Anthony Gobert hadn’t been on a Grand Prix bike for over two years when he got a surprising call to replace the fired Luca Cadalora on the Team Biland GP1MuZ Weber team in October of 1999 at his home GP at Phillip Island. Gobert was with the factory Suzuki GP team in 1997 when he was dismissed towards the end of the season after failing a drug test.
Gobert had been riding the AMA Superbike Championship with Vance & Hines Ducati, but had mysteriously missed the final round of the championship at Pikes Peak. At Phillip Island Gobert claimed a motocross training crash kept him from racing the final AMA round.
In spite of being well over his ideal racing weight, Gobert still managed to qualify the MuZ 13th, Gobey claimed he had the speed to be even higher on the grid, but got a bad tire on his final qualifying run.
There was humor in the Gobert circle because he’d already ridden for “Muzz”. Gobert was basically discovered
by Rob Muzzy and he spent his first two seasons racing WSBK for the Kawasaki team.
In the race Gobert was making passes, but was forced off the track on the first lap, crashed and was knocked cold.
He came back and raced the final three GPs of the ’99 season on the MuZ and managed a 10th-place finish in Brazil.
