Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

mg . Ba yliss h ad se t th e fas t time , a 1:50.30 o n a race tire . T he ti me was im pressive for a number of reasons: It was hi s first time on a banked Superspeedway, he was still adjusting to the team a nd the Ducati's settings, and he didn't hav e a great deal of ex perience with dual-com pound tires, thou gh he'd used them at the Phillip Island circuit in Aus tralia. "I fig ured by th e end of yes terday [the first day of the th ree day test], he'd d o a 53, low 53's, 53 fl a t," Va nce & Hines crew chief Jim Leonard said. "The guy did a low 51." Equa llyimpressive wa s Erion Rae- The £halUp~s t was a good year for Suzuki , wit h Austra lian Mat Mlad in givi ng them thei r first Superbike title in 10 yea rs with a consistent, mis take-free yea r b y b o th r ide r an d crew . Accord ing to Yoshimura Suzuki team man ager Don Sakaku ra, that was by design . "Basically, I try to structure each group of guys accordi ng to th eir skill level, 1 thin k," Sakakura sa id of th e teams-w ithin-a-team structu re at Yosh . "Ma t's been with Reggie [O' Rourke! now for a number of years and he's go t a good relation ship wi th Reggie, a good understan ding. 1 thin k tha t' s one of the most im portant factors there. He has confi dence in his abili ty, and it works both ways and wit h Ama rr [Bazazz, the enginee r who hand les d ata acquisition! now on the tea m, he's gotte n a lot of his electronic background on the team. Slowly, it' s really starting to pa y off, the data-logger systems, and [we' re] really try ing to learn as much as we can w ith that. lt's been very helpful. Arnaar's a big part of the team right now . I wa nted to pu t the best guys that we had available arou nd Ma t. An d the engi ne held up well for him all yea r. Ma t had to adjus t his rid ing sty le a bit, too. He tends to be kind of hard on the downshifts, and that se ems to be what killed the engines the yea r pr ior." Suzuki recently introduced the new GSXR750, bu t the tea m will be raci ng the 1999 models. "We'll sta rt tes ting the new bi ke ha lfw ay thro ug h next year and in developme nt for the year after," Mladin said . " It sho u ld be a good thin g, by the looks of it. They found a bit of stuff in the engine, and the bike in genera l is a littl e sma ller and a little light er. These thi ngs are still 10 pounds overweight." The changes at Yoshimura Suzuki are in the per sonn el, with Aaron Yates re tu rn ing af ter a dis ma l year on the Muzzy Kawasaki, and bo th Ste v es a re gone - Rapp to Va nce & H in es Du cati , Crevier to th e Ca na di an Su perbike series. . With th ree rid ers instead of four, Sakakura said the team is a mor e manageab le size . "Fou r riders might be a little mu ch," he said . "It's har d to keep on top of everything. You've got 18 mechanics running aro u nd and two classes . 1 felt it was a little too much . We' re go ing to try downsizing a nd see how that goes ." Wh at Mladin was working on at Daytona was what he felt cos t him the w in in his photo-fini sh second to Miguel Du Hame l a t the 1999 Dayton a 200: tu rn six onto the west banking. "We lost the race there this year," he sai d . "Simpl y, we lost the race going up that wes t banking. Yeah, we're d ow n on spee d, but if [ could ' ve go t thr ou gh th ere th e sa me as Mi gu el , I thi nk I could've don e a lot mo re with the race. But essentially he w as pulli ng 30 yards on me up there. It had nothing to do w ith the po wer of his bike. I'll admit that. We've always struggled her e. For the las t th ree yea rs w e' ve co me her e in December, same thing, we just can' t ge t up there. We're losing three-tenths from the time we hit the apex of that I " Hey, Troy, r m J tm." Vance & Hines crew chief Jim Leonard gets to know hi s new rider, Troy Bayliss. It did n't take lo ng for Bayliss to learn his way around Dayto na, He was fast. in g ' s Kur tis Robert s . Robe rt s s pen t most of th e first tw o d a ys ri di ng hi s n e w Ho n da F-4 and a nearly s tock CBR900RR photo bike, which he was riding so th e team co uld have poster p ho tos shots. Late on the afternoon of the second d ay he wen t ou t on a RC45, the first time he 'd ridden a Superbike at Daytona and the first time he rode a Superbike with Dunlops (he d id abou t 30 laps on a Michelin-shod RC45 practicing for the Suzuka 8-Hour). Straight away he was on the pace and bv the time he was done he 'd tu rn ed a 1~ 5 0. 6 0 , the second fastes t time to Bayliss. corner to the time we hit the wa ll - we' re losing three-tenths. A lot of people wo uldn' t believe that, but it's true. We're just tr yi ng to work ha rd on tha t. We' ve go t so me thing that works good over the bumps, but we can't get any gri p. We've go t better g rip, bu t the th ing is just w ild over the bumps. We're no t even trying to find a ha p py medium now, we're jus t trying to do something stu pid and hopefull y find something that we don ' t kno w is there. Just make a big cha nge, jus t come in, no, no good, do a big cha nge, go back ou t." The team brought a number of rear sus pe nsio n u nit s and shock lin kages to test , in add itio n to do ing their tire-testing duty. At the end of the first day, Mladin had already tu rn ed his fas test solo lap at Day tona. "It's the quickest we've ever bee n aro un d here by ourselves, " he sai d, and it would get better. "I was su rprised by the lap tod ay. 1 w as n' t rea lly even having a go at it; 1 was still a bit tired . [ done an Antho ny Gobert an d go t here a bit late, so I'm a bit jet-lagged ." , Georgian Yates had a short d ri ve to Daytona and he was eag er to get there. For him, re tu rning to the Yoshimu ra fold was a homecomi ng of sor ts. Before leaving for a one-year stint at Kawasaki, h e' d be en with Su zuki his e n ti re pro fess ion al tealU career. Even thou gh he was only gone for one seaso n, he fou nd th e GSX-R750 to be significantly im proved. "Being back on th e Suzuki now, I'm a little mo re comfortable w ith th e team and I' m m or e fam iliar wit h what we have an d what's available for the m otor cycl e," the Georgian sai d. "T he Suzuki factory, from w hat [ understand, th ey' ve rea lly go t themselves involved a lot more over the last year and the bikes, the Supe rbike's just unbelievable how much it's ad vanced in the one yea r 1 was go ne . I hate that I missed th e yea r." Yates said the Suzuki was faster an d had an im proved chassis. "It ' s a really good pa cka ge," h e sa id. "It was n 't so grea t yes ter day because we d idn't have the correc t shock for the link that was on it, bu t I rod e at Willow abou t a month ago an d there wa s good grip, the front and the rear gr ip, the feedback from the front end. Just the whole p a ck a ge. It ' s a pretty co nfi de nce-i ns p iri ng mot orcycle. It makes it easy to go fast on it; and the power, too . The bike pulls good, but then it really comes on at 12,000 and then revs up to about 14,500. It pulls rea lly stro ng up there." Yates wi ll sha re the 600cc Su perspo rt d u ties with Jason Pri dmo re, and he foun d the 600 to be little changed. "The 600 is pretty sim ilar to the wa y it was in '98 when I rode it," he said. "Actually, the bike I'm riding right now is Crevier's bike from '99. We're supposed to have so me new stuff for the Laguna test, I guess, but righ t now I'm jus t kind of going through some things, sorting out some shock settings and fork stuff. We're not too conce rned about it ri ght now be ca us e we know we've go t something better coming later ." Pri d more was faster ou t of the box on the 600, part of it bein g his physical cond ition. "Physica lly, I'm great," he said. "I' rn loving being here and being healthy for testing. 1 went rid in g motocro ss on Thursday a nd th e track was so bad , 1 loaded up and said, 'I wa nt to go to Dayton a healt hy.' Last year when we tested, [ was injured the whole time we were testin g, so it wasn't rea lly fair. And once 1 started racing, I left it with the way it was. Here we can test stuff." Even while testing, he went qu icker on the first day of the test than he had in the race this yea r. "I th in k havin g a yea r on the bike u nd er m y belt has really help ed me," Prid more said . "Today when 1 rode ou t of the pits for the first lap - I just reme mber m y first lap on the bikes here and we n t, 'O h my God .' This yea r was quite a bit more comfortable. I thin k that made a big di fference." What Pridmore is going to wo rk on this yea r is consistency . "I finis hed every race but thr ee; we had three mechanicals last year," he said. "I ended up sixth in the cha mpionship. I'd like to run more top five this yea r than we di d last yea r, put in on the box a few mor e times. I think the way the championship is, if I can run the top five all year, put it on the box half the races, we'll go to the last race wi th at least a chance of winning the cha mpionship ."

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