Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

eROAD RACE ~ Pre-season Daytona test - - - - - - - - - - in d ing the se t-u p wasn't as easy as Muzzy had so organized," said the Canadian, who finished fourth in t Fthought it wou ld be. this year's AMA/CCS 600cc Supersport Championship. t _ ' "We had the World Superbike settings for the Euro- "I've got three months to train for Daytona. I've never _ pean tracks ; when we wen t back to the March Daytona had three months to train." here was a stanset-up, it wasn't right," Muzzy said. "I don't know if it Crevier has also never worked with a team as welldard to be se t at was the tires, but we had instability problems and we prepared as the Muzzy sq uad and foun d that there were .Day tona, and the spent a fair amount of time asking why itdidn' t work. more decisions to make than he was used t o. Muzzy Kawasaki Finally, we said let's make it work. It's really hard to The l)avea!ot ofvariations ulsuspension.lt's justa team was the one to irnprov~ oyer the existi:ngset-up. It's a lot . to make king each item and trying to (iecip her if it's se t it. ,Scot t Russell ~ it worse than make it be tter. " er ()F ",,"or~e; It's interesting '!na time-con sum ing. (right} )" fresh off his Russell turned, consistently, the fastesttime ·spretty)o.....-pressureright now. He leaves it up to , World :; 1 Champ ithree-day test; his best a hand-timed 1:51.1;' well off his t e riders to go as , fast as they can go . He doesn't put . onship-winning sea1993 po le-setting time of 1:50.194. Still, he was happy to pressure on me personally," Crevier said, son, was th e fastest, have tested the tires he'll likely use in the 1994 Daytona The Muzzy superbike is "considerably faster" than the most determined, 200. . anything he'd rid den before and Crevier found it "a lot the readiest rider to "I think they want somebody to go out and go fast. harder to ride even though the handling is very similar. hit the high banks. They need that kind of feedback," Russell said. "Fifty- It's a lot to adjust to, to better your lap times . I'm not too From the minute they three's and fifty-fours are no good when you come here concerned until Daytona. I never practice that fast, but I unloaded his champiin March. I alw ays try to push it hard when I'm out always go fast at the end," Crevier said. on s hip ,- win n i n g there. I dig it. It's the best thing for learning." Fred Merkel last visited Daytona in 1986, when he finmachines, Russell was Russell was testing a new swingarm and various sus- ished third behind Eddie Lawson and Kevin Schwantz, on the gas. Only a lingering knee injury preven ted him pension comp onents on the '93 machine. The '94s have an d then went on to Win the AMA Supe!:bike ti.tle. After from riding. lite rally, in to the sunset on Friday afte r- arri ved at Muzzy's shop in Bend, Oregon and two are "seven years raci ng ·Worl d Superbike/with tw o World noon. But by then, they'd learn ed what the nee ded to ' , alrea dy stripped do .....!"' to .the frame and being worked : , <:hil.mp ionships, th~ Jormer. A1'v1A: . ~uperbike champion .and the test was a success. on. A lready, the teain 'ip:",ell ahead of mostof the com! has m oved back to his home iown'pf .§t~kton, ~ifor<, "It's more or less a baseline for '94:~ te ob petition in getting thl?irmachines ready for the comingnia, to concentrate Ollwinning another.·';:y,/ . . , Muzzy~id on Friday afternoon. In addition 'to Russell, year. Now Russell must get himself ready. Merkel missed part of th e tes t when he ha d to be Muzzy had brought Takahiro Sohwa and two new team "The ligaments in my knee have been bad since my treated for poison ivy at a local hos pital. With limited members, Steve Crevier and Fred Merkel. "We wanted crash at Donington," Russell said. "I can just get by. I'm track time on Thursday and Friday morning, he wasn't to give Fred and Steve some time on the bikes. And we going to go back and do an MRI and get fixed, if I need up to speed until near the end of the test, but managed to wan ' .d to see where Scott was with the bikes compared to. Something popped in it today." With three months to tum in the third best time, just edging teammate Sohwa . to last year. When we get to the p roper set-up, we ride it go unti l Daytona, Russell was certain he'd be ready. Merkel's unofficial best was 1:51. 80, just ahead of that wa y. If we can leave here with a combination we 're Steve Crevier felt the same way . Schwa's 1:51.9. Sohwa did tum a better lap , but it was on confident w ith, that's what we'll be here with in March." "This is the first time I've ha d a deal so soon and been a qualifying tire that blistered after two laps. R II se S the S a~ usse T < a 1:51.1 , Takah ir o Soh wa clocked a 51.9, and new teamster Fred Merkel turned a 51.8, despite limited track time. Allen will take all this informa tion back to Dunl op 's headqu arters in Buffalo and decide whet her a new tire nee ds to be bu ilt . All of the race tires a re' mad e at the factory in Birmingham , Eng la nd. If a new tire is need ed , he would need almost th r ee m onths to ge t it don e, incl ud ing three weeks to sh ip them by sea. "This is bare bon es. It' s the la st time to te st tires:' Allen said. ' These tires are specifically built for Daytona and the tires used at the other tracks are develop ed with information Stevens said the pain was especially acute when changing d ire ction, o u t of turn one, on to th e bank ing, ou t o f the chicane. It for ced him to change his grip, holding on with oniy two fingers:' "I don't th ink it slows me up any. My rid ing is very imporant to me. We 're going th rough the paces, testing different st uff. Sometimes it ge ts frustrating. It's part of the job. You ride this as hard as you can ride it. The first day we worked on the baseline stuff that we ended last year with. Today we chang ed more st uff. It us ua lly t~kes f the three Yosh imura three to five laps and you can p rettymtich know Suzuki r iders a t Dayifthe change helped. Once the tire h eats up , it's tona, only su per sport just a matter of p u tting your head dow n. Whe n rider Britt Turkingt on was you change suspe ns ion components, yo u don 't healthy a nd read y to tes t at want to judge it off the bat. At the end of the da y, full st ren gth. The Superbike we'll give it the best we 've got." riders , Thomas Stevens an d Donald Jacks (righ t), were Don Sakakura, the Yoshimur a Suz uki chief mechanic, both recovering from injuries, Stevens n ursing a wrist he said ,they were trying a little of everything that they'd be sp rain ed two weeks earlier when he hit a tree aboard his using on the 1994 machines. He didn't know when they dirt bike, and Jacks still bothered by the lingering affects wou ld be getting the new bikes, but expec ted to test of his '93 race cras hes, which meant that testing all the them at Willow Springs before the start of the season. parts th ey'd brou ght was more d ifficult than it might Because he hadn't ridden most of 1993 following his hav e been . accident at the opening race in Phoenix, Donald Jacks "We' re trying to get a handle on the bike." Stevens was still getting up to speed. said during Friday' s lunch break . "There's no doubt that "I'm ha vin g a hard time this we ekend," Jacks said. we struggled la~t year. \Ve tnad e trem endo,;s 'gains and . "All 1did was race at N I'\l1la last year.It's the only race I ; have gone to the next level, but we have to go the next really' raced.1 tried todo a couple of other ones. I'm just level again to be competiti" e with the other teams . We're trying to be safe. I'm a little slow because [ haven't ridnot here to tes t tires . We're.just here to work with the d en. I need a bu nch of laps to get my confidence back . machines. We've been using the same tire all weekend, My right arm is giving me trouble. After 10 straight laps, which would be the Daytona 200 tire." or at the end of the da y, it starts aching. I've got a serious Stevens said that he'd been in therapy for the past off-season training program this year:' two weeks since spraining his wrist. Like Kevin Magee, Jacks was also having machine problems. Unhealthy Yosh team bus~_-- -.". O 16 (From left to right) Troy Corser, Barry Sheene and Erald o Ferracci. Sheene helped Corser get the Ducati ride. ga thered in the AMA superbike , World Superbike. and Gra nd Prix series. "We won 't see new tires until the middle of the seaso n when the World Superb ik e and Grand Pr ix st uff comes in. The stuff for Phoe nix a n d Lagu na is o n order, otherwise we can't get them in time. We'll be usin g the stuff Russell used at the end of the year. Last year we ha d a problem getting tires 250 fronts, especially. At the end of the se as o n we wer e begging for tires." It is simply that they are a victim of their own success. Dunlop-shod m achines won every superbi ke race except Mid-Ohio, every 250 race, and a vast majority of the supersport races. "My life was a lot easier wh en 1 had one rider," Allen says jokingly. But it's not all work. At the end of the test he fitted qualifying tires, actua lly soft-compound tires, to the rear of Picotte's and Sohwa' s machines. "Doug (Polen} bet me that it would be okay. I said that it would be blistered . It was blistered . 1 just wanted to see how fast he coul d go. He d id a 1:51.69 and he was doing mid-52s before that. On the third lap it went off. Generally, you can feel a vib ratio n. The front tire he had on was holding him back." Polen was in a wagering mood again when Sohwa went out. "He's got a 590 rear; it's the softest one they've got. One warm-up lap , one fas t lap. I'll lay you mo ney that he ' ll do a 50-fla t:' Po len said. He was close, it was a 1:51.17. a "We're having stability problems on the banking. The rear wheel is spinning and skidding, " he said. The only rider not having trou ble in the Yoshimura ga rage was Britt Turkington, th ough he did ha ve one dark episode. "Yesterd ay (Thursday} we already equalled the lap record (Supersport) of March, a 56.8:' the Texan said . "We did it fairly early , within the firs t 10-15 laps, aboard the 1994 m ode l. There's some new bracing on the swingarrn, larger and lighter forks , bracing on the frame and motor. lt looks like it w en t in the right direction if k the lap record after the first few outings. I ' I n t expect to get going tha t fast. that soon. "It seems more stable. It's defi nitely lighter than last year's bike. The motor's be tter. Overall, they p ut together a better package. They took some weigh t ou t of the moving parts in the engine and it revs better. The onl y problem Turkington had was a spill in the second horseshoe when the fron t end w ashe d ou t on braking. "We were using different brake pads that were a little too sensitive. They're six-p iston calipers this year. Basically, I was b raki ng deeper a nd d eeper. I fo u nd the point," he said with a laugh. "1 almost did it aga in today. I wen t all the way to the guardrail in two. This place definite ly tests the brake load an d tire load : ' Since Tu rk i n gton ~as u p to speeq so quickly, he, was abl e to sort through th e DOT tires he' d be using thi s year, th ough he had a good id ea coming in which on es he'd be usi ng and fo und he could rac e on any of them . "We tried maybe three or four different front and three or four different rears . If all the tires tested within a second of each other, they're all good," he said.

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