Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

e xp ect ed to be hos pi ta lized fo r th ree days. Dunlop released a statement sayi ng the "preli mina ry investig ation indicates • a failure of his rear Dunlop slick contribu ted to loss of con trol of his bike. At thi s tim e it is impossible to determine the exact cause of the tire failure withou t a lab analys is. The sub ject tire will .be imrnedi atelv return ed to our man u' factu ring facil(ty at Fort Du nlo p, Birm"ingha m, Eng land ." Dave Watkins, who mad e his annual trip from the com pa ny's head qu arters in Engla nd to take part in the tes t, sa id it -was the first time he could rem ember a tire lo s in g a ir s ince Barry Shee ne cras hed on the front s traigh t at Dayton a in 1977. Tires have lost pieces before, and shown fabric, but a Du nlop tire had never lost air. All of the new spec tires wer e immed iately rem oved from circula tion an d the teams fin ished the test wi th tires tha t had run in thi s year's Daytona 200. Un til the time of his cras h , Bostro m was fast est , and his tim e hel d up . His best was a 1:49.88 aboard the Vance & Hi nes Du cati fitted with a race tire - in his firs t-ever rid e on the V-twin . The on ly rid er to come close was his brother Eric, w ho fitted a qua lifying tire to clic k off a 1:50 flat in h is firs t tim e aboard t he Hon da RC45 at Dayto na . Eric's r a ce- t ir e ti m e wasn ' t mu ch slower. Th ird fas tes t was Yoshimura Suzuki' s Ma t Mladin, using a tire tha t he' d p icked as best d uring th e tes t here in August. . "I did thr ee laps in the 50s, then the thing s top ped," Mladi n sa id after his best of 1:50.80. "We were th e quickest yesterda y, bu t tod ay I had to ride th e . 600 a nd I d idn ' t ge t on th e Su perbike . until thi s aftern oon . I di d a 51.5 tod ay on th a t. I d idn 't h a ve the good ti r es either. " . There were three new rea r tir es to choose from , but Mlad in had made up his mind before he got here. "Personally, I knew exac tly what tire I wan ted to u se because I kn ew fro m A ug us t, so I on ly rea lly used one," he said. "T he o thers were just a bit o f a warmup until I go t up to speed." He mig ht have gone faster had he no t H arley-Davidson Mr. Daytona ana the VR1000 T h e biggest news coming ou t of the Dunlop test was the signing of Scott Russell by the H ar ley-Davidso n - team just prior to the start of the test. T1,e com bina tio n of Mr. Davtona on Ame rica's m o s t famo us motorcyc le is irresis tib le, and th e five-time Dayt on a 200 w inner was anxious to put the Ha rleyDavi dson VRI000 th rough its paces. Ifyou touch your chin, it' ll be better . Scott Russell and Harley-Davidson tea m manage r ,Wh at he soon fou nd was that there was Steve Scheibe ponder the information that' s been downloaded froin the VR1000's onboard telemetry. wor k to do . . "T he b ike is h a rd t o h o ld o n to because of the vibration and a ll that Ru ssell never did get the cha nce to try the Showa rea r tha t's wha t I noticed the most," Russell said after h is maiden ru n on the bike that he' ll rid e f?r the next two years. "It's not a shock, just the front fork. "They have to d o so me modification to the frame to ge t it to bad motor cycle. We need to do a few things for me to make it a lit tle nicer for me to ride. Switching d irections th rough the fit in there and all, it' s too m uch work. I like the front. The bike high-speed chicane, it seems a little b it heavy . Overa ll, it's felt like it w as wo rking on ab out an inch of sus pension, fron t an d rear , and it felt real ha rd , real harsh the who le time, when I so met hi ng I th in k we can make work for me. "It's ge tting there, but we haven 't cha nged to the sus pe n- first got on it and all th rou gh until toda y, when we put the new sion that we're going to be us ing this year yet - the Showa stu ff. front fork on it and yo u could actually feel some weight startIt doesn 't respond to changes as mu ch as other bikes I've rid- ing to transfer t9 the front. The problem is that the back feels den . On the other bik es, a littl e bit goes a long way. This thing kind of dead . Ther e' s a probl em with something in the rear of see ms to be very stiff, chassiswise. You'd thi nk littl e chan ges " th e bi ke, ju st changin g th e li nkage. Wh en it comes up, it would make bigger impressions, but that doesn' t see m to be doesn 't transfer the weigh t to the back. It just kind of ge ts to a point and stops - it gets real hard . They've got to ge t the thing the case right now. "It's going to be tou gh" he said after runni ng a 1:53.1 on the to sta rt pit ching some weight, transferring weigh t and get the first V-twin that he'd ever ridd en . "That's no t bad , bu t this is thing to start working. It's not workin g. It'd kind of like a dead my track . I'm not used to being here and not being the fastest mot or cycle rig ht now . The front forks wer e defin itely in the gu y, or on e of 'e m - but I knew tha t coming here. If the bike had right direction . I'm having fun rid ing it. I feel like once I get the a little bit more top end, it wo uld be a bit easier for a lap time, of thing to wo rk, the bike feels good to sit on and to play around course, because you' re full thr ottle for so long here - but it still on - it's just not d oing so me of the thin gs I wa nt it to do. We needs to get thro ugh the chicane and a few p laces in the infield identifi ed one of the biggest pr oblem s on it." At the end of the day, Russell's best time of 1:53.1 w as well a little bit bett er for me. Righ t now, wi th all the engine braking tha t thing has as a twin, you shut the throttle off and it feels like off the 1:48.840 wh ich he ran to tak e the pole for last yea r's the back wan ts to pa ss the front. It's not bad; it just gives me the Day tona 200- and over three secon ds off the fas ter guys here. "We proba bly did n' t ge t to do as mu ch as we wanted to, but impression that' s wh at it' s goi ng to do. I'm being extra-careful on the thing. I knew it was go ing to be a little bit di fferen t, I just I felt like we kind of ran . i nto a wa ll wit h it righ t now," Russell didn't know ... I like it, I like the way the power comes on. There said . "It wo uld've p robably given us better grip and you cou ld are just a few little thin gs I'd like to change about it to ge t me probab ly go little bit faster, but it wo uld 've just masked so me of the prob lems that the bike actua lly has, and as soo n as the mo re comfortable - to fit the bike to me. " tire s tarts to go off, in three o r four lap s, th ey wo u ld've come righ t back." With as m uch w ork as Russell had , his team mate Pascal Picott e had even more - wi th his test coming to an en d w hen the bike sto pped on the track w ith jus t minutes to go on the final d ay of the three-day test. His first da y wasn' t mu ch better . "It wasn 't a rea lly good day," he said on Saturd ay a fte rnoon, the secon d of th ree days. "I wen t out at 11:15 ma ybe and then the lunch break came a t 12:00. Then I went back out at 1:30 or 2 maybe, a nd so m e th ing was wrong w it h the e n g ine a t around 3. And yeste rday was about the same. Yesterd ay, actua lly, w e didn't really bring an y not es from testing here, so we we re to tally lost - rea lly off." , Th e w ord at Daytona w as th at Pic ot te w a s going to boIt th e orange-a nd -bla ck to rejoin th e Fas t By Ferracci team that he left at the en d of 1994. All Picotte would sa y is that he has a tw oyear co nt ra ct with Ha l ey. Clea rly, he would n't ha ve cons id ered lea ving if Russell hadn' t sign ed . Once that chang ed , however, his op tions seem ed more open. At the, end of the da y, he was about half a second faster than Russell , and seventh fastest amo ng the Superbike rid ers . Russell had his first-ever outing on the VR1000 at Daytona. It was also the former World and AMA Superbike Champion's first ride on a V-twin.

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