I noticed during the last race at Vallelunga that #21 constantly had sparks underneath him at max lean angle. I was thinking to myself that it could be a problem if the rear got lifted under him from grounding out hard parts.

As it turns out, I was right and he crashed on the last lap and finished 16th. That's good for us SBK fans as we get to see this season go to the wire with Troy Corser now 79 points adrift and 100 points on the table.

My question is does anyone know what was grounding out? I would think that the engineers would have taken care of that, or is it a preference of Bayliss' (assuming it was his footpeg)?

 

What did the crash look like? Highside, lowside? He would have know that he was grinding hard parts. They must have left it that way to deal with a setup issue.If sohe overrode the set up and crashed. Happens when racing. I will seach for a clip.

 

Just watched the crash the sparks are from titanium. Not sure what part but it is used as a low friction impact suface.
Troy Bayliss
"I gave it everything I had in the second race and was fighting to pass Haga" he declared. "As I didn't know what was happening behind me, and so had no idea that Michel was about to pass Corser. I'd already decided in the closing stages, with six laps to go, that I was going to try and take Nori and either win or crash because I knew that me finishing second and Corser third wouldn't be enough to take the title and I really wanted to finish the job at Vallelunga. I got close enough but then riding so close to the limit, it only took one tiny thing, either a little bit too much brake or too much lean, and I went down."
http://www.worldsbk.com/pubb_EN/news_ext.php?id=2580

 

Well, his words explain it. BTW it looks to me that he lost the rear.