Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127821
ROAD RACE the 500cc World Championship in 1993)," Ferracci explained. "Last year, about four months ago, I started to think and I was not satisfied with what I got. . And I think that he's got the potential to do well. He's a little aggressive, I think, because he does the GPs and he should be more aggressive toward my bike. It's got a lot of power. Rothman, he's just another guy and maybe he doesn't got enough experience, but he doesn't give up so easy. r have to get another guy. He's got a couple of years, maybe three or four years left." Ferracci's relationship was always directly with the Castiglione brothers at the factory headquarters in Varese. With the larger part of the ownership shifting to the Texas investors, Ferracci can see that he won't have the same access. "See, the new company; they don't know too much about motorcycles so they're looking in America to have a strong image," Ferracci said. "So they saw that Vance & Hines got a pretty good team and stuff like this and they want to improve, without damaging my situation. I'm here to do my program and do the best I can. These guys that bought the company, they own the factory now. . "The (Castiglione) brothers do a little bit less, so I used to deal with the brothers and then maybe sometimes I speak with somebody new. But now the brothers, they don't want to know too much and these guys might want to step on my foot. To me it's no big deal because I go racing. If I got to race agamst Vance & Hines with a Ducati, I've got to race Vance & Hines with the Yamaha." One major difference is that Vance & Hines will be using Dunlops, leaving Ferracci to continue as the only Michelin-backed AMA Superbike team. Being the only Michelin team means that he doesn't get as much hands-on support, but there is an upside also. "Remember when I went with Dunlop, I was the only team racing Dunlop when I went to World Superb ike in 1991: everybody was on Michelin. Our confidence is so high and last year we had pretty much good tire. Daytona we had better tire, at the end I got caught at Las Vegas. All of a sudden I'm team owner, suspension genius, tire chooser, engine builder," Ferracci said. Like" Dunlop, Ferracci used the fall NASB/F-USA races to test a new spec tire. Larry Pegram finished third in the first leg, then lost a huge chunk of tire on the front straight in the second segment. "The problem with (the fall race) at Daytona, he was going, Pegram was smoking the tire just to pass the guy, and abuse the tire so much, the tire the last two laps was junk," Ferracci said. "The same thing happened one year with Dunlop, everyone chunked the tire, then come the races, everybody took off, everybody open up, slide the tire in turn one, coming out of the horseshoe and going on the bank and going on the other bank, you can burn the tire in three laps." Doug Polen, who ran the Michelins in October, said they were dual compound and Mladin said his tires were also. But Ferracci was more guarded in his comments. . "It's not to me to say, but Michelin 00 run a dual compound since 1991 with Raymond Roche," Ferracci said. "They l\l use a lot of these, particularly in Day~ tona, Phillip Island, they have many ~ more turn on the left. They have Hock""'""' enheim which has more turn on the right side of the tire, so they do a special C 10 tire." . (Left) Australian Mat Mladin had his first outing on a Fast By Ferraccl Ducatl during Michelin's tire tests at Daytona. (Below) Mladln gives his input to Eraldo Ferraccl . while new recruit Gerald Rothman Jr. looks on. Ferracci said that, despite their problems, the team was able to test all of the tires Michelin brought and put enough laps on one tire to gauge its effectiveness in March. "I had a good kind of indication we might go down there and we do w~lJ," Ferracci said. "We did four, five tires, start with tire last year, then went with tire from October. Start with those two, then we went with new construction tire, big in diameter, stuff like this, we went with that, 190 profile. The tire is brand new, pretty much." "To me, Daytona's a totally different race track," Mladin said. "It's not really a race track that the best rider's going to win all the time or the best motorbike or whatever. It's one of those races you have to go along and you just have to be there at the end, and if everything happens, then good. "You're better off finishing third than racing for the lead and getting a zero when you go and crash the thing. If you're there at the end with this race track, if you're there with a couple of laps to go, you can put your head down and you can go. If you can't do it, you can't do it. Pick up whatever you can get and come out of there." t"N (Right) Rothman attempts to learn his way around a Ducati superblke. The New Englander went to Daytona without a contract and he hopes his performance there will eam him one.