Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

ROAD RACE Dunlop Daytona Tire test HMC Ducati Picotte Smiles Again Pascal Picotte had his first outing on the HMC Ducati and proved that he will be a loree to be reckoned with in this year's AMAIChevy Trucks U.s. SUperbike Series. Mitch Hansen and Pascal Picotte both got last-minute reprieves. For Hansen, it was the reversal of Ducati's decision not to support racing in the United States For Picotte, it was a chance to race the HMC Ducatis after four years of flogging the Harley·Davidson VRJ 000. Together they go into the season on a shoestring budget but rejuvenated, and convinced they can contend. When Hansen went to the October Ducati dealer meeting in Las Vegas, just before Ducati Revs America, Ducati announced there would be no factory support for an American race team. "I thought, 'Oh boy, now what am I going to do?'" Hansen said. Hansen had made his first big splash on the AMA scene in 2000 with an immaculate operation and fuli-sized semi-rig for his mostly Pro Thunder effort. It paid off with Shawn Conrad winning the title. For 2001 he upgraded in every way, moving to a two-rider team in the Superbike ciass and hiring a number of World Superbike and Ducati veterans. His working setup was the best-presented of any team, but it was a secret to the Italians. "I guess the Italians had never seen our operation and we were aU setup there: Hansen said. "We had to take care of 15 Superbikes and take care of the VIPs from Ducati that were there. They went on the track. We took care of all that for them. I guess they started to see what kind of an operation we had and they had some second thoughts and they came up to me a little later in the day and said, 'Hey, we're going to try to put something together for you guys, because we appreciate what you've done aod we realize you did it with no budget and old equipment: So they were disappointed that Ducati did not win here last year, but they also know that we didn't have much support and that we did a pretty good job. And they came back and said, 'We can do a one-rider team, we can help you,' and that's basicaliy what happened:' It was a take-it-or-Ieave-it offer: two of the latest 998R Testastrettas, five spare engines, and two spare-parts kits. eye I e n III! vv S Another factor was the reaction of the Ducati dealers. "The dealers were very upset that there was not going to be a race team: Hansen said. "They ali felt, just like I do, that if there's one company that needed to be in AMA superbike racing, it's Ducat!. I mean some of these other companies don't have to be there. Obviously, Harley felt it was not important for them to be there. But Ducati had to have some kind of a presence. It's not a fuli factory-supported operation, but at least it's something. We have the new bikes and whatnot. We can already tell we're going to be competitive. We have the right rider on the bike, too· I can teli that already." That rider is Pascal Picotte, the French-Canadian who last rode Ducatis for Eraldo Ferracci in 1994. Hansen said that other riders were considered, inciuding the 2001 team of Steve Rapp and Andy Meklau, along with Doug Chandler. "' just felt that Pascal was very hungry," Picotte said. "I can teli that. He's ready to go. He got to see what we had to offer and we sat down and talked and I could tell that he's ready to go." Equally important is the crew. Charlie Putz came from Austria with Meklau last year and decided to stay. "I say this very confidently: He's the best Ducati engine builder in the world: Hansen said. "His bikes consistently were faster than the factory bikes. He was the key ingredient last year. He came along with Andy and he loved it here and he loved the organization and we loved having him, so he was wiliing to stay, hopefuliy for a long, long time." Picotte's deal is for one year. That should be enough for him to prove his value to the team. At Daytona, he was reveling in the amount of power the Ducati had after years on the somewhat sluggish Harley. "I think it's been two years since I passed someone going down the front straight," Picotte said after an early run. "I saw Kurtis [Roberts) and Aaron [Yates) and went by them so fast, they must have been at half-throttle. The bike has so much potential. It's going to be awe· some. The brakes are awesome. The power's linear; it never breaks loose. It's light on top. It's easy to flick left to right. Engine braking is just right going in. It has a good tuck position. And that's just the old bike." Picotte last rode Ducatis in 1994, the year he put the Fast By Ferracci Ducati on the pole for the Daytona 200 and won his 50-mile qualifying race. To get back on the Italian brand Picotte went to Wisconsin to visit team owner Mitch Hansen. Picotte said they'd been in contact since August, but he wanted to sit down face to face with Hansen and let him know how much he wanted to be a part of the team. "It was up in the air with Ducati - whether it was going to be a one-rider or two-rider team, whether you had to bring money,' Picotte said. "J told them I was dedicated to the program. I'li do it. I want to get back on competitive equipment, have fun, and smile - get some good results. " By the end of the test, Picotte had ciocked the fifth-fastest time, and he'd done it on a race tire. The fmaJ day was less productive than the previous two, with plenty still to learn. "The calibration was really, realiy terrible today and we didn't have anyone who could fix it: he said. "The actual mapping was realiy, really bad. It made the bike really hard to ride, actually - the throttle connection wasn't there and was realiy lean in spots. If I wasn't on the right powerband, that thing was really slowing down; it was actualiy almost, like, dying on me. And every time I was on the throttle and r had to roli off a little bit, it just died on me. It wasn't realiy easy to ride the way it was. We managed to do okay. I was able to do some 50s even on a race tire. It's still okay. And I was trying different things to try to learn the bike a little bit - tried a different shock, different linkage. They try offsets, a shorter offset, a longer offset, just to see how the bike reacts. I'm getting more and more comfortable on the bike:' The factory had asked him to put a lot of time on the new engine and ended up with over 420 miles. At the end, the eJ1gine was tired, the mapping wasn't right, and the suspension was off. Picotte also tried a few qualifiers, but the stability issue meant the tire quickly chunked. "I did the regular qualifier; I couldn't even make half a lap - it was chunked already: Picotte said. "After that, we had two new ones and I just barely made start-finish. We definitely need to work a little bit on suspension, try to minimize the wheelspin and tire movement. More tire movement than anythjJ1g will cause the overheating in the tire most of the time, because you're moving the casing and it produces heat, more than just spinning." All in all, Picotte couldn't have expected more. "It's definitely the best bike I've ever ridden, by far,' Picotte said. "I remember watching the guys, even like a few days ago, watching them on TV, getting the thing sideways coming out of the corner, even in GP or World Superb ike. The last four years, J couldn't do that. And even before that, we didn't have enough horsepower to do it. That thing's just incredible. I can light the tire anywhere I want. Any time I want it. And it doesn't really wt,eelie that much, just doesn't really want to flick you, so you can really accelerate off the corner. On the VR, we didn't really have the power. The thing just liked to wheelie off the corner, so we couldn't actually really put the power the way we should have been able to, and on the Ducati it's just the opposite. It spins, it lifts the front wheel about, I would say, a foot from the ground, and it just keeps going." Picotte may yet have a" teammate_ At Daytona, Hansen said there was still a chance there'd be a second rider.

• Cover