Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

ROAD RACE Dunlop's Daytona tire test Team Yamaha No R7· yet Y 00 0\ 0\ ,...., .,,0 ,...., I-< (l) ..0 6 (l) u (l) c 12 amaha was ano ther of the teams whic h weren 't at fu ll streng th a t Daytona . Jamie H ack in g, w ho's scheduled to ride bot h of the new Yamah as - the R6 and R7 - showed up at Daytona unfit to rid e, with a nagging elbow injury keeping him sidelined. Hacking hurt th e elbo w in a sno w boa rd ing acciden t and had been adv ised to rest it. But he tried to work out, aga in popping the elbow ou t of joint and further delayin g his recovery . The South Carolinian wa sn't seen in the garage after Friday. It was something of a blessing. There were only two of the new R6s, w hich meant that Rich Oliver an d new team member Tommy Hayd en woul d each have one at th eir di sposa l. O live r a lso p u t hi s 1997 Superb ike through its paces, as the new R7 isn't sched uled to arrive until after the new year, if then . Even so, Oliver was able to knock off the fifth-fastest tim e amo ng the superb ikes. More importa ntly, a year after throwi ng the bike d own tim e and ag a in, Oli ver never hit the pavement - ins tead making steady progress and grad ua lly lowering his times. "Even though it's not our new R7, it's still a really, really well-set-up and refined bike, and it works great at Daytona," Oliver said . "It's jus t giving me track time and ge tting me experie nced with the new Du nlop configu rations that have come out. There's no rep lacing the feeling of goi ng 180 mph d own into turn one - it's good to experience it as much as you can so that when March comes aro u nd , it's a lot more comforta ble than havin g to wai t a w hole yea r to rid e on this circu it agai n." As to w hen the new bikes would arrive, Oliver said: "I'm not really in the loop as to when those are go ing to show up. I know that , lik e everyone on the team, I'm loo king forward to working with tha t bike. On the othe r hand, being here at Daytona wi th our bike th at' s been all set u p and has been ru n yea r after year after year, maybe in a sense it's not so bad that the new one hasn 't arrived . We have hopes for as early an arrival poi nt as we can so that we can get 'em prepped and bri ng them out to the trac k. We want to get ou r hands on tha t thing as soo n as we can . Whet her it shows up next w eek or two weeks from now or thr ee weeks, I d on 't know. They don't tell me those th ings. Whatever they throw under me, I'll race, but I'm sure hoping it's an R7. Th is thing is not tha t bad . Scott Russell won the race on a bike like this and Jami e got third, and I ran in sixth be fore I fell off. It would n' t be that bad of a motorcycle to have to rid e here, bu t I have my hopes u p for the R7." As for the 600, Oliver sa id it confirm ed the first impressions he ga thered during its introd uction at Phillip Island in Australia. "On the race track, it's bee n transl ating into a really nimble, ligh t, very nice-hand ling mac hine," Oliver sa id . "We don' t have a full race setup on the bike yet. We're still in the very preliminary stages of getting the thing set u p. This w ill be our third day riding, so you can ima gine that we're qui te happy that th e times are compe titive already w ith the fro nt- runners. We're really at the very ea rlies t begi nnings of getti ng the bike read y. We're pretty p leased. We've made a tremendous amount of changes to the 600, an d we still have some stuff that we d idn't ge t a chance to ru n today ~au se I was on the superbike. We're still doing verv basic stuff to where we' re losing a second, second and a half jus t on certain problems that are easy enough to fix. The bike being brand-new, there's not a lot of accessory parts for it righ t now - things that we can just bolt on to fix whatever adjustment problem we have. We've been trying to makeshift and do some stuff to make it wo rk, but when we take 'em home, yeah, there' s going to be some big improvements made. But, here, we 're still able to come up with some solutions." To mmy Hayden, who ' spent two years riding Mu z z y Kawasakis before signing to ride the Yamaha R6 this year, was also confirming the first im pressions he had after ridi ng it at Las Vegas Mo tor Speedway. "The bike's rea lly, really good," Hayden said. "I was really surprised how close our times were with what it was (at the Las Vegas test). H ere w e've go t a pipe and got it ligh tened up more and no w it's really, really good . Right now it's definitely - in perform an ce, with as little time as we have on it - it's as good as the bike I rode last year. . "It's di fferen t," he contin ued . "TIle way I look at it is the d ifference in my '98 Kawasaki and the '99 one. It's just anothe r step - it jus t does everything a little better, tu rns bett er . You can tell it 's ligh te r, it 's go t more p ow er . It seems like another step towa rd being a better bike. It handles a lot the same. I was kind of surprised . When yo u' re sitting on it, irs real small - the ha nd lebars are real narrow and they' re right up on your chest and the sea ting position 's a little different. As far as the characteristics of slid ing and stuff, ir s kind of simila r, so it hasn' t been rea l hard to adjus t to." To m my Ha yd en was able to mix it u p w it h hi s yo u ng er broth er Nicky, w ho was ge tting his first taste of the new Honda F-4. Tommy' s time wa s third fastest, just a tenth of a second behind N icky but well behi nd class lead er Eric Bostrom, "It wa s the first time I'd really raced w ith somebody on it," Tommy sa id. "We we re, like, ou tbraking each other and doing stuff . It wa s just kind of a good test to see how it was and w hat th e Ho nda had . It see med to be that we just have our d ifferent sectio ns here, that it would n' t really matter w ha t bike w e w ere on. Like I would gain on him in places. We w ere on the banking and they see med real close, definit ely. Off the com ers, it seem ed rea l close. I cou ld n' t reall y tell w hat hi s bike did better th an mine. I d idn't have trou ble hanging wi th him on the straightaw ay. I d rafted pa st him. I'm .pretty confi d ent tha t we' re definitely at least equal to him. I know tha t we definitely have a lot mo re to go ." (Above) Rich Oliver rode both the Yamaha R6 and his old VZF750 superblke during the tire test . (Below) Tommy Hayde n rode the team 's R6 for a second time and t urned respectable lap times. Hayden will ride 600s only in 1999 for the factory Yamaha team . The team 's other rider, Jamie Hacking, wasn 't able to ride, as he is recuperating from an elbow injury suffered while snowboarding.

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