World Superbike 2004 - Round 1 - Valencia - Friday Qualifying

Troy Corser didn't push hard on the first day of qualifying, but still managed to end the day with a provisional second row grid position - and the first non-Ducati rider. Despite the sunshine in the morning session, the temperature only hovered round the two degree centigrade mark, but in the afternoon, the wind blew strongly and hindered any substantial improvement in the lap times. Factory Ducati rider Regis Laconi ended the day on provisional pole, with a time of 1:36.323, followed by his team mate James Toseland. Third was Steve Martin, with Noriyuki Haga fourth - both Ducati-mounted.

Troy - 7th, 1m37.254 - "Today we didn't actually spend too much time trying different tyres because we found what we thought were the best ones almost straightaway. So we then worked a lot with the rear pivot point and also on a variety of rear shocks. Basically we are trying to improve rear grip at the moment, but at the moment we are having to make a compromise on the set up, so we can have good grip, but with less chatter. This afternoon everybody was on qualifiers and went more quickly, but I couldn't get my qualifiers to work and go any quicker then on standard race rubber. When I tried the qualifiers, the bike suffered from more chatter then the race rubber! The wind was a bit of a problem in the afternoon and it was very, very cold. Hopefully, conditions will be better tomorrow and I'm sure we'll go a lot quicker."

The new USB Power Commander is already available for the ZX-10R, as is a powershifter