Race News from Around the World, April 2004 c/o mcnews

Australian Superbike 2004 - TV Schedule

Round(s) Location Channel TEN Coverage
1 Eastern Creek April 11, 1.30pm
1 Eastern Creek May 9, 12.30pm
3 Winton (Vic) May 30, 12.30pm
4 Wanneroo (WA) July 11, 12.30pm
5 Mallala (SA) July 18, 12.30pm
4&5 Wanneroo & Mallala August 8, 12.30pm
6 Queensland Raceway August 22, 12.30pm
6 Queensland Raceway September 26, 12.30pm
7 Phillip Island (Vic) October 3, 12.30
7 Phillip Island November 14, 12.30pm.

News, Apr 5. Honda have set the price for the new CBR1000RR Fireblade at $18,790.

Mat Mladin - The record breaker, April 7^th, 2004.

Australia's four times American Superbike champion Mat Mladin has added his name to the record books once again after victory in the weekend's third round of the AMA Chevrolet Superbike Championship at California Speedway in Fontana earned him his twenty-seventh AMA Superbike race win; the most by any rider in the history of the series.

News, Apr 10. Anthony Gobert's future could possibly be under a cloud again after recently being charged with a low level DUI offence.

World Endurance 2004 - Round 1 – Assen, April 13^th, 2004.

Team Suzuki Castrol leads the World Endurance Championship after a sensational season-opening victory in Assen in Holland. French Suzuki Endurance Racing Team riders Vincent Philippe, Olivier Four and Mathieu Lagrive, racing the new GSX-R1000, clinched the 129-lap, 500km race by 28 seconds from the Yamaha GMT94 squad of William Costes, Frederic Jond and Stephane Duterne after a long, hard battle that saw many lead changes and the lap record shattered by almost two seconds.

World Superbike 2004 - Round 3 - Misano - Superbike Race 1, April 18^th, 2004.

Problems for Steve Martin before the race even got underway this time around with his machine refusing to fire and keep running. All the riders went out on their warm up lap but Steve was left wondering what he had done in a previous life to deserve this. Two possible wins robbed from him due to engine failures and this time it fails before he even gets to start. But thankfully his machine finally burst in to life and allowed the South Australian to take his position at the front of the grid at a damp Misano circuit.

At the end of the first lap though it was Troy Corser who held the advantage from Pierfrancesco Chili, Chris Walker, Mauro Sanchini and Steve Martin.  But Corser was pulling away hand over fist out in front and had built a two-second lead after only two laps. The order remained that way for the first half of the race save for the fact that Sanchini moved past Chili for second place and Laconi had started a march forward by going past Martin and Walker and started to close on Chili and Sanchini. Laconi then started to chase down Corser, narrowing his lead from 3.5 seconds to 2.5 seconds in only a couple of laps. 

Vermeulen was running seventh after pushing Steve Martin down to eighth at half race distance.  McCoy crashed out. Laconi hit the front a few laps later while Sanchini crashed out of third place on the Kawasaki ZX-10R. Then with a few laps to run the rain started to fall and the red flag came out to declare the race result.  Hard to have an exciting race under the damp conditions that were present even before the race got underway. The podium presentation was then carried out in pouring rain.

Race 1 Results	Race 2 Results	Championship Points	Manufacturer Points
Laconi Corser Chili Haga Vermeulen Walker Martin Nannelli Bontempi Toseland Haslam Clementi Velini Sala Liverani De Matteis Zannini	Chili Laconi Martin Haga Haslam Toseland Corser Pedercini Pini Borciani Sanchini Vermeulen Walker Liverani Bontempi Mrkyvka McCoy	Chili 97 Toseland 77 Laconi 70 Vermeulen 70 Haga 69 McCoy 55 Martin 54 Walker 52 Borciani 49 Corser 48 Haslam 40 Sanchini 32	Ducati 150 Petronas 71 Honda 70 Kawasaki 36 Suzuki 32 Yamaha 16

MotoGP 2004 - Round 1 - Welkom - MotoGP Race, April 18^th, 2004.  

Biaggi sets a new lap record on lap 17 with a 1m33.258, just one lap after Rossi had broken the record Biaggi set early in the race.  These two both want to win, I can't see any quarter being given, it looks as though it will come down to the final lap and the final turns.  Gibernau couldn't hack the pace, drifting backwards from the leading duo.

The second slowest circuit on the calendar but no shortage of fast paced excitement in the closing laps as Biaggi led from Rossi, but the pair still nose-to-tail as they started to encounter a little lapped traffic. Rossi trying very hard now, he runs under Biaggi and purposely forced Biaggi very wide, but Rossi managed to get it turned and hard on the gas to maintain the advantage, quite a feat in itself.

Rossi then pulled a couple of bike lengths over Biaggi as they negotiated the penultimate lap.  Rossi maintained the advantage throughout the first two-thirds of the final lap as they hit the back straight, and Rossi maintains it through the final third of the lap to take the win.  Unbelievable.

Biaggi set the fastest lap of the race on that final lap.  Rossi parks his machine next to a tyre wall, sits down for a few seconds before performing a couple of smokies for the crowd on his way back to the pits.

MotoGP Race 1 Results	MotoGP Championship Points
Rossi Biaggi Gibernau Barros Hayden Capirossi Edwards Tamada Abe Checa Melandri Nakano Hopkins Bayliss Byrne McWilliams Aoki Fabrizio	Rossi 25 Biaggi 20 Gibernau 16 Barros 13 Hayden 11 Capirossi 10