Radar’s Team Yamaha riders Robbie Baird and Jamie Stauffer swept all four Formula Xtreme races in the opening event of the 2001 Yamaha Xtreme Tri-State Series, held at Sydney’s Eastern Creek Raceway on Sunday, February 18.

According to a press release issued by Radar’s Team Yamaha, Baird won three of the four eight-lap sprint races aboard his Yamaha YZF-R1, with teammate Stauffer awarded victory in race two after on-track-winner Baird was penalized one position and relegated to second. The release did not explain why Baird was penalized.

The release quoted Baird as saying “I’ve never ridden an R1 around here before, so it is a great result to come away with three wins. The result in race two ended well for us as there was a risk of a more severe penalty. I’m very happy with the performance of the bike. The speed, handling and tires produced the ideal package. The conditions were quite hot on the bike all weekend, so I was happy with my fitness level this early in the season. All four races were tight. The others threw out the challenges, but were not as consistent on the day. The track was beginning to get slippery in the afternoon but the tires were up to the task. Craig (Coxhell) had a go a couple of times during the last race, but where I expected him to challenge at turn nine, he wasn’t there.”

The release quoted Stauffer, (who finished fourth in race one, first in race two, fourth in race three and third in race four) as saying “Considering the very limited time that I have had on the bike and being with the team, I am more than pleased with the results from this weekend. It was a bit of an anti-climax to be awarded the win in the second race, so I am looking forward to when I can beat the others fair and square. The bike ran fine, but we’ve still got a bit of work to do to get more drive at the rear. That will come with time on the bike I guess. Being able to be part of the best team racing in Australia at the moment is great and I’m sure that I’ll be able to learn a lot. “

Radar’s Team Yamaha’s Craig Coxhell (who finished second in race one, crashed in race two, finished fifth in race three and finished second in race four), was quoted in the release as saying “Today was a bit of an up-and-down sort of a day. The crash in the second race didn’t help things at all. We were held on the dummy grid for a while
and I think that that allowed the tires to cool too much. I just lost the front on the way into turn four. I got the bike going again, but with two laps to go I was well out of the points, so I brought the bike in to get checked over. As for the other races, they were great. I felt that in the last race I might have had a good chance as I had a new rear tire on and Bairdy had one from the previous race. To his credit, though, he hung on out there.”

Copyright 2001, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

Former Ducati General Manager Massimo Bordi has taken a management position at a tractor factory in Milan and his departure from Ducati was not entirely voluntary, according to sources deep within Ducati.

Bordi, who proved his worth as General Manager when he kept Ducati afloat in the difficult days of 1997 and 1998 immediately after its takeover by Texas Pacific Group, was recently passed over for promotion to CEO in favor of accountant Carlo DiBiagio, a common ploy used to motivate an unwanted excutive to leave. Bordi’s former position at Ducati, General Manager, has now been eliminated.

But why would Ducati want to purge the man who designed the original Desmoquattro and was behind the new Testastretta? Sources close to Ducati and Bordi said that Bordi was the only top man left who was an old-school, nuts-and-bolts motorcycle enthusiast, and that Bordi, an engineer as well as an enthusiast, had increasingly clashed with the marketeers and businessmen who now populate the upper echelons of Ducati management.

Bordi could not be reached for comment prior to post time. An announcement of his new position with the tractor manufacturer is expected next month.

Copyright 2001 Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

The arrival of West and Gauloises as team sponsors means that the majority of top 500cc Grand Prix teams have cigarette backing for the 2001 season. West has come into GPs with the Honda Pons outfit of Alex Barros and Loris Capirossi, while Gauloises is title sponsor of the Tech 3 outfit that runs Olivier Jacque and Shinya Nakano. Those brands join Yamaha’s long-established title sponsor Marlboro, which has backed Max Biaggi and Carlos Checa since 1999, and men like Kenny Roberts the elder, Eddie Lawson, Freddie Spencer and Wayne Rainey in the more distant past.

Last year West sponsored the now-defunct Yamaha World Superbike team and the company also backs the McLaren F1 car outfit. Gauloises was big in bike racing from the 1970s to the early 1990s, enjoying a long involvement with the French Yamaha importers Sonauto. Gauloises came back into GPs last year as associate sponsor of the Red Bull WCM team, an association that has continued into 2001.

Spanish cigarette brand Fortuna has also raised its involvement, buying space on the fairings of the Telefonica Movistar Suzukis of American Kenny Roberts and Spaniard Sete Gibernau, as well as the Telefonica Movistar Honda 250s of Daijiro Katoh and Emilio Alzamora. Fortuna is also a personal sponsor of former 500cc World Champion Alex Criville. And another brand, L&M, has its livery on the fairings of the works Derbi 125s and also on those of Ducati World Superbike man Ben Bostrom.

Tobacco sponsorship is due to be banned in Europe from the end of 2006.

Crews are building a new entry gate at Sonoma, California’s Sears Point Raceway to ease traffic congestion at the existing Gate 1 on State Highway 121. The new Gate 7 will be 80 feet wide with six traffic lanes and a new half-mile-long staging area off Highway 121, allowing officials to move more vehicles off the highway during major events.

A press release announcing the new gate quoted Sears Point Raceway President and General Manager Steve Page as saying “Relieving race-day traffic congestion is one of our fundamental goals. The addition of this new entrance will be a tremendous boon both to Sears Point fans and to folks who are simply traveling through the area on major event days.”

Gate 1 will still be used for credentialed personnel such as racers, crew members and media representatives.

A compromise agreement announced last month between Summit Point Raceway officials and local residents opposed to the Summit Point, West Virginia racetrack’s expansion plans has fallen through. The compromise over track operating hours and sound levels was reached in principle just before a public hearing on the track’s proposed expansion was held January 17. But the two sides have been unable to finalize an agreement and all bets are now off.

The track is seeking permission to build a new 2.0-mile road course in addition to the main course and the school/track-ride course now in operation. The track also wants to build on-site housing for participants in driver training programs for police and federal agency employees.

Opponents have asked for a strict weekday and Saturday curfew, a ban on any racing activities Sunday morning before noon, and draconian sound level restrictions.

Report By David Swarts

Former racer Carry Andrew is poised to return to AMA Pro Racing as a Crew Chief three years after he was banned by Director Of Competition Merrill Vanderslice for repeatedly failing post-race tech inspections with bikes ridden by Nicky Hayden, Jason Pridmore and Mark Miller. Andrew, who has maintained all along that he was unfairly singled out and that he didn’t do anything that other winning AMA teams don’t do, now says he just wants to be able to get on with his life and build and tune race-winning bikes.

Andrew showed up at Willow Springs Sunday, February 18 with Team EBSCO Corona Suzuki’s Vincent Haskovec and Tony “The Tiger” Meiring, Haskovec won the restarted Formula One race after leader Chuck Graves caught a false neutral and ran off in turn one, and Meiring finished second behind Attack Suzuki’s Rich Alexander in 750cc Superstock.

Attack’s Jason Pridmore finished second behind Haskovec in Formula One and also won the 750cc Superbike and 600cc Supersport races.

Aaron Clark led Heavyweight Twins on his Aprilia RSV Mille R until he almost highsided in turn nine, setting off the bike’s tip-over switch, which turned off the ignition. Clark eventually figured it out and got going again, but could not regain the lead.

Aaron Gobert beat older brother Anthony Gobert heads up to win the Hyper Club Formula Two race, the race called by decision at the line. Both rode YZF-R6 Yamahas.

Back in his pit area, Andrew said of his return to AMA racing, “I’m really looking forward to it.”

AMA Pro Racing staffers were directed to reverse new minimum weight requirements that would have guaranteed that only the Ducati 748 and certain works Buells could have been competitive in the Pro Thunder class.

Under the 2001 season weight rules announced in December, Suzuki SV650s and various single-cylinder machines would have been forced to carry as much as 70-100 pounds of ballast, despite already having a displacement and horsepower disadvantage.

Riders who competed on non-Ducatis in 2000 protested the rule change vehemently, and their comments, publicized by Roadracing World and roadracingworld.com, caught the eye of several members of the AMA Pro Racing Board of Directors.

The Directors, already unhappy with the rules-making procedures used by AMA Pro Racing Director of Competition Merrill Vanderslice, ordered that the minimum weight rule be dropped for machines other than Ducati 748s and Buells.

AMA Pro Racing issued a Competition Bulletin, dated February 9, announcing the removal of the minimum weight for those machines.

A key factor in the decision was Directors seeing the raw input from riders, several of whom are long-time AMA members, instead of relying upon an interpretation of that input presented to the Board by AMA Pro Racing staffers. The Board’s interest in seeing the raw input stemmed from the comments published by Roadracing World and roadracingworld.com.

Motorcycle road racing is coming to Albuquerque, New Mexico this spring with events sanctioned by the Sandia Motorcycle Roadracing Association (SMRA) and run at Sandia Motorsports Park. The racetrack, which opened in May, 2000, was built by local car racers and includes a 1.65-mile road course along with 0.4-mile and 1/4-mile paved ovals.

The track is located west of Albuquerque at the top of Nine Mile Hill.

The road course will see motorcycle road racing action starting April 28-29, with additional events scheduled for May 12-13, June 23-24, July 14-15 and August 12.

According to a press release issued by the AMA on February 16, the SMRA is AMA sanctioned and additional information is available from SMRA President Juan Romero at [email protected] or from the SMRA website at www.smra-racing.org.

Ralf Waldmann, who competed in 131 World Championship Grand Prix races with 20 wins and eight pole positions, will test a Honda CBR600F4 Supersport bike with the alpha Technik Castrol Honda team starting tomorrow at Valencia, Spain.

Waldmann is slated to replace injured Adam Ferguson at the tests and in the opening round of the 2001 Supersport World Championship series, scheduled for March 11 at Valencia.

In 2000, Waldmann rode a works Aprilia RSW250 in the 250cc World Championship.