Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

(Left) Eric Bostrom was the best of the best when it came to ripping off qu ick lap times on his Honda CBR600 F4. (Above) Mat Mlad in chats with Jim Allen abo ut the new ti res. had done a 24-lap run before coming in . Th e tire was checked, he w ent back ou t, di d one m ore lap and the tire failed . "That's w here we thought we'd d one a good job, because that had never happened before," Allen said. "That's why we stopped . There was no explanation . We have to recon struct what happened." • Allen said that Eric Bostro m had been especia lly impressed with the tires. " He d id a lO-lap run and, w hen he ca me in, h is eyes were like sa uce rs," Allen sai d . "He d idn't believe yo u could slid e on the banking." Dunlop ca me to th e test w it h three different -sp ec rea r tires, tw o of which ca me ou t o f th e test here in A ugu s t. There was also one new front dual-comp ound DOT fo r Su pe rs po r t r acing , a lo ng with tw o ne w du al-compound rears. Dunlop brought about 700 tires to th e test but only ended up us ing less than half of those. And very few rid ers tried the qu alifying tires . The conse nsus among the riders w as that the tires had made a large leap forw ard . H ow th e y co me to t he bla ck ma gic - the mi xin g of th e pol ymer , the oil, the carbo n bla ck, the su lfu r - comes down to people, acco rd ing to Watkins. E Honda rion Youth and exuberance E rion Honda, American Honda's satellite team, was one of two teams which came to the test at full streng th an d the onlv one w hic h left the same way. Kurtis Rober ts, in h is seco nd yea r o n the tea m, was joined by new teammat e Nic ky H ayd en to pu t the new Honda F-4s thr~ugh th eir paces .. For Rob erts it was a chance to see how the bike had evo lved si nce last year, For H ayd en , it was a cha nce to co m pa re it to the Suzuki GSX-R600 which he rod e to one w in and fourth place m las t year's Pro Honda Oil s 600cc Championshi p',Since the team go t their machinery not long before the test , there was n' t mu ch tim e to make them race read y. Still, they we re impressive. "It took a little time to ge t used to, but now that I'm comfor tabl e.J already went fast er on it th an I d id on my Suz u ki (at Day tona ): ' N icky Hayden sa id on Satu rday a ftern oo n. "It just feels smaller and feels more narrow and just d ifferent. I'm just trying to get comfortable on it. Th e Suz uki - n:arbe yo~ ca n. be a littl e more agg ress ive, it's a littl e more forgiving , ThIS thmg here, you' ve go t to kind of keep the w heels in line a littl e bit ... more - you can't ba ck it in as much ." In the time he'd been on the bik es - he was n dmg his ow n and the Ameri can H ond a bike of the sidelined Mi g u el "Abso lutel y, without question, we've raised the grip level this yea r," Watkins said . . The fast guys - Ben and Eric Bostrom, Mat Mladin, a nd Anthony Gobert - all lik ed th e sa me tir e . But s in ce a tire fail ed , the m anufacturer ha s to look at all the informa tion ga the red to find ou t wh ere th e p robl em w a s . Th e process co ul d ta ke a nywhe re fro m tw o to s ix weeks, Wat kin s sa id . n DuHamel- Hayden hadn't asked for a lot of modificat io ns. "No t a lot of major changes, just a lot of little stuff - suspension and a few carbur etion changes and ge tt ing all the footpegs and ha nd lebars kind of comforta ble for me:' he said. What he was able to d o was hook u p with his brother Tommy, who was on the new Yamaha R6, also with minima l changes. "It was p retty coo l," the yo u nger Hayden sa id. "We wer e just kind of pl aying around . It seems p retty close (to the Yamaha). I thin k we' ve definitely go t so me more work to d o. They just go t the bike like three days before they came here, so they just pretty muc h ha d time to put so me bodywork on tha.t. I did a 57.2 her e. Th e Su zuki I qualified a t mid -57, 57.5. I th ink for su re w e've still got some changes to make and, just me, I've kind of been off for a few months. If I cou ld get WIth somebody, you know, go ing faster, I think'! could pick it up, but just ou t there rid ing around by myself slows me down. ". On the first da y of the tes t, Ha yden r a n WIth Muzzy Kawasaki 's Aaron Yates, w ho was getting his firs t taste ot the ZX-6. Ha yden turned in the seco nd -best time, a 1:56.30, well back of Eric Bostrom's class-setting tim e of 1:55.17. If th ere was one rider whose te s t was ev entfu l, it w a s Robe rts. The Erion Honda rid er crashed on Friday, then hit a bird entering th e chicane on Satu rday . " I hit so m ething and it ju s t dest ro yed the w indscreen," Roberts said. "Goin g in (to the chicane), like the second part of it. I bent it in th ere behind (Steve) Crevier and I saw him (the bird ) coming. Crevier moved and it sca red on e of them a~d it flew down right into m y windscreen. It sha ttered the wind scree n, it hit me a nd a feather flew up int o my helmet, the bird flew d own into m y lap. It wa sn't very fu n. I didn't w ant to touch it. I wa s just kind of moving around . I didn't even want to see it." Th e crash wa s eq ua lly even tfu l, but mo re pred ict able . After rid in g hi s Erion H onda, w hich has ru bber btak e lines , Roberts went out Nicky on DuHa m e l' s bike , which was fi tted with Hayden had braided-st eel lines. his first ri de ': 1 got on the one with the steel after being on the Erio n o n the one with the rubber for a little bit," he Racing began. "I go t the tires wa rm . The next la p, I just Honda got off going in to the west ba nking corner and CBR600 F4 at just grabbed it a nd p icked the back end off the Daytona. He grou nd and it ca me down sideways. O nce it was instantly ca me sideways, it just flicked me rig ht in the fast and air." ended up When it was all so rted o ut, Roberts ha d high second praise for the new bik e that he rode to th e fifthquickest, . fas test time amo ng the 600s. behind Eric "The bike' s reall y goo d ," he s aid . "T he Bostrom's bike's rea lly good . Ni ght and da y. Ever ywhere factory (it's improved) . It's lighter, fast er , corners betHonda, ter, handles better. And it looks better. EveryHayden was th in g. It's just a better motorcycle, which, yo u joined on the kn ow , usually ha ppens. Some of the pro blems Erion team that w e have th at w e need to fig u re ou t are by Kurtis probably goi ng to tak e a while, because we've Roberts, o nly been working on them f?r two days .- but it's a lot of ba ck-and-forth, WIth Hon da, which is a great company, w e're definitely goi ng to ha ve them figured out." 00 0\ 0\ . .--D .l-< OJ .c E OJ u OJ c 13

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