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/127950
ROAD RACE 16 only one 'th a t 'p~ssibly .'riigh"t go',,;'el( the re is Gobert." "I' m sure there migh t be one AMA rider on the podium, but I'm sure there wo n't be three," Kawasaki's Neil Hod gson says. "I' m positive. It's d ifficu lt to say who the AMA rider will be; Gobert is Gobert. He's very good around th e d rcuit. He's a man that could be there. There's him , DuHam el, or Cha nd ler one of them three. There's nob od y else that' s going to be on the podium." "I wa n t to win both races. I think probabl y everybody kn ow s that - most p eople w ho go there probably d o ," Gobert says. "The re's only a few of u s that can actua lly d o it. I think Cor ser will be hard to beat. I think Chili will be hard to beat. Nobody knows about Haga - mayb e he'll be hard to beat. I know they all want to beat me really bad, and I want to beat them reall y bad." . As for whether the AMA regu lars cou ld sweep the pod iu m , Go bert di dn 't think it wo uld happen. "Dreaming, I recko n," he says. One of the world regulars who won't be drawn into the debate is Castrol Honda's Aar on Slight. "Good luck to you," Slight said of DuHamel. "I don 't care. I mean, if he d oes, go od luck to him. As long as the y all d o and it doesn't muck up our points. If he wins, and I'm second, and then it' s a lot of other Americans and then Carl Fogar ty, it' s okay." An other difference between the tw o s eri es is e q u ip me n t. How different are the Vance & Hines Duca tis from the World Superbike variety? Both th e Du cati World Superbikes and Vance & Hines' ma ch in es use three inject or h eads , but rules manda te 60mm throttl e bodies, compared to the AMA's 54s. Eraldo Ferracci, whose team uses tw o injector head s, believes th at the t h ir d injecto r m ea n s mor e top end. "T hey brag about 9 h ors ep o w er," said Ferracci, "bu t it's ma ybe 6 or 7." Ferracci al so thinks th ey'll cha nge engines more frequently than the AMA teams will. They ma y us e one on Friday, one on Saturday, and on e for each leg on Sunday. Typi call y, Ferracd will use tw o all weekend. Jim Leonard, th e cre w ch ief for the Vance & Hines Ducati tea m, says that another di fference is fuel. The fuels have d iffer ent specific gravities and oxygen co nten ts. Most importantly, FIM rules . ma ndate u nlea ded fue l; the AMA uses leaded gas. That requires a chan ge in the com p uter mapping and it' s so me thi ng Leon ard began wo rking on the dyn o as so on as th e team r eturn ed fro m th e AMA Su pe rbike race a t Loudon at the end of June . "I know they' re wo rking prett y hard updating tha t stuff," he said . As for w he ther the AM A boys will take the d a y , Le onard sa id : " In m y book , that's a pretty lar ge sta teme nt. If you look at the sche d u le, we have to leave the World Superbike race for Mid Oh io . Anyone in the AMA champion ship doesn't want to leave cr acked up." "It's the most im portant race I'll do all year because it' s against the Wo rld guys," Cha ndler said. "Everyone thinks yo u can't risk it; you've got to concentrate on you r own series. I di d that a bit the last two yea rs, bu t I' m pr etty con tent wi th wha t we' ve do ne . I want to be able to just go and race and have fun , and to (Above) Australians Pete r Goddard and Troy Corse r flank NewZealander Aaron Slight. Will the winner at Laguna Seca come from the Southern Hemisphere? (Left) Ben Bostrom is American Honda's lone hope , following the injury suffered recen tly by Miguel DuHamel. (Below) Who will be the fastest of the Suzuki men at Laguna Seca? It's hard to bet against that man being Australian Mat Mladin- an AMA Series regular. me that's my most impo rt ant race I'll be able to do. So hopefully we'll do good this year." Gar y Medl ey , Do u g C ha n d ler's Mu zzy Kawasaki cre w chief, says that his team shares no information with the Kaw a s aki Superb ik e t eam run b y Harold Eckl , wh ich ge ts its bike d irectly from Japan. "We have more options we can play with, " Med ley said abo u t the R&D work the tea m d oes at their headqu arte rs in Ben d, O regon. "I th in k we' ll be ve ry co m pe ti tive th is year. Las t yea r we brok e a crank, somethi ng th a t never happened in all my years here." . Suzuki crew chief Don Sakakura said tha t the Suzuki AMA and World Supe rbike teams sha re as much info rma tion as possible. "Basically they're the same; it's jus t a matt er of rider preference. It wo rks out kind o f well. We tr ad e informa tio n," Sakakura sa id ."When speci al parts are produced, there's enough to go around . "Suz u ki tri es to do it th at way. If it's ava ilable, they want to have it for all the gu ys, not just one team and rid er." what th e Yoshimura tea m has been working on thi s year is m or e top sp eed. "We have similar comme n ts from the World Superbike guys," Sakakura said , Yoshi m ura Suz uki s ho u ld have th eir fuel inje ctio n wo rking by then, something which sho uld improve the cha nces of Mat Mladin and Aaron Yates. "With h im (Du Ha mel) not b e in g there, it's going to be one less of the top guys," Ya tes says. "Last year, Doug (Cha nd ler) was there and we had our problems, but I've go tten really comfo rtable at Laguna and we' ve go t a good setu p that seems to go good ther e. I really h at ed th at I d id n' t ge t to d o th e Nation al there. We sho uld also have the fue l injec tion dialed in by then . In the testing we've done there, we've go ne really well. I feel like it' s a good possibility." On the World Superbike tour, Michelin rul es; in AMA racing, it' s all Dunlop. The Dunlop-supplied AMA teams - all but Fast By Ferracd - wi ll be getting the lat est World Su pe rbike rubber, acco rding to Jim Allen, Dunlop 's national road race manager. His Michelin coun terpart, Da vid H ohm an , s a id th at Ferra cci ' s team will be ge tting the same tires as the World Superbike regulars . Yamaha' s Sco tt Russell has the last word. "I think it so u nds good, but it' s not go in g to happen, I don't think," sai d Russell. "No. They're good, they're fast, bu t I don't believe it's goi ng to happen. I know it ain' t going to happen . That' s not going to happen . I'/1 be on the bo x n this year." -----