Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
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Laguna 5eca Test The answer wasn't what he'd hoped for. The three-time defending AMA Superbike Champion rode sparingly on Tuesday and Wednesday, and couldn't do more than two laps at a time on Thursday. "I rode most of the day," Mladin said, his best time a respectable 1 :26.8. "I rested it quite a bit in between, but I done more riding today than I done for the last couple of days. For what we had, we done all right. We got through a little bit of stuff today. Tested new fork components. At least I was healthy enough to do something." Mladin's hopeful that another week's rest and therapy will help make the elbow stand up to the rigors of two 28-lap races around the tight and flat Fontana circuit. "It's not going to be as hard as here," he said. "There's a lot of long turns here where you're really hanging on a long time. I also think within the next week I think my body should make some more improvement. If it improves in the next week how it has STORY AND PHOTOS BY HENNY RAY ABRAMS aug Chandler drove from his home in nearby Salinas to the all-teams Superbike test at Mazda Raceway at Laguna Seca hoping to be within a second of the pace. He hadn't ridden a race bike in nearly seven months and hadn't really ever ridden a modern Ducati. And he'd missed the Daytona 200. Mostly, he just wanted to spend the three-day test getting used to the bike and the crew from HMC Ducati, the team he'd found out only a few days earlier he'd be employed by for the remainder of the season. No one could've imagined that when he drove home at the end of the test he'd be leaving with the fastest time of the nine factory Superbikes, and his fastest lap ever around the Monterey track. "It's every bit as good as myoid bike," Chandler said after an early stint on the HMC Ducati 998RS Testastretta. "I'm getting used to the power. The four-cylinder (Kawasaki ZX- 7) has more linear power and comes on later. This has got a lot of hit right at the bottom. I'm getting used to that." Chandler said the handling was also better than he'd expected. "I figured, with the torque, I'd have to weight the front end to keep the front end down. It's a lot easier to ride, to steer over the bumps. Over the hill and turn one this thing's really nice." Chandler's best lap was a 1:25.65, according to the on board computer, better than the 1:25.769 lap he'd run on a qualifying tire in the 1998 AMA Superbike race. "He went out and ran 10 fast laps, he said not riding that hard," said Gary Medley, Chandler's crew chief. "He ran mid 26s the whole time. The computer said 25.92 and a 25.65. This was right at the end on race tires." Because he hadn't ridden a race bike since the end of the 2001 season, Chandler was using the threeday test as a tune-up for the next AMA race at California Speedway in Fontana, California. Most of the teams were doing the same, though some had other concerns. Lap times weren't at the top of the list. There was too much work to do and too many parts to go through to worry strictly about lap times. The qualifiers stayed on the truck. Yoshimura Suzuki's Mat Mladin had two worries. He not only had to work through the parts manifest, he had to find out how well his surgically repaired left elbow would hold up. 10 APRIL 10, 2002' cue •• (Left) Nicky ~en didn't seem to miss a beat after his recent victory In the Daytona 200 as he ended up Just behind Doug Chandler during testing at Laguna Seca. (Bottom) Once the team found a steering-head-bearlng problem, Eric Bostrom finally got down to respectable lap times - though the first two days of the test were basically wasted. n __ 35