Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

hit stutter bumps on the inside of the and get it stopped and just pick the corner. Kawasaki's Doug Chandler, bike up and go." two behind Mladin at the time, guessed that might have been the but neither was anyone else, except Roberts wasn't going anywhere, case. maybe Rapp and Bostrom. Those two Kawasaki's Bostrom finished fifth were at the back end of the top six when he needed more, especially in light of his tire failure the previous Bostrom was down on power and week at Mid-Ohio. He battled with needed to work in the infield, where HMC Ducati's Steve Rapp to the end on a machine that didn't have the top he felt Rapp was holding him up. end of the four in front of him. Bostrom's fifth was worth 26 infield, but it didn't matter," Bostrom and not able to puncture the order. "I was going faster through the said. "Rapp was blocking us bad. He points, so he closed the gap on kept taking us off the leaders." Mladin to 20, 332-312, with three Bostrom said there was no chance races to go. The next is at Pike's Peak International Raceway, where to keep Rapp behind him, only to Bostrom won last year. "It's just a shame we had the tire "With four guys in front it was pret- wait for the last lap. ty difficult." issue last week [at Mid-Ohio] or we'd Rapp said they could never catch be really close," Bostrom said. "It's still a longshot. Mat's going to be tough the last three races. If we can pick up our performance, we would have a shot." "That's the good thing about having a big points lead," Mladin said, "if you make a mistake you can still have the lead." Austrian Andy Meklau (103) couldn't hold off Doug Chandler (10), but he did hold off Lany Pegram (hidden) for eighth place. up to the Hondas in the draft or gain back the ground lost on the front straight. thinking I was going to get away, but it wasn't going to happen. And then these guys came by me and I was kind of content to just chill out for a little bit and I felt pretty good behind strung together like Christmas lights, a while to get up to speed. He was the pace not as fast as last year, content to follow Hayden and see Mat Mladin made history by being perfect. His eighth pole position in a row set a new record while keeping his perfect qualifying season intact. Along the way, he set a new lap record for the three-mile Colonel's Brainerd International Raceway. The time was a 1:35.520, .305 seconds faster than John Kocinski had gone on the Vance [, Hines Ducati last year, and the only time to break the 1:36 barrier. Significantly, he was .753 of a second faster than American Honda's Miguel DuHamel, who led a trio of very fast RC51s to complete the front row. "It's a very fast track and any time someone's got a bike that's fast in a straight line they're going to be hard to beat," MJadin said. "And last year we were about 6 or 7 mph down on the fastest bike and this year we're only about three, so we're definitely a lot mostly because the tires weren't up what happened as everyone's tires doser." to the task. They were all slipping and sliding, Roberts the most spec- went away and the fuel loads went The lead in the race belonged to a Honda every lap, DuHamel on the first, then Hayden until the 10th, when Roberts took over. There was little comfort in it. Six riders were the guys, following them through the infield I felt running their pace comfortable," Hayden said. Having Mladin fall in front of him had spooked Roberts, and it took him down. tacularly, and backing it into corners, "The Honda was working great," but always in control. "From the beginning, I had a really Roberts said. "We had a bit of a grip problem, but I kind of anticipated that good start and I thought here you after practice and ·things. Just tried to always think you can maybe get be real smooth on the throttle and away, and I was trying really hard entered into the corners a little better Friday's qualifying session had been rained out, leaving teams with an hour less track time. It hurt some, others Jess, with MJadin not bothered. "Maybe if we had another we could be going faster, but it's all speCUlative," he said. "You really don't know. We felt pretty comfortable as soon as we took the bike out of the truck." The bigger problem, he felt, was a green track. "It's pretty slick compared to last year," he said. DuHamel's last Superblke win came here a year ago. He may not have been on the pole, but if he, and the others, gotten away well, the race could've become a drafting battle. That's what he was hoping for. "Obviously, Brainerd here, it's kind of hard to break away," he said. "Hopefully, I'll be able to guarantee that when I get a good start and try to hang with Mat. Obviously, he's going to be really fast." DuHamel saw that in qualifying and got a tow off MJadin for his fast lap. The next one might have been faster if not for a mistake. "I let him go a little too much and I couldn't catch him up again," he said. "The second lap wouldn't have made a difference I think. I was trying to close on him and went off the track almost in tum one." More time might have helped him, DuHamel said, but he knew it would have helped the others as well. "It's a Catch-22. You always want more time and sure Mat would go faster and we'd go faster. ObViously, we always like to have a bit more time, but with the time we got we made some progress through qualifying, which is always hard to do." Nicky Hayden was third and not happy about it. The lap wasn't bad, it was how it fin· ished that stung. Coming into the flllal comer he felt that he was blocked by teammate Kurtis Roberts. That so infuriated him that on the second lap of his qualifier he went slower. Hayden was hurt by the lack of time. Needing more track time to sort out his rllCe setup, he stayed out longer than he would have had he been more comfortable, which meant he could only use one of his qualifying tires. "My fast lap felt pretty good, except coming into the last comer here Kurtis (Roberts] looked back, seen me coming and made sure he blocked me best he could, but that's cool, kind of expected that," Hayden said after clocking his 1:36.270. "That would have been a little bit faster because it really killed my drive. Still it wasn't enough for Mat, and I did one more lap, but I was so mad at Kurtis I was just riding too hard and actually went slower on my second lap. I went like a second and a half faster than J qualified last year for this race, so I'm kind of happy about that." Roberts had problems in qualifying. The RC51 developed a chatter after a set-up change and they spent the whole session trying to resolve it. With 15 minutes to go they changed the fork springs. "So we went just with one lap on a soft tire and then came back in and got one 'Q' and just made it," he said. The time knocked Kawasaki's Eric Bostrom back to the second row, fifth fastest. "We definitely have some more improvements to make on the bike," Roberts said. "'t's hard for me when we come into a race and it's either a doubleheader or we get rained out of a practice session. We need all that time to get the bike situated for me because we still don't have it anywhere near where I want it. We definitely have some work to do and hopefUlly we'll be right there for the race." cue' e n e _ S • AUGUST 8,2001 13

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