A runaway dump truck nearly ran over New Hampshire International Speedway Motorcycle Safety Director Jerry Wood last Wednesday, but AMA Superbike Champion Mat Mladin was not involved.

According to Wood, who is currently on crutches after blowing out a knee while trail-riding with one of his sons, he was working on his property in Maine when the dump truck’s parking brake failed and the truck rolled forward unexpectedly.

Wood, who was standing in front of the running dump truck, managed to jump mostly out of the way with his crutches but was hit on one elbow by the runaway truck.

The truck continued down a hill and into a ditch, where it stopped without hitting anything or anyone else.

At the time of the incident, Mladin was traveling via motorhome to his home in California, after attending the AMA Superbike National at Brainerd, and thus could not be implicated in any conspiracy involving the dump truck.

Despite Mladin’s alibi, several fans who had attended the June AMA National at Loudon immediately issued a statement blaming Mladin for the incident, alledging that the dump truck belonged to the America Mladin Association and was following Mladin’s orders when it came close to squashing Wood.

“I’d like to open a dialog with Mladin,” said Wood afterwards. “He has some valid points and I hope we can somehow reach an understanding and work together, putting aside our past disagreements. We just need to get beyond the personal attacks and name-calling, and work to make things better for everyone. All I want to do is advance motorcycle racing in the Northeast and make our track as good as it can be, and I am always open to constructive criticism.”

Special Editorial Note For The Humorless: Yes, this is satire, although the dump truck did nearly roll over Wood, and although Wood says he is genuinely interested in opening up a constructive dialog with Mladin and/or any other interested AMA riders.

Vesrah Suzuki led the first hour of the WERA National Endurance Series 6-hour at Summit Point Raceway Saturday. The race was red-flagged twice in the first hour, the first time for 10 minutes after just three laps had been completed, and the second time for 35 minutes to end the first hour.

At the end of hour one, Vesrah led Loudoun #1, Loudoun #2, Ridge Racing and Team Pennzoil, all with 17 laps.

In other endurance news, Jeff Nash replaced Brian Stokes on the Army of Darkness GSX-R600, after Stokes collided with another rider in practice and suffered a broken foot. Nash is at Summit Point to compete in the AMA Pro Thunder race held in conjunction with the WERA National.

From a press release issued today by Vesrah Suzuki:

Former Formula USA National Champion and multi-time WERA Endurance Champion Tray Batey has agreed to join Team Vesrah Suzuki for the remaining four rounds of the WERA National Endurance Series. Batey is filling in for the injured Glenn Szarek and will remain with the team when Szarek returns.

Batey’s long list of racing accomplishments include the 1996 Formula USA Championship, several WERA National Endurance Championships as a member of Team Suzuki Endurance and Arclight Suzuki and the 2000 TL1000 Suzuki Cup, WERA F1, Open Superstock and Heavyweight Twins titles. This season he has been competing in the Formula USA series on an Aprilia RSV1000 Mille.

Batey was contacted after Glenn Szarek was injured during a sprint race at Virginia International Raceway. Szarek sustained a serious concussion and his return date is still unknown although he is making a strong recovery. Team Vesrah Suzuki currently leads the WERA National Endurance championship by 5 points heading into this weekend’s round at Summit Point Raceway.

Valentino Rossi was fastest in practice for the Suzuka 8-Hour in Suzuka, Japan on Friday, turning a best time of 2:07.349 on a Honda RC51. Makoto Tamada was second-fastest at 2:07.597 on another RC51, followed by Suzuki’s Akira Ryo at 2:07.783 and Tamada’s teammate Tohru Ukawa at 2:07.894.

Leading Superbike teams include:
Tohru Ukawa/Daijiro Katoh/Makoto Tamada (Honda) with an average time of 2:07.812
Valentino Rossi/Colin Edwards/Shinichi Ito (Honda) with an average time of 2:08.240
Akira Ryo/Kagayama/Watanabe (Suzuki) with an average time of 2:08.335
Tadayuki Okada/Alex Barros/Manabu Kamada (Honda) with an average time of 2:08.353
Akira Yanagawa/Hito Izutsu (Kawasaki) with an average time of 2:08.512
Takeda/Yamaguchi (Honda) with an average time of 2:08.640
Noriyuki Haga/Anthony Gobert (Yamaha) with an average time of 2:09.106
T. Serizawa/Gregorio Lavilla/Ian MacPherson (Kawasaki) with an average time of 2:09.239

The leading SuperProduction teams were:
Deguchi/Giles/Kawase (Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R1000) with an average time of 2:10.211
Kitagawa/Arakaki/Toda (Suzuki GSX-R1000) with an average time of 2:10.416

Selected individual rider times follow:

Valentino Rossi, Honda RC51, 2:07.349
Akira Ryo, Suzuki GSX-R750, 2:07.783
Tohru Ukawa, Honda RC51, 2:07.894
Y. Kagayama, Suzuki GSX-R750, 2:07.983
Makoto Tamada, Honda RC51, 2:07.597
Tadayuki Okada, Honda RC51, 2:07.910
Daijiro Katoh, Honda RC51, 2:07.946
T. Yamaguchi, Honda RC51, 2:08.189
Alex Barros, Honda RC51, 2:08.327
Akira Yamagawa, Kawasaki ZX-7RR, 2:08.497
Hito Izutsu, Kawasaki ZX-7RR, 2:08.527
W. Yoshikawa, Yamaha YZF-R7, 2:08.573
T. Serizawa, Kawasaki ZX-7RR, 2:08.604
K. Kitagawa, Suzuki GSX-R1000, 2:08.608
Shinichi Ito, Honda RC51, 2:08.683
Colin Edwards, Honda RC51, 2:08.689
O. Deguchi, Suzuki GSX-R1000, 2:08.693
Gregorio Lavilla, Kawasaki ZX-7RR, 2:08.696
Naoki Matsudo, Yamaha YZF-R7, 2:08.709
M. Kamada, Honda RC51, 2:08.823
Anthony Gobert, Yamaha YZF-R7, 2:09.086
Y. Takeda, Honda RC51, 2:09.092
Noriyuki Haga, Yamaha YZF-R7, 2:09.127
A. Watanabe, Suzuki GSX-R750, 2:09.239
O. Nishijima, Kawasaki ZX-7RR, 2:09.711
Sean Giles, Suzuki GSX-R1000, 2:09.838
T. Arakaki, Suzuki GSX-R1000, 2:09.884
R. Tsuruta, Kawasaki ZX-7RR, 2:10.051
D. Sakai, Honda RC51, 2:10.118
Ian MacPherson, Kawasaki ZX-7RR, 2:10.418
T. Hamaguchi, Moriwaki Honda RC51, 2:10.604
M. Maruyama, Honda RC51, 2:10.662
Stephane Mertens, Suzuki GSX-R1000, 2:11.342
T. Honma, Yamaha YZF-R7, 2:11.598
K. Hasegawa, Honda RC51, 2:11.921
H. Kawase, Suzuki GSX-R1000, 2:12.104
T. Toda, Suzuki GSX-R1000, 2:12.756
Michael Barnes, Suzuki GSX-R1000, 2:14.025
K. Kosaka, Suzuki GSX-R1000m 2:14.528

Tony Bell, husband/tuner of road racer Vicky Jackson-Bell and co-owner of Spectrum Motorsports in Lake Forest, California, became a U.S. citizen on July 8, in Pomona, California.

Bell participated in a mass swearing-in, one of two held on the day, each producing 3500 new U.S. citizens originally from 93 foreign countries.

Bell, originally a British citizen, first came to U.S. 16 years ago as a legal alien, with a green card.

Bell’s son, Christopher, was born in the U.S. 8 years ago and holds dual citizenship. Vicky Jackson-Bell is a British citizen with a green card, and is in the process of gaining her U.S. citizenship as well.

Copyright 2001, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

By Glenn LeSanto

Former Superbike World Champions Carl Fogarty and Troy Corser got the ride of their lives after the Brands Hatch round of the World Superbike Championship, courtesy of the Royal Air Force. The pair met up at the RAF base at Scampton in Lincolnshire, England to go up with the RAF aeronautical team, The Red Arrows.

Corser is a keen flyer, well on his way to getting his own pilot’s license, but Fogarty is less keen on airplanes. “I worry about mechanical failure,” said a nervous-looking Fogarty before climbing into the cramped cockpit of a twin-seat Hawk trainer jet. The pair took to the air riding pillion in the Hawks, with full-time stunt pilots at the stick. British television’s Suzi Perry, who covers the Superbike Championship for BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) TV, joined the pair on the mission.

The three were taken through a full range of stunts, including barrel rolls, loop-the-loops and vertical climbs and dives. When they landed, Fogarty was still grinning and hadn’t needed to reach for the barf bag. “It was great,” enthused Fogarty. “When we were banking I was sticking my knee out like on a bike – it’s been that long since I raced!”

Corser urged his pilot to keep them up for longer and even took control of the jet to perform some maneuvers. “He’s a natural,” said Flight Lieutenant Justin Hughes afterwards.

“The acceleration didn’t feel much harder than on my RSV,” said Corser. “But the speed of the turns and rolls is awesome, it’s so responsive.”

Perry didn’t take to stunting quite so well. Her pilot landed his jet early in order to save the commentator the embarrassment of bringing her breakfast up in mid flight. She looked decidedly green when she eased herself out of the ejector seat.

Benelli’s press releases from last weekend’s World Superbike race at Brands Hatch:

Friday:
Technical problems hit the Benelli in first qualifying. Minor technical problems held Peter Goddard and the Benelli Tornado back this afternoon in first qualifying for the European round of the World Superbike Championship at Brands Hatch. The team had two bikes set up differently to try out contrasting settings. Unfortunately the bike that turned out to have the best set-up was the one that developed the problems, forcing Goddard to go out on the second bike with his qualifying tyre as the session drew to a close.

“The motor let us down on the number one bike,” explained Goddard. “The gearing and suspension were wrong on the number two bike – so I wasted my qualifying tyre.”

The team, still in its maiden World Superbike season, have had very little time since the bikes returned home from Laguna Seca. “There’s only really been time for basic maintenance work,” said Goddard, “rather than any major changes.” Despite the teething problems Goddard is enjoying riding the new Benelli, “The great thing about it is that it works really well straight out of the box, wherever we take it. It handles well and it’s a great bike to ride, but we need to work on getting the power up and the weight down.”

Benelli Sport Team manager Max Zani echoed Goddard’s sentiments; “Technical problems have halted our progress today. But we are already working on the bikes and tomorrow we will have both Tornados set up properly and hopefully we’ll have sorted the problems we experienced on the number one machine.”

Goddard said that with the bike set up right he was confident that he could get higher up the time sheet, “I think I can get up to at least 20th in qualifying and even higher in the race.” Circuit knowledge is all-important at Brands Hatch and Goddard has an advantage over some riders there. He’s ridden at Brands many times before in both the World and the British Superbike championships. “I love the track,” said Goddard, “Although there are still a couple of places where the barriers are too close for comfort, Brands is a rider’s circuit and a lot of fun to race on.”

Peter Goddard and the Benelli Tornado finished today’s timed qualifying in 27th position, with a time of 1:29.355.

Saturday:
Benelli Sport on a steep learning curve at Brands Hatch. The Benelli Sport racing team entered the World Superbike Championship to develop the brand new Tornado Superbike. They knew it would be tough and they knew that racing would bring many valuable, and tough, lessons. It’s proved to be every bit as hard as they expected and at each round the team have been given plenty of lessons. After the elation of scoring their first World Superbike Championship point at the last round in Laguna Seca the team have been returned to reality as niggling reliability problems blocked rider Peter Goddard’s efforts to qualify for the Superpole. The team ended up 27th on the time sheet after final qualifying.

“We’ve been experiencing problems that we hadn’t expected,” commented team owner Andrea Merloni. “But we came to Superbike racing for experience and that’s exactly what we’ve been getting. Some of the problems we’ve had this weekend have been unexpected, and we will have lots of work to do after this weekend. But we are achieving exactly what we came here to do, but I hope we can score more points on Sunday.”

Peter Goddard was upbeat about his chances in the race, “The aim tomorrow is to finish and score some more championship points,” he said. “Our lap times on race tyres here have been almost as fast as when we put the qualifying tyres on, so that’s encouraging for tomorrow. We have a good base setting for the Benelli now and we haven’t had to make too many changes from the set-up we ran at Laguna. This weekend our problem has been engine reliability. I had an engine failure in both qualifying sessions which cost us track time, and that’s important with a new bike. The bikes are running consistently high rpm at this track so it’s hard on the engines around here. There is also a lot of hard braking. Hopefully we have better reliability in the races because everything else is working well. Since we first raced the bike at Misano there hasn’t been a lot of time for development, especially with the travel getting to America and back. After this weekend there’s a longer break so we are looking forward to trying some new things later in the season to keep improving. I think we can work our way forward in the races tomorrow, like we did at Laguna, and hopefully we can be in the points. As usual British wildcard riders are going fast on their ‘home’ track so if we get in the points it will be a very good result. The weather has been hot and the track is a little more slippery than usual.”

Final qualifying result:
Grid Position 27. Peter Goddard (Australia) Benelli Sport Tornado, 1:28.896

Sunday:
Benelli Sport add to the World Superbike Championship points tally.

The Benelli Tornado Superbike took one more step forward this weekend when Peter Goddard finished 13th in the first race at Brands Hatch. Peter Goddard had a brilliant ride in the first race to score three more Superbike World Championship points.

The team had struggled with niggling technical problems all weekend, which had hampered their progress in qualifying. Despite starting from back on the seventh row, Goddard had made great progress when race one was red-flagged after an incident involving Wild Card rider James Haydon. Goddard was up in 16th when the race was stopped.

“When they stopped the race it helped me because it meant I was on the fourth row for the restart,” said Goddard, “That made things a lot better than being on the seventh row after qualifying.”

At the end of the race Goddard was having a great dice with factory Honda rider Tady Okada and actually beat the ex-GP rider on the track. But Okada had done just enough to win the battle on aggregate time and took 12th position in the results.

In the second race Goddard again had a chance to try the Benelli Tornado out in close quarters with other riders.

“I got into some close racing with other bikes,” said Goddard, “and it’s valuable for us to be able to compare the Benelli with them in these situations. In race trim we’re a lot closer to the others than we seem to be in qualifying. The bike handles really well and it’s fun to ride. Right now our priority is finding more acceleration and horsepower, but engine development is not a simple thing. I’ll be staying in Europe for the Summer break until we start racing again. We’re hoping to do some more testing.” Goddard finished race two just outside the points in 16th position.

Team owner Andrea Merloni was delighted with the weekend’s achievements. “I am very happy!” he said. “Qualifying wasn’t easy, we had so many problems. But we got them all sorted in time for the race and Peter Goddard scored more championship points for Benelli. Now we have to go home and try to work out fixes to the problems. We managed to work around them here in Brands Hatch but our intention is to work out proper engineering and technical solutions. We have a month before the next race but we also have to give the team a holiday, they have worked so hard and they deserve a rest.”

The Benelli Tornado will race again in the World Superbike Championship at Oschersleben on September 2nd.

At this weekend’s Suzuka 8-Hour, famous rider pairings on works Superbike include the following:

Colin Edwards/Valentino Rossi, Honda RC51

Tohru Ukawa/Daijiro Katoh, Honda RC51

Alex Barros/Makoto Tamada, Honda RC51

Noriyuki Haga/Anthony Gobert, Yamaha YZF-R7

Akira Yanagawa/Hotiyasu Izutsu, Kawasaki ZX-7RR

Gregorio Lavilla/Tamaki Serizawa, Kawasaki ZX-7RR

Akira Ryo/Yukio Kagayama, Suzuki GSX-R750


Expected front-runners in the SuperProduction class include two regulars from the Endurance World Championship Series, as well as one America team:

Whirley Phase One, Igor Jerman/Tony Rees, Suzuki GSX-R1000

Zongshen, Stephane Mertens/Warwick Nowland, Suzuki GSX-R1000

Hooters Suzuki, Mike Ciccotto/Michael Barnes, Suzuki GSX-R1000