Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

(Above) Doug Polen at speed on the Castrol Honda . Polen was using the test to aqualnt himself with the Michelin tires after many years of riding on Durilops. (Left)Spencer gives tips to Mike Smith. (Right) Honda's Shinya Takeishl had his test interrupted by a crash. (Bottom right) Chuck Graves also rode at the test on the ValvolineSuzuki. The Califomian concentrated mainly on the 750Cc Supers port GSXR750; he was joined by teammate Michael Martin. 12 Iins , w hich h e feels w ill make th em work harder for a title. "Witho u t taking any thing away from Du nlop , as a matter of fact, Dunlop was a great com pany to work with. they give yo u a lot of respect, they give me a lot of, es pecially when Do ug (Polen) was w it h us," Ferracci said. "The last year, there was too many people rid in g for Dunl op. So I thou ght , not that they were givi ng so me thing bad to me and good to somebody else, n o, no t tha t ki n d of thing. I don 't think they did, but if they d id, I don't care. We switched because I th in k now Michelin needs to wi n . So what is better to ge t in so meplace by myself than the guy tha t's going to give yo u th e best. I tell yo u I di d the same story why we're on the Dueati, becau se nobod y does an d it made the com pe tition bett er. It' s good for th e sp ort, it's good for the big com pa nies. The company in Italy, there was repeatedly, every tim e we go over there with one of my d river s, they run Michelin we run Dunlop . I ha ve so me times to jigg le around the situa tion so this way it makes it easy becau se th e co m pany th ey reall y like that whatever they run, I ru n, because I'm a factory team . "Fred d ie and Mike sai d they know tha t tire, they want to kn ow that particul ar tire and tod ay we we re go ing to do like 20 lap s. It's a real good tire, it's go t good grip," Ferra cci adde d . The man heading up the Micheli n testin g crew at Daytona was Frenchma n [ean-Philippe Herisse, Mich elin's ma n on the World Superb ike trail. Herisse spe nt 10 years on the Grand Prix circuit, including Spencer's championship years of 1983 an d ' 85, bu t said at Da ytona th ere are different ne eds th an at any other circuit. "I wo uld say the first thin g is handling and then end urance," said Herisse, who 's based at the Michelin headquarters in Clermont-Ferrand, France. "We have to build a special casing for Daytona. Before loo ki ng at lap tim es, I' m more looking abo ut safety. When I come here I' m more concerned about safety. Of course, as fast as possible, but make sure that they stay together." Fo r th e 200, H e r is se s a id they plann ed on tw o tire stops. "I was talki ng with Freddie not too long ago and the first time we win here with Fredd ie we won by cha ngi ng the rear tire. Everybod y else was tr yin g to do 200 miles w itho ut changing." . The 1995 Daytona 200 will mark the first time in years that Michelin has been involved with a serious factory effort and they're doing it with two of the best: The HRC team of Dou g Polen and Ferracci's Ducati team . That they' re on two di fferen t machi nes gives Herisse a broader da ta base to work from, though the track is the biggest determining factor here. "Some times yo u don't know if it's th e tire or the mach ine. If you've got two machines a nd you get th e same answer you know it's the tire," Herisse said. "In this race track, no there's not so much difference with which bike yo u use . In th is race track it's mainly hand ling on the bowl. If there was ano ther race track maybe they would ha ve been d iHeren t." Castrol Ho nd a's Polen ag rees . After winning his championships on Dunl op s, and insisting that the Honda WSB team use them in 1994, Polen said he couldn't reco mmend that they be used in 1995. The decisio n to switch, however, was left to HRC. "This is the first time that I'v e gotten to run on them (Michelins), and the prob lem is that there's not a lot of grip on those tires because they're inflated tire pressures; a lot of thing s are just not the same. Everything is di fferen t (at Da ytona). So my first time back on Michelins from Dunl ops is at a place where the tires are going to abso lutely be the worst per-_ formance tires that I'll ever be on all year. Wh en we go to the next track, and first run at Phillip Island, it's going to be some serious rubber down there ." Last year in the 200, Po len, whose RC45 was in its infa ncy and not a stro ng contender at Dayton a, su ffered tire troubl e s late in th e ra ce . Fro m w h a t h e learned during this test, he doesn't foresee a tire problem . . "The tires for the race will definitely last to each o f th e tw o tir e cha nges," Polen said . "I mean, we won 't have tire trouble. There's jus t no doubt. That's the best thing abo ut it. This tire we tested here, we did like 40, 45, 50 laps on a fro nt and the thing loo ks like w e just scrubbed it in. "There is a difference betw een the tires, but there isn't a who le lot of differ• ·ence. These seem to be pret ty consistent, a little bette r consisten cy tha n the Dunlops we re. I don 't kn ow beeause I didn't run wha t they tes ted he re at th e test, but, in the past, it was an im provemen t over what we ran in Ma rch here . Th e track hasn't really been all tha t great to start wi th. Yest erd ay, it was real d irty. And now it's starting to come better, but the bike is rea lly no t up to the task to be doing any kind of decent lap times." The plan was for Po le n to te st Takeish i' s updated AM /PM RC45. But after Tak eishi crashe d, the new er forks and shock were fitted to Polen's Cas tro l Hond a and he did his best time as the day was end ing . . "The forks were real smoo th. YO.l cou ld get more feeling from the road, really good in p ut, " Pol en said of the n ew Sh o wa s uspe n de rs w it h 47mm s ta n chio ns - u p from 43 m m . " It's a whol e bunch nicer to ride and this is the firs t protot ype. They bolted in a shock 10 laps from the end . With the winter testing and di aling it in with the tires ... the times ar en't all that great, but they ain 't that far off."

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