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.

American Honda has recalled all 2000 and 2001 CBR929RR models for a potential problem with the clutch. Honda is sending letters to CBR929RR owners informing them of the problem and instructing them to take their bike to a Honda dealer for repairs.

Slipping the clutch at high rpm to make a racing start can cause a clutch plate chatter that in turn can cause the clutch outer basket to fail with several large sections of the outer basket cracking and breaking off. The chatter can also cause the clutch actuation shaft to crack and/or break at its machined end.

Under the recall, dealers will replace the clutch outer basket, the bottom fiber clutch plate, the damper spring and damper spring seat that fit between the bottom fiber clutch plate and the clutch basket, and the clutch actuation lever/shaft assembly, free of charge.

Affected units include all 2000 CBR929RRs and 2001-model CBR929RR/REs with the following serial numbers:

JH2SC440*1M100001 to JH2SC440*1M103117
JH2SC441*1M100001 to JH2SC441*1M100434
JH2SC443*1M100001 to JH2SC443*1M101150
JH2SC444*1M100001 to JH2SC444*1M100126.

Attack Suzuki’s Jason Pridmore is slated to ride in the 24-Hours of Le Mans Endurance World Championship race with the reigning World Endurance Champions Phase One Endurance. In a February 15th call to Roadracing World, Pridmore said, ” It just got confirmed yesterday. I’m confirmed and committed for the Le Mans 24-hour. I raced for (Phase One) in ’97 at the Bol d’Or. We’ve just kept in touch with each other over the years, and they’re a great group of guys. This year I was able to put a package together with them to where I can go over and do it. I might go do four other rounds that I could do on top of Le Mans that don’t conflict with AMA races. The ones that don’t conflict are Le Mans, Nurburgring, Spa, Oschersleben, and Suzuka. Suzuka is one of the others that I’d really like to do. Then if Willow was to get canceled, the Bol D’Or is that same weekend .So I might go do that if Willow gets canceled.

“I’m going to take Shogun Motorsports with me (as a sponsor). They jumped in and wanted to be a part of it. That’s another reason why I wanted to do it. They have a team over here, and Brooks Gremmels is a big sponsor of our school. He’s really made our schools what they are over the last two or three years. When I mentioned this to him he was like, ‘How can I get involved?'”

Originally, Phase One had announced that 1995 Endurance World Champion Stephane Mertens was riding for the team. “I think Stephan went to Suzuki France,” explained Pridmore. “(PhaseOne) called me at the beginning of last week to see if I would be interested, and I said that I would be interested. The other big reason I wanted to do it is because we haven’t had much time to test this (Attack Suzuki) Formula Xtreme bike. And they are going to be running a GSX-R1000 on Ohlins suspension on Dunlop tires which is what I’m running over here. I thought it would be cool to get some time on the bike. I want to make sure that when we go to Sears Point (the first AMA Formula Xtreme round) that I’m ready to do the business on the bike.”

Having ridden in a World Endurance race before Pridmore is looking forward to the crowds. ” It’s sick how many people they get for that event. We can’t get them to come out for a sprint race here. It was the same way when I went to the Bol d’Or. It was this humongous spectacle. It was just incredible. I was going down the Mistral straightaway and there were so many barbeques that the smoke going across the track made it a little scary. The enthusiasm and everything about it is just incredible. But I wouldn’t do it with just any team. (Phase One is) a great team. I want to go over and win races for them this year. It should be cool.”

After an engine failure relegated the team to 23rd overall and ninth in class at the 2000 Le Mans race, Phase One went on to win the Championship with a Suzuki GSX-R750. Phase One will compete in 2001 on a Suzuki GSX-R1000 for Suzuki Great Britain. Suzuki has won three of the last four world endurance titles. Phase One’s website, www.phaseone.co.uk lists Aussie Warwick Nowland and Swede Peter Linden returning to the Russell Benney-led squad with 1997 AMA 750cc Supersport Champion Pridmore.

Son of former AMA Superbike Champion Reg Pridmore, Jason’s early years in racing included plenty of WERA endurance races. “I did the Willow 24-hour a few times, and I did the Nelson Ledges 24-hour a few times. Oh man, that was ugly, Nelson Ledges,” remembered Pridmore.