Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

my Own Race 6th '"-- '"-- '"-- The Bostrom b~el:r,eric (brand Ben (155), didn't spend a lot of time wanted to do a bit of the followins........ rac. 9 toge~, as Eric ~ 0 more that we'd all been doing." than 20 seconds back by the finish, As it turns out, he didn't want to be ~hl!!..Benf~ht for the win~ \...- ' - in third ... but second was his goaL , ~ , > tis," DuHamel joked later. "I think he and he attained that on the next la That set up the final run to the flag with Ben leading Kurtis and DuHamel into the chicane. Ben knew he might be in trouble, so he tried to throw the '-'"-'-+pm.-For &-while, I thought !-wets-gohrg to miss the starhf'ttre'tate. other two off by downshifting his Hats off to my Honda team and to the whole Honda team. Davey Jones came over and Bobby Reichman - RCSl into first gear going in the chicane, the bike fishtailing in front of and that's one guy from Kurtis' team and one guy from Ben's team - and the other two. It didn't work. Kurtis got a bit caught up with a lapper on helped put my bike together. I think that helped us win that drafting war at the exit; DuHamel got the best run the end. It was a team effort." out of the chicane, and he was able to quickly rid himself of Kurtis. That left So what about the final run to the just Ben ahead of him, and he was in flag, and the pass? "Kurtis came by me in turn one," position A. Not one to miss taking DuHamel explained. "I tried not to advantage of a favorable situation, panic and just follow both of them. DuHamel drafted a lapper and Ben to sneak out his fourth Daytona 200 win Kurtis stepped back a little bit and tried to set up for the win. I got a real- and the 26th AMA Superbike victory ly good drive coming out of the chi- of his career. "I thought I could get one RCSl at the line, but not two," DuHamel said. cane, got Kurtis' draft and then got Ben. He moved back into his line, and I just snuck in. I thought for sure "It wasn't possible because the bikes that Kurtis would get a double draft were just too fast. My team did a and come around both of us." great job. Right before we went out, Daytona International Speedway Daytona Beach, Florida Results: March B-10, 2003 we changed the primary gearing to half a tooth taller so I would have less Jason Pridmore (43) rode his Attack Suzuki GSX·R1000 to ninth place. Here he leads Michael Bames (34), who would get past him for eighth position. eN QUALIFYING: I. Ben Bostrom (I :48.376): 2. Kurtis Roberts (1048.554): 3. Mat Mladin (I :48.555); 4. Aaron Yates (I :48.659); 5. Eric Bostrom (1:48.695); 6. Ben Spies (1048.825); 7. Anthony Gobert (1 :48.935); 8. Larry Pegram (I :49.087): 9. Miguel DuHamel (1 :49.280); 10. Jason Pridmore (1:50.343): 11. Doug Chandler (1:51.438); 12. Michael Barnes (1 :51.695): 13. Jordan Szoke (1:51.836): 14. Shawn Higbee (1:52.390); 15. Andy Yoshimura Suzuki's Mat Mladin would rather have celebrated his 31 st birthday with a victory in the Daytona 200, but he took what he could after a day fuJi of tire frustrations. "For me the race was about conservation, just doing tires and stuff," Mladin said. "And I couldn't make them last. I had the same tires as everyone else. I used a hard one in the second stint, but I just it didn't have much grip and just wasn't good all around, so we just went back to the other one for the last stint. The lap times were easy to do if you had a tire under the bike. The first part of the race, that first stint, I got out in the lead, and it was one of those things where I tried to do the lap times that the bike was going to aJlow me to do without spinning the tire. That was my plan for the whole race. And it just didn't matter. I was short shifting quickly, even at the start of the race. I was in fifth gear coming out of the chicane, just not spinning the tire, and unfortunately that first one Irear tire] with five or six laps to go, it was all over. I kept going backwards. I was doing two-minute lap times. With the second one, the hard one, the lap times weren't there. Before the first pit stop, I knew I wasn't going to win the race. It was all about getting around, getting to the finish and getting some points. We're 20 points ahead of where we were when we left here last year." m 1] 1] Ben Spies 7th Yoshimura Suzuki's Ben Spies finished seventh in what was his first-ever Daytona 200. Not a bad result for the 18-year-old, the youngest rider in the field. "It was really fun," he said. "I leamed a lot. Unfortunately, in the first leg I either had a bad tire or... I don't know what it was. I could only run 54s and 55s, and in the second and third leg I was running 51 sand 52s. If the first leg would've been all right, maybe we could have beat [Mat] Mladin, but he was having trouble with his tire, too. It was fun, and I learned a lot, so next year it will be good, too. For a first year running, I think we did pretty good." m®§6 Eric Bostrom 5th Kawasaki's Eric Bostrom ended the race in fifth place, the team opting to use the 750cc powerplant in his ZX7-R after encountering engine problems during practice and qualifying with the bigger engine. "We didn't have the reliability with the other engines," Bostrom said. "We had one of them that seemed kinda bulletproof, but on some of the others we couldn't go more than a couple of laps. To me it was gambling, and we needed to finish this race. With the nature of this race, I'm just happy to walk out of here and be able to move on. After the first gas stop, I don't know what happened, but it really took my head out of it. Things were going pretty good, and I was real happy. I had some big slides, then I hit some oil and had some bigger slides. I hit some traffic, and it just seemed like all forces were against me. I think I just lost the carrot. It was real important for me to stay in the draft. Our biggest problem was that prior to qualifying, I had done max 10 laps. We also had some front brake problems early in the week. I was just kinda freaked out with the brakes. I think we'll be able to run the big motor at Fontana, and hopefully we can get in there and mix it up. I'm not disappointed at all with this finish. All in all it was a good shakedown for our new team." m 1] cD 1] Shawn Higbee 10th Shawn Higbee wasn't the highest finishing privateer as that honor went to eighth-place finisher Michael Barnes. Still, 10th wasn't a bad way for Higbee to start his season. "It's not too bad," Higbee said. "We built some momentum for the year, so it's not a bad way to start the year. We were fortunate this morning. We changed the setup quite a bit and actually did it on the A bike. We put a new shock with a new spring and everything on the B bike, so we had two options for practice, and the second option on the B bike worked out better. That's what we ended up racing. It was a little frantic because we hadn't done any testing. Having the practice this morning really helped us for the race. It was hard to tell where we would end up. I think top five would have been fabulous. I think top five from here on out will be a possibility. Superbike is what our current plan is, but I think we have to talk it over with Suzuki a little bit because they're not paying any money in Superbike. AMA Superbike is more fun because if we can be competitive, it's definitely the premiere class." m1] ® Anthony Gobert 47th Although his season didn't start as planned, Anthony Gobert did lead the 200 before suffering an engine failure on his Ducati Austin mount. Gobert's race didn't start well as just prior to the race a crewmember bumped into his front brake lever and more or less broke it, forcing the Aussie to his backup bike. "As soon as we went out, it had a big misfire," Gobert said. "I didn't know for sure if it was going to stop. Then it started corning good. It didn't have any power. It lost a lot of power, but it was still going. That's the main thing. Then the minute I caught the guys again and passed them, I thought, 'We're going to win this pretty easy.' I was doing it super comfortable. Then the next minute I got a fresh tire and was taking it easy. Then the engine stopped. It's a shame because I th.ink we would have given Ducati its first win here. I was doing it easy and had come from a long way back even though the engine was slow. It's a real disappointment." cue I e nevvSi MARCH 19,2003 13

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