For the record, the Ducati 999 Superbike is no slouch as a race bike. Fast, sleek and svelte the latest V-twin from the fabled Italian company which boasts the names Taglioni, Bordi and Farne in its lineage is certainly a more complete package Superbike than its 955-998 predecessor, which always seemed to be one half new technology and one half old tech most of the time, in my eyes anyway.

The 999 Superbike is many things, but, again, to my eyes, the new factory machine seems to lack the off-corner snap, the stump-pulling grunt, of the 998 Superbike, at least the one raced in US superbike this year seems to. The machines manned by Carl Fogarty and Troy Corser in the late 1990s had a ferocity exiting the corner that these factory Ducatis do not. And, conversely, the 998 Superbike was the focus of an intense love-hate relationship by riders and mechanics alike; the '99 seems much more stable, and so much less a collision of old and new technology.

But the question remains, if the 999 lacks off-corner grunt, why is that and can it be fixed?

Perhaps one reason for this is that the US Ducati team uses World Superbike fuel in their AMA-spec machines. World Superbike fuel is little more than race pump gas, while the fuel used in factory Superbikes in America is oxygenated rocket fuel. It costs between $25 and $75 a gallon, and is literally, liquid horsepower.

"I suppose we're losing about five or seven horsepower in using the World Supebike stuff," said one Ducati man today. "Shell is working on an AMA fuel, but until then we use the World Superbike fuel. Using that spec fuel has good sides and bad sides, I suppose. On the good side we're right in line with what the factory World Supebike team is using, and on the downside, the fuel does not make the power that it could."