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
O was the time for sleight of hand, misdiw re ct io n or obfuscation . That's what a politician would have done. Not answered the question so much as ignored it, answered the question he wished had been asked . The quest ion put to Jim Allen, Dunlop's road race manager, was if he'd allow o ne of the Dunlop-co ntracted team to use another com pany's rubbe r if Dunlop can't solve the Dayto na dilemma, the resu lt of two catastrophic failures at its two most recent tests? There was a short burst of nervous laughter, then a pause, then the answer. "That 'd be pretty damn tough to do," Allen said. "I suppose if we can't be reliable, I supp ose we have to. If they're going to comp et e, if there 's going to be a race , I expect we have to . We don't want to sto p our OE partners from racing. Not a nice thought. We can't stop them fro m racing. We can't make them load the bikes up and go home." The only problem is that no tire has gone around the tire-abusing 3.S6-mile Daytona International Speedway as fast as a Dunlop - not for a lap and not for a race. And no tire but Dunlop has won the past five Daytona 200s as well as almost all of the support races. And no other tire has the record lap of 1:47.174, set by Nicky Hayden on a qualifier in 2002, or Ben Bostrom's I:4B.376, done on a race tire in N 60 JAN UARY 14,2004 • CYC LE N EWS 2003. None of which is any consolation to Allen or the rest of Dunlop after its recent history. "There's been some discussion from other tire companies about we haven't had any problems with Daytona and stuff, and I'm not talking about major tire companies , I guess," Allen said, not wanting to name names during an interview at the company's headquarters just outside of Buffalo, New York. Not so for his boss, Mike Buckley, Dunlop's vice president for motorcycle tires . "It was Pirelli," he said, producing a print-out from an Internet chat room in which former Pirelli race manager (and now Metzler's senior product manager) Jeff Johnston said, "We've never had a problem with a stee l-belted radial tire at Daytona..." Buckley cont inues: "We have nobody to blame but ourselves for what's gone on because we accepted the challenge. O nce you accept the challenge, and if you have the failure, then you've got to look in the mirror. We're okay with that. We're not blaming anybody else . But to use Jim's words, it's disrespectful to go to the med ia to say we welcome the challenge, we've been there without any problems whatsoever, is the quote I read . It's just dead wrong ." And it's not true. There's not a tire company in the world that's participated in two-wheel activity at Daytona 40th Anniversary that' s not had " pro blem, that's not overheated tread at the minimum. Jim Allen's view is that Dunlo p's not asking for credit for what it's done in the past. "But we're the only ones tackling the Daytona problem ," he said. "We're the only ones that seriously tackle it and seriously addressed it for years and develo ped a lot of resources. We could have stayed stat ic; we could've delivered tires that didn't have any grip for years and years . But fo r other companies that haven't been there at the Superb ike level and blow their own horn and say we 've gone there for this and we 've done this... There's one company that I'm aware of that's gone 1:47 at Daytona and has made tires to do that. "I guess to salvage something positive out of the whole thing, I'd like to get some credit for the fact of what we've done for Daytona for years and the se riousness with which we 've addressed the place and the product we've delivered year after year. Yeah, we 're really bummed that we 've had two major failures. It's really hurt our cred ibility but I think we really should get some , credit for some of the good stuff we've done . It's a cheap shot." Ben Spies had just crossed the finish line when his rear tire exploded. The Yosh radar gun read IB6 mph. He slid forever, suffering severe abrasions and flesh loss but no broken bones. That was on a 16.S-inch Superbike tire dur ing an October test. At the annual December Dunlop test, Yamaha's Jason DiSalvo had a rear tire fail coming onto the Daytona front straight. Miraculously, he was mostly uninjured. Not so for Dunlo p. "I think it's fair to stay that we're struggling with credib ility at the momen t," said Allen, a former racer himself. Dunlop's success in AMA racing is unpara lleled: every Superbike title since 19B9and more titles and races than all other manufacturers comb ined. But racing is a resu lts-driven business, and its recent failures, on the potentially most dangerous track on the calendar, one which the modern race bikes have certainly outgrown, is all anyone remembers, Dunlop included. It will get a third chance during an extraordinary AHAorganized test at Daytona in late January. What happens if there's a third failure? "It was serious when the first one happened," Allen said. 'Y\nd it's real serio us now that we 've had a second one . The answer's almost obvious if we have a third one. " Dunlop is do ing all it can to make sure that doesn' t happe n. It knows what happened to Spies' tire , and its engineers back at the UK headquarters in Birmingham, England, fixed it for the 16.S-inch tire. DiSalvo's failure was with a 17-inch rear tire, the size that the AMA mandates for the new IOOOcc Superstock class. That investigation is ongoing. The high speeds and banking at Daytona cause more stress on tires, by a Significant degree, than any other track. With the G-forces on Daytona's banking, the Superbike, O instead of we ighing 370 pounds, now weighs upwa rd of BO o r 900 pounds. That causes deformation and heat in the tire at speeds unseen anywhere else in the United State s.