Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

~ 'L.;,.,.. :,( " "en the 41st lap. That m~t t·....._I~ four were within 2.2 seconds of e~ other..J A lap later and Kurtis responded with a 1:50.634 to pull 2.1 seconds ahead of Ben, who was barely ahead of Yates and DuHamel. Then it was Yates pulling out the fastest lap, get" ting a bit of a gap on the two factory Hondas as he went after Kurtis. On the 46th lap, Yates cut the gap to Kurtis to under two seconds, with Ben and DuHamel dropping to 3.0 and 3.1 seconds behind. With 10 laps to go, the order read: Kurtis, Yates, Ben, DuHamel. But in made me have to change my line Based on the practice sessions leading up to run for pole position for the Daytona 200 by Arai, Erion Honda's Kurtis Roberts and Yoshimura Suzuki's Mat MJadin had set them· selves up as the men to beat. The pair had taken turns at being the fastest of the Super· bike riders throughout practice, and a betting man would have been hard pressed to lay down a bet against them. As it turns out, however, the smart money was on Ben Bostrom, the American Honda rider taking advantage of going in the second group of qualifiers to move past both Roberts and Mladin to eam pole position, his first·ever for the Daytona 200. Roberts and Mladin set the pace in the first group of qualifiers (even·numbered riders) while Bostrom and his teammate Miguel DuHamel sat in the Honda truck watching the proceedings on TV. When it was finally his turn. Bostrom went out and bettered the both of them, lapping at 1:48.376 to steal pole position. The Roberts/Mladin duel made the first group the more interesting, and when it was all said and done, Roberts and his Honda RC51 had topped Mladin and his GXR·R1000 by just .001 of a second. At just after 3 p.m. Roberts clicked off a 1:48.554, some 20 min· utes after Mladin had lapped at 1:48.555. Close to the end of the session, Mladin crashed in the chicane, and by the time he got back to the pits, there were just five or so minutes left in the session. Though the Australian went out again on his second bike, he wasn't able to better his previous best and thus ended up second·best to Roberts. "A watch is nice, but I'd rather be on the center of the podium on Sunday than sitting in the hospital from trying to get a Rolex," Roberts said after his session ended and prior to knowing whether someone from the second group would better his effort. That left Bostrom to try to earn the Rolex watch that goes with pole position at Day· tona, and he was up to the task. His best lap was somewhat bittersweet in that it also knocked his brother Eric Bostrom off the front row. Eric and his Kawasaki would end up fifth by virtue of the 1:48.695 he set in the first group's session, with no chance of better· ing his spot as the front row was locked from Thursday's qualifying. "I wasn't really sure," Ben said when asked if he thought he could better Roberts' mark. "Miguel [DuHamel) and I were sitting in the truck watching th.ese guys, and they had a really fast group. All of them put it up there in the mid·48s, so I didn't know if we had enough to pull it out. The Honda worked really well· a big thanks to the team for seV ting it up. We just got lucky. It was really close, probably one of the closest ever poles at Daytona (it was the closest ever between the top two· .178 of a second). There are a lot of guys right there within a few tenths of each other. I was pretty fortunate to have Miguel there in the 600 class, and it worked out really well for him. I saw Miguel tried to do the same thing out there, but I was coming in. I think he saw me when he looked back, and he meant to give me a tow, but it didn't payoff because I was coming in." Ben's mark was well off Nicky Hayden's lap record of 1:47.174, but that was to be expected considering the fact that Dunlop was no longer supplying qualifying tires and that the track had changed somewhat with a different configuration of the chicane. The other man in the second group expected to challenge for pole position was Ameri· can Honda's Miguel DuHamel. The French 'Canadian, however, crashed near the end of the session in turn six after tuming in a 1:49.369. DuHamel would bounce back on his second bike to tum a 1:49.280, the third best time of the session behind Yoshimura Suzu· ki's Ben Spies. the young Texan ending up sixth in his first Daytona 200 qualifying ses· sion. That Left Ducati Austin's Anthony Gobert in seventh spot, ahead of Team America Ducati's Larry Pegram. DuHamel would slot into the ninth spot ahead of 10th fastest qual· ifier Jason Pridmore on the Attack Suzuki GSX·Rlooo. "There's not much to tell," Roberts said of his session. "I was just working on trying to be smooth. I'm not the best qualifier up here because I could give a crap about it myself, except for Daytona's Daytona and you get a watch and blah, blah. whatever." Though he'd crashed in the session. Mladin was no worse for wear, and his confidence wasn't shaken· mainly because he knew exactly what caused the crash. "I just tucked the front, trying a harder front tire· that was it," Mladin said. "It just didn't offer the same grip, and I paid the consequences for pushing it as hard as I did the other one. It's one point, and that's what I say all the time. If they didn't offer a point for pole, then I wouldn't care where I qualified. But it's one point, and at the end of the year that can make a difference. We missed out on that, and I'm pissed." Yates ended up fourth on the front row after an impressive display of rear·wheel steer· ing on'bis Yoshimura Suzuki. "Most of the time I was pretty much running the track by myself," Yates said. "It went pretty decent. We were struggling a Iittie bit early on today, just trying to get some grip and stuff, but I believe that's just how it's going to be with the tires we're going to have to run. We had some softer race tires that we hadn't really tried, and we had the whole quali· fying to just throw them in there, try and go faster and faster, and the things just last five or six laps. We got the bike working, and I'm really comfortable on it. It felt good running that kind of pace and just riding the 1000 around here like that. It's been a while since I've been that comfortable on the thing. Right at the end there we all went out together, and nobody wanted to go. It got a little frustrating." 12 MARCH 19, 2003' eye I e n e _ 50 and run wide. It kind of blew the Roberts (80). leads DuHamel (17). Yates (20) and Mladin (66) earty in the race. whole deal." The trailing two Hondas smelled without the benefit of a draft. Later on blood, and by the end of the 48th lap they were right on Kurtis' tail, trailing the 52nd lap, both Ben and DuHamel were balked badly, giving Kurtis a tad of breathing room, but they'd worked the race leader by just .2 and .3 of a second, respectively, with Ben still holding second over DuHamel. Yates their way back to his rear end by the end of the lap. was fourth, but 9.4 seconds behind. On the 50th lap, Ben led across And a lap later, it was even closer, with the top three covered by less the stripe for the first time of the race. Kurtis and DuHamel were in tow, and than a 10th of a second· .08 of a second to be precise. On the 55th Yates was doing his best to catch up, lap, Kurtis went wide in the second though he was still some eight sec· onds behind, and time was running horseshoe and dropped back to third . was he just seeing if he could draft out. A lap later, and just .2 of a sec· by both Hondas on the run to the ond covered the top three Hondas. flag? "'t WaS a blatant mistake by Kur· Yates was now 8.1 seconds behind,

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