Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

+- ." om' with Ferracci,' learn more things, get better s tuff," Picotte said. "I think it's the best thing to happen tome so far ." Because of his expe rience, Picotte had to sort thr ough 10 d ifferen t tires, though he saved the best for last. ="iT....,~!""'!_.",..., Like Schwa, Picotte put a qualifying tire on to try to crack the 1:50 lap ma rk, b ut he, too, blistered the tire and came up sho rt. His best on a race tire was a 1:51.69, almost a second oug Polen (right) greetbe tter than his Daytona 200 qualifying time. ed Eraldo Ferracci in the Between now and March, Picotte will have lobby o f the Hamp ton 10 races, all on ice. Inn on Wednesd ay night with "For sure I'll do some ice racing, if I can get a gift, a framed pain ting of the bikes from Husky," Picotte said. He plans • PoleI1 go ing thrpu gh the to ride a Husky 610 in the 600 class, aclass he '; cork,~crew at Lag una Seca. It finished second ,in last year despite Il1issing • was a friendly ; but odd, scene, and the end of a working relaon e race. With no history at Da ytona or aboard a tionsh ip that ha d netted two Ducati, Corser had some lea rning to do and he World Championships and an d id it well. The 22-year-old Au stralian docked AMA Supe rb ik e National Championship. Polen was released from his contract with Ducati a 1:52.21, good enough for fourth fastest for this year's 200 on within hours of the meeting and the post -Polen era began for the an ex-Polen bike with over 900 miles on the engine. "With the Fast by Ferracci team. Judging by the results of the Daytona test, righ t tire he'd be faster than Doug went last year," Ferra cci said. "It's d ifferent," Corser said when asked his first impression the team will not be absen t from the podium this year . Ferracci brought a han d ful of bi kes and as many riders, of Daytona. "It takes a little while to get used to the banked though he concentrated on two: Canadi an Pascal Picotte and curves. It's a little easier to get used to the bike. It's (the track) Australian Troy Corser . Picotte rode the Ferracci Ducati 888 to completely different from what I'm used to. Those comers are " ' 10th in this year 's AMA Sup erbike National Championship and awesome." Because there are onl y a few riders on the tra ck at a time will be the only ri~er toO!~etthe new Ducati 916 Superbike, q fficially, Corser was at D~ytc:ma f or a try-out, but it seems likely during a test,U's difficult to ge t hooked up wi th anyone. Toward theendof the test, Corser was closing in on a trio or he'll be back in Maicllwhen the season begins, if no t sooner . "Originally we were goi ng to have three ride rs," Ferracci riders .that included the Yoshimura Suzukis of Thomas Stevens explained, before Polen d eparted. '1 always concentrated more and Donald Jacks, but then he lost them. on Doug than Pascal. Now I wan t to mak e su re they're both "I started catching that group and all three went s traigh t getting my attention. I'll do 100% on the new guy and oversee through the chicane," Corser said." I've nev er run a banked everything. There is no (single) number one driver - two num- -track, It wasn't hard, it was just matter of getting on and trying ber on es." Ferracci admitted that Picotte would be the on ly one it. I was using d ifferent lines every lap and looking at the rev on the 916, but said th ere would be very little difference counter to see if I p icked up revs. There are a few places I can imp rove. The bike's great. No worries . It took me a little time to between the machines. "Other than the bodyw ork, it's not much (di fferent). Th e get used to the we ight of the front wheel. These you slide mor e handling and the engine is pretty much the same," he said. with the back wheel tha n the fron t. The actual se t-up didn't . As to when he would get the new bikes from Varese, Italy, change a great deal." At the end of the final day Corser ran a full tank of ga s Fer racci said, "Don' t ask me that one. ,I go to Atlanti c City or Las Vegas to get that number. I'm p re sure we'll get them in through the Ducati, staying on the track for better than 20 laps ;t tim e.) want to test a t West Pal . " r some p lace else and running lap times in the,l :~:3~ ' " .. ~. (where it's) warm: ' . Ferracci's fujid bike was swapped betw een Jason Pridmore Though Picotte isn't the official num er one rider, he is at and Larry Pegram, two riders whose test was facilitated by Polen. least out from under the shadow of Polen and happy for the "They're young kids and all these teams should give them a chance," Ferracci said. "I did my best. If they neve r get a chance, chance to prove himself. ' "I'm reall y, really hap~y . I'm going to be able to work more yo u don't know how good they can be. It's good for the spor t." _ _ _ _-;" Post-Polenera begins for Ducati Daytona to assess the tires that were built with input from his test here in July. Daytona is a special place - brutal on tires and machinery. The tires built fo r the Dayt ona 200 will likely not be used anywhere else, with the possible exception of Charlotte - and that's no t on the sched ule for 1994. . "I t' s really easy to get grip at Daytona and it' s really easy to get durability. But those tw o thi n gs figh t ea ch o the r:' All en sai d. Muzzy Kaw asaki's Rob Muzzy was m ore succinct. "It's a mat ter of accepting that no' ma tter what, they're shit, and this yea r's shit is better than last yea r's shi t." "T es tin g is so tough," Allen says. "It's so boring. Testing is no t racing." Allen brought 289 tires to Daytona, both tre ad ed and slic k. There we re 10 new slick rears, a ll d iff erent in com pound and cons truction, and five new fronts . The fronts wer e ex ac tly what came off the front of Wayn e Rain ey ' s G r and Prix bike and Sco tt Russell ' s World Superbike. Wh en the riders come into th e pits, Allen measures the temperature of the tires in five or six d ifferent places, uses a d urometer to check the hardness of the tire, and often checks the ai r pressure. He'll ask the ride r for his comments and record them next to his lap times. Every ri der has a s pecific tes t program designed to measur e their respon se to and progress with vario us new tires. "The g uys that go fast a re likely to have trouble," Allen said. "You can do 55' s all day long and not have troubl e. Th e ass u mp tion is that if yo u can give the fas test guys something that works, and ha s no tr ouble with grip, it will work for the other guys." A former racer, Allen has wo rked at Dunlop sin ce 1979, firs t as a test rider the n in the technical division building tir es. H e has a p retty g oo d idea how a ride r is likely to respo nd, bu t there are surpris es. "Yester day we gave (Kevi n ) M ag ee a tire w e t ho ugh t w as the best tire we 've ever had for .Daytona . He tried it and didn't like it. Thomas (Stevens) stopped me and said, ' T ha t' s the best tire I've ever had .' It's no reflection on Kevin. He 's never been on the bike, he's never been on the track, and he's no t 100 %. The r e' s n o do u bt ' i n Ma r ch th at he' ll be u p th e re with the best of them. Magee is just so good a nd has worked w ith so ma ny tire guys that he d oesn ' t get excited. He knows b ullshit from fact." "Our race approach is that you use three tires for the 200," Allen said . "We mount three rears and one ba ck-up and maybe two or three fronts. Generally, we use the same tire for the whole race. If the guys have enough w heels we might prepar e an alternate." "A t Da ytona y o u can g u a ra n tee things are going to go w rong. We went into the 50 milers a few years ago thinking we had it licked and had one good result; in the other the tire flies apart. We spe n t a lot of time looking at th e analysis, tearing the tires apart, looking at charts and graphs." The result of all the anal ysis was the tire that was tested by Doug Polen in D (Left) Kevin Magee gets to know Dunlop tire man Jim Allen. (Right) Magee pu ts the Hon da ROO through its paces. (Bel ow) Tro y Corser w ill join Fast By Ferracci in '94. (Bottom right) Fred Mer kel had his firs t ride on a Kawasaki. July. At one point they did a flying lap of the oval, turning a time of ab out 51 second s. As a comp arison, s toc k cars generally tu rn lap s of 44 or 45 seconds for the Daytona 500. " We have a 125/70 R17 fro n t and 190/55 R17 rear for this year's race. We didn't have them last year," Allen said. Early reports were favora ble, though they still weren't up to the time that Russell set in w inning thi s yea r's Day ton a 200 pol e. "Dunlop has come up w ith really good Daytona 200 tires," Yo sh imu ra Suzuki 's Thomas Stevens sa id . "Fort u na te ly, it's hotter here for the tires SO we can get a baseline." Russell earned the pole for this year's Daytona 200 w ith a time of 1:50.194 and three of the four Kawasakis turned lap times in the 1:51s on the new race tire. Russell turned a number of SIs, his best 15

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