World Superbike seems to be the championship series with all the surprises this year. Noriyuki Haga’s suspension — and then his appeal; the emergence of Troy Bayliss as a top rider; and so on. Now, Carl Fogarty’s broken arm will apparently keep him out of the WSB championship for the rest of the year, according to several reports and an interview published on another web site.
Fogarty, the four-time WSB champion, might even retire — although that appears less likely.
Meanwhile, Bimota has withdrawn from competition for the time being — with some indication that it is having trouble meeting FIM homologation standards for its SB8R Superbike model. Where does this leave Anthony Gobert? For the time being, without a ride. Gobert will land with another team, however, you can bank on it.
With his surprise victory at Philip Island, Australia earlier this year (okay, it was in the rain, and he had the right tires), other factories are looking at Gobert to fill vacant spots … most notably, Kawasaki. Gobert won WSB races on a Kawasaki several years ago (indeed, the same model currently raced by Kawasaki … albeit in an earlier phase of development).
But if Gobert doesn’t land with Kawasaki, expect him to show up somewhere — he hasn’t pissed off every factory, yet. It’s a good bet he won’t be with either Ducati or Suzuki, however.
