Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

BRIEFLY••• Kawasaki's Tommy Hayden couldn't remember how it happened. One minute he was up, the next he was out. The crash, which came on Tuesday afternoon at Mazda Raceway at Laguna Seca, was a vicious high-side entering turn three. Hayden landed on his head and sat out the rest of Tuesday and all day Wednesday before visiting Dr. Arthur Ting outside of San Francisco. Ting did a CAT scan and a number of other tests, finding a mild concussion and some swelling. If he had to race, he could have, but Hayden understood why he had to miss the remainder of the test. "Yesterday [Wednesdayl, I was still prelly dizzy," Hayden said. "Today I'm all right, but if I stand up real fast or lean over too fast, I get dizzy. Yesterday my balance was off, too." The crash was extremely atypical. The last time Hayden fell was when he was caught up in the multi-bike crash during last year's Daytona Supersport race. Before that. he couldn't remember when he last crashed. The last time he highsided was on a cold tire on the Muzzy Kawasaki Superbike at Daytona, in 1997. "I don't know what happened," Hayden said, though there was speculation that his Kawasaki ZX-6RR might have been overheating. "Tony [Meiringl said he was following me and getting water on his shield." The machines' data showed that the operating temperature wasn't high enough to cause that sort of liquid release. There was also the suggestion it was a tire problem, but nothing appeared wrong with the tire. Hayden thought he might have hit something on the track. Regardless, it was a brutal crash, the Kentuckian coming down hard on his head and shoulder. Worse still was that he didn't learn a thing. "If I'm out there really stepping it up or going super hard, it's one thing," he said. "I didn't learn anything from it. Sometimes you've got to find the limits and crash and learn from it." Hayden was told that he couldn't do any strenuous physical activity for 10 days. He'll next be in the saddle for a test at California Speedway on February 5-6. Data acquisition isn't allowed on Supersport machinery on AMA race weekends. But at tests, that's another story. A seven-channel data logger was duct-taped to the tail section of Miguel DuHamel's American Honda CBR-600RR, the first time the team had to acquire reliable data on the new 600. Unlike the system that is built into the wiring system of the Honda RC-51 Superbike, this one was taped to the seat with wires running out of it and down through the bodywork. A second bike, which was mostly hidden under a cover when not being ridden, had the recorder more properiy integrated. With only seven channels, the system was rudimentary, measuring things like oil, water, and exhaust temperature. The systems were banned from Supersport use on a cost basis. But the newer units can be had for as lillie as $1500, with more for the sensors. Honda's mechanics and crew chiefs are gelling ready for their annual trek to Japan to build the 2003 Honda RC-51 Superbikes. The technical team leaves on January 31 for 15 days, curtailing their testing season. They'll also return this year's race bikes. With no bikes, the team won't be joining Kawasaki, Yamaha, and Yoshimura Suzuki at California Speedway in Fontana on February 5-6, or back at Laguna Seca on February 18-20. Ducati Austin is expected to test at Fontana, with No Limits Motorsports' Doug Chandler in his debut aboard the Honda CBR-954RR in Superbike trim at Fontana, along with teammate Jason Curtis. The American and Erion Honda teams will have a one-day shakedown at Willow Springs prior to Daytona. Look for Michelin North America to have a greater presence on the U,S. road race scene this year. The French tire company, which has mostly ignored the AMAIChevy Trucks U.S. Superbike Championship, has hired long-time Michelin fixture Jim Rhodes full time as its motorcycle road race manager to provide support and assistance at the races as well as to oversee domestic testing and development. The team will supply tires to the Dream Team Ducati Superbike team, No Limits Motorsports, Annandale Racing, and continue to work with Valvoline EMGO Suzuki. Rhodes recently retired from 23 years in the U.S. Air Force, where he was an engineer working on the worid's most technologically advanced aircraft, such as the B-1 Bomber, B-2 Stealth Bomber, Airborne Laser, and other projects. Rhodes turned down lucrative offers in the private sector for the chance to work in a field in which he's been involved for 25 years. Since the late '70s, Rhodes has worked with Michelin distributor Walt Schaefer on race weekends while serving in the military. On the final day of the Laguna Seca test. Michelin had 15 sets of tires for Dream Team Ducati's Larry Pegram to test. Unfortunately, Pegram was ailing and couldn't give all the tires the endurance testing he'd have liked. Even so, Pegram was extremely impressed and said he believed the team would have access to much of the same product used overseas. It's as bad as it looks. That's the word from Erion Honda's Kurtis Roberts, who suffered a deep bruise to his right thigh in a motocross accident at the family ranch in Hickman, Califomia, last Tuesday. Looking a lot like the talloo of a Maori tribesman Roberts calls it "rainbow sherbet" - the contusion was hard earned. Initially reluctant to discuss how it happened, Roberts eventually opened up. "Motocross accident. That's all I'm going to say," he said before continuing: "It was misjudgment on speed approaching a jump. The bike cartwheeled into the back of me." Asked how it felt initially, he replied: "I screamed and cried like a lillie girl. I held on to it for a while. I was just hoping it wasn't broken. After a while I stood up." Just after it happened, you could see the knobby imprints on his leg, he said. Roberts said that. though it was painful, nothing was broken, and he was able to work out at his gym for the rest of the week. It was on Saturday that it began to get much worse. "That's when the blood started running down my leg," he said. Being a racer, and a male, Roberts never sought medical help. It didn't take long for him to figure out that he couldn't really ride his Erion Honda RC-51 on Tuesday. He only made six laps before heading into Monterey for medical supplies. On Wednesday morning, Roberts taped Dr. Scholl's foot pads to the most damaged areas on the back of his right thigh to alleviate some of the pressure and tightly wrapped the entire area. Once on the bike, Roberts found he couldn't use his right foot very well and couldn't move from side to side. Everything had to be done deliberately. The team added padding to the seat, but it still hurt. Early in the day he began to follow Kawasaki's Tony Meiring, and it took his mind off the pain. "I relaxed a bit." he said. By the end of the day, he'd turned in 83 iaps, a good day's work for anyone. Given the injury, the times were respectable. He ended up fifth fastest. "I feel like I was losing a second from turn one to turn three and probably two seconds from there to the Corkscrew," he said. Ducati Austin showed up in Monterey in a nondescript white truck, with bikes, tools, parts and wheels all crammed in the back. The team's trailer, bought from Kyle Petty, was being painted at High Tech in Painesville, Ohio. They expected to have It in plenty of time for the next test, at California Speedway on February 5-6. After that it's back to Texas to prepare for the season-opening Daytona 200 on March 9. "Daytona's right around the corner," crew chief Vic Fasola said. " I sure as hell don't want to go to Daytona unprepared. If you get there behind the eight ball, you're asking for trouble. " Kawasaki's Tommy Hayden couldn't remember how it happened. One minute he Kawasaki team boss Mike Preston said that this would be the last year the team raced the venerable ZX-7R. What they'll race next year hasn't been decided since they haven't heard from the AMA what will be legal. "We want to see something in writing," he said. "This year they said, 'You can run a 1000 if you have that.' The only one that has it is Suzuki. It's pretty disturbing for us. We've got to have something, but what do we have to have?" Ducati Austin's Anthony Gobert has reunited with engine builder and fellow Australian Owen Coles, whom he previously worked with at Vance & Hines Ducati, whom he rode for in 1998 and '99. Gobert won five Superbike races in 1999 but had a few DNFs and finished third in the championship. "We're really working well together. Owen Coles, who worked with me at Vance & Hines, I feel like I owe him a lot. All the Vance & Hines guys, I feel like I let those guys down. I want to make it up to Owen, to Ducati, to myself. I feel like I'm a lot different person than I was then, definitely a lot more professional. Hopefully we can finally do it. It's going to be really, really hard to beat Ben Bostrom. Watching him go around, he looks really, really good, and he looks like he's taking it easy at the moment. He looks good. At the moment. there's a lot of guys that could surprise, Mat's [Mladinl always really quick. fAaronl Yates is always quick here and there. It's going to be a really tough year. It's going to be really hard to get a championship. It's going to be good for everyone watching: it's not going to be good for us riders." With 14 riders taking part in the test. you'd think a few would hook up. Not so much. "The whole three days I was here, I don't think I saw two people," Yamaha's Jamie Hacking said. "I looked around when I got out. There's half the factory paddock here, and I can't find anybody to go mess around with, I like to go out with Miguel [DuHamel] because I know he's going really well, just something on a different brand." Erion Honda's Alex Gobert brought his Australian mechanic, Dale McVeigh, to work with him this year. Early results are that they've bridged the communications gap Gobert had last year with his Bruce Transportation Group crew. "We can communicate a lot better because the Americans sort of explain stuff different with the bike, and I had trouble to understand what the bike was doing to translate it to them. With Dale [McVeighl, it's just his way of working is the way I was brought up with." "We were sort of stuck at a time, "The old bike used to chatter in were my fastest. My last five laps mum setting, We never got to the and we thought if we go out together the front real bad, This one doesn't point where I said, 'Okay, now I'm and help each other out and I was chatter in the front at all, zero," he were my fastest laps," Meiring had ridden the 636 before ready to go for it and see what I'll get looking where he could [go] faster said, "That's my main problem, I'm but hadn't ridden it hard in good conditions, on a big bike, Nothing was at opti- and he was looking where I could go waiting for the front to chatter and it Just behind Zemke came Yama- faster," Gobert said, "He said that I never does. ha's Jason DiSalvo, the fourth of the could go a bit faster before you head out of it. '" "The thing's got horsepower," he II said. "It's fun to ride because it wants to wheelie, so it's really easy to Hayden's time was just .03 of a Yamaha riders, in his first visit to up to the Corkscrew, and I thought he second behind the one turned in Laguna Seca on a 600. DiSalvo's could be a bit faster going into the by Kawasaki's Tony Meiring, the time, 1 :30,053, was faster than he'd Corkscrew, It's good we're honest ironman of the test. The young poweL'" qualified on his Suzuki GSX-R750 for with each other and help each other Californian was the first one out and the Superstock race last year. out. Being young, if we can pool our the last one in every day, completing stuff together, we should develop a 107 laps on the first day on his new bit faster." Kawasaki ZX-6RR, On the final day, Superbike times: I. Eric Bostrom (1:26.215) 2. Kurtis Roberts ( I :26.220) 3. Anthony Gobert (I :26.471) 4. Miguel DuHamel (1,26.764) 5. Larry Pegram (1:27.123) 6. Ben Bostrom (1,27.129) Supersport times: 1. Jamie Hacking (1:28.757) 2. Damon Buckmaster (1 :28.970) 3. Aaron Gobert (1,29.357) 4. Miguel DuHe,mel (1 :29.451) 5. Jake Zemke (1,29.515) 6. Jason DiSalvo (1 :30.053) 7. Alex Gobert (UO.064) 8. Tony Meiring (1:30.841) 9. Tommy Hayden (UO.927) 10. Roger Lee Hayden (1 :31.780) Formula Xtreme: I. Jake Zemke (I :27.808) Erion Honda's Alex Gobert turned a lap just ,011 of a second behind DiSalvo. Like DiSalvo, Gobert will "I think it's good whenever team- race his 600 in both the Supersport mates actually and Superstock classes, Most of the time, the riders were alone on the track. But Gobert he did 64 on the 636cc ZX-6R, together," "We kind of wanted to put some Hayden said, "Hopefully, we'll work time on the motors and see the together year endurance we had, and the 600's all work do wheelies, I got on my 600 today and J was like, 'This thing has no in qualifying because we're teammates,' great, and it holds up, and it has as much power as when we started," worked with teammate Roger Lee Hayden had one of the more Hayden to improve each other's amusing complaints about the new Meiring said, times. Honda 600_ whole time, My last couple of laps "I was learning the cue I ... n e vv s eN FEBRUARY 5, 2003 31

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