Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

ROAD RACE Dunlop's Daytona tire test Yoshimura Suzu ki Mladin leads the way T Wi tl ~ co 0\ 0\ ...... ...0 ,..... l-< (I) ..0 S (I) u (I) a 10 his is the team that ran fourriders last year and looked set to no t rep eat the program in 1999. Austra lian Mat Mlad in wa s the keyston e and Can ad ian Steve Crevier was a cinch once he wo n the Pro Ho nda Oils 600cc Supersport title. TI1en the team adde d longtime Suzuki rid er Jaso n Pridmor e and upan d-com er Steve Rapp .' Th e team wi ll ha ve thei r hands full because all of th e rider s will contest bo th the Su perbike (on GSX-R750s after ditching the TL1000 twin progra m) and the 600cc Supersport classes . Pridmore didn' t m a ke th e tes t. He' s st ill recoverin g fro m th e wrist injury he suffered when he crashed the Vance & Hines Ducati in th e flui d d ropped by th en fellow Va nce & H ines rider An thony Go ber t in the seasonending race at Las Vegas Motor Speed w ay. Rapp mad e the test, but he d idn't finis h it, crashin g in th e first horseshoe at the end of the second day of the th ree-day test. . Mlad in was the one w ho excelled (no su rprise the re), all th e whil e trying to so rt out the fue l injection on the GSX-R750. According to Mladin , th e team wants to p erf ect th e fuelinjectio n sy stem in time to begin th e season with it at Day tona in Mar ch . . "We have had it wo rking ," said Mladin, wh o fi nished th ird in th e 1998 Supe rbike chase o n the carbureted bike. "Suzu ki's got a new system here at Daytona wh ich we haven 't seen before and the system that we 'v e had all year and been trying to work on all year , and it' s impossible during the race sea son to get anything d one. Th e la st race in Vega s, they did some d evelo pment and generally talked to a few peopl e and made a bit mo re grou nd and we got back to within half a second or a few seconds of the carburetor stuff. We' re hoping that , come Daytona, we're going to have it at least as good as the carburet o rs and ho pefu lly better. Tha t's the main thing for next yea r, and to work on a cou ple of o ther th ings as well." Mladi n took sev en pole pos itions last year, a feat he d ismisses. "Anyone can tum their brain off for a lap ," he sai d . But those seven poles transla ted to but one win - at Las Vegas, at th e end of the year - thou gh he wo u ld certainly ha ve won Loudon had the bike no t sto ppe d . What th e team lacked was po wer. "N ot just top end; we ' re looking for more raw horsep ower full stop:' Mladi n said. "We' re looking for everything from the bot tom all the wa y thro ugh ." New to Mladin th is yea r is th e 600cc class. Wit h a thr eeyea r d eal in place, Mladin is set to jump into the most competi. tive class on a bike wh ich doesn' t appea r to be the equ al of the new Hondas and Yama has . "It's fun - it looks like Eric's going rea lly fast out there," he said . "It looks like we're going to suffer with the same problem . ~ qu ickes t top speed was 158, and he's doing 165 down the front straight and he's a bi t over a second qui cker th an us so we're screwed at this place because I can ' t do the lap times he's d oin g, I kn ow that already. It' s impo ssible for me to do it. Maybe someone else might. I don't kn ow, but I can't. 1 ha d a good run with Aaron (Yates). Essentially, I think he (Ya tes) seem ed to be going the sam e a, me; it' s re all y close . In the dr aft, I jus t so rt of pulled past him up her e and he iust sor t of go t me back at the end of the straight. That 's essen tially the sa me. The bike itself feels pretty good . If I get going a bit more. mayb e I can go a bit quicker , but I can't go much qu icker than I've alrea d y gone." Class champion CreV1 r is back, knowing full we ll tha t keeping the nu mber-o ne plate on the front of the bike is a tall order . "Next year on the 600s is going to be the toughest yea r the AMA has ever seen," he said . "Looking at some of the other speed, of som e of the other bikes rig ht now, it's not going to be easy to win rac e, on the SUZUKi - it's 1101 go ing to be easy to win race s on apy ot her bike, either, because th e com petition is so stiff. I want to just try to focus more o n having a positive attitude and going ou t with a lot of effort and just try to finish race s - bu t I'd reallv like to wi n some. Tha t m ight be di fficult." Crevie r returns to the Superbik.. wa rs armed with twice as many cylinders as he had last year. After a season of flogging OR the undeveloped TLl OO twi n, th e team has scr apped th at program in place of having fours all around. "Gi ving me a couple of cylinde rs I th ink is good ," Crev ier sa id. "The twi n was an experimen tal thing. I think we did really good with it. Anybody who says we didn' t do so good with it didn ' t rea lly wat ch very closely. The bike has a lot of po ten tial. It was a fu n bike to rid e. It' s got so m e problems that they' ve got to ge t worked out. I don't w ant to put Suzuki d own, but I don't think that their R&D d epartment in Japan is large enough to focus on quick 600s, quick 750 World Superbikes an d AMA Su pe rbikes and th en a whole other bike when the re 's only a staff of abou t five eng ineers. It just needs a lot of wo rk. There's no d oubt that last year th e GSXR proved to be q u ite fas t. Even on th e World Superbike lev el. th ey 're very competitive.tNow I'm on w hat I'm sayi ng is a more com petitive bike than the tw in. I' m hap py abou t that and I' m sort of looking forwa rd to trying to mix it up wi th the guys. In m y ra cing, in Superb ike, I ge t off to a good first lap, then th e next five lap s I've always done ba d , an d then I've always been a strong finishe r. So goi ng into '99, I really wan t to focus on closing ou t the firs t five, six, seven laps , becau se all of m y speed co mes towa rd the end of the races when it ge ts all greasy, slip pery and comfortable." had prob lem s se tti ng up th e fuel injection on his GSX-R750. "We had a few lit tle problems with it," Mladin sa id . "N o t w it h th e ac tua l injectio n, bu t jus t th e throttle was way too lon g and way too easy and every tim e I'd lea n on it, it'd bu rp in the middl e of the com er. If we coul d have had the same tire that we had yesterd ay - the race tire that [ like - fixed up the thro ttle, if we h a d eno ug h time, I th ink I wo u ld've gone as fast on the injector as I wen t on th e carbu retor stuff. It' s a big step forward ." Van ce & Hines' Ant hony Gobert wa s four th fas te st a n d u n abl e to even (Ab ov e) Mat Mlad in at speed on the Suzuki GSX-R600. Mladin adapted qUickly to the 600 that he'll race in the com ing year 's AMA 600cc Supe rs port Series. (Below ) Steve Rapp was learning his way arou nd the Suzuki GSX-R750 Superbike pri or to ending his test with a cra sh in the International Horsesh oe on Satu rday afternoon .

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