Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Testing At Laguna Seea actually get on a bike on crutches and put that many laps in and be the third fastest guy there was pretty impressive." When he hooked up with Yamaha's Anthony Gobert late on Monday afternoon, the team had seen enough. and waved him in. Their con· cern was for his still healing right leg. the one he broke in a motocross accident in December. "It's getting better." Yates said of the lower leg bone which was fixed in place with '7 screws. two titanium plates. and two bone grafts by Dr. Dale Kiefer. Nobles said the foot was stable enough to ride on. "If he went down on it now or went down on it six months from now, it'd be the same result." "I've been doing some therapy for a couple of weeks." Yates said. "I've got pretty good movement. The strength is pretty decent. I've been stretching it. trying to get as much movement in it as possible. trying to build the muscle up. It got pretty small. The bone healed up pretty good." The only discomfort Yates felt was sensitivity iri his toes. "There's a burning. a stinging. The surgery was four-five hours and they used tourniquets. It's taken a while to wake back up." Yates said he expected to be ready for the Wjllow Springs test in iate February. During the off-season Yates decided he needed lose weight to be more competitive on the 600 and changed his diet. forsaking flour~ pasta. salt. and sugar. The result was a loss of 20 pounds. Yates said part of the weight loss was because he vias re-modeling his house and hadn't had a kitchen for a coupie of months. Yamaha's Tommy Hayden was one of the full-timers at the test. Not only did he do double duty. riding both the Superbike and 600. but he did it rain or shine. Hayden's always gone well at Laguna. winning the wet 600cc Supersport race in 1999 and quaiifying second. his best ever. in last year's Superbike race. "The lap times are all right. They definitely need to come down." Hayden said. "I did a 27.S last year. I qualified second with a 26 (1 :26.042)." The R7 was the same ex-World Superbike machine he rode at Daytona. but. instead of the white. red. and black Worid Superbike paint job. it was now painted in the blue and siiver colors of the American Yamaha team. "We had a pretty good set-up from last year. We're just kind of experimenting to see if we can get it better." Hayden and his brother Nicky traded the cold of Owensboro. Kentucky. for the warm of Orange. California. just after the first of the year. Tommy will be racing the R6 at Willow Springs on February 3-4 at a Championship Cup Series race on the Streets of Willow circuit. Then it's off to motorcycle trade shows in Indianapolis and Toronto. and where I ended up. I wasn't real comfortable with it." Smith said the VR is "really fast. real predictable" and he's working with "the same great bunch of guys." though he may get a new race engineer. Steve Scheibe served as the engineer for Scott Russell last year. but Scheibe recently resigned from the team. "They've added a lot, John Baker and the people at Harley. I'm just getting to know them this' weekend. as much as the bike." Smith. like Picotte. tested the VR with a lighter crankshaft. There's a little bit of free-wheeiing." Smith said after turning his fast lap at laguna Seca. a 1:29.5. This will be the first time that Smith and Russell will compete against each other for a full season on Superbikes. "I'm just excited to be in a place that I can race with him." Smith said. The last time they raced was at Pike's Peak in '999. "I was on the Vance & Hines Ducati and he was on the Harley and I beat him. He's ready to pay me back." Smith said. Harley-Davidson showed up at Laguna Seca with a new bike. at least that's what it felt like to Pas" cal Picotte. Though the VR 1000 is visually unchanged. the bike features a new lighter crankshaft and Picotte made the most of it. lapping Laguna Seca faster than he ever had. "I did mid-28's yesterday. a 28.5." Picotte said. "Today I did 28.7 and the conditions are not that good. I think on a race tire I never did a 28. A 28.5 is good for me." Picotte said the new crankshaft transformed the VR'OOO. "Chang- For the past few years. Mike Smith has been the man to call when a team's in a pinch. which explains the number he'lI run on the Harley-Davidson VR, 000 in 200'. though the inspiration for the number wasn't his. The veteran Georgian was sitting around one night with his wife. Susie. when he asked her if she minded him racing. She didn·t. but she had a suggestion. "They're always ing the crank Pascal Picotte quietly went about his changed the han- business on the VR1000. dling." Picotte said. "It accelerates better with less internal friction. It doesn't make it flat on top. It pulls to the rev limiter easier and vibrates less. The throttle connection's way better. Before it waited for a little bit. It gives much better feedback on the rear tire and rear suspension." The power characteristics also helped the front and rear suspension. Because it isn't as abrupt. the front forks don't dive as much offthrottle. "It's more compliant I can steer it with the rear a little bit." Picotte said. Steve Scheibe. the Harley-Davidson engineer who designed much of the VR 1000 and ran the Superbike program since it's inception in the early ·90s. resigned on January 2. Scheibe attended the test on his own. spending most of his time around the Harley tent. but said he wasn't sure what his next move would be. In addition to serving as the team manager. Scheibe served as Scott Russell's race engineer and the team is looking for someone to serve Russell's replacement. Mike Smith. in that capacity. Nicky Hayden got his wish. The American Honda rider came to Laguna Seca hoping for rain and on Tuesday the skies complied. After an intermittently cloudy moming. rain began falling around calling you in an emergency. so why not run 9117" she asked. "I put it on last year and it looked cool. There's not going to be a lot of people fighting me over that." Smith said. Smith had a lot to do when he arrived at Laguna Seca. He had to meet his new boss. John Baker. he had to get up to speed for the first time since he signed with the team. and he had to reacclimate himself to the world of AMA Superbikes. His last full Superbike season was in 1996 when he rode the Muzzy Kawasaki. The last time he rode a Superbike of any kind was when he pinch-rode the Vance & Hines Ducati at Pike's Peak International Raceway at the end of , ggg. And the last time he rode the VR 1000 was when he filled in for his brother-in-law Scott Russell at Phoenix International Raceway early in 1999. The bike's changed since then. Smith believes. but it's only gotten better. "It seems to be the same predictable bike that it was when I rode it at Brainerd at the end of 1995." Smith said. "I rode it at Phoenix FEBRAURY 7,2001 • cue • e • n • for tum six late in the rain session and returned to the pits in a pickup truck with a very muddy motorcycle. On Wednesday morning. Tommy Hayden crashed his VZF750 Superbike in the rain in turn , 1. He was unhurt. but the bike was a muddy mess. On Tuesday. all four riders turned essentially the same lap times. around 1:50 flat. 20 seconds off a dry time. and that gratified Nicky Hayden. "It was actually pretty good." Hayden said. "I was almost wide open over the hill into tum one. I took a while to do that on a 600 in the dry." The longer Hayden rode. the smoother he got and the more confidently he was able to slide the CBR600 F4i. Late in the session Hayden hooked up with Kawasaki's Bostrom and he continued to push the limit. "I guess you've got to crash to find the limit." Hayden said. adding that he nearly did. in tum three after the checkered flag fell. Hayden will only be racing the Pro Honda Oils 600cc Supersport class at Daytona. so some wondered why he was even at the test. Mostly. it was to get rain experience. but he also did suspension testing for Showa. And. he just loves to ride. By the end of the second day. when Honda packed up. Hayden had bettered his qualifying time from last year by a couple of tenths. "I still need to go faster. " he said. American Honda's Miguel DuHamel didn'ttake part in the test on the advice of his doctor. Dr. Arthur Ting. according to his manager. Alan Labrosse. and because they were just riding 600s. DuHamel recently had a rod removed from his femur and is still recupera.ting. "Ting didn't give us a red light. he gave us a yellow light." Labrosse said. "It was preferable that he didn't ride. He has enough laps on a 600." Instead DuHamel was in Las Vegas today to do promotional work at the Sports Supershow. a licensing and sports product trade show. DuHamel was at the. Universal Studios booth with his RC5' Superbike and Ezra Lusk's CR250. Universal Studios is sponsoring both the motocross and the roadrace team. This was the last large gathering of the teams to test this winter. American Honda and Kawasaki will be testing at Sears Point on January 2S-29. American Honda's Miguel DuHamel is expected to take part. riding both the RC51 and CBR600 F4i. After the test. the RC51 s go back to Japan. followed shortly by Ray Plumb and the American Honda mechanics. The crew is making their annual trip to the Honda factory to assemble this year's race bikes. Yoshimura Suzuki has another test scheduled at Willow Springs on February 21-22. Kevin Schwantz may be retired. but he hasn't slowed down. The '993 500cc World Champion will be teaming with an eclectic group of riders to represent the U.S. in the Numb Bum 24 Hour. an off-road. on-snow~and·jce 24-hour endurance race in Alberta, Canada. Schwantz's teammates for the February 10-1' race will be a quartet of fellow former champions - Dick Burleson. Lanry Roeseler. Scott Parker. and Bruce Penhall. "Speedvision helped put the deal together." Schwantz said at the Laguna Seca test. where he was working with the Yoshimura Suzuki team. The team will ride a Suzuki DR-Z400 fitted with sheet-metal-screw-studded tires. "I saw footage on TV last year and thought 'That looks Friggin' stupid ...· Schwantz wasn't certain' of the track lay-out. but believed it was a 36-turn road course on a frozen lake. The Numb Bum won't be the end of Schwantz's race calendar in 2001. He'lI be racing his DR-Z400 in a Super run in conjunction with the AMA Prostar drag race in Houston. "They run three days of drag racing." Schwantz said. "Saturday there's a Grand National Championship dirt track. Sunday there's a Super n." Schwantz took to the track at La9una Seca to do promotional filming aboard Jamie Hacking's Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R750. But the filming was cut short when the throttle stuck entering tum six. n Yoshimura Suzuki's Jamie Hacking was also supposed to do photo riding only. but had a different problem: His leathers didn't show up and the oniy pair of Yosh leathers he owned had been scuffed up in a crash on the last day of the Daytona tire test in December. Hacking said he'd been told by Spidi that they'd been sent from Italy on Monday. but everyone greeted that comment with healthy skepticism. "The cows probably haven't been killed yet." one skeptic said. They were meant to arrive on Wednesday. but didn·t. which was just as well. Hacking was recovering from surgery to repair his left elbow and could barely grip the handlebars. The photo shoot was pushed back to the Willow Springs test. "I just got the splint off this weekend." Hacking said. "I start therapy next week." Hacking has had problems with the elbow for a couple of years. injuring it in a snowboarding accident in 1999 and in the horrific crash at the start of last year's 600cc Supersport race at Daytona. He'd been riding with a bone chip in the elbow when he damaged it again at the Daytona test. "I was exiting the west horseshoe and we were having some injection problems. The back tire got loose and little bit and I thought I had it New Harley team boss John Baker talks with new rider Mike Smith. 22 2:30 p.m. and continued until the checkered flag fell on the second day of the four-day test. "I wished it would rain more." Hayden said after the wet session. "I don't have handly any rain experience." The last time Hayden rode in the rain at Laguna Seca was in the 1999 Pro Honda Oils 600cc Supersport race. Hayden. who finished eighth. was considerably slower than his brother Tommy. who won the race for Yamaha. Tommy was one of three other riders out in the rain today. along with Kawasaki's Eric Bostrom and Yamaha's Anthony Gobert. Gobert crashed braking saved. It snapped me back. I never hit the elbow on the ground. Nicky Hayden wanted rain and he got some, getting some valuable wet-track time. _ s But when I came off it slung it out. I tore the extensor tendon." Even that didn't precipitate the operation. The final straw came

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