Wrestling with my Honda in the 1990 British Superbike Championship. You can see that I was trying to hang off, but keep my line.
The next corner at Laguna Seca is also banked, one of the few on that circuit where I could actually carry some corner speed. I always found myself catching up in the last part of a lap there. In 1997 I was passing people on every lap in that section and riding it as well as anybody, only to lose the race in the last couple of laps to John Kocinski. The first part of the circuit was a different matter, all about hard braking, sliding in and sliding out. I tried a few times to maintain my corner speed, only to find myself in the dirt. It probably took me a couple of years to figure out that the track just did not suit me. Then it became a matter of trying to hold people off. I probably rode as hard to finish fourth or fifth at Laguna Seca as I did to win somewhere else a couple of weeks later.
Track 3DONINGTON
Great BritainRating: 9“I’m good here and there are large sections which suit my style of riding in carrying corner speed. It’s also very safe and there’s good British support.”
Donington Park has been one big high followed by a big low. I didn’t get off to a good start because in my first race there at a club meeting in 1984, I crashed at Redgate. But it was at Donington that I first realized how much British success meant to all the home fans. In the 1990 Grand Prix, I was pushing too hard at McLeans and came off. The look on the faces of the fans said it all, and I knew I would have to deliver one day.
I also crashed in the first race of the World Superbike round in 1992. I was the leader by three seconds going into Goddards but I tipped the bike over a bit too far in a pathetically slow crash. I tried to get back on before noticing that the footrest had been knocked off. It was a real kick in the teeth because I had just bounced back from a difficult year in 1991. All I could do was slump over the bike and burst out crying. But, typical of Donington, I didn’t have to wait for long before there was a high. I won the second race of the day, the biggest win of my career at that point.
Of course, there was another low on the horizon. In that year’s 500cc British Grand Prix, I was lying fifth on a privateer Harris Yamaha. All of a sudden, going into Redgate, I joined Doug Chandler in the gravel while Kevin Schwantz frantically waved a marshal’s flag to try to get the race stopped. John Kocinski’s bike had expired, spilling coolant on the track. There was nothing I could do about it.
The following year was a similar story. After coming a close second behind Scott Russell in the first race, which was over two legs because some oil had been deposited on the track, I had probably my worst crash at the track in the second race.
It is beginning to sound as though I could never stay on at Donington, but that was the last time I crashed there, although the sequence of highs and lows kept on going. I was in for a big high in 1994, when two World Superbike rounds were held at the circuit. At the start of the season I was first and third, only to be brought back down to earth in the wet at the end of the year when I could only manage 14th and 5th. So now I was due for another high, and it was probably one of the highest points in my whole career when I won both races there in 1995.
The races at Donington in 1996 on the Honda were crap, as they were practically for the whole of the year; with all the fans’ expectations weighing heavily on me, I could only finish ninth and seventh. Things picked up in 1997 when I won my first race back on a Ducati and then my results were bad again the following year. So it was only right that it all ended on an upbeat note when I won in 1999. It was so weird how the results always managed to fit perfectly into that sequence.
This is how, without fate playing a part, I would try to ride the perfect lap there. I’m in fourth gear through the start–finish; I always tried to set the gearing up so that I didn’t have to change up to fifth on that straight, because I didn’t want to have to change down three gears into second for Redgate. This is a good place to pass by going up the inside of another rider and spoiling his line. There are a few different lines into the corner and riders tend to peel in from different angles.
Then it’s hard on the gas as the track drops down through Hollywood and through the Craner Curves section before you hit a heart-stopping downhill left, the fastest corner on the circuit, in fourth gear. It’s a classic spot where people are often caught out. It’s often cold at Donington for a start. That’s normally good news because otherwise the track is hard on the tyres and they can easily overheat, but for the first few laps the tyres aren’t working properly on the left-hand side when you flick it over into that fast bend. In fact, on a 125cc bike you’re flat out all the way through and it’s not much of a corner. I’ve crashed there flat out in fourth gear and I don’t recommended it.
When I crashed there in 1993 I was leading the race – another fall which probably cost me that year’s title. This was a case of the tyres not warming up properly by the third lap. When I threw it to the left, the rear came round on me, so down I went. It flicked me off so quickly that the bike carried on in a straight line. When I stopped sliding, I started to run after the bike but when I got there it was mangled and covered in mud. Having said all that, I’m usually one of the quickest through that section and I’m usually in a position to get up the inside of riders going into the Old Hairpin.
This is a right-hand third-gear corner which is downhill until the apex, when you start to go uphill again and change to fourth. If the bike’s set-up was good I would try and keep it in fourth gear under Starkey’s Bridge, which is a flat-out left-hander for which I might roll the throttle slightly before getting straight back on the gas again. I might just touch the limiter for fourth gear through the long, sweeping Schwantz Curve and into McLeans. It was touch and go whether to change up to fifth, but I always tried to leave it in fourth all the way round Schwantz. My line into McLeans, a second-gear right-hander where the front end is often upset by a few bumps, might be a little bit tighter than the others, as I like to get in early and use the whole of the road on the exit to the corner. Then it’s hard on the gas uphill to Coppice Corner, which is a blind corner on the brow of the hill.
I change up to third well before Coppice and leave it in that gear for the corner. I know a lot of other riders didn’t do that, instead changing up to third halfway round, but I like to keep it smooth. It might mean it’s a bit long through the corner, but by the time I pull out onto the straight I am at maximum revs, right up someone’s backside and can pass them without much of a problem.
Accelerating hard out of the Melbourne Loop at Donington, with so much power that it’s hard to keep the front wheel down during my 40th WSB win – the first back on a Ducati in 1997.
There is a bit of a leap along Starkeys Straight, just as you reach top speed under the bridge before the track drops away. Then it’s back on the brakes as I shift down from fifth to first for the best corner on the track – Fogarty’s! I opened that section in 1999 but I wish it had been called Foggy’s. This was another place where I could pass people, and I was always pretty good on the brakes here. It’s hard to keep the bike stable going into Fogarty’s as the downward slope means that the back end is up in the air. So, again, I leave a small gap between third and second so that it’s not too much all in one go. It’s a pretty straightforward chicane, but you have to be careful not to go too silly on the exit as it’s slightly uphill again, and as you change up to second