Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Team Oliver Yamaha W (Opposite page and above) Pascal Picotte ended up as the second-quickest superbike rider and fastest on a 600cc. Yoshimura Suzuki T he highlights of Yoshimura Suzuki's 1996 campaign were a complete domination of the 750cc Supersport series and Superbike wins in the rain of Mid..()hio and on the twisty bends of Sears Point. Other races were satisfying, but there wasn't the consistency needed to make a legitimate nm at the championship. And by the middle of the season, some of the ridel'S were griping that their development suggestions weren't being taken seriously. The Suzuki GSXR750 was a powerful machine as delivered, but it needed more. As good as it was, the team spent the season making it better, and as the season wore on, it showed itself capable of consistently nmning with the best. This year the team starts with a well-developed machine that was considerably strengthened over the winter. Some of the bikes that showed up at Daytona sounded as if they had gear. driven cams and one team member just smiled when a ked if that was the case. The rest of the team was smiling when the three-day tire test was over. Pascal Picotte nearly toppled Muzzy Kawasaki's Doug Chandler from the top of the unofficial times list. He was only 0.04 second behind, and second-fastest of the nine factory superbike riders, though the time was done on a qualifying tire. The times that he did on race tires would have kept him in second place, though not as close to Chandler. Still, Picotte thought the test was a success and he said it had a lot to do with two things - machine improvements and communication. "1 don't know if 1 can tell everything" Picotte answered when asked what was better on the new bike. "Everything is different. We're just trying a lot of things. A lot of things are just better. For me, it really fits much better my style. It turns better, accelerates better, holds the line better, brakes better, everything is just better. Faster. Easier to flick from side to side. Just lighter. More predictable sliding, a lot more predictable sliding." hen Rich Oliver was first asked what he thought about the Yamaha YZF600, he was unequivocal. "1 wouldn't say I can relate anything from the 250 to this bike," the three-time AMA 250cc GP Champion said before making a shopping list of its ills. It was 200 pounds heavier than his TZ250, it didn't stop, it didn't tum, the tires were vague and it all added up to him being about three seconds behind. 'Tm not used to being this far off the pace," he lamented. By the end of the three-day test his view had changed. He'd started to get a feel for the DOT tires, he'd put some time into the suspension and he'd ridden through a trailerful of parts. "Monday I peaked out at two minutes flat," Oliver explained. "It was the best I could do, no matter what I did. Then the next day, Tuesday, I was able to get it down to 58.6, which I felt was a little better. But now today the winds come up and we're back up in the 59s. I'm hoping to get out there and at least get up in the 58s, and that would be an improvement on Tuesday." He did. His best time came Wednesday, a 1:58.32 that put him well down the list of 600 riders at the Dunlop test and nearly 2.5 seconds slower than Yoshimura Suzuki's Pascal Picotte. But Oliver wasn't blaming it on the machine. "To be quite honest, I've got a lot better motorcycle underneath me than I know what to do with right now," he said. '1 just keep making mistakes with the bike and running wide and missing apexes and it's just all about learning the way it steers. It's a good motorcycle, it's got a lot of traction and it's fast and it's steady as a rock. The thing hasn't changed, missed a beat, in three days of thrashing on it. I'd like to be a little closer in times, but ultimateJy I'm abont three-quarters of a second slower than Tom Kipp right now, so I don't feel too bad. What's the problem, I don't know. I need to go home and think about it and maybe I can come up with something before the next test at Laguna in January." For the second half of the season, OliVer let it be known that he was looking for a superbike ride. He was decimating the 250cc competition and hoping that someone would notice. Yamaha, which has been his main supporter for years, did, but there was no room on the superbike team, though Yamaha's Tom Halverson said that Oliver would fill in for Kipp if he were unable to race. So they offered him a chance to join them in reintroducing themselves to the 600cc Supersport class, a class which they won in 1994 with Jamie James. Essentially, Oliver is part of a satellite team, fully supported in the 600cc Supersport class, but able to make his own modifications. "He's our factory support tearn in the 600cc Supersport and 250cc GP," Yamaha's Halverson said. "He'll race in his own colors, with his own sponsors. We support him as far as the bike preparation and setup. He was able to get a bit of a budget this year in addition to bikes and parts." The deal came together late, which meant that the delivery of the bikes also was delayed. "We put the bike together Sunday before we got here," Oliver said. "We were really late. We just had everything show up at the last minute. We've done probably six jetting changes and we've put on three different exhaust piRes and I've had two different shocks. I've just thrashed. I'm hoping that once we get a nice package together, I won't have to work on it so hard at each race. 'We're working on this more than we would the 250. Once we get a good ridable setup, I think it'll stay really consistent from track to track and it'll just be up to me to improve my riding skills. 1f Having spent the past several years riding the purpose-built TZ250, a light, precise, quick machine, on slick tires, Oliver was unprepared for the feel of the DOT rubber. "No matter what it is, it's a tire with tread in it and it gives you a different feel than a slick and it gives you sort of a more spongy fee!," Oliver explained. "And when I get a spongy feel on a slick, it means I'm about ready to slide it out or crash. So, it's convincing me that I'm still okay. That it can move around and squirm and spin and that's okay. So I think that's most of my problem right now." It likely won't remain a problem for long. The handling was improved by switching to a Showa shock, from Ohlins. The team has new Tokico brakes, the engine is improved and there are new transmission ratios. "It's a lot better than it was last year," Yoshimura's Aaron Yates concurred. "It's going to be really good. The motor's got a little more power, it's revving up higher. It's working pretty good. The main thing that I thought it needed was just a little more horsepower. "They had the bike set up pretty good to where it was working really well. We season with an all-new bike is problematic. . "You kind of expected that with this bike," Yoshimura Suzuki crew chief Don Sakakura said of the 1996 campaign. "It takes a while. Speedwise, I think we're fairly close now. We're going in the right direction. Last year we just used pretty much whatever worked for each rider. Whatever each rider feJt comfortable with. We're in the same situation this year, too. Each rider requires a different feel, different characteristics for each. Whatever's going to get each guy comfortable. Definitely, it's easier this year." But the season starts almost three weeks earlier, placing an added burden on the tearn. "Being that early in the year, you lose a whole lot of time to prepare for that," Sakakura said. "We'll probably show up for Phoenix with the '96 bikes anyway, depending on how Larry Pegram and some of the Yoshimura Suzuki crew. this. test here went." were lacking a little bit on the cornering, exit traction or whatever. So that's what we're working on pretty hard right now. Trying to see if we can help it out a bit." Picotte said getting the work done was a matter of getting his mechanics to listen to him, something he didn't feel good about last year. "1 don't want to say anything wrong about my mechanic last year, but I just (elt like... I don't know. Maybe I was trying to fix the bike more than ride the bike," Picotte said. "Lots of things. I was doing both jobs. I want to fix the thing and ride the thing. You just need to give really good feedback. And with the guys I have nmv, Henry (Yokota), I give him something really good and he can come up with sometlling. They've been in business for a longtime." Long enough to know that starting the can From all outward appearances it went well. Picotte was not only nearly the fastest Superbike rider, but was far and away the fastest 600cc Supersport pilot. The new GSXR600 made as great an impact on its class as its larger brother had made last year. Picotte's time of 1:55.89 was nearly 1.5 seconds under Smokin' Joe's Miguel DuHamel's pole-setting lap for the 1996 race. He was fast out of the box and he only got faster. More than one rider remarked that the bike had to be more than a 600. But the top speed wasn't that impressive. Other bikes were as fast. It was Picotte's ability to get through the 1.1-mile in£i.eld that dropped his times. "I can ride the thing really, really hard, and it's comfortable for me," Picotte said. "It's really easy for me because I'm comfortable. The thing turns good, handles good, brakes good, can keep good comer speed. I can steer it with the back end when I want, if I need to. And I know the bike can still improve a little bit. But the thing's really, really good." Larry Pegram, the newest Yoshimura Suzuki recruit after a year on the Fast by Ferracci Ducati, posted respectable times 'right off the bat. At the fall Daytona NASB/F-USA race, Pegram had gotten the Ducati around the track in 1:51.4 on a qualifying tire and did high 51s on the race tire. "Right now I'm doing low 53s, 515 pretty consistently," Pegram said. "So if I can just get everything right, I can do maybe 51s today on race tires." Pegram never did get into the 51s, but his best single lap of 1:52.14 wasn't far off. "That's not bad, first time on the bike," he said. Pegram had an idea what to expect out of the Suzuki GSXR750 from racing the Yoshimura team last year. He admitted that when he got on it, he was nervous. "1 watched the guys ride it last year and I thought, 'That thing looks hard to ride and they're really having to ride on the edge to go fast on it.' I think that's just their riding styles coming throllgh." Once he put a few laps on it, he marveled at how easily he adapted to it. "I feel like I can ride the thing pretty hard and I'm already starting to get more comfortable and slide it around," he said. Pegram also will ride the new GSXR600, and his times weren't that far off those of Yates. The only blemish in an otherwise promising test was a cold-tire high-side that put Yates down on. the second day. Yates said he'd been out on the superbike, then pitted to make some changes. "And I went out and r was just kind of cruising up in the' dogleg that one time," he explained. "1 knew the tires were cold and I was taking it easy and I was off the gas, just coasted in there and it just slid out, then hooked and kicked me off. Kind of screwed up my firiger here and the outside of the bottom of my left foot is a little sore, I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to ride." He showed up a little late Wednesday, then put in a full day ending up with the third-fastest superbike time. 21

• Cover