Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Daytona 200 By Suzuki GSX-R750 had the muscle for the job and he led through the chicane and on the long run to the flag. Hayden was in a perfect spot, but he'd never been there before, and it cost him. Within sight of the flag, Hayden pulled out and moved by Mladin, but MJadin answered back and at the line it was the Suzuki by .011 of a seconds the second closest finish in the history of the Daytona 200. "( still watch the race now thinking, 'How did I not win?' I got by him and then he somehow redrafted me," Hayden says. The Daytona 200 is the longest race of the year by a factor of three, the only race with pit stops and a pace car, and generally the largest field of the year. So why is it that Daytona is usually the closest race of the season? "Daytona's one of those tracks that if someone's within the same second on the race track, they're going to be able to hang on," MJadin says. "If you get someone like [Troy] Bayliss, who was totally out of control for the whole race [in 2000], and in the end it cost him, if you're willing to ride like that, even though you're a bit slower, you're going to keep up." Mladin has seen it from both sides. In 1999 he came out on the losing end of a classic battle with American Honda's Miguel DuHamel. Daytona 1999 was DuHamel's return to racing. He'd missed much of HENNY RAY ABRAMS ('{YJ at Mladin realized early on that it UlJU was futile. After getting the holeshot in the Daytona 200 last year, he'd pulled out a small lead, and tried to get away. But he couldn't. No matter how hard he rode in the infield, no matter how much ground he gained, it would all be lost once he hit the banking. So he came up with a plan. "The race is going to be on the 57th lap, that's it," he thought to himself, and he began preparing. The longer the race went, the fewer riders he had to worry about It came down to a two-man race, with American Honda's Nicky Hayden the only threat. Hayden was making his 200 debut, as was the Honda RC51 and the bike proved it was stout. Hayden had taken the lead, but, like Mladin, he found he couldn't make a break. "No matter how fast I went, he stayed right there," Hayden remembers a year later. "A couple of times I tried to squeeze under a lapper and didn't go anywhere. So I just kind of cruised around the last few laps and waited for the last lap or two." Leading out of the chican'e on the last lap is generally suicide at Daytona. The draft is so strong that the rider in second, if his motorcycle is close on top speed, can usually steal the win, if he times it right. Mladin decided his Yoshimura 8 FEBRUARY 28,2001 • cue I • n e ... s the 1998 season after breaking his leg at Loudon the previous June and could barely walk at Daytona. "It was debatable if I should have been out there even," says DuHamel, who earlier that same weekend had won the Pro Honda Oils 600cc Supersport race. In the 200, DuHamel did what MJadin would do a year later, he trusted the power of his Honda RC45 to get him to the line first, and it did, though by a mere .014 of a second. "It was surprising for everybody including myself, doubly," DuHamel says. "I always expect to pull off miracles, but that time I pretty much resigned myself, to... if I had the top 10 or the top 5, I'd have been really, really happy. "I believe I had maybe a little bit more top speed than Mat did, maybe not as much as he thought. But 1 had maybe a better traction or a little bit better top speed and that time I played the other card. I couldn't afford to go too hard in the infield, so I would just make sure that I didn't let him get away. Because I think even then, if he would've gotten away, I don't think I'd have been able to reel him back in. So it was really important for me to stay close to him. At that time I kind of made the decision that I was really tired, and I didn't think I had the strength to be behind and try to get a good drive and pass. I was thinking maybe I was more susceptible to making a mistake, being so tired, so I figured at the end I would just lead because I knew my bike had the speed at least, maybe a few miles per hour on him and then instead of having all the pressure on myself and having to get a good drive and a great draft and get him before the line. I said, 'I might as well put the pressure on him.' I led out of the chicane and weaved just a little bit, not that much. Just a bit, just enough to try to get him off me a bit, and that proved to be the winning solution for that race that weekend. I was really, really tired toward the end of that race. I was happy to be over with it." It would be' his third 200 win. The draft is all-important at Daytona, a track where riders are at full throttle more than anywhere else in the series. No matter what you do in the infield, by the time you've gone from turn six to the chicane, you're likely to have company. "It's weird, at Daytona, if you got your act together you can hang on pretty easy," says Kawasaki's Doug Chandler, whose finished second twice at Daytona. "Those guys might be a little bit better than you through the infield, but as long as you can get a break in the traffic and still be in the draft coming onto the banking, you can still get sucked up back to them. I think that's the key." American Honda's Hayden agrees. "Definitely, the draft is so big, because it's so hard to break the draft at Daytona. The infield is so tight, that there's not a lot of room. You've got to be going a lot faster or those guys have got to make a mistake or maybe a lapper. If you catch a group of lappers, and the guy in front of you gets through them, it's probably going to be one of your better shots to get away and make a break." What has hurt the chances for a front-runner to get away at Daytona recently is the size of the field. The 2000 Daytona 200 was the smallest field ever, with just 47 starters. With that few riders, there's less chance that the leader can use the backmarkers to make a break. "This year [2000], and I'm only going from my point of view, we had a good half a second on anybody on a clear lap by ourselves," Mladin says. "And then, come the race time, I got the holeshot and sort of pulled a bit of a lead and then tried to keep every'thing going - going fast. And the other guys all of a sudden were going faster

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