Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128306
Suzukis down abo ut th ree miles per hou r on top speed at Dayto na, but the Ho ndas are going 192 mph - five miles per hour faste r tha n any Superbike ever at Daytona. Yoshimura Suzuki's Don Sakakura admitted that the new Suzuki may be at a disadvantage to Honda at Daytona, but he wasn't willing to concede that the defend ing number-one bike wo uld be Honda fod de r at the ot her trac ks of th e circuit. "I was a bit disappo inted leaving the Daytona tests," Sakakura said. "We're a little behind now, so we've got to get to work. We have made some improvements in the suspens ion, and that should help us at most tracks . The new regulations see med to have affected the Suzuki at Daytona. It was definitely noticeable here in the last couple of days. We're down on speed here, so we've got to go back and get some work done before we come back here in March." Mat Mladin has never been a fan of Daytona. When the lotest tire fiasco involving Jason DiSalvo occurred at the test, Mladin threw down the gauntlet. He says he won't return to Daytona - and that includes the Daytona 200. win, and a lot of things have to go your way. We 'll see . I guess I'll start worrying abou t it if I'm in a pos ition to win on the last lap in March." 200 MPH AT DAYTONA? Honda's CBRIOOORR was caught on radar at an astou nding J 92 mph during the Dunlop tire tests. Zemke said t he bike is far from being tuned to where he thinks it's going to be by the time the Dayto na 200 rolls around . "These things just came out of the box," he said. "The guys will have time to tweak it, and I wouldn't be surprised if we're a few miles faster come March ." "That motor was nearly as expensive as a twin to produce," he claimed. That leads to spe culation that Ducati could follow Aprilia's lead and produce a tw in-cylinder supe rmoto bike. DUCATI MAY F IE LD TWO AMA S U P E RB IKE RIDERS IN 2 0 0 S HONDA AIMIN G FOR A FIRST AT DAYTONA Hond a is aiming to do what no other manufacturer has done in the Super bike era , and that's win the Dayto na 200 three times in a row. With Nicky Hayden's victory in 2002 and Miguel Duhamel's win here last year, Honda is looking at the poss ibility of becoming the first maker to win the prestigious race three times straight since the race first featured Superbi kes in 1985. With the awesome perfo rmance of the C8R IooORR shown in the Du nlop tire te sts, Honda's Ben Bostrom , Miguel Duhamel and Jake Zem ke insta ntly bec ame pre-race favorites for the 63rd running of the 200. Duhamel seemed reluctant to talk about the possibility of w inning his fifth Daytona 200, almost as if he were a litt le superstitious abo ut eve n t hinking abo ut tying Scott Russell's Dayton a 200 win reco rd . "It's a long way away," said Duhamel when asked how he felt his chances we re in the March classic. "I don't even want to think about it right now. It' s a tough race to Mladin pointed out that the 192 mph by the Honda was recorded without a draft . "It's ridiculous," the de fending AMA Superbike champ said. "With the dra ft that thing's going to be doing 200 mph . That's just too fast at Daytona. The AMA pro mised to slow the bikes down with the new rules, and you can see where that 's gotten us. Bikes are going to get faste r - that's just the way things are. It's time for Dayto na to reconfigure the circuit and keep us o ff the banking at tho se speeds ." HONDA RETURNS TO INLINE FOUR Afte r racing V-configured engines in AMA Superbike for years, Honda's new CB 1000RR marks a return to an inline-four configuratio n fo r Big H. Honda's last inline Superb ike weapon was the 19B2 CB7S0F punched out to the the n-AMA limit of J025cc. This year Honda is ho ping for a repeat of the J 9B2 Daytona Bell Superbike 100 when Ho nda CB7 S0Fs ridden by Fredd ie Spencer, Mike Baldwin and Roberto Pietr i swept the pod ium. DUCATI CONSIDERING S U P E R M OT O O ne of the hot rumors circulating during the Dayto na Michelin tires test was that Ducati was developing a supermoto motorcycle using a motor based on the now-defunct Ducati Supe rmono single-cylinder road racing machine. Ducati's racing director Polo Ciabatti d idn't deny the existen ce of a possible superm oto machine. "Ducati is considering its range of motorcycles. and supermoto see ms to have growing interest," Ciabatti said. "The Multistrada is a new co ncept to for Duca ti, movi ng clos- er to supe rmoto style, but with more touring in mind." Ciabatti cast do ubt, howeve r, on the rumor of the Supermono's complex singlecylinder road racing engine as being the mill for a poss ible Ducati supermoto machine . www.cyclenews.com According to Ducat i racing boss Ciabatti, the company hopes to field tw o factory AMA Superbike riders in 200S. "This yea r we decided to have a on eride r team partially because of the budget and Ducat i Corset tec hnical personnel con st raints," Ciabatti said. " But Ducati is extremely serious about w inn ing again in th e U.S., and hopefully in 200S we will have tw o facto ry ride rs in AMA Superbike .' The most likely scenario is that both riders wo uld be racing under t he Austin Ducati banne r, but the possibi lity of a second team was not ruled out , especially considering Ducati generally is against having an A and B r ider sit uation within a single team. In the event of Eric Bostrom's being injured this season and not being able to race , Ciabatti at first said he didn't want to think abo ut such a possibility, but he we nt o n to admit that they would likely bring in a Ducat i rider fro m another series to fill in should Bostrom miss races. This was done last season with Giovanni Bussei coming in after Anthony Gobert was releas ed from the team. XAUS AND BYRNE CONSIDERED FOR AMA SUPERBIKE RIDE World Superbike standout Ruben Xaus and Brit ish Superbike champ Shane Byrne were both cons ide red for the Ducati Austin AMA CYCLE NEWS • JANUARY 14,2004 S7