World Superbike 2004 - Round 1

The 2004 World Superbike Championship swings in to action this weekend at Valencia.

Late last year some doubts were lingering as to how the 2004 season would shape up with many of the top factories officially withdrawing their support from the series. This stemmed from a new control tyre rule enforced by series organisers. However, I am pleased to say even with the ‘official’ withdrawal of some factories, the championship is shaping up very well indeed.

As you would expect, Ducati are the strong favourites with an excellent line-up of riders including Australia’s own Steve Martin and Garry McCoy. All teams recently attended a three day test at Valencia and there it was France’s Regis Laconi who narrowly edged out Steve Martin at the top of the timesheets.

Martin has been held back in recent years by the shortcomings of his Pirelli slicks. But with the whole field on a Pirelli control tyre for 2004 he is champing at the bit to get out there and prove himself now that he is finally on a more equal footing to the rest of the field. So far Laconi has been the only man quicker, the Frenchman’s machine is a full factory 999 F04, while Martin is on a customer specification 999 RS.

Also figuring strongly for Ducati were James Toseland and Leon Haslam. Garry McCoy was coming back from injury and only pushed hard enough for 14th quickest at the test.

Only two Kawasaki machines are expected to take to the grid next weekend at the hands of Mauro Sanchini and Ivan Clementi, this pair put in some good time at Valencia during testing.

Yamaha field an unexciting two rider effort with Alessio Velini and Horst Saiger taking their place at the end of the timesheets after a recent three day test at Valencia.

Suzuki have three machines in the field with ex World Endurance Champion Warwick Nowland (AUS) moving to the World Superbike Championship for 2004. Piergiorgio Bontempi and Sergio Fuertes will ride the remaining two GSX-R1000 machines.

While Honda are not ‘officially’ fielding a factory effort they will definitely be in the hunt with World Supersport Champion Chris Vermeulen (AUS) taking the reigns of a Ten Kate prepared CBR1000RR Fireblade.

Another Australian sure to figure strongly will be 1996 (yes it was that long ago) World Superbike Champion Troy Corser, the Wollongong local figuring strongly on the Foggy Petronas machine during recent testing.

While Australia has an impressive presence in the World Superbike field, we have an even stronger showing in the World Supersport Championship for 600cc production machines.

Gold Coast resident Karl Muggeridge topped the supersport timesheets during testing from fellow Honda pilot Sebastien Charpentier. Third and fourth quickest were a couple of Newcastle’s finest exports, Broc Parkes and Kevin Curtain.

This stellar line-up saw Australia fill three out of the top four spots on the timesheets as the Valencia test drew to a close. Honda filled the top three, while Curtain declared himself the top Yamaha runner with fourth overall.

The World Superbike and World Supersport Championships will not be shown on free to air television in Australia this year but Foxtel will again provide live coverage which kicks off at 9:30pm in Sydney and Melbourne next Sunday night on Fox Sports One. 6:30pm in Western Australia.

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