A til e uf the I2C-Cjl
was like, 'Man, we're going to go real fast on this
bike: " he said. "I feel pretty good. To have the
bike go tha t good at a tire test is a lot better than
what I remem ber from the RC-45 the first time I
rode it here. It took everything for me to not cry
that day. But the RC-51 is definitely a big step . The
guys d id a grea t job on it."
What ma d e DuHamel's pe rforma nce more
impressive was tha t he was still recovering from
the crash he had at Road Atlanta six months earlier. After his most recen t operation, his left leg is
over an inch shorter than the right one, and he's
still getting used to tha t.
"I'd say it's about 70 percent in December, so
by the tim e we ge t back here it should be 100 per-
cent," he said. "It's really good, there' s no limping
involved . The leg feels really good . First few times
when you stick your knee out an d you're used to
ha ving your leg tou ch ing a t a certain an gle and
heigh t of the bike, bu t the thing is, it's now sho rt
by like an inch, an inch and a half, so you pu t it
d own there and you've got to wait a little bit more.
Even this weekend in Daytona, it's been a lot better. I tested at Willow Springs twice with the 600
before coming out here an d I was really slow, bu t
I'm happy to see that my times are good here. I
wasn' t expecting to be that fast here."
At speed, DuHamel couldn't tell how his bike
st acke d u p becau se he wasn' t sure how serious
everyone else was .
"It d efinitely seemed to be pretty good," he
said. "A nd actua lly, I we nt ou t there with Kur tis
[Robertsl ou t there on the RC-45 and I was able to
draft and d raft by him a little bit. I d on't know if
he d id it eas ier than I could and then what tire he
had on . It was nice to see the two cycling around
the race track."
Ni cky H a yd en, w ho wa s p r o m o t ed to
Du Hamel' s Am erican Honda tea mmat e, go t his
first taste of Superbike power at Dayt ona at the
end of the second day, but it was all too bri ef.
"Fou r la ps on it or some thing, I th ink, but it
was very smooth:' Hayden said. "I mean, th e
power on it is so smooth, you can hardly feel it.
