Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

tire wear, and here I haven't had any problem with it. Every year it's like, I was just too easy running it around that big turn over there, and this year's the same. I had a strategy, me and the team, and it was working out. I finally got it going because I was caught behind Ben [Bostrom] for a Series points leader Aaron Yates (201 and Ben Bostrom (1551 battled for much of the race, with Yates finally getting by the former World Superblke star to steal third place. Bostrom was fourth. was a big surprise to win the race. It was one of those races where anyone could have won, and for some reason good of a job, and it left him wishing he'd pushed harder early on. "I chose to go with a tire that Dunlop didn't think was going to be the going a bit better, he was in my way, and it was just making me not feel so good. Once I got around him, I smoothed out and started getting around the track pretty smooth. With about 10 laps to go, it looked like I was picking up maybe a second on Kurtis [Roberts] a lap. I was like, 'All right, I've got about 10 laps to go, and maybe I can get him.' I just had my head down, trying to put in some clean laps, and then we got the red flag." American Honda's Ben Bostrom with the way I've been trying to ride, trying not to spin and slide too much. our bike likes to run around here at a while. It was hard to pass him because we were going about the same pace. In places where I was right choice," Yates said. "I felt like I haven't really had any problem with was fourth, just a second behind Yates. He'd held the spot until giving way to Yates on the 34th of 40 laps. pretty good pace. It really paid off." So what turned things around? "Basically on Friday, our bike wouldn't turn at all," Eric Bostrom said. "We were trying a little different setup this year than we have in the past. I don't know if it was the tires or what. Last year we were able to maintain a pretty good pace with the tires, and this year we were having a little more trouble. Basically, we couldn't get around until our bike started turning. Once that started happening, it was like things were kinda coming my way, but I was still really worried. We couldn't run the lap times that these other guys were running. My flat-out best lap time wasn't like theirs. I was definitely worried about the outcome. My lap timer didn't work the whole race. I didn't really know what lap times I was doing, but I was just trying real hard to try and conserve the tires in turn two and basically riding as hard as I could everywhere else. I had a really good race with Anthony [Gobert] on the first lap there. I was able to stick the line, but I didn't think I was going to make the turn at all. We were both in there pretty deep, and Anthony is pretty good on the brakes. He was using a lot of racetrack. Roberts had given it his all, but it just wasn't enough to match the "King of Colorado." "At the very beginning I just wanted to slowly inch up and not put a big charge on and burn the tire off the rim: Roberts said. "We just maintained the lap times that we thought we needed to do to win. And Eric did the same thing." Third place went to Yoshimura Suzuki's Aaron Yates, the championship leader coming into Pikes and the leader heading out. Yates had chosen the softer of the two "triple compound" rear Dunlops and had done a stellar job of getting it to the finish. Actually, he thought he'd done too fii}D@@DUDf) W@(1@~CP (JJ@D@CP (JJ@DUD(1CP Mat Mladin walked back to the Yoshimura Suzuki truck on Saturday aftemoon knowing that he would sit on pole position for Sunday's race. More importantly, he also knew he'd eamed the championship point that goes with being the fastest qualifier. Imagine his surprise when late on Saturday night he found out that his pole time from Friday's session had been taken away. He was now second on the grid, and that championship point was gone, handed instead to his teammate Aaron Yates, the fastest qualifier from Saturday's session and the man who leads MJadin in the championship point standings. Due to what AMA Pro Racing referred to as "a hardware problem with the AMB transponder/decoder attached to the loop from the last segment: Mladin's pole-position earning time from Friday was disallowed, moving Yates to the pole. The unfortunate part of the equation was that Mladin's crew wasn't notified that there was a problem with Friday's times until Saturday afternoon - with just five or six minutes remaining in the final session. Confident that he was pole position and had tested everything he needed to test for tomorrow's race, Mladin was already headed back to the truck. Naturally, MJadin was a bit miffed at the ruling, though he's been through enough not to be surprised. "I'm not surprised. Nothing surprises me anymore: Mladin said. "I feel sorry for them [the AMAI. With five minutes to go in the Superbike session, they let Pete [Doyle - Mladin's crew chief] know not even me because I was on my way back to the truck - I was finished. They told them that they were talking about taking my lap time away. I didn't know until the session was complete and finished. The guys knew with five minutes left in qualifying, so we didn't even have a chance. Even if they would have run back and got me, we still wouldn't have got a lap in. So, yeah, you go out and do four-flat [54 seconds] in qualifying today and ... knowing them, maybe they don't think I'm capable of getting pole position with just the few that I've had in the past IMladin is the all-time AMA Superbike pole position leader)." Since he thought he had pole position in the bag, MJadin didn't worry toward the end of the session about putting in a quicker lap. Instead, he spent the session going through tires and getting ready for tomorrow's race. Little did he know that his time from the day before wouldn't end up being any good. "I wouldn't have gone about the session differently, but with 10 minutes to go I would have tried to put in a lap," Mladjn explained. "I walked away, and we were done. We just didn't have anything to do. We were out of tires, and we'd tried everything we needed to try, so I came back. With 10 minutes left in the session, we would have put some new tires in. All I used were the new tires that Dunlop brought, the dual-compounds. That's all I used in that whole session. I guarantee there are tires out there a lot better than that, and we went four-flats on those tires. If I can do that on race tires, I can do better than that on something a little bit softer." Instead of being just one point behind Yates in the championship chase as he thought he was hours earlier, Mladin found himself three points behind heading into the race. Yates had lapped at 54.079 on Saturday afternoon, off the 53.780 that Mladin had done on Friday. It was a new lap record, however, under the 54.391 that Eric Bostrom set in last year's event. In the post-qualifying press conference, Yates still believed he was second when he said: "Today seemed to go a little better for me with the weather being a little cooler. We got to try some things, and we got the bike pretty comfortable, and things seemed to pick up a little bit for us. The front end is working a little bit better for me, and I'm feeling pretty comfortable out there." The Georgian had crashed in the session in tum seven, his second of the weekend. "I was just trying to put together a run to see how the rear tire was going to hang: Yates said. "I was on the hardest front, and I didn't get in there any different; it just went. I came in, and we went back out on something else and gave it a little look, and it seemed pretty good. We'll see tomorrow moming how it goes." Third fastest on the revised grid would go to Austin Ducati's Anthony Gobert, the Australian tuming in his 54.166 on Saturday aftemoon. "I did feel good, actuaUy: Gobert said. "The guys have been working really hard, especially because everyone has been giving them a really hard time, and it's been a combo deal. I'm working as hard as I can, and they are, obviously. We seem to be making progress here, and I've always done well here in the past so I feel confident. We already have our tire chosen, and we did that yesterday, so we're ready to race. I think the tires are good. It doesn't seem to be a problem for myself. To be honest, I seem to be getting more grip out of the hard tire than I have out of the soft. I'm just happy with the bike and the race setup, and I feel confident that we can get away with the guys and do all right. We'll just see how it goes." The front row was filled by Erion Honda's Kurtis Roberts, the Califomian also improving his effort on Saturday. "It was a little bit better today: Roberts said. "The race setup is good. The race setup is what we were looking for. We did high 54s and some 55s, so for 48 laps I think we have a good setup. When I had the good tire on, I was following I think Josh Hayes. I tried to pass him but couldn't improve the lap time. I caught up to him right at the esses, and that probably cost me a couple of tenths, but front row was all I really wanted here. Tomorrow I think the race will be competitive. " Roberts was still hurting a little bit from the shoulder injury he suffered prior to the Infineon round. Pikes Peak, he said, would be easier on the shoulder than Road Atlanta was. "It's a factor, but the good thing here is that the esses here are nearly as demanding as the rinky-dink thing they had at Atlanta: Roberts said. "You're not trying to get the thing stopped and thrown in there because it's somewhat flowing here, so it's not as demanding. But 48 laps here... it just depends on how hot it is. I think the race tires are better than we've ever had here, really, but last year I wasn't reaUy here. I'm quite happy with what Dunlop has brought us," Mladin had spent Saturday's session testing tires to see what would be best for Sunday's race. "I was pushing pretty hard because everyone has to get a race setup," MJadin said, while still thinking he'd taken pole position. "I'm surprised that the lap time from yesterday wasn't beaten because it was a pretty good day to do it. It didn't seem like anyone really had much of a go at it. I'm not sure because I really wasn't watching. I'm just trying to figure out what to do for the race tomorrow." As for tires, Mladin was hoping for the best though he knew that Pikes Peak was hard on rubber. "I had a few runs," MJadin said. "It's a bit hard to do really long runs around here. I was just seeing what kind of tire temperatures we were getting, things like that. You're never happy with tires - it doesn't matter if you're winning or not - you're always asking for more grip." cue I e n e _ s: • JUNE 1 1 ,2003 11

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