controversy and debate over the homologation eligibilty of the FP1 race machine. All other teams were privately run operations with Bertocchi Kawasaki, Ten Kate and Alpha Technik Honda, Zongshen Suzuki amongst those that were not running a Ducati. Of the 26 bikes that took to the grid at Oscherleben in 2004, half of them were Ducatis.
Even before this half way stage of round five of eleven the competiton was inevitably becoming a two horse race between the Fila Ducati riders of Regis Laconi and James Toseland. Laconi came into the German round with a three point lead over his teammate after a double win at Monza. However, in race one was given a ride through penalty following a technical infraction during Free Practice on Saturday. Laconi had crashed and remounted his 999 F04 without having to restart the machine. The regulations at the time required the bike to have a cut off tilt switch that would cut the engine in the event of a crash, for the safety of the riders and the marshalls. This tilt switch was either missing or inoperative on Laconi’s bike and he was handed a ride through penalty for WorldSBK race one. That initially put him down to 16th at the end of lap seven. He recovered to sixth, claimin 10 points, whilst Toseland finished second behind the Renegade Ducati of Noriyuki Haga. Laconi made amends in race two, winning in emphatic style, 21.5 seconds ahead of team-mate Toseland in second. Those two second places however meant that Toseland would leave Oschersleben with a two point advantage in the title race. The title fight would bounce back and forward until the last race in Magny Cours where, at his home race, a tearful Laconi would famously lose the championship to Toseland.
Working at Oschersleben was relatively straight forward. A modern press office made things relatively comfortable and a service road around the complete track meant that access was pretty easy. Photographically I don’t remember it as offering anything spectacular. It is a modern track laid out on former agricultural land so is pretty flat. Maybe that is why I ended up doing a dubiously stereotypical photoshoot for UK publication Motorcycle News.
SBK Journal is Published by Slipstream Media Ltd, PO Box 26532, Glasgow, G74 9FB and its title (SBK Journal) is authorized by DORNA WSBK ORGANIZATION S.R.L. (DWO), with legal domicile at Viale Luca Gaurico no. 9/11, 00143 Rome, Italy and operating headquarters at Via Sudafrica no. 7, 00144 Rome, Italy. No part of this publication may be reproduced in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Slipstream Media Ltd. While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the facts and the data contained in this publication, no responsibility can be accepted by Slipstream Media Ltd or any of the contributors for error or ommissions, or their consequences. ©Slipstream Media Ltd Photography: Graeme Brown Jamie Morris Vaclav Duska Jnr Images ©geebeeimages ©jamiemorrisphotography @wd.jrphoto (WorldSBK) Contributors Graeme Brown Kenny Pryde Tim Allen
Design and Layout: Graeme Brown Jamie Morris Corey J. Coulter v19.07 | 11.19
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Coming Next...... With the 2019 season coming to a complete close everyone involved in SBK Journal would like to thank you for your interest in the magazine over the last seven issues. Our work continues however as we get to grips with the last events of the year, the first winter tests for WorldSBK in Spain at Motorland Aragon and Jerez. It will be the first time we see Scott Redding on the Aruba.it Ducati, Alex Lowes on the all conquering Kawasaki and heading in the other direction, Toprak Razgatlioglu will get his hands on the Pata Yamaha. Also in the Yamaha camp Garrett Gerloff will make his WorldSBK debut with the GRT Junior Yamaha WorldSBK team. The FIM EWC championship carries on at a new venue for the series in Sepang, Malaysia. After all that we can sit back, eat, drink, be merry and wait for Santa Claus to visit. We will be back in January to bring you all the news and images from the WorldSBK tests with a look at the new bikes and liveries for 2020. For the meantime we wish you a very Merry Christmas and peacful and prosperous New Year.
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