Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

·IN R IE Pascal Picotte TE V W onz' e n 1995 Pascal Picotte step ped ou t of the shadows and into the darkn ess. ) For the p revious three ye a rs he 'd been branded, fairl y or not, as the second rider on the dominant Fast by Ferracci team . In 1993 he watched team ma te Doug Polen, foll ow h is two Superbike World cham pions hips w ith an AMA title, and in 1994 it was Aussie import Troy Corser who quickl y mad e himself the man to beat, not just on the team, but in the series. The 1994 season was good to Picotte. He won his first AMA Superbike National, backing it up with a win the following week en rou te to a fourth -p lace finis h in the cha mpionship, his best showing eve r. Yet w he n Picot te left th e Ferra cci fam ily for the Muzzy Kawasaki team at the end of 1994, he did so w ith a small am ount of bitterness, not certai n he was ge tt ing all th e suppo rt he d ese rved . Now wa s the tim e, he .th ou gh t, to a t least be treated as an equal among riders. Look ing back, he real izes that th e move was a mist ake and for 1996 he' s determined to start anew, yet again, this time with the Yoshim ura Suzuki squad on the all-new GS XRi50-T . "Two yea rs in a ro w they (Suzuki) wa nted to hire me," Picotte said. "Last yea r they tried, but the deal was a little bit better with Kawasa ki. An d I also didn 't reall y believe in th eir bike last year. I don't think they had, as far as I'm concerned, the best bike. So I said, 'I' m going to go to Kawas aki and if I'm really satisfied I'll stay there for a couple of years.": . Satisfaction, however, would not be ac hieve d, nor even approached. H e started off well, qualifying fifth for the Daytona 200, behind four World Superbike regulars - first"America n," the 25yea r-old French-Can ad ian says . But he had a silly spill in the 600cc Superspo rt race, hitting the guardrail in th e West End Ho rseshoe hard eno ugh to br eak his collarbone and take him ou t of the weekend and into surgery. Two wee ks after the su rgery, with a pin holding the collarbone together, the resilient Picotte, wh ose fitness has visibly im proved with each passing season, qua lified on the pole fo r th e Pomon a Superbike Na tion al, led for seven laps, an d, desp ite a late race du st-up with a back marker, finished third. Then came Lagu na Seca where a couple of practice crashes de-tuned him to a . 10th-place finish, better than lie wou ld d o in the next race at Mid-Ohio. In that meet, the fourth of the year, he broke a transmission and m issed most of qua lifying. Th en , in the race, he fini shed minus two sprocket bolts and with four others loose. On top of that, he had an axle loosen in the 600cc race. In addition to his technical troubles, his collarbone problems flared up as a resu lt of a crash he 'd had in the 600cc Supersport race at the German round of the Sup erbike World Cha mp ions hip at Hockenh eim pri or to Mid-Ohio. Soo n aft er Mid-Ohio, the Muzzy Kawasaki team had bigger pr oblems which Picotte feels ultimatel y affected their AMA effort. Scott Russe ll, who was suffering through his worst World Superbike Championship eve r, defected to th e Lu ck y Strike Suzuki 500 cc GP team. " Rob (Muzzy) kind of dumped us m idseason becau se Scott (Russell) went awa y. I under st and that, but, s ti ll, I looked bad . Everybody loo ked bad on Kawasa ki fro m m id season to the end almost, un til (former Russell mechanic) Gary Medl ey started wo rking for me, so it was better," Picotte says. "Still, I d on't think w e w ere on really the right equi pment. "I d idn' t really feel last yea r that all the team and all the mechanics, everyb od y w as really behi nd m e . Th e mechanic did the best he coul d, but the team owner wa sn ' t ther e at all - even Kawasaki." Picotte said that as the season wo re on, th e suppo rt d id n' t improve to th e exten t that it d id for the World Superbike team . They were forced to improvise. "We did the best we could do w ith the eq uipment we ha d. It was a major differe nce between our bike and An thony's (Gobert) bike. He started using the ' 96 engine with the gear drive. That mad e a major difference. The '95 stuff wasn't really good, so we went back to '94 and some of the '93 specs at the end of the season with Gary. That's why w e went better." Pi cotte fel t h is fo rtu nes w ould improve when Med ley joined the A1 v1A se ries, a nd th ey di d, but th e su p po rt wasn' t there an d the mechan ical p roblems continued. "We had a p roblem w ith s p ri ng valves. About thr ee or four week s in a row we broke pretty much all the spring valves," Picotte says. "W e were reall y dow n on power . Like Elkh art Lake,.! was n' t able to pull sixth gear. " At the next race in Loudon he lost a cylinde r and dropped out. Then, on the ult ra-fast Brain erd circuit, th ere were more valve-sp ring problems, ove rhe ating, and tire difficul ties. The team rebou nded at the sweltering Gateway Nation al, qua lifying second and finishing third after having led the race . Then cam e hi s second po le position of the year, at Sears Point. But the ra ce would expose m ore transmission gremlins - this time false neutrals but a clever ride to overtake Yoshimu ra

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