Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

we offered Jason's engine, and Jason was going to sit out the race. We offered that engine to him, to Doug." Chandler had expressed frustration at Pikes Peak International Raceway about having the use of only one Honda CBR-600RR because of a shortage of exhaust systems. His team had only one Arata exhaust. which had to be swapped between his two 600s. Brandon said at Road America Chandler was trying to make a deal with Jardine: "There had been several companies that were going back and forth, trying different pipes. We actually just received that pipe there: we've been waiting on that. It's been in testing. It's an Arata. We tried one Jardine before, and we tried another at the last race. He had a Jardine pipe on then." Chandler likely won't be on the sidelines for long. Asked if he'd be at the next round of the AMA/Chevy Trucks U.S. Superbike Championship at Mazda Raceway at Laguna Seca, near his home in Salinas, he said, "Oh, yeah, it's too close to home to miss that one." What he'll be riding is the question. Chandler had been testing the factory KTM Supermotard machinery at the Briggs & Stratton Motorplex at Road America. Yamaha's Aaron Gobert was so stir crazy that he hopped on a plane and flew to Brainerd. even though his broken wrist prevented him from riding. "I already had the plane tickets paid for," Gobert said, adding that he was going insane hanging around his house. "At least I can be here for the team." The middle Gobert brother broke his wrist in a Formula Xtreme highside at Road America, three weeks ago. Initially he thought he might be ready for Brainerd, with Laguna Seca, in two weeks time. a more feasible target. Now Laguna Seca is questionable. and the target has moved to two weeks further on. to Mid-Ohio. "Hopefully by Laguna they'll be strength in the joint so I can ride." Gobert said, the damaged wrist wrapped in a brace. Gobert explained that the bones in his left wrist are still fragile and that the surgically insert~ ed plate is holding the bones in place, but not rigidly together. The ulna, the larger of the two bones of the forearm, on the side opposite the thumb, was broken in two places, but one of the breaks was a year old. "It's still meant to be in plaster. They put me in this so I could keep the fingers moving so when I do come to ride, I won't have physio to do." One of the Goberts' parents, either Sue or Steve, is in attendance at most of the races. Sue went back to their home outside of Sydney, Australia, after the Road America race, with Steve at Brainerd. He arrived to find that only one of his sons, Erion Honda's Alex. was racing. Aaron was sidelined with a broken wrist, and Anthony had gotten fired from the Ducati Austin team prior to the race. "It's better than last year when he came here," Aaron Gobert said. "Alex had hurt himself in a motocross acci~ dent, Anthony had broken his leg at Road Atlanta, and I was still hurt from Daytona." Because of Alex's injury, this was his first visit to Brainerd. There's no truth to the rumor that Yamaha had signed Anthony Gobert to ride a Superbike next year, according to Yamaha team manager Keith McCarty. Not only haven't they signed Gobert. they haven't decided whether they'll even race a Superbike next year. "We have a lot of little things to iron out before we decide." McCarty said, while doing double duty as a chef. grilling sausages behind the team transporter. Yoshimura Suzuki's Mat Mladin has had his share of tire traumas this year, but at Brainerd, at least in qualifying, he couldn't have been happier. That would change after the Superbike race. Dunlop brought five new rear tires and three new fronts, so many that Mladin said he wasn't sure which one he'd used to turn his provisional pole time. "Normally I know exactly what's going in there, but there is that many that I told Pete [Doyle] not to bother," he said on Friday afternoon. The various iterations of sizing and construction of the tires and tires left over from Road America meant there were 14 rears to choose from. So many that Dunlop was able to provide some of the Superbike tires to the Formula Xtreme riders. In the five specs new this weekend, two were brought from Japan by a senior Dunlop race tire manager and three from the company's Birmingham, UK, headquarters. "It looks like it's down to two at this point." Dunlop' s road race manager Jim Allen said, the 902 and 732 compounds. "Both of those are straight from World Superbike." Allen characterized Brainerd as a medium to medium hard compound track. Because of its long front straightaway, "You can melt the center of the tire." Temperature control is paramount and controlled in two ways. either in the construction of the tire or by shaving the center part of the tread. "The standard tires have a real heavy gauge. We take a little off of the center, and it reduces the running temperature." Allen said they know by experience how great the reduction in temperature will be depending on the amount of rubber removed. Of greater concern is ruining the profile of the tire. "We have tires that won't overheat. but we want grip, too." Allen said. Of the two that had emerged, the 732 was preferred by many of the top Superbike riders, except for Honda's Miguel DuHamel and Ben Bostrom, who found the tire to be too rigid. After the race, Mladin felt differently, as did Jim Allen. "We had tire trouble today," he said, despite Mladin and Ben Bostrom both putting more than a race's worth of running on individual tires. "Practice is never as tough as racing is." The problem was not a compound overheating, but a heat-related construction failure. "It was the best tire for sure," Allen said of the tires which he'd shaved part of the center tread off of. "It was the right one to have. Everyone used the same tire. They looked okay at the end of the race. [Aaron] Yates said he felt a vibration, but his spun on the rim. The tire moved around 180 degrees from where it was supposed to be. Externally, the rest of the tires, Bostrom and Mladin are the only ones that appeared to have a problem, externally." Allen said Mladin made a very valid point after wearing the tread off the tire at Pikes Peak International Raceway. ''I'm a hard guy on tires. It's up to you guys to do something about it. You can't blame Mat." There will be different tires at Mazda Raceway at Laguna Seca, but Allen said, "It's not even a question of different tires - it's recognizing that Mat's an extraordinary creature. and he's going to have to be on a different tire than anybody else, if you're looking at the heat that he's putting into the tire. Here [Ben] Bostrom had the same failure, but Mat had it earlier." Awesome save of the weekend to Valvoline EMGO Suzuki's Steve Rapp. EXiting turn three Rapp ran wide, his front wheel dipping off the edge of the track and hitting a gap in the pavement, which flattened his front tire and sent him on a wild, feet-off ride, a piece of his motorcycle falling off as he struggled to keep from crashing. Riding the 1661 cc Suzuki Hayabusa, Rad Greaves nearly cracked the 200 mph barrier, hitting 199.7 on the Yoshimura radar gun, at the end of the long BIR front straight. Greaves said there'd be more in it if he were more aggressive out of the final turn onto the front straight. ''I'm leery of ending up on the wall [outside of the final turn] and sliding down like a cartoon. I could've got on the gas sooner." The time was done on Greaves' third lap. Three laps later and the engine expired. His other overbored motor had lasted three laps. It meant the end of the weekend and possibly the end of the .. RADBUSA" machine as a race bike. "It may become a museum piece," Greaves said. The machine is impressive by any measure, size, speed, power. detailing ... cost. Reaves said that the telemetry showed his rear wheel was spinning at 225.04 mph when he went through the radar trap. "I would never have thought that the thing was spinning the wheel 25 mph," Greaves said. "That's the first time we've had that motor in the bike. I know we could squeeze four, five mph out of it." Greaves said the motor makes 259 rear wheel horsepower, with 155 foot-pounds of torque. "It's basically a drag race motor. It would run down the straights all day long. When you downshift, it puts a lot of pressure on the crank coming into the turns." The motors were built by Jamie Hanshaw, an engineer with the Ford Motor Company. The custom carbon fiber bodywork was done by Roush Racing. Greaves said the chassis had been cut in two places, in the middle and at the steering head, and that the swingarm had been lengthened, giving it GP geometry. "With that kind of power, you want good feel. It's not that far from GP bikes in those dimensions." Greaves said the cost of the work done to the bike totals $846,000, "that's based on what they would charge uS and not what we paid," Greaves said. The wind tunnel testing and body work cost $500,000, Greaves said. The fuel tank is a beautifully crafted aluminum unit from Yoshimura that cost $7000. The Ohlins suspension, front and rear, is worth $150,000. Each motor has $12,000 in parts, though Greaves said Suzuki had been very generous. Annandale Racing's Craig Connell is expected to have surgery on Monday to repair the right humerus he broke in a crash during Saturday's Lockhart-Phillips USA Formula Xtreme qualifying. Connell also took a blow to the head and suffered short term memory loss but didn't suffer a concussion. according to team members. "It's fourth gear, full noise and all of a sudden I can remember thinking, 'Oh, shit.·" Connell said in the pits on Sunday morning, his right arm in a sling. "The only thing I can think of at that point is like it's gone into neutral. And I knew I wasn't going to be able to stop in time on track, and I was heading straight for that television [cameral tower. And I was thinking, 'If I'm going to hit anything, I don't want to hit that.' It's going to be multiple frames [scaffolding] so I tried to get to the left of it, and I remember just leaving the track, that's the end of it. They said I was out for about three minutes. To be honest with you. t don't remember that clearly. I remember the first time I saw Helen and told the doctors who she was, and they thought that was pretty good. I was fine in the hospital." The cause was a rear axle falling out. according to those who saw television replays. Once the rear axle came out. the back of the machine squatted down, and the crash was on. the Honda CBR-954RR making it to the tree line. "We've heard conflicting stories," team owner Dale Le Master said. Among them was that Connell got into a tank-slapper, and the front brake pads came out. "Until we take everything apart, it's hard to say." Connell hadn't seen the TV replays. "It's like gone into neutral, so whether it's thrown the chain, I don't know what it was," he said. Following the crash, an initially disoriented Connell was transported to St. Joseph's Medical Center in Brainerd, but he was soon lucid and answering questions. Results of a CAT scan revealed no head injuries. "All the neurological tests came out fine," Le Master said. "There's been no memory loss after the tests." Johnston said. Connell and his wife were going to watch the Pro Honda Oils Supersport race then fly to California to consult with Dr. Arthur Ting. He's scheduled to have surgery at 3:30 on Monday. Connell won't be replaced at the next round of the AMA/Chevy Trucks U.S. Superbike Series, Johnston said, adding that Christopher Rankin will fill in for the previously injured Ty Howard. When Jake Zemke wheeled his Erion Honda CBR-954RR into the Formula Xtreme winners' circle at BIR. it was the initiation to motorcycle racing for the team's newest sponsor, MTX Audio. "It was a great way to introduce them to the sport, .. team owner Kevin Erion said. "by giving them a win." The multinational com· pany makes a full range of home and car audio products, which are especially popular with the car cruiser market. "They feel it's the perfect demographic. Sport bike guys are the same guys that have the Civics with the boom-boom systems," Erion said. Through Parts Unlimited's Jeff Fox, Erion met the company principals at the Road America round of the AMA/Chevy Trucks U.S. Superbike Championship and put the multiyear deal together the following week. Because it's an outside sponsor, there are no conflicts with Erion's current sponsors, Parts Unlimited and PJ-1 . American Honda also gave the deal its blessing, "The boys will end up with some boom-boom stuff and have a good time," Erion said. "" Kawasaki's Eric Bostrom will probably have only one AMA spec and one World Superbike spec machine at his disposal for the AMA/Worid Superbike meeting at Mazda Raceway at Laguna Seca on July 5-6, according to crew chief Dan Fahie. Fahie said the team would run last year's 750cc AMA engines in the World Superbike event and the 2mm overbored 788cc motors in AMA. The main difference between the two series, other than displacement. is weight and fuel. "I don't think we can meet the weight requirement [of 350 pounds] for World Superbike," Fahie said. The AMA limit is 370, and Fahie said he didn't think they could get below 360 pounds. "We're going to do the best we can," Fahie said. Because they run carburetors, the team isn't affected by the new FIM rules mandating restrictors in the injector inlet ports. They tested the bike at Laguna Seca this past January, before their big bore engines were perfected. They'll test them with unleaded fuel on the dyno next week. "We just want to make sure there are no complications," Fahie said. Yoshimura Suzuki's Aaron Yates tested with the restrictors he and teammate Mat Mladin will have to run in the World Superbike races at the AMA/WSB weekend at Mazda Raceway at Laguna Seca during their recent test at Virginia International Raceway. "On the fourth day of the test he did about 10 laps in the morning," Yates' crew chief Chris Weidl said. "He said it was a little bit flatter. The power characteristics were the same, not quite as sharp. It has more to do with the unleaded fuel than with the different engine." Yukio Kagayama, recently drafted out of the British Superbike Championship to replace the injured Kenny Roberts Jr. on Suzuki's MotoGP squad, said he felt like the power should be flattened out. The Yosh riders felt it should be more aggressive. "It's just rider difference," Weidl said. Suzuki Japan had sent a complete GSX-R1 000 that had run as a spare in the Sugo round of the WSB, and it came at the right time. Yates had destroyed a GSX-R 1000 with a foolish post-race burn-out after finishing second in the second Superbike race at Road America, the bike a complete write-off. Leaving the rolling chassis behind, the team took the engine out of the World Superbike machine and plugged it into one of Yates' existing chassis at VIR. For Laguna Seca, the team will fit Yates' triple clamps, suspension parts. and swingarm to the World Superbike chassis. "We're going to take our AMA engine and put restrictors on it, and that will be our spare engine." Weidl said. Yates and Mladin will each have two AMA and one World Superbike machine. with one spare engine between them. "The [World Superbike] engine is going to be run all weekend. It's not the ideal way to go about it. but Suzuki decided it was okay by them." The teams will use their standard AMA gearboxes, even though World Superbike rules allow more fleXibility. There's a slight difference in the electronics: Yosh uses a Motec system. while the World Superbike team uses a 2D system on a Suzuki wiring harness. "The bikes, other than the restrictors, will be exactly the same as we ride here." Weidl said. The time frame to get all the equipment together is short. The team's hauler will arrive at the Chino. California. shop on Wednesday afternoon or evening, and it has to leave for Monterey the following Tuesday morning. "There's no fourth of July weekend for us," Weidl said, adding that it was worth the work. "We're all pretty excited about doing that race." Miguel DuHamel was doing everything he could to prevent Indy Car driver Patrick Carpentier from crashing. Screaming at the top of his lungs to warn Carpentier didn't help, and he could only watch as his fellow French-Canadian went down, tumbling once he hit the ground to avoid being run over. "He hit the thing, he was still going about 30 mph, he hit the thing, bounced off the thing, the seat folded in half," DuHamel said. The seat? The pair of Las Vegas residents were aboard their carbon fiberframed road bikes, DuHamel's a brand new Giant. Carpentier's a $4000 Argon 18, on what always turns into a very competitive training run. Heading down a hill about an eighth of a mile from Carpentier's home. they'd just started to take a breather, slowing down from about 45 mph, when a gardening truck and trailer made a right turn in front of them, heading into a Home Depot. "I just start yelling because his windows are down. and there're three guys in there," DuHamel said. "He cuts over, and I'm yelling at him, and I hit the brake, and that thing didn't even slow down. We were going so fast. Right away, I thought. 'I'm done.' Thank God I started yelling because I think Patrick wasn't paying attention, and when I started yelling, he dropped on the brake, but he probably dropped on the brakes, I'd say, five feet later than me, and haVing the experience of motorcycle racing, I was able to use the front and rear brakes. The whole time I thought I'm going to run into this guy. Patrick comes flying by me on the brakes Sideways, and obviously he's not going to make it, and this trailer is huge, and he hit the one and only spot that he could hit that was a flat wall, and everything else had a piece of metal protruding from it. He could have really hurt himself bad. And he did, actually." Carpentier hit the truck and started tumbling, trying to avoid the truck's rear wheels as the truck rolled along. "His elbows, his knees were scraped up pretty good. He hit his head. His helmet's still good. He's banged up, and for a while he hit so hard, we thought he broke an elbow. He gets up and looks at his bike, and it's destroyed. He picks it up, and he throws it. It's worthless. The wheels are bent. The frame's cracked." DuHamel had the presence of mind to shoot photos of it with his new Sprint phone. "We wanted to get a cop over there: they sent two ambulances, two fire trucks." The truck dri· ver was given a ticket for making an unsafe right-hand turn. "The cop showed up 45 minutes later. It was a bike cop. He didn't recognize me." Yoshimura Suzuki's Aaron Yates earned $4000 from the $40,000 Superbike purse by taking the win. American Honda's Miguel DuHamel took home $3200 for finishing second, on top of the $1 250 he earned for winning the Pro Honda Oils Supersport race, with Erion Honda's Kurtis Roberts winning $2750 for finishing third in Superbike. U "" I e nevvs JULY 9, 2003 11

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