International Racing and Personal Problems
In 1994 he raced full-time in the Superbike World Championship for Ducati, taking a race win at Sentul and finishing 7th overall. He returned to the British series in 1995, leading the standings and taking a podium as a World Superbike Championship wild-card at Brands Hatch, but contracted Hodgkin's Disease mid-season. He recovered in time to be British Superbike Championship runner-up in 1996 on a Yamaha, despite not scoring at the first round - he won ten races, twice the number of champion Niall Mackenzie.
He raced for the Harris Suzuki team in the World Superbike Championship in 1997 and 1998, finishing 8th in the championship both seasons with a total of 3 podiums, but for 1999 the factory contract changed hands, and the new owners hired Pierfrancesco Chili and Katsuaki Fujiwara. Worse was to follow when he was hired by Kenny Roberts' uncompetitive Modenas 500cc World Championship team: he crashed heavily at Brno, breaking his pelvis.
Following his win at Donington during 1999 in a one-off appearance, he competed in the Supersport World Championship from 2000 to 2002. He won his very first race in 2000 before a string of crashes (including while leading at Misano)knocked his confidence and relegated him to 8th overall in 2000. He was 4th overall in 2001, forced to support team-mate Paolo Casoli's bid for the championship. In 2002 he won in the wet at Silverstone, before Glaucoma, most likely a consequence of past chemotherapy, caused him to retire at the end of the year. In total he took 4 World Supersport victories and 12 podiums. He held the Supersport lap record at Donington Park until Kenan Sofuoglu beat it in 2007.
Read more about this topic: James Whitham
Famous quotes containing the words racing, personal and/or problems:
“Upscale people are fixated with food simply because they are now able to eat so much of it without getting fat, and the reason they don’t get fat is that they maintain a profligate level of calorie expenditure. The very same people whose evenings begin with melted goat’s cheese ... get up at dawn to run, break for a mid-morning aerobics class, and watch the evening news while racing on a stationary bicycle.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
“The secret point of money and power in America is neither the things that money can buy nor power for power’s sake ... but absolute personal freedom, mobility, privacy. It is the instinct which drove America to the Pacific, all through the nineteenth century, the desire to be able to find a restaurant open in case you want a sandwich, to be a free agent, live by one’s own rules.”
—Joan Didion (b. 1934)
“It’s so easy during those first few months to think that the problems will never end. You feel as if your son will never sleep through the night, will always spit up food after eating, and will never learn to smile—even though you don’t know any adults or even older children who still act this way.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)