Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

AMAIChevy Trucks U, S, Superbike Series Round 1, Daytona International Speedway Nicky Hayden's crew gives the eventual winner the ''full-service" treatment - a couple of tires and gas In under 10 seconds. Bostrom's fifth looked good on the surface, but the Kawasaki rider was far from pleased with the outcome of the race, "We kind of backed ourselves into a corner a little bit," Bostrom said, "The rear was better than we've ever had it here, but we were never able to get the front end very happy. The first couple of laps I was charging hard on the first tire and I kept losing the front, and had to pick the thing up on my knee. I was iike, 'Hey, this is going to be a really long 200 miles.' I was having to do it like every corner Andrew Deatherage (35). leads Vincent Haskovec (partially hidden). and Rich ConicelJl (23). With only six of the nine factory riders finishing the race, the privateers walked away with some good points. Deatherage finished seventh, Haskovec 13th and Conicelli ninth. Rick Shaw came up short in his bid to take over as the all-time mileage leader in the Daytona 200. Although he finished 27th. the police officer from Florida only completed 52 laps - two short of what he needed to get the record. He'll likely be back next year. BRIEFLY••• Yamaha's Aaron Gobert underwent surgery at Halifax Medical Center on Saturday, March g to have his lower right leg Ctibia and fibula) pinned, one of several injuries suffered by Gobert in the horrfic 600cc Supersport crash that he was involved in, According to Yamaha team manager Keith McCarty, Gobert also suffered a broken left ankle. though doctors aren't doing anything to it at this time, As of Sunday moming, Gobert had been taken off the respirator, though his lungs - one of which (his right) collapsed - were still being drained. Gobert also suffer-ed head injUries in the crash, though McCarty felt that would soon be okay. "He's getting conscious - once they get him off the sedation from the surgery." McCarty said on Sunday moming, "He's been fighting from the beginning, But he's being a good boy now." In addition to his other injuries, Gobert also has two broken vertebrae, "It will be four weeks at least before he can fly," McCarty said. "Because of the lung injUries, He has been through a lot the last couple of days, but luckily his mom and girlfriend are here to make decisions. We have also been lucky to have the help of Dean Kurtz, who works for the Speedway, He's in charge of guest services here and he has done an outstanding job for us and the others who are over there at Halifax, " Unless they were there early in the week, spectators probably missed seeing factory Superbike rider Tiger Showa ride at the Speedway. Showa, who raced both Muzzy Kawasakis and Fast By Ferracci Ducatis, has been out of racing for three years. The Japanese rider came to Daytona with a new Honda CBR600, but he crashed on Thursday, March 7 and injured his right foot, knocking him out of the race. Showa is planning on doing more AMA races, including the next round at the California Speedway, The Daytona 200 by Arai? Thanks to Nicky Hayden, the helmet company that has sponsored the 200 for 17 years finally won the 200 again, The last time an Arai-wearing racer won the 200 was Miguel DuHamel in 1992. This year, Arai finished one-two, with Jamie Hacking also choosing to wear Arai helmets. Believe it or not. Hayden's Victory was just Arai's third since the company started sponsoring the race, Little known fact: The youngest of the Gobert brothers, Alex Gobert, finished '6th in his AMA 600cc Supersport debut at Daytona - the exact same position his brother Alex ended up in his 600cc Supersport debut in 2001 , As for Anthony Gobert, who was involved in the same accident as hiS brother, he was preparing to compete in the Daytona 200 despite a shoulder injUry, "I don't think it was a collarbone," Keith McCarty said. "It seems unlikely with how well he can move his arm. He's also got an ankle thing and one of his toes, He's not 100 percent. He's a bit angry - not at anybody, but just at the situation, He's never had any luck here and he really wanted to come in and show what we're capable of. He'll do the best he can and we'll come out of here with some points - thaI's the main thing," Dunlop's new Daytona tire - the super-hard 360 - won in its debut on Nicky Hayden's Honda RC51, All three factory Honda riders used the new rear tire, designed especially for Daytona and with the poweriul RC5' in mind. Yoshimura Suzuki's Jamie Hacking used a softer 311 compound tire - the tire that was formerly designated as the company's hardest Daytona slick, Yates used the Honda-friendly 360 on his Yoshimura Suzuki. There were two front tires available, with Hayden opting for the softer of the two on his race-winning ReS1 . The difference between the haves and the have-nots may not be that much different from years past. but there are definitely less haves now than there were last year, Only nine factory Superbikes were in attendance for the Daytona 200 by Arai and the disparity between those and the rest of the field was fairly substantial. The top Superstock teams followed the factory Superbike teams in qualifying and the race, but from there on down it got thin fairly fast. The difference between Nicky Hayden's qualifying lap and the 64th and final qualifier was a whopping 12.853 seconds - a lap! Although the Daytona 200 is much revered by a lot of young American road racers, don't put Eric Bostrom on that list. "II's a shame to say that I'm just glad to be getting out of here with some points, but thaI's a part of coming to a pretty shitty racetrack, I'm In one piece and I have a handful of points and we can just go on, It bums me out because iI's a prestigious race, but all the same I could care less to win the thing, .. With Nicky Hayden taking pole position and the championship point that goes with it. he led the Superbike National Championship going into the Daytona 200 by Arai. It marked the first time since March of 2000 that someone other than Mladin led the Superbike points chase. Pascal Picotte had a plan for the Daytona 200, and it focused mainly on finishing the race rather than throwing away any hopes of a title by not finishing the season's longest race, "The team's worked hard over the three practice days and we feel confident with our set-up decisions," said Picotte before preparing for fuelstop practice. "I like Daytona's circuit. but it can catch you off guard. This is my first race on the Ducati and I plan to make it an intelligent one: I won't be breaking any records in the first few laps, thaI's for sure, II's a long distance and it can be difficult to stay focused, especially towards the end. It can be easy to lose the front end so you need to concentrate on every comer, Our focus will be mainly on finishing the race, then carry the momentum over to the next round." Belgian Stephane Mertens went out of the Daytona 200 on the 47th lap after his Zongshen Suzuki GSX-R750 developed transmission proble(T1s, Mertens was nunning well inside the top , 0 at the time. Former SOCce Grand Prix racer Takuma Aoki was a visitor to the Honda pits for the Daytona 200. The brother of current racers Nobuatsu and Hanuchika is paralyzed from the waist down after a testing crash several years ago, 12 MARCH 20, 2002' c u e I e n e _ Eric Bostrom has his reasons for not being a big fan of Daytona International Speedway. He experienced his first highside in the International Horseshoe while riding for American Honda, Worse was when his brother Ben had a tire failure on the east banking during the Dunlop Daytona tire test in 1ggg, In the 2000 running of the 600cc Supersport race, Bostrom had to miss a motorcycle that was involved in a crash exiting the chicane. "I think the best way to begin this is 'Why do we come to Daytona?' ThaI's like two out of the last three years I've had a bike flying through the air on the exit of the chicane," he said, Bostrom continued, "It was like totally like two years ago when I think it was Josh Hayes' bike was flying through the air, II's so unsafe, There's more crashes on the banking now than ever before and iI's because the bikes are fast and the racing's pretty damned close, II's stupid that we have to go 170 mph right next to a wall. " Nicky Hayden's win gave Honda its eighth Victory in the 200. It was Hayden's ninth AMA Superbike win. tying him with Kevin Schwantz on the all-time winner's list in Superbike. With Hayden losing a contact lens just seven laps from the end of the 200, it pretty much made up his mind that he will undergo eye surgery to fix the problem and obViate the need for contact lenses. "I think I'm gonna have to get my eyes fixed," Hayden said. "I never had any problems until right at the end of last year, Through the winter I was losing them. I think before the next race I will get my eyes operated on, My brother did it like a year ago and he loves 'em. It's a distraction sometimes. This weekend it's kinda been a problem and I don't have time for that." All things considered, Anthony Gobert had to be thrilled to be on the podium in the 200. After all, he was racing with stitches in his shoulder and he'd spent Friday night in hospital. "I was feeling , 50 pretty bummed out." Gobert said. "I'd put so much into this season and I was a little bit bummed, I kind of crashed with my brother. But people have been telling me that I kind of more helped him because if I didn't hit his bike and push them out of the way, he would have gone into the wall head first and the bike would have followed him in, So he probably would be dead right now, It could have been a lot worse. It was a positive that we came out of that. All of a sudden I came good really quick and last night I knew I was going to race. At the start of the race, I knew that was going to decide how it went for me. I personally didn't feel that the Hondas wouldn't finish, I was really surprised to see Nicky finish because the Hondas are pretty unreliable. Nothing bad about them, but they've been blOWing engines up and they've got so much power they've been blOWing the engines up, I figured between the engines and the tires, the three of 'em wouldn't finish, Out of all three, I figured if any of 'em would finish it would be Nicky because he's an awesome rider and he knows how to conserve his tire... Drafting is everything at Daytona, so for the second year in a row the Honda riders went to Japan to learn how to tuck, Miguel DuHamel. Nicky Hayden, and Kurtis Roberts spent four days in Japan at a Honda car test facility working on the aerodynamics of both their F4is and RC-51 s, "We did a simulation of the chicane exit to the front straight." DuHamel said, of the faux Daytona nun. The Honda facility doesn't have a chicane on the oval, instead a beacon was used to mark the exit of the chicane. "These guys are really enthusiastic," DuHamel said. The team worked with a tuck specialist. who came to Daytona, as well as with one of Honda's Japanese Superbike riders, The team returned to the U,S, on Wednesday, Febnuary 27. DuHamel spent two days at home in Las Vegas before flying to Daytona. Blimpie Yoshimura Suzuki's Aaron Yates gave Suzuki their second Daytona 600cc Supersport win. The first came in 199? with Yoshimura Suzuki's Pascal Picotte, American Honda's Nicky Hayden woke up nauseous on the morning of the Pro Honda Oils Supersport race. He'd high-sided Violently in the chicane dUring pole qualifying on Thursday and was out of sorts, He'd tried riding practicing his Superbike on Friday, but pulled in. "I had some painkillers or something," Hayden said. "I think maybe I was allergic to them or something they gave me. I was real sick and stuff, And I couldn't really ride this morning our Superbike, but after lunch I started feeling a lot better, I got it out of my system. Some guys at Honda wanted me to wait until Sunday and ride. I started feeling better and better so I decided to race and really glad I did, because right before the race I started feeling fine, Once the race started, I was periect. I didn't have any problems, The problem was earlier I couldn't concentrate, Something was going on with my body, I was just out of it like a stoner or something. That's why I stopped on Superbike. I did a lap and couldn't concentrate, I felt like I was sweating out there when it wasn't even hot, I was a little bit nervous, Now I feel really good, I'm happy to be all right because when I hit the ground I thought I was going to be done for a while." Neither Miguel DuHamel nor Nicky Hayden knew who was involved in the Supersport crash that collected Aaron and Anthony Gobert and Tommy Hayden, "I'm glad I didn't know," Nicky Hayden said. "I seen the Kawasaki down there, but I looked and I thought it was just a privateer bike and I looked up and I never seen my brother on the leaderboard over there, Maybe Rag [Roger Lee), he normally crashes. Normally I don't ever look for Tommy [Hayden] to be on the ground, I don't look for him, I didn't know it was him. I didn't think it was him, I looked out the corner of my eye and thought it was backmarkers or something. " Yoshimura Suzuki's Aaron Yates was one of the first through the debris field. "Them guys got wadded up up there coming out of the chicane," Yates said, "I was right in the middle of that and I was trying to decided which way to go and I thought that bike was going to slide right out in front of me and I managed to get over far enough and I looked over and watched it all. Watched Anthony [GobertJ jump that bike and he kind of went head first into that road up there. And I was thinking for sure they were going to red-flag it."

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