Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Racing Munroe Motors' Ducati 999 year, and fit them to the 999 . This would allow us to try some different offsets for inc re ased trail and added sta bili t y . Unfortunat ely , the off set th at we th ought wou ld wo rk really well on th e 999 (3 0 m m co m pa red to 36 m m stoc k) , m ade th e tire hit the radia tor. So we had to settle o n 33 m m . W e left the s toc k O h l i ns forks a lo ne but changed the stock rear spring fro m a 6.4 - to a 9.5·kilo version and added some more ride height to the rear. We didn't have any idea how much ride height to dial in , be cause we didn 't have any data on the 999 yet. I fitted a Brembo brake mas- ter cyli nder and an olde r s ty le Ducati cl utch mas ter cy lind er in order to clear the mounti ng har d wa r e o n o u r Grav es cli p-o n handlebars. All we had left to do was m ount up some race rubber, gas it up and go . Tom Montano runs the Munroe Motors 999 through Laguna Seca's famo us corkscrew. An Italian's first adventure in America. S E A R S POINT B Y T OM M O NTA NO P HOT OS BY BRIAN J. N EL SON AND B LA K E C O N N ER W hat bik e wo uld you choose to rac e if you cou ld pick any bik e on th e marke t ? So me people go for the obvio us an d pick the fl avor of th e ye ar, whi ch in AMA Superbik e racing at the mom ent is th e Suzuk i GSX R 10 00. It has kicked some ser ious bu tt u nd e r t h e g u i dance o f M a t M l a d in , A ar o n Ya tes a nd th e i r Yoshimura Suzu ki team. Not to m en t io n , it's th e c ho ice of almost all of t he semifactory and privat eer teams as well. Sur e, there's some dive rsity , b u t i n the factory ranks i t's on ly Hon da , K a w asak i and Suzu k i. The only Duca ti in the Superbike field is a nonfactory customer bike . So to make th ings int er est ing , and to do something that no on e e l se wa s doing , we decid ed to ra ce the new Du c ati 999 in th e AMA Superb ik e Ch ampi onsh ip . As a matter of fa ct , lon ly a few others in the wo rld are rac ing t he b i k es besides the recently crowned World Superbike Champion Ne il H o d g so n and his team mate Rube n Xaus. No one in America was racing the bike at the national level, so t he cho ice was obvious. We couldn't think of a better way for our p rivatee r tea m to get attention. As you 'll read , things aren 't always that easy, and in racing nothing eve r goes perfectl y to pl an . The 99 9 has been rec e iv ed w ith sk epticism ; some lov e it, some hat e it, but eve ryone has an op inio n abo ut it. I ex p la in ed t his t o N ic k Haym an and Mat Prenti ss of Munroe Mo to rs in San Fran ci sc o , Ca lifo rn ia, and th ey 44 O C T O B ER 2 2 , 2003 ' cue t h o u g h t it wo uld be a great w ay t o ge t the Du c ati 999 into th e p ublic 's eye . Du c at i North A m eri c a liked the idea so m uch , in fact, that it provided us with the bik e. We took delivery of the bike a few weeks p rior to th e AMA Sup erbike natio nal at Sears Point Racewa y. On e pr oblem with th e new Du c ati 99 9 is I e n e vv s t ha t pa rts - espec iall y racing pa rts - were n' t readil y ava ila ble in Am er i c a ye t. W e s ta r te d wi t h th e usual stuff li k e gear in g, a new cha in, bodywork , b rake pa ds an d a p ipe. Ducati se nt a pe rforma nce muffl er and comp ute r c hip ( fro m its Ducat i Perf o rm anc e catalog) with the bik e, but a full exhaust system was unavailabl e as of yet. Another hitch was that th ere wasn't an y afte rma rke t rac ing bodywork availab le for the bike ye t. Sh ar k sk in z was i n t h e p r o c e s s o f m a k i n g m olds for th e 999 , but i t wouldn 't be avail able for a m onth o r tw o . Sprocke t S peci a lis t provi d ed sprockets , and Regi na supp lied t he cha ins . Performance Friction provided the brake pads for the Brem bo radialmount monobloc k calipers. We went to work setting the bike up for ou r fi rst race at Sears Poi nt. We stripped off all t he st ree t items and anything that wasn 't esse ntia l for the racetrack . We fitted the ne w gea ri ng and c hai n and ins talled t he kit muffl er , w h i ch we ig h ed 10 p ounds less than th e stock version . That 's a bi g redu c t ion in we i g ht. es p eci a lly ri ght above th e rear tire. W e deci de d t o t ake th e Atta ck adjustabl e tri ple cl am ps o ff our 748R, wh i ch I r a c ed i n Pro Thund er last Thur sday 's prom ot er pra ctic e at Sea rs Poi nt w a s o ur first o uting. Dunlop was kind enough to kic k down some tires , w hile Nu t e c helped o ut with fuel. F or t h e m o st p art th e 9 99 felt g o od during pra ctice, but a s I st a r t e d t o go faster and ge t u p to speed, it sta rted to get out of shape . Nick and I st art e d m akin g som e c ha nge s t o th e rear w ith ride hei ght and the n the sprin g . Th e 999 s a ren ' t i m m u ne to th e squatting pr ob lem tha t Ducatis typ i cally suffer from . We tried a 10·kilo spring and some compression damp ing changes, but it still needed m ore work . By the end of the da y it was work ing better , but the re was still a lot of work to do . Now t he ki ck er: After all o f the aforem entio ned wor k , we went t o tech on Friday morn ing and discovered that th e 999 isn 't homol og ated fo r AMA Superbi ke co mpetition. We didn't eve n think abo ut it and assumed it woul d be leg al, b ut Duc at i had n 't t aken those steps yet. O ur only other opt ion was to pos tenter the F ormu la Xtreme class, but we were denied a spo t on the grid. T he prob lem was that the re wasn 't any quali fyi ng fo r t he class du e t o incl em ent we ather. I didn't ha ve any po ints in th e Xtrem e cl ass, an d that was how th ey decided to orga nize the g rid . In the end th ey h ad too m any entrant s, and I was a ca sualty of th e ci rc um stances. After th e Sears Po int debacl e , I pr e-entered the Formula Xtreme class

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