Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

on me and I couldn't go anywhere. It was like, 'I'm there.' He tried to turn on me and I'm not going to just turn, so I made sure I got my bike stopped and he ran a little wide." A lap later and Roberts' shot at victory was finished as his rear tire came apart on the run to the chicane. He took to the grass, got back to the pits and had it changed, but the bike would suffer some damage and all he could do was nurse it home, eventually finishing sixth. "It wasn't overheating, it wasn't a blister, it was nothing with the way I was riding - something just happened to the tire," Roberts said. "There was no warning whatsoever. Coming off the banking, the next thing I know the thing is going all over the place. I just pulled in the clutch, just hoping the thing isn't tying up. I didn't have a clue. Unfortunately, it broke the pipe and once it did that it melted the shock and pretty much everything else behind me. It was vibrating so bad I could hardly see and I was still doing 51 s half the time. The thing was bottoming out on the banking and stuff, and it also killed my rear brake. It's the second problem I've had this weekend. One was in four laps coming off the banking. Luckily, God was watching over me this weekend or something." With Roberts out of the equation, Hayden comfortably led Yates, who had his hands full with Hacking, Bostrom and Gobert, with his new tires. "When I was behind Kurtis [Roberts). I could see that he was using his tire a lot," Hayden said later. "When they came across and said that Kurtis had a tire problem, it made me think that I had better save mine. But early in the race when they were up there scrapping, I was trying to be conservative and really save my tire. I put a lot of laps on tires this week and our tire was a lot better this year. We haven't had any problems all week. I knew he went out and I just tried to be steady - for what seemed like forever." Hayden and Hacking pitted on the same lap, the 27th. Two laps later, Bostrom and Yates pitted. When everything sorted itself out on the 30th lap, Hayden led Gobert by 23 seconds, Hacking by 25, and Yates and Bostrom by 27 seconds. Unless something happened, this one was all Hayden's. As it turns out, nothing did happen. Hayden won easily, leaving the crowd to focus its attention on Hacking vs. Gobert. That one went to Hacking, barely, over Gobert. "I knew I was close enough to get him," Hacking said. "I knew I had the motor to catch him. That Yoshimura Suzuki was fast today. Unfortunately, in the first stints I had a bad front tire and I lost the front over here in the west horseshoe a couple of times. I kind of backed off and that's when Aaron [Yates] and Eric [Bostrom] came by me. I came in and got my new tire and on the second set the front was good but the back was terri- ble. The last set of tires, it worked perfect. I dropped my lap times into the 51 s and saw Anthony coming back to me. Coming into the chicane, he set it up for a lapped rider. He probably could have got the guy going in, but he knew I'd get a run on him so he slowed it down a little bit. The guy fell down on top of me and I had to hit the brakes pretty hard. I just got it stood up and nailed it. He knew I was close and he started weaving. He went up the banking and I went straight down to the bottom and I knew I had him for sure." Yates was alone in fourth, ditto for Bostrom in fifth. Then a good distance later came Roberts, the last of the surviving factory men. "Really, looking at it before the race, fourth is great," Yates said. "Being out there and seeing how the race was going, I was really hoping to get on the podium. It just didn't happen. We probably could have pitted a little earlier both times since the red flag thing. We kind of had the possibility of putting in a soft tire towards the end, the 692, and trying because I ran it the other day, and got like six At 3:04 p.m. on Thursday aftemoon, Kurtis Roberts became the firstever motorcyclist to crack the 1:48 barrier at Daytona Intemational Speedway as he and his Erion Racing Honda RC5 J scorched around the 3.56-mile Speedway to a lap record of 1:47.865. Six minutes later, with a fresh qualifying tire mounted, Roberts went out and bettered the mark, clicking off a J:47.527. From there, he just had to sit and wait as the second group of qualifiers took to the racetrack. It was a painful wait that lasted almost an hour. And it didn't have good results for the young Californian. At 4:02 p.m., the Rolex was snatched off Roberts' wrist before he even had a chance to adjust the band. Ditto for the lap record as American Honda's Nicky Hayden (right) ripped off a 1:47.J74 (119.581 mph) at 4:02 p.m. to capture pole position and become the fastest motorcyclist to ever circulate the Speedway. Then he got a bit greedy. With visions of a J:46 lap dancing in his head, Hayden opted to mount just one more qualifying tire. The result was disastrous. Hayden went back out and was hlghsided violently in the chicane. He was loaded in the ambulance and was very lucky to escape with just bumps and bruises. "All things considered. I feel really good," Hayden said after a trip to the medical center. "I don't know if you saw that on TV, but it was so big [the crash], I can't believe I'm okay. I was going through the air thinking, 'God, this is gonna hurt.' I even remembered thinking, 'I can't believe I haven't hit the ground yet.' I'm lucky to be all right. Mainly it's my fingers [on his light hand] and my foot [left foot] that hurt the worst. It's weird because I was on my out lap. I wasn't even on my real lap yet. You've gotta go really slow on th.e out lap or your qualifying tire won't make it. I went into the chicane and I went left and as soon as I tipped it back light the thing came around and threw me over. The guy [EMT] asked me what day it was and Itold him, 'Up to now it was the best day of my life.' Like I said, you saw it - consideling how high Iflew and stuff I'm happy to just be here." The crash wouldn't have happened last year. Dunlop had problems with the durability of tHeir qualifying tires and riders couldn't get on the gas on their out lap until they were over the tunnel corner, NASCAR Four, leading onto the front straight. Even then, a number of the tires didn't last the entire lap. Yamaha's Anthony Gobert shredded one in the chicane during this past December's Dunlop Daytona tire test. The 2002 Dunlop 295 qualifiers allow the riders to go much harder, much earlier. "The Dunlop tires are just so good," he said. ·You can get one full lap easily - last year you really had to milk it to get a fuU lap." A funny thing happened as Roberts continued to sit and watch the second group qualify: He had to watch as American Honda's Miguel DuHamel also passed him by, with the French Canadian lapping at J:47.259 late in the session to take over second on the front row. This after DuHamel hadn't really showed much. "I think I should get a prize for the most improved lap times of the day," DuHamel said. "I was struggling a little bit with the race setup and we tried a few things at the beginning of qualifying. We ran all the way up to the point where AI [Ludington, his crew chief] said, 'Okay, you need to come in. We need to start doing qualifiers before we're on the fifth row or something here.' I came in and put a quaUfi· er on and did a 48 or something like that. It felt really easy. I came in and was looking around, saying, 'Okay.' We put another qualifier on and went out and had some great splits going, but I attacked too hard in the chicane before the exit and I didn't make the right·hander. I. went way wide and got on the microphone there and told them I was coming in, that I blew it. They told me I had great splits going. The guys have been working hard, thrashing. I went out on my back up bike and they said, which one? That was another moment, anoth· er qualifier that I didn't use. I think there's a bump there where it g's out· it just stepped out on me. I told them 'oops,' on the radio. Put another one on and went back out." Finally, the session ended and Roberts ended up third. A frontrow start, but he was left wondering what could have been if he'd been able to go out in the second group rather than the first. "I'd much rather give up history of being the first one in the 47s and let someone else have it and got to go in the second qualifying session," Roberts said. "I'd Uke to be in the second one because you know what you have to beat. You know what you can do and you know what's being capable of being done on the tires and on the racetrack. I was just out there trying to get a front-row start. That's what we geared for. We were working on race setup at the beginning of quaUfying and 1 wanted to do that last year and I was fifth. The main thing, the goal, was to get on the front row. The time I did was unexpected because I wasn't pushing that hard. I think the fastest lap I ever did out here was a 49.J, so I was quite happy with what we'd laps on it, but it blistered. We were doing like 20-lap stints. That last time I decided I'm going to stay out another lap because I was going pretty decent and Nicky was out in front of me and I was trying to get a little tow off him. But he was a little too far away. So I stayed that extra lap just to cut one more off if we put that soft tire on, but we didn't get it at the end. They decided it was a little too risky. If I would've come in when I was supposed to and got a new tire, I would have been right there with Gobert and Jamie for sure." done. We have a pretty good race setup and now we have another day and a half to work on it." Okay, b!Jt could you have gone faster than Hayden? "I don't know if I could have gone under the time that Nicky and Miguel did, but I know I could have gone faster," Roberts said. "I had another qualifier, but you don't know what to go for because you're the only one doing it. I messed up every qualifier through the infield at least one or two corners, got in too deep or whatever. I did everything I could. I'm not too worried about it. fm in good shape for the race and hopefully us three can kind of run away with it and deal with ourselves. And we don't have to mess with Anthony [Gobert] because as everybody knows, Anthony is a good rider." Hayden, DuHamel and Roberts - three Honda RC51 s on the front row, and it left the rest scratching their heads. The speed of the RC51s was evident. Split times showed that the rest simply couldn't keep up on the banking. Yamaha's Anthony Gobert led the four-cylinder brigade. The Aus· tralian had struggled on Thursday moming as the team couldn't quite get his new Ohllns suspension parts sorted. On Thursday aftemoon, the team went back to what they knew and Gobert was quick again, lipping off a J:48.083 - his fastest ever lap of Daytona. It was good enough for the fourth quickest .time and the final spot on the front row. It was also the fastest time for a four-cylinder as he topped Mat MJadin's lap record of 1:48.424 from last year's qualifying. "I just chose to go out by myself," Gobert said. "I was kinda kicking myself there at the end because I did a 48.8 and Kurtis was already in the 47.6s or something like that. I didn't really think I had any hope of getting near him. but when I did the 48.0, I was kicking myself thinking that maybe if I did get a draft 1 would have been a bit closer. I did the best I could. I feel happy with what we did and we got on the front row. We sorted out the R7 a lot the last couple of days and we feel we have a good race package. We feel happy. We knew coming into this race that the Honda was really fast. We had half a second on the infield and we lost .9 on the straightaways, so obviously the Yamaha is down a bit. Lucidly, we had a little more engine parts for this race, but it's stiU nowhere near enough, is it?" HMC Ducati's Pascal Picotte, in his first race with the team, would lead the second row. He was pleased with the progress and hoping for a bit more come race time. The French Canawan lapped at J:48.219, missing out on the front row by just. 13 of a second. "We had two qualifying attempts," said Picotte. "The first was spoiled by slow traffic in one of the chicanes. The second attempt I lost the front end, which set me back half a second. We practiced on both the six and six-and-a-quarter·inch wheels to see which would work best, my time was fastest on the six and a quarter and the bike definitely handles better. I'm disappointed I missed the front row. Tomorrow's session seems a bit useless now, but we intend to use the time to concentrate on race setup and get some time on our race tire. The bike seemed to be working better this session, it's a little slower but more stable, and that's what we need for the race." Then came Mat Mladin, the Yoshimura Suzuki rider off the front row of the grid for the first time since the Willow Springs round in 2000. Like the rest on the four·cylinder Suzukis and Gobert's lone Yamaha and Eric Bostrom's lone Kawasaki Superbike, they were suffeling on top speed when compared to the mighty RC51 s. "I don't have much to say really, about the bike," Mladin said. "Honda has stepped up their program and they seem to have good motorbikes. It shows the inadequacies of the Superbike rules. I knew when I saw 47.5 that it wouldn't happen. I was hoping I. could run a high 47 to get myself on the front row, but I guess the fortunate thing out of this year is that you're reauy not going to be any worse than the second row anyhow. So I'm lucky. Horsepower and traction· you can't beat it. Up until qualifying, when everyone started throwing qualifying tires in, I was a couple of tenths faster than Anthony and three tenths faster than Nicky and he would make up 1. 1 seconds on the two bankings, so there's nothing I can do about that. It's irrelevant because from there to there and there to there, I'm not going to keep up." Bostrom, who ended up eighth behind Yoshimura Suzuki's Aaron Yates, concurred with Mladin. "We've definitely got the four-stroke affiiction," Bostrom said. "I ride my butt off by myself to do a 50, but at least when I'm with them I can do a low 50 without even trying." eye' e n e vv s • MARCH 20, 2002 11

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