Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

takes that away a little bit. This track's fairly easy anyway. There's not a lot to it. That's why you see huge packs and everybody running together. It's really not that tough. But it makes it even a little bit easier, which disappoints me a little bit only because it's going to make the pack and race even more when we come back here for the race. I was hoping it would break that up a little bit, but it's probably going to make that worse." Kawasaki's Eric Bostrom, no fan of Daytona, is less a fan of the new chicane. "It's terrible," Bostrom said. "Just for myself, I could totally crash there straight into the wall because I'm on the throttle and the bike's just swapping rear end, front end. And now I've got to be wide open, whereas before maybe I should have been wide open, but I couldn't get it wide open. It's less technical. I liked it when it was more technical before. Maybe, in a way, it's a little bit safer for everyone, the 600s and everything." In addition to being blamed for the Supersport crash, the chicane was eventually where the 2002 Supersport race was decided. With the pack linked together like a chain for the duration, it was anybody's game going into the final lap. Then Erion Honda's Kurtis Roberts tried a pass that backfired, slowing his Honda teammates and allowing Yoshimura Suzuki's Aaron Yates a free pass to the finish line. "With just a little bit through the chicane, it's not enough," Mladin said. "You have to try to do something on the infield, try and hold a bit of a gap on the banking there and then build a bit more through the chicane, and then you can probably win it from the front. Similar to what Aaron (Yates) did last year on the 600. When Kurtis (Roberts) decided to stuff everybody up in the chicane, he had enough of a lead they couldn't catch him again." One byproduct of the new chicane is higher speeds. With a longer straight up and down run into the bowl, the Superbikes are going so fast that they can't hold the throttle wide open through the banking. "It's stupid. Asinine," Erion Honda's Roberts said. "It's the dumb- TIlls c...... two ,..... -.0. during the 750 Superaport race, Is trPIcaI of the tJpea of crnhea thet hlIppet'l In the chIc:IItM while the rIcIera _ running In a large group. est thing in the world to make this track any faster than it already is, and they did, and you can thank anyone who did it for us because it was stupid. You've got to shut off going into there because you're going into it so fast, going up into the banking. It's stupid. You can (hold it wide open). You've got to kind of roll off going into it because you can almost hit the wall going in. You're straight now. Increasing the speed here any more is just stupid." Always the contrarian, Ducati Austin's Anthony Gobert was the only Superbike rider with a positive view of the chicane. "I like it. It's a lot of fun," Gobert said. "You're kind of leaned over a little bit on the exit, just enough that it spins the tire. I kind of spin it purposely there as well. I could probably straight-line it a little bit more, but I kind of like to lean it over a bit more and spin it a bit more. It gives me a good buzz doing that." Anthony's younger brother Aaron was the most severely injured of the riders in the 2002 incident. Aaron broke both the tibia and fibula in his right leg, his right ankle, right collarbone and shoulder blade, and multiple ribs, which caused his lungs to collapse. He also suffered a closed head injury. While not approaching full strength last December, Aaron was fast enough to know that he liked the new layout. "It's not that I like it because it's not the old chicane that I got hurt in, because I was more than prepared to come back and ride the old track, but I think it's an improvement," Aaron said. "I think it's more enjoyable. Before, it was one of those things you'd have to stop for, where now you constantly have got to have your mind working to get through it. Tip it in, tip it out, accelerate, you're gone. I like it a lot. It's a good improvement, I think, for the 600 anyway. It's funny with the tire where they get the same amount of wheelspin, but I guess they're using the center of the tire instead of the side, so maybe that's a plus for them, who knows." The annual Dunlop December Daytona tire test was the first chance the Superbike riders had to test the new chicane. American Honda's Ben Bostrom, who said the increased speed through NASCAR turn four was "scary," and who couldn't hold the throttle of his Honda RC-51 wide open through the bowl, clocked the fastest lap, a 1 :48.651 done on a race tire in bad weather in little over a day's testing. Nicky Hayden set the pole for last year's 200 with a time of 1:47.174, using a qualifying tire. With Ben only half a second off the pole time on a race tire, it's clear that the track has gotten much faster and will continue to do so. The Yoshimura Suzukis and Ducati Austin bikes were fresh out of the crate at Daytona, and Kawasaki had yet to build its oversized engines. If Dunlop brings qualifying tires, the pole time should be in the 1:45s, and the race pace will be correspondingly faster. The result could be more tire problems and increased gas consumption. "Honestly, with that chicane like that, the best way to fix the problem is to make another pit stop so you run less laps on the tire," Mladin said. "Dunlop would probably be happy about that. I know I would be. It's a matter of safety factor. Big factor. If you've done another pit stop, it means you've done four stints instead of three, so you'd be looking at 14 laps between stops, so it makes it a lot more bearable than 19, that's for sure. Come next year, 200 horsepower motorbikes around this place, it's going to be gnarly, that's for sure. It's definitely something they're going to have to think about. "I guess they done the chicane because of what happened in the chicane last year. I think the chicane's going to be a bigger problem than it was simply because it's going to cause more tire problems." Mladin said that now he's more than a gear higher going on to the banking, "Because essentially now you're changing into fifth gear right about where you were changing into fourth, maybe even a bit earlier. Uke if your bike was revving to 15,000 rpm, right now we're changing into fifth on the 1000 where before we cue I ... n were changing into fourth at 14.500 rpm. It's so much faster, and that's just stressing the tire." Attack Suzuki's Jason Pridmore, the defending Formula Xtreme champion, will be racing his Suzuki GSXR1000 in the Superbike class at Daytona. Like Mladin, he noticed the difference in speed entering the bowl. "On most of my [750cc] Supersport bikes, I would short shift to third coming off," Pridmore said. Now I'm in fourth gear pinned hitting this in the same place. So it's a lot faster, a lot faster. We'll see. It looked like the tires were lasting. I think overall it's safer. It's pretty fast, though. But again, I think that there's a margin for safety there that we've all been looking for, and you can't have it both ways. I guess the way that we have it now is better than the way it was. So maybe we'll get away from some of those accidents on the exit of chicanes like we've had the last few years." Pridmore's teammate Josh Hayes had fuel consumption problems on his Attack Suzuki GSX-R750 during the tire test. "We went out on a full tank and did 16 laps, and the light came on, and I had to come in," Hayes said at the tire test. The Superstock race is 15 laps. "With the rules changing and these bikes are making more and more horsepower, they're going to suck more fuel. Plus we're at wideopen throttle longer at this place. Because of the new chicane, fuel management may become an issue." American Honda's Miguel DuHamel, who's put in more laps at Daytona than any other front- runner, put it in perspective. "It's a Band-Aid," he said. "Obviously they're not going to have a GP here." DuHamel concentrated on the new Honda CBR600RR during the tire test and never rode his Superbike through the new chicane. What worried him was the scarcity of endurance testing. "My concern is the increased speed on the banking and the lack of testing that we had with the rain at Daytona," he said. "I can handle making a mistake or pushing something over the limit, but I don't like to have the thought that because of the lack of testing something goes terminally wrong with the bike out there and there's nothing you can do." ... _ S • FEBRUARY 26,2003 21

• Cover