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RACE WATCH

Corser wins WSB; Russell returns

In claiming the 1996 World Superbike title, 25-year-old Troy Corser became the youngest rider to do so and the only Aussie champion in the series' nine-year history.

Moving steadily from the 1993 Australian Superbike title, then to the 1994 AMA Superbike championship to the WSB crown, Corser now has his sights set on the 500cc grand prix arena, where he is considering a Yamaha factory ride. Hero of the last event, however, was fellow Aussie Anthony Gobert, who won the final two races of his Superbike ca reer. He's also moving to 500s, hav ing inked a deal with the Lucky Strike Suzuki squad.

Where does that leave Scott Rus sell? After declining an offer to ride the French Elf 500, he has decided to go back to WSB. The former U.S. and World Superbike champion secured a deal to ride Yamahas alongside Cohn Edwards, creating an American su perteam. In typical fashion, Russell was nonchalant about the switch. "Grand prix was okay, but I want to come back and win this champi onship again," he said.

Yamaha moves in-house' Muzzy stays home

Yamaha is taking its U.S. roadracing efforts in-house this season, ending a seven-year relationship with Vance & Hines that netted one Superbike and two supersport championships. Yama ha's Larry Griffis says the move will allow his department to work more closely with the factory on racebike development.

Former team owner Terry Vance wasn't surprised at Yamaha's move. He says, "When I won both drag-rac ing championships for Suzuki in 1983, they pulled the plug for `84." Vance cited Yamaha's need to cut costs as its primary motivation for moving the team in-house.

Griffis disagrees. "To compete at the top level, it doesn't matter if you're in-house or working with an outside contractor," he says. "The costs are about the same."

Griffis confirmed that Yamaha has signed 1995 AMA 750cc Supersport Champion Tom Kipp to ride a YZF75OR in Superbike and the new YZF600R in supersport. Jamie James, however, was not re-hired. "I'm really hurt more than anything at the way things came down," says the 35-yearold former champion, who is current ly unemployed. "There comes a time when you wonder if it's all worth it."

Meanwhile, Rob Muzzy confirmed that he will disband his World Superbike squad to concentrate on his Kawasaki-backed U.S. team. "It's a big relief for me," he says. "The de mands of World Superbike took 80 percent of my personal time, leaving only 20 percent to run a U.S. team, a business and a home."

Muzzy says he is looking forward to the change: "I'm good at development, but I haven't been able to do much since 1993 because we relinquished that to Kawasaki. Engineering got more involved, and I pulled back to work on the day-to-day administration, logistics, budgets and all that crap."

America's only world champion

in winning the World Individual Speedway title, Southern California's Billy Hamill became our only world champion this season.

When he left the States at the age of 19, Hamill sought to join Jack Mime, Bruce Penhall and Sam Ermolenko as the only world individual speedway champions to hail from America. Six years later, he rose to the occasion.

Hamill was 9 points down in the standings coming into the final round of the six-race series, held in Denmark. Hamill won four out of five qualifiers to make the "A Final." Defending champion Hans Nielsen went winless until the "B Final," which meant Hamill needed to win the main event to clinch his first championship. The great Dane could only watch his title fade away as Hamill led Brit charger Mark Loram and Americans Greg Hancock and Ermolenko across the finish line in the last heat of the season.

Although he sat out of the national finals, Hamill will be home for the off-season. He says U.S. speedway is stagnant. "We haven't produced a ton of talent lately. You have the top guys from 10 years ago still winning today. Hopefully, my accomplishments will inspire future champions."

Doohan to Superbikes?

Speculation in the GP paddock has three-time 500cc World Champion Mick Doohan switching to Superbike competition in 1998, possibly on a new-yet-unannounced Honda V-Four. The 31-year-old Aussie hasn't jumped ship yet, though. "I'll take it year by year," he says. "If I get bored in this paddock, perhaps I might go to Super bikes, just to do something different."

At the moment, Doohan is happy racing GPs. "The racing's closer than it's been in a long time," he says. "The thinking side isn't as deep as it used to be. A lot of guys can run fast, but it's hard for them to take that next step. Next year, there's a few Superbike guys coming in. They should throw a few spanners into the works."