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Dunlop's dual-compound discovery more similar to the March race temperatures than it is at their December test. PI was pleasantly surprised to get the new tir e, but I was also thinking, 'It 's abou t time. Let's go test it:" DuHamel says now . When Mike Hale, then with Smokin' Joe' s Honda, came in to o ffer his first impression, Allen remembers him asking "This f-ing tire's legal?" DuHamel got o ff hi s RC45 and " waxed eloquen t," Allen remembers. "What DuH amel said was that he hoped he never had to race on a normal tire, an ordinary tire, again . September was eye-opening time. It was above expectations. We knew we had a good idea; we didn't know it was a winner for sure." "The biggest problem with the old style was that by making th e left side durable enough for the tire it would compromise grip from the right side for the infield : ' DuHamel says. "Even when it was warmed up; it was like you were on eggs hells. It never reall y generated the hea t neces sary for good grip. It was always give and take. By Henny Ray Abrams 30 s much as anvone, Sm ok in ' Migu el Joe' s H ond a ' s DuHam el knows how hard it is to build the pe rfect tire for Daytona International Speed way, wh ere tracti on is com promised for endu rance " and safety. "I remember always talkin g to (Dunl op' s) Jim Allen, tell ing h im , 'Wouldn't it be great if we had a tire that was sp lit down the middle?' We would just kid about it, but I'm sure they we re already worki ng on it, but didn't want to say anything," DuHamel says. In fact, Dave Watkins, Allen's U.K.-based boss, had hit upon th e id ea of a du al-compound tire an d would bring it to Daytona for a pri vat e Smok in' Joe's Honda test in Sep tember, when the climate is (Top) -Hey, J im, how about a tire that's soft on one side and ha rd on the other?" Miguel DuHamel talks tires with J im Allen. (Above right) Anthony Gobert won a race In Australia using the dualcompound tire. (Above) Dunlop's Dave Watkins discusses the tire situation with Colin Edwards II. . (Right) Allen checks the temperature of DuHamel's rear tire during the December tire tes t at Daytona. "This will h elp m y co n fid en ce immensely. You can go into th e fir st horseshoe now and almost touch you r knee. That was unheard of before, even after a lap or two . The hard part now is realizing you can run it in there as usu al. You have to force you rself to think that this tire is mad e for that comer." It's true that th e sim plest ideas are often the best ones. The pe rennial decisio n for tire builders a t Daytona is 'to build a rear tire that either works well in the two right -hand infield horseshoes or one that will stay together under the 2-G force of the 31-degree banking - one or the other, but not both . What, then, if you could build a rear that stuck like gu m in the infi eld and stuck to the carcass on the banking? The simple, yet elegant, solu tion is a dualcom po u nd tire, the left side hard , th e righ t side soft, the di fference in the two co m pou nds as grea t as "c h a lk a n d cheese." That's how Jim Allen, Dunlop's Ro ad Race Manager for th e U .S., described the end product of a n idea which s truck hi s bo ss, Dave Watkins , during a meeting Watkins wa s having with his superior at Fort Dunlop in Birmingham, England, last Jun e 12"I was talking to my boss on another subject and, in the middle of the conversation, I had this id ea . I drew it on a piece of paper. It happened ju st like that: ' Watkins remembers. How the two co mpounds are held togethe r a n d adhere to the carcass is a closely held secret that onl y a handful of people know . Though it may seem like an original idea, it has been done before. Goodyear tried it wi th Kennv Rober ts in the late 70s, Pirelli has a pa tent on a d ual-compound tire, Re p sol H ond a' s Mick Doohan used a dual-compound Michelin on his NSRSOO during the 1995 season, and Muzzy Kawasaki's Anthony Gobert used a du al-com pound Dunlop to win the final leg of the 1995 Superbike World Ch ampi onsh ip a t Phillip Isla nd. Bu t Dunl op had not tried it at Daytona where the difference in compound and temperatu re between the two sides of the tire is so extreme, "The difficulty for us would be how to make it sa fe:' Watkins says, ad ding the question of struc tural integrity: "We ha ve to be certain that it won 't fly into two sepa rate pi eces. At Dayt on a th at would be catastro phic." "My fir st reacti on was, it' s a good idea, but there's a fat chance it'll work: ' Allen recalls. But the ball was rolling. It would be a winner before they got back to Daytona. Gobert tested one of the du al-compound tires at Phillip Island, a track that, thou gh not banked like Dayton a, puts a grea t deal more stress on one side of the tire. "Phillip Island is pre-