Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Doug Polen most consistent and they were the most d eservin g to win th e championship: Maybe not be given the trophy as th e fastest guy on the race track. The fastest gu y in the se ries or the guy everybody thinks should have won the series. He's the guy that wins, period . So anybody can say wha t they wa nt, bu t th e bottom lin e is yo u d on't have to win anyth in g to be th e guy tha t overa ll, for the w ho le season, was the best. Were you able to h elp Aaron ou t in th e p ressure decide not to - that's 40, 45, or 50 years ' old, probably. I haven't set an y limits to anything . It's just when I fina lly d ecid e that I'm not having an y more fun doing thi s and it' s like, "hev, it's more hassle than it' s worth." • Wh at do you think of your chances in the u p com in g Da yt on a 200? Qu ite good, actually . Just because of all the testing and all the stuff a n d the thing looks like we ju st sc ru bbed it .in, It' s in teresting. It'll be in te res ting to see what they come up w it h , and when they come ba ck here I'm su re there will be some varia tions, bu t we' ll s till have at least wh at w e came ou t wi th her e testing-wi se, as far as something that we've defi- situation, 28 mentally, because you have a lo t mo r e exper ie nce than h e h as? Som e wh a t. He w as re a lly starting to get a lit tle bit uptight w hen it was co m ing d own to the end . It's kind of limited. I can' t walk in and s tart sayi ng, do th is, and thi s and th is. Bu t, w he n yo u have a few wo rds from so mebody a n d yo u ' re ta lking abou t thi ngs, h o w you ta lk a bo ut a nd h ow yo u di s cu s s , th in gs, can all of a , s u d de n take someb od y's m ind a n d m a k e th em fo rg et abou t the th in gs that make the m get nervou s an d, mayb e, a little jittery. They start th inking about w hat yo u ' re ta lk ing, about. You' re just talkin g and all of a su d den t hi ngs a re ca lmi ng d own. An d then yo u just go out and do yo ur thing . He d id th a t all year and he d id it a t th e end, no problem. D o y o u enjoy traveling around Europe as much or more than traveling a round the States doing AMA stu ff? , I 'th in k it 'd be nice to be traveling aro und here, jus t because I like being in America . It ' s nice. You know where everything'S at , you like all the food , you like everything. It's just not a problem . I' m no t a big European-food fan. Italian food, no prob lem , bu t the rest of it s tarts ge tting a little bit... Do you have any ideas about the future, what you ' ll be do ing in '96? No, not rig h t now . We're just going to see h ow this ye a r go es and d ecid e wh at we'll do at that poin t. At any tim e that it starts ge tting to the point where it' s jus t no t fu n any more and it's not enjoya ble and I'm not enjoyi ng myself while I'm rid in g a nd w ho I'm rid in g for , I' ll either de cid e to change th at or no t do it at all. So I've go t a lot of other th ings goi ng. But I can always ride, and I ca n always rid e a nd m ake a lot of m one y . T he re 's always s omeb od y, so mewhe re that's goi ng to pay several hund red th ou sand d o lla r s a yea r in orde r for me to ride. I can do it until I w e ' r e doing now a s well as knowing what we're going to have a nd knowi ng w ha t thi ng s are going to be like. And just some of the thin gs yo u can do here in the Am erican regulations that yo u can 't do in World 5uperbike. For ins tance, yo u can come up with any ki nd of fuel in jection. We've got these bodies and y ou can make the insides of these things anything you want - as long as you use the standard body they can run the thing. They can, all of a sudden, now make up a special in jection setup to improve midrange and top power and the overall power characteristics and delivery that they can't do in World 5uperbike. So we'll see h o w it all come s out. They' re pretty jazzed about it. Did you have tire troubles in last year's 200? Yes, th e sa me as everybody else. I came in with about six laps to go. I was catching Ed die (Lawson) at abo u t three seco nds a lap . I ma de u p abo ut 12 or 14 seconds in the last four laps, or so methi ng like tha t, and almos t go t into the w in ner's circle. If I' d ha ve had ano ther four or five laps, I wo ul d have ca ugh t him . Do you think these ,tires are going to be better, as far as durability? The ti res for th e race, definitelv. I m e an, we wo n' t h a v e tire tr o u bl e . There's just no d ou bt. That's the bes t thing abo ut it. This tire we tested he re, we d id lik e 40, 45, 50 la ps on a fron t nite ly te st e d a n d k now works. We found a cou ple of them, two or three that work. You got through the tires pretty q uic k ly, didn't you? Yeah, an d th en we went back over them today and compared what we di d yesterd ay. We reconfirmed all of them so we know w hat all of th em will do again, but ru nn ing more dista nce on them . Even w hen you ride and y ou race and practice, yo u're always thi nking about this thing' s slid ing he re. So you' re always thin king about tires, no matter what. Every time you get on the bik e when you' re riding. It's just that if you ever go t on some tir es th at never moved and never slid or never did an yth ing wrong, then y o u' d never be thinking abo ut it. Bu t I haven't been on too many of them. Maybe this year, I don't know. We' ll see. There is a d iffe ren ce between th e ' tires, but the re isn' t a whole lot of differ ence. These seem to be pretty consistent, a little better co nsistent th an the Dunlops we re . I don ' t know because I didn' t run wha t they tested here at the test, but in the past it was an improveme nt over wha t we ran in March here. Cons is tency is d efinitel y mu ch more con sisten t. The track hasn 't rea lly been all tha t great to s tart w it h yesterday, re al d ir ty . An d n ow it's s tarti ng to come better, bu t the b ike is rea lly not up to the task to be doing any kin d of decent la p times. What do you think the race pa ce will be fo r the 200? 1:51, 52s. Unless so mebody co mes up with a rocketship . That's all this place is about. Tires are very, very limiting here. Fo r, lik e Dunlop, there's a big d ifference in th eir stuff, big differ ence between running the soft stuff and running the ra ce stu ff. You can run the s o ft stuff and three la p s, four lap s, yo u co me b a ck wi t h bi g hu nks m iss in g o ut o f i t, but yo u we n t li k e hell, I mean the la p ti me is incred ib le . I've d one tests he re just th a t a bso lute ly just kn o ck ed t he ir soc ks off. Fo r thr ee da ys I did a Dun lop te st , in '9 1 I bel ieve it wa s, a n d I w a s runnin g aro u n d h ere testing tires a nd go ing la p after lap o n th ese tires. I go four laps o n a ti re, co me in , cha nge it, pu t on a not he r tire. Go out fo ur laps. Ev ery lap was low 50s, 50 fl at. But th ai ' s the b e st lap tim e. Th e la p re cor d is 50.1 9, a n d tha t' s th e b e s t la p an y b od y ' s ever d one. Th ree yea rs ago I did a 49.4 on a ' 91-m od e l Duca ti 888 , Ferrucci a n d I. were just joki n g about it yes terday . Last year I d id some oval-only tes ting for , tires. 172.5 mph average; 52.2 seconds to go a rou nd the bow l a nd th e NA5CAR boys d o it in like 47.90, 48 second s, so it was about four secon ds off, It was unreal. I h ad a tailw ind going d own the back straight and the way eve ry thing was se t up, geari ng and all, we had it geared way taller th an we ever had - 193-194 mph down the back straightaway and then hit that banking. Ah , it was the most unbelievable thi ng you could ever, ever do. People th ink this is like scary doing this. You ough t to go flat out arou nd th is bow l. I did on e lap, flat. Never lif ted the whole lap and, man, you've go t to do it right. Because this thing walks, walks up the banking . I ha d to go fro m the wall all the way down to the apron on the bottom an d it wou ldjust walk all the way. On the exit I scared th e people who were wa tchi ng here off of fou r, they we re on the fence lookin g, watch ing . I cleared them off the fen ce be caus e th ey ' re watchi ng th is thi ng drift all the way off co ming o ff four and it's driftin g ou t toward the wa ll. It sca re d everybody . I wen t throu gh a fron t tire in fou r laps. We cha nge d the fro nt tire no matter w hat in fou r lap s. We were seei ng tire temperatu res th at w ere u nreal beca use it w a s 103-1 05 degrees outside. The track tem pe rat u re was like 75 deg rees celcius . You cou ld open an egg and wa tch th is thin g start sizzling right on the pavem ent. ,'X

• Cover