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Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128199
Team Test At Laguna Sees Ben Bostrom struggled at the Laguna test, running the slowest times of the Superblke riders present at the test. hasn't come close to riding a full year in either of his first two seasons: the first interrupted by forearm surgery, the second by injuries sustained in a crash at California Speedway, the second race of the year. Roberts crashed again just prior to this test, but it was on a motocross bike at his father's ranch in Hickman, California. The damage was a deeply bruised right thigh that kept him from being able to shift his weight on the Honda RC-51. The pain was so severe that he only rode six laps on the first day. Even so, he set the second-fastest time of the test and fastest time on Thursday, the final day of the test. Because the team only had two full days to test, Roberts wasn't able to get on a newer version of the RC -51 until Thursday. He wasn't feeling any better, but the machine was more to his liking, and he was consistently in the low 26s. "I still have to do one thing or the other - I have to shift it or do weigh transfer," Roberts said. "I feel so off for the lap time; I'm pretty happy as far as that goes. I don't want to fall off because if I fall off I'm going to really sore, so I'm just taking it easy." Roberts said he liked the characteristics of the new bike. It turned differently, and the motor was better. "It's just a little bit different from the other bike to where it actually feels like it's a little bit more twitchy and a little more other things that I seem to like. It's going to be like what we're going to race. It's a lot like what Colin [Edwards] finished up on, just some newer specs." Like Roberts, Ducati Austin's Anthony Gobert only completed two days of the test. Gobert set the fast time on Tuesday, was second on Wednesday, then missed Thursday with a stomach ailment that had him vomiting on Thursday morning. He ended the test with the third best time. The team members spent most of their time working with the newest 28 FEBRUARY 5, 2003' cue • e Ohlins cartridge forks. They arrived in Monterey short on parts and had to borrow springs from another team. "The front forks, the cartridge ones on the Yamaha, we struggled last year, and the guys really couldn't get them dialed in the way I wanted to, and that's what caused my broken leg was those front forks; they were riding way too high in the stroke and never put enough weight on the front tire, and that's what led to me crashing and breaking my leg [in practice at Road Atlanta]," Gobert said. "The [Ducati Austin] guys have got a lot more information from Italy, from [Troy] Bayliss, so we've got a lot more data. So we're already a long way ahead of where we sort of would be. With the help of the factory and our own information, we're learning. We seem to be making good progress." Gobert said in the past he'd felt let down by his bike setup, which was why he was working on that rather than lap times, "So that's why right now I'm not really going for lap times; I just want to do as many laps and get the bike dialed in for a race situation, so that's what I'm all about." That was Gobert on Tuesday. On Wednesday he sang a slightly Anthony Gobert (16) chases Ben Bostrom (front) on his new Ducati Austin-backed Ducati. Despite only completing two days of the three-day test, he ended up with the third fastest time at 1:26.471. n e _ s different tune at first, but ultimately his message was consistent. "It was really hard with the guys because they tried to tell me not to worry about the lap time, but I kept telling them 'I want to be qUickest, I want to be quickest,'" he said. "I've got to kind of remember that when Eric [Bostrom] was here last year with his cartridge forks for the first time, he struggled a lot. And everyone that's had them has struggled a lot." Gobert said he was "way more erratic and way closer to hitting the ground" when he tried to match Bostrom's time on Wednesday. "I just thought, 'The bike's not ready for me to do it yet.' I was really surprised to do that time as it was." Age has brought some maturity to Gobert. When he rode for Kawasaki, he'd ride around problems instead of making changes. "Nowadays, everyone is so fast and everyone's on the limit and you need to have everything dialed in just to be there. To be quicker than everyone you've really got to have your stuff sorted, but we're not sorted yet." American Honda's Miguel DuHamel split his time between the new Honda CBR600RR and his RC-51. It's clear that Honda wants its all-new Honda 600 to win the Pro Honda Oils Supersport title, and it's just as clear that they think DuHamel is their best bet. And why not? The 34-year-old (according to Honda), 35-year-old (according to the AMA) or thirtysomething-year-old (according to popular wisdom) is the winningest rider in both Supersport and Superbike history. DuHamel may not have the same speed he had five years ago, but he's still one of the smartest riders on the track. The way he controlled the pace en route to double wins at Road America last year was masterful. And when he has to do something unconventional, he'll do it. At Laguna Seca, he began working on the Superbike halfway through the second day and ended up with the fourth-best time. "The setup wasn't right for some reason: he said. "It was just running too high in the rear, and for some reason the suspension, even though we've got all that stuff on it, just sometimes something changes. And so finally I said 'Okay, 1 don't think it's me; I think it's the bike.' And AI [Ludington] changed it, and, boom, right away I got into the low 27s. And we kept that setup and put tires on it, and I think the good tires that people went fastest on, the 758, that one we used up on the other setup; we went back to 950, which is still a good tire, and did a 26.7. I wanted to make sure my tires were really warmed up because it was cold. 1 didn't want to finish up the three-day test on the track side. " This was the corning-out party for Larry Pegram's Dream Team Ducati. The bikes were brand new (see Pegram box), so Pegram had to spend part of the first day breaking in motors. He might have minded, except that he felt so sick that he nearly didn't leave his hotel room. "I'd get up and walk to the bathroom and almost pass out," Pegram said. "I can do about four laps, then I'm so tired I can't hold on. My fourth lap's always my fastest, then I have to come in. I feel really good, because I feel I could go a lot quicker if I could stay out there. First test out, I haven't ridden these things, new tires, and we're just running the basic tires right now, so I'm pretty happy with it. We basically started with the same setting we had here two years ago, because it's the same chassis. We're a little bit off, but it's not bad." On the second day, Pegram completed only 35 laps, still hurting. On the final day of the test, he was asked to run through 15 sets of tires but wasn't up for it. Additionally, the motors in both of his Ducatis failed, one just as the sunny weather turned cold.