Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

ROAD RACE Dunlop Daytona Tire test Team Chevy Trucks Kawasaki Youth Movement _ Of the Japanese factory teams, Kawasaki enters the 2002 season with the most changes. Gone is three-time AMA Superbike Champion and Kawasaki fixture Doug Chandler, sacrificed in a youth movement and not replaced. Instead, the team will run one Superbike, with 2001 runner-up Eric Bostrom, and two 600cc Supers ports - Tommy Hayden returning to the brand he left at the end of 1998, joined by 18-year-old Californian Tony Meiring. No new machinery is on the horizon, meaning Bostrom enters the year on an older motorcycle. More importantly, he'll do it with a new crew chief. AI Ludington, who had serial success with Miguel DuHamel at American Honda, left Team Green to reunite with DuHamel, despite an offer from Kawasaki to stay. How well Bostrom's team will gel remains to be seen. but, at the tire test, it was clear there was work to be done. Team manager Mike Preston decided to go with one Superbike for a number of reasons: availability of riders, equipment, and support from Japan. "And as it tumed out, that's kind of the way we went, with one Superbike with Eric [Bostrom] and try to give him the full and best support we can to be competitive this year," Preston said. "For 6008, ever since we started the team, we always wanted two 600s and we weren't able to do it. So finally we're able to get another 600, so we're real excited about that. I guess, unfortunately, we don't have two Superbikes. In our conditions we have with the current bikes and the support we're getting from Japan, I think that we're going to be fine. I think that our feeling is that you only really need one ride as long as you've got the right rider, and with Eric we think we've got the right rider to win the championship." Preston didn't rule out returning to multi-rider teams in the future. Given the right rider or a new machine to develop, the team would go back. "Obviously, the bike's very old," Preston said. "It can only do so much. We're trying to keep it current. We have new parts that we're testing here and we'll get some more before the season starts as well. Kawasaki wants to race and we want to be competitive. I don't know such development is so much ongoing - I mean it is ongoing on this machinery, but it's not like having a brand-new machine where we have a lot of testing, you need more riders' opinions. I guess we could go to three riders or multi-riders with a brand-new machine to try to develop it to make it quicker to make sure that it's race ready. Our machine is pretty race proven. We just have to keep improving what we know works - just keep making it better and better and better." Kawasaki is slated to compete in the MotoGP class of the World Championships this year. When they will jump in hasn't been announced, but word leaked out at Daytona that it would be from the first race on. There hasn't been any impact on the team yet, but Preston is hoping for a trickle-down effect. "I assume that for sure it wiJI impact our program," he said. "I always look at the positive side, that they're going to be building a new bike and new equipment, and hopefully some of that will maybe filter down to us. But if not, for sure the technology and some of the littie trick items that they develop out of GP will come to us. Unfortunately, we don't have a GP here in the U.S., but I would be pretty assured with our current rules, we won't get the exact same equipment. Like I say, rules are definitely hindering the racing. Like I say, Kawasaki wants to race very bad. Like most of the manufacturers, we'd like to race something we can sell. Rea1ly, we'd like to race something that we could sell globally, not just specifically for one market." Equipment issues aside, the main focus of Preston's efforts at the end of the year were to keep Bostrom. As far back as the World Superbike race at Laguna Seca, Bostrom was rumored to be on his way overseas. It came as something of a surprise to many that he'd stay, though Preston knew better. "Always the word is what everybody wants to hear." Preston said. "There's no doubt about it that Eric's got his goals, and one of Tommy Hayden had his first outing on his 36 JANUARY 9, 2002' cue • • n e VIr s his goals is to be World Champion, but he also bas the goal to be [AMA] Superbike Champion. He's bad goals all along. And I think that's one of the reasons that he's successful. One of the goals he accomplished last year, 600 champion, so if he can make the step in the Superbike, then it's time to move on. To become World Champion, you can't race here in America, because we don't bave the series. His brother's been quite successful and he sees that and I think the brother rivalry - you can do as good or better than your brother. Our goals were to keep Eric. We're real happy with him, Kawasaki's happy with him." Kawasaki dangled a few carrots in front of Bostrom to keep him. One was the guarantee of rides in at least three World Superbike races - Sugo, between Daytona and Fontana, laguna Seca, and Ochsersleben in Germany. He may do the Dutch round as we1l. It's likely he'D also test Kawasaki's MotoGP four-stroke. "Eric's schedule is going to be quite full to try to slip a few of those in," Preston said. "With Eric running a few World Superbike events, we're real excited about that. We think it's going to raise his riding skill, his level of skill a little bit better. We think it'll keep us that much quicker and on the pace. Less lay-ofts," The Superbike rides are nice, but Bostrom's main motivation is simpler: He wants to win the AMA/Chevy Trucks U.S. Superbike crown. "The biggest thing is, we don't have a Superbike plate on the wall yet and I want one," Bostrom said during a not entirely successful test. As for the MotoGP test, he said: "We should be able to test it, but I don't know when. Maybe the later the better. It'd be nice to try it when it's a little bit sorted out." Sorting it out was what Bostrom was doing in Daytona, and not to entirely good effect. Ever since his brother Ben suffered a rear-tire failure on the East Banking a few years ago, Eric's been a little spooked. Then there was his high-side during practice for the 1999 Daytona 200 that was the beginning of the end of his time with American Honda. Personal feelings aside, Bostrom was working for a solution to the horsepower drain at Daytona and not finding it. There were handling issues as well. "The bike is exceptionally bad on the throttle, and it takes a lot of throttle to get around this place," Bostrom said, "so that's going to be a concem. Steeringwise, we haven't had a lot of luck getting the thing to where I steer it and not end up sliding the front. Right now we're just kind of sliding the front and not tuming." At the end of the second day of the three-day test, Bostrom had made some progress, but it was negated the next moming, "Like everything was wrong and lap times were off, also," he said. "It's a little bit discouraging or frustrating or whatever you want to call it. [Hopefully] we can pull it back together this aftemoon, because it's real important to leave here with something halfway set up for the race." In the 2001 running of the 200, Bostrom was a deceptive second. ·Our bike wasn't so good," he said. "It was a lot of mayhem out in the race. Really our bike wasn't special. We qualified: with a qualifying tire, we did a 51.5, so things weren't so good. They're still not so good." Having won the Pro Honda Oils 600cc Supersport title, Bostrom has abandoned the class, leaving it to Tommy Hayden, back on the ZX-6 after two years at Yamaha. Hayden had put a few cursory laps on the Kawasaki prior to Daytona, which was enough to gain a good first impression. "How big a difference can it really be (he asked himself before the test]?" Hayden said. "But once I rode it, I was pretty amazed because of the whole handling characteristics. What really surprised me the most was the engine, how much different the engine, the power range was - that was really kind of caught me the most. "The Kawasaki's a little more stable in the fast stuff," he said. "It seems like I can go a lot faster through the chicane than I did on the Yamaha, and also the kink. For some reason, in the real fast comers the bike just feels a little bit more stable. The power is a little bit different. The Yamaha revs up a little bit higher, but it doesn't make as much as the R-6, down low. It kind of balances itself out a little bit, I think, The bike works good, though. I really haven't found anything that's a big problem so far since I've been riding." With Hayden able to concentrate on the 600, the team ran more than one simulated race distance at Daytona. new Kawasaki ride.

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