Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

(Above) Jamie Hacking crashed on Saturday but finished sixth on Sunday. (Right) Hayden celebrates Sunday's victory. better day and I was a lot more comfortable." The battle for second place would go full distance - though both Bostrom and Mladin were lucky the race didn't go full distance. Chandler was on the move after regaining confidence in his front tire - confidence that was lost by a near crash on the opening lap. "It took me awhile to get going because I had a moment on the first lap in that horseshoe right," Chandler explained. "I got stuck outside and had to run with Miguel [DuHamel] through the first turn. It kind of hosed me for the next infield turn. I went off into the first good right and tipped it in. I got to the apex and the front just tucked. I was off the side of the bike. I was almost going to let go, but I knew I had everyone else behind me and I didn't want to get run over. I rode it out until it stuck and picked it up. It took six, eight laps to get the confidence back in the front tire." By the time the red flag was shown (after the pack went by the downed motorcycle on the racetrack three times), Chandler was right on Mladin's back wheel. The Aussie, meanwhile, was right on Bostrom's tail and planning his late-race assault. "I knew I had a chance of catching 'em, but I didn't think I'd catch 'em with that many laps to go," Chandler said. "They were kind of racing amongst themselves. I figured if I could catch 'em up on the last lap, I could beat 'em to the line. That's what I was thinking with eight laps to go. I was trying to figure out what I should do - back it off and run their pace? Then I saw Mat [Mladin] pushing and I thought, 'Nah, these guys are racing. If I can just go, they aren't even going to mess with me.' When we got the red, I was right on Mat's back tire. We were going to try and make a run up to the front." Second ended up going to Bostrom, who was happy to be there but was somewhat disappointed with his weekend and the fact that he'd developed some arm pump during the race. "It's nice to be on the podium," Bostrom said. "It's our first podium of the year. We didn't really get off to a good start this year. We had a clutch problem at Daytona and a worse clutch problem yesterday. I was trying to get around Mat IMladin] and it seemed like we'd sort of seesaw. He was real fast in a few spots and I was quick in a couple of others. I got arm pump and I never get arm pump. I guess I was over-amped and I couldn't feel the handlebars and I feel like I let my crew down. I should be strong enough to go around here for 27 laps." Mladin, the victim once again of a tire problem, doesn't like not winning. Thus, he wasn't overly pleased with his performance. "Doug [Chandler] was catching us pretty quick," Mladin said. "He got really unlucky or I think Eric [Bostrom] and I would have been racing for the last podium spot, I think. It was a long race. I chunked a tire again, probably around lap 15. I sort of struggled from there really. I don't know how happy you want me to be with a sixth and a third in two races. It's not really my game. It's disappointing, but given what's happened in the last four weeks, we'll take it and get to the next one. I hope to get fit for the next race. It's a struggle to hang on. That and a bunch of chunked tires made for a long weekend." His tire woes from the day before forced Mladin to opt for a different tire for Sunday's race. "I used a different tire today than what I used yesterday," Mladin said. The lap times from Friday's qualifying sessions are usually wiped out by better performances on Saturday. Not so at California Speedway. That's because there was no Saturday qualifying as poor weather forced the cancelation of qualifying. That meant that Yamaha's Anthony Gobert's fast time from Friday - a 1:25.250 would put him on pole position for both Saturday and Sunday's Nationals. And he'd also take the championship point that went with it. "The bike seems to be really good," Gobert said. "I felt really comfortable on it straight away from the frrst lap. The testing that we did here felt really good. We tried the old suspension stuff again this morning and we found that the new stuff seems to be better suited to this track, and it was the opposite at Daytonll. We stuck with the new stuff now and it seems to be good. The new stuff worked good here at the test whenever it was, and we went to Daytona and we didn't like it there. We went to Laguna and we're still undecided there. Here, it feels really good. It's so different [the new suspension), we just need time to adjust it, really. Sometimes you run out of time, and other times you just want to go with what you know, what you feel most comfortable with. It's just a case of it feels really good here." Gobert had gone quicker at California Speedway during off-season testing - with a race tire, though by just a 10th of a second. He still wasn't sure how the trllck would react to temperature changes. "Not too sure about this track, how it is," Gobert said. "Some trllcks, like LlIguna, seems to be quicker when it's cooler. The track was really dirty this morning. When we tested here, the first day was dirty and the second and third were better. For sure by tomorrow it should be a lot better again, but today it's just really dirty. I was having trouble getting a time on the Q because I kept tucking the front all the time - just 'cause the track's dirty, I reckon." Yoshimura Suzuki's Aaron Yates put his GSX-R750 second on the grid with his Friday time of 1:25.628, the only rider other than Gobert to creep into the 25 bracket. "At Laguna, we tried a few things that seemed to help," Yates said. "Coming back here, there are some things that we didn't try when testing here and it's going around here good. I'm pretty happy. It looks like a lot of guys are sort of struggling. I expect a lot of folks to get some things sorted out tonight and they'll probably go better tomorrow. I'm surprised our bike is working as good as it is." Yates had an encounter with Jimmy Moore that hampered his qualifying a bit. "I was testing some things on the front end and was pushing really hard," Yates said. "I was coming up on him and I thought for sure he'd get out of the way or stay off the line, but I got to the chicane and he was just there - it blew my whole test. It blew the whole thing. He's always in the way. I actually hit the curb pretty hard. Now I know what to expect when I do hit it." American Honda's Nicky Hayden ended up third fastest with his I :26.007 and he was hoping for a strong weekend at Fontana - a weekend that would keep his win streak alive. "My session went okay," Hayden said. "I was struggling early, but right there toward the end we sort of came across something that I think really helped us. Right there at the end we learned some things and that's the best I've felt aU day. Mainly, we're just trying to get the bike through the tight stuff better. The bike feels pretty heavy right now, hard to get it to change direction. I think definitely tomorrow we'll do a bit better, but I was hoping to go a bit fllster. We've got some more things we want to try, but overall I'm pretty happy with the way we ended the session. It'll make me sleep a little better knowing that we found some stuff. "Our biggest thing is trying to get the bike to change directions easier," Hayden added. "I feel like it's pretty lazy going left to right, like in tum one, and in the chicanes. It just feels pretty heavy now, but it's getting better. But it always seems like that when we go to twisty racetracks. I just need to get it comfortable changing directions so I can be aggressive." Yoshimura Suzuki's Mat Mladin put his GSX-R750 on the front row with a lap of 1:26.127, but he was one of several who had planned on going quicker on Saturday morning. But there was no Saturday morning. "The reason that I did that was because the one that I raced with yesterday was the second or third of its kind to chunk this weekend. Actually, there were a couple of guys behind me today. Everything ran so smooth. For our first weekend, it's just unbelievable." Hacking rode the third Yoshimura Suzuki to sixth place, despite riding his backup bike without any practice. Hacking's crash on Saturday forced it didn't chunk it just had some delamination. Yesterday, it spun on the rim and chunked. Today, I didn't feel comfortable with that tire, but I actually liked that one better, gripwise and the way it feels. I just didn't want to take the risk of having the same thing happen. At least I made it twothirds of the way through the race before anything major happened, but even with a few chunks hanging out him to his backup bike for Sunday's second race. If that wasn't bad enough, Hacking had virtually no practice on the bike as a faulty gascap seal left him drenched in fuel in the morning warm-up session. By the time the tank was replaced, the checkered flag went out. "I had no clue how the bike would be," Hacking said. "But I saw the people who went out and the people who finished behind me and the only of the tire, we were still able to lap reasonably quick, so it wasn't the main issue." Fifth for the second straight day went to Picotte. "I'm really happy with today," Picotte said. "We had a much better race package. The bike worked better, the tire worked better. We picked a little different rim size, different geometry on the front, different oil level... we changed quite a bit on it. There is still some room for improvement, but we didn't have any parts. We couldn't adjust the slipping part of the clutch. I think we did pretty damned good. Fifth and fifth and cue I • guy who really gained ground on me today was Nicky [Hayden]. I'm happy. I set out this year to be consistent and keep myself up on this thing." DuHamel was trying as hard as he could to be positive, but a crash on Saturday and a seventh on Sunday didn't exactly thrill him. "For some reason, it just didn't work," DuHamel said. "I was having some trouble with the front end of the n e _ s • APRIL 17, 2002 19

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