Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Dunlop s Daytona Tire Test: Part I ately radioed him that Roberts' tire had blown. Hayden's reply: "It's about time." Bostrom's and Roberts' lap times at the test were faster than last year's race times, the temperatures were under control, and the rider comments were generally favorable, though Roberts did have a moment of doubt. He pulled in when he noticed something in the rear tire after 15 laps_ "I felt a vibration, and, with the new track how it is, it wasn't worth staying out there and have the thing come apart if it was starting to," Roberts said. "So I just pulled in and played it safe. We could have gone another lap or two." What Roberts did, Allen explained, is denude the tire. "The long and short of it is, Kurtis wore the rubber off his tire," Allen said. "Ben [Bostrom] and Kurtis [Roberts] both did their runs on the same tire, and I think probably due to riding styles, I think Kurtis had less rubber on his tire than Ben did. We're going to look at a tire that lasts longer for Kurtis because he obviously needs it. Kurtis had the least luck changing into fifth on the 1000, where before we were changing into chassis and suspension, which meant that, even with the power they had, they weren't able to put it to the ground. At the end of the test, their full potential hadn't been shown. Because of the inclement weather, the SU7.ukis weren't able to put together extended test runs. That was left to the Honda RC-51s of Ben Bostrom, in his return to Daytona after a three-year absence, and third at 14,500 rpm [on the GSXR750]." Most ominously, all the Superbikes will be running wide open for longer than before - a potentially calamitous situation for the tires. The Suzuki GSX-RI000s that Yoshimura brought were in a mild state of tune. They spent the test mostly working on /ij!JfJJJ@f?~@fiJjiJ [J{j@[jiJ@fiJg [ illflD[JiJr:fl @[JiJ ill@[JiJ American Honda lost one Superbike Champion and gained another. Gone to the GP wars is Nicky Hayden, the 2002 AMA/Chevy Trucks U.S. Superbike Champion, replaced by the 1998 champion, Ben Bostrom. Bostrom won the 1998 title as a member of the American Honda team, then took the number-one plate to Vance [, Hines Ducati for the 1999 season, when he finished 10 points behind Mat Mladin. In 2000 he was gone, off to Europe for three years as a member of the Ducati fold. The 2002 season was his least successful. With the contraction in the World Superbike field for 2003, Bostrom's best opportunity was back in the United States where he signed a multi-year deal with American Honda to race the RC-51 in its last year against, among others, his younger brother Eric. He'll be joined on the Superbike team by Miguel DuHamel, in the second year of a two-year deal, and Kurtis Roberts, racing an RC-51 out of the Erion Honda stable. Roberts is signed with Honda through 2004. Bostrom had one of the worst single-bike crashes at Daytona in recent years. At this very same tire test in 1998, he had a rear-tire failure on the east banking. Though he was banged up and his hands and chest were severely abraded, he wasn't seriously hurt. When he returned for the race in March, he finished fourth. It was his last appearance at Daytona. Bostrom got his first taste of the RC-51 when the Honda team tested under adverse conditions at Las Vegas Aotor Speedway. The track was dirty, and the wind was blowing. Still, it was enough to give Bostrom an initial impression of the same machine he'd been chasing in the hands of Colin Edwards for the past three years. 34 JANUARY 8, 2003' cue I e n e vv The tire test gave Mat Mladln (66) his first crack at the Suzuki G5X-R1000. Here, he leads American Honda's Miguel DuHamel, the latter aboard the new CBR600RR. Erion Honda's Kurtis Roberts, whose aggressive throttle hand caused a harrowing rear-tire failure on the back straight of last year's 200. Worried that its rider might suffer the same fate, Nicky Hayden's team immedi- "That thing is nothing like the Ducati," Bostrom said. "The two are complete opposites in every way. It's crazy. It was good to get some seat time on it, because I had no idea how to ride it." The Ducati had quick steering initially and was better changing direction in chicanes, Bostrom said. The Honda seemed to be more work initially, and it set its line harder, where the Ducati didn't really set its line, it wanted to run out wide on the exit. As for the power, Bostrom said: "The Ducati was really responsive, and it came on hard, where the Honda is like a long pull. There's nothing the same about these two bikes. "It's a really rider-friendly bike," Bostrom said. "Initially, I thought it was great. But actually I did 10 laps on the 600, and that thing was quite amazing. Honda really did its homework there. I got off the 600 and got on the Superbike, and then I realized there was a problem. It [the 6001 definitely followed the comers better and did other things the Superbike didn't do. I think it's the only bike I've ever ridden that actually followed the comer around. It's amazing. If you were like, 'This is what I want to do, this is the perfect bike, no bike ever does that' - that bike did it." On the first day of the Daytona test, Bostrom started out with Hayden's race setup, with little luck. "It worked great for Nick; it didn't work for me," Bostrom said. "Real high front, real stiff. I tend to have the thing a little more biased to the front, a little soft in the back. At the end of the day we changed to what I like. That thing's almost raceable right now." Raceable and good enough to tum in the fastest time on the first day. "I've got the best bike," Bostrom said of his Merlyn Plumlee-tuned Honda RC-51. "The bike's good. It's getting better, too. It was a bit foreign this moming to me. It just kept getting better for me all day. Just kept taking a lot of laps, a lot of laps, good for the Dunlop guys, good for me for the seat time. Just keeps feeling better and better. It's good to go to sleep on the bike and wake up tomorrow and do it again." There was one slight mishap when he tipped over in the s of anybody last year. We do have to make some adjustments based on those two distance runs. There was nothing wrong with the tire that Kurtis ran; what he felt was, he'd worn right through the rubber to the top of the breakers. "If you look at Ben's tire and you looked at Kurtis's tire from the run, Ben could've gone another 15 laps. Literally, there was that much difference from Kurtis to Ben. But the fact Ben Bostnlm returns to the Honda fold for 2003. second horseshoe on the first day. "I just found a false neutral downshifting from second to first in the second horseshoe," he said. "At the last minute I locked the front, and I'm, 'Oh, no, I'm not going to stop!' Right before the bales, I fell off under it. The bike bounced off the bales and kind of did the wrestling move and it bodyslammed me," Bostrom ended up undemeath the RC-51 with the engine still running. The rear sprocket tore a hole in the back of his leathers. In the 90 minutes the teams had on the second day, Bostrom dropped his time by seven-tenths of a second to end the test as the fastest rider; his single best lap of 1:48.651 was an impressive shOWing considering it was done in limited time and on race tires. And he was also able to check out the competition, running with brother Eric and Yoshimura Suzuki's Mat Mladin for a few laps. "It showed us where one bike was stronger and one rider was stronger," Bostrom said. "Those guys definitely had points [where] they were stronger than I was - actually, a

• Cover