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
"My personal opinion is that the bikes are too fast for that racetrack, " Allen says. "Daytona will say that the track hasn't changed . But the long and the short of it is, the track has changed. Loudon's changed. We don't go to Loudon any more. " During the December tire test, Ben Bostrom 's Honda CBRIOOORR went over 190 mph. "They' re sliding and correcting the whole time ," Allen said. "The throttle's on; the throttle's off. It's pretty frightening to see that they 're actually breaking traction all the way around the banking now." Safety concerns meant the track changed the chi- added. "Fo r sure it's made it harde r on tires. It's made the speeds higher going into the banking. Higher speeds equals greater g-forces, equals more work for the tires." Dunlop has talked to the AMAabout increasing the safety margin, about potentially adding an additional pit stop. That would reduce the time on any given tire. But Spies' tire failed on the fourth lap and DiSalvo's on the 10th. "There should never be a casing failure in four laps. There should never be a casing failure at all," Allen said. The Jim Allen and Mat Mladin. Mladin is 50 w orried about tire fai lures at Da yt ona that he's pledged not to retu rn • even for the 200. of the tire , whether it' s with material, whether it' s with tread compound, it'll generate more heat . And when you generate more heat , you're working against what you're trying to do . If you took it to the ridiculous and came up with a big heavy brick, the thing wouldn't have any grip, but H was serious when the first one happened.And it's real serious It now that we've had a second one.The answer's almost obvious if we have a third one." cane for the 2003 AMA race . For a year, at least, it stopped the catastrophic multibike pile-ups that plagued the 200 I and 2002 Supersport races , but at the expense of mo re speed on the banking. "I'd say it's more dangerous," said Erion Honda 's Kurtis Roberts , the third-place finisher in last year's Daytona 200. "First lap out there, I said, 'This is f- ing crazy.' You're going into the banking now in third gear, and the tires feel like they come off the ground going into turn three there because you're going in there so fast, and it hits the little ridge in the concrete that the thing get s off weight and lights up all the way to t he concrete wall." "I know that the chicane change led to compound overheating and higher tire temperatures," Allen said, and it contributed to the failure on Spies' Suzuki GSX-RII OO, he reverse of that is that Dunlop had many tires in both sizes that went a lot fart her than that . The motorcycles have evolved so quickly that the tire that won the Daytona 200 in March isn't good enough . "The bikes that we came back to in August and October and December are much better than the bikes we had in March," Allen says. The race pace in 2003 was in the mid- to high I:49s, with Mat Mladin best at I :49.398. With the increased performance of the motorcycles, Bostro m was in the I :47s, and the 2004 race will likely be run in the 48s. "If you' re talking about Daytona t ires specifically, it's obvious now the structural integrity of the tire has to improve ," Allen said. "We're making moves to make the tire physically stronger. Every time you increase the we ight www.cyclenews.com it would generate a tremen- dous amount of heat because it's so heavy. So structurally, we have to imp rove the integrity of the product. That alone may bring stan da rd - Jim Alle n Dayto na problems where you're overheating tread com pounds. But it's reasonable to assume that the things we do from this point on w ill pro bably increase the lap times and reduce the grip, I guess. That's a distinct possibility ." Daytona isn't the only track that will get added attention this year. "Our philosophy is, this is the World Superbike champ ionship over here this year, for us, anyway," Allen says, add ing that Michelin is in much the same position. 'And when we go testing, we 'll go testing with the tires that we think are going to apply to that race when we go back there again. Let's put it this way, there's going to be a big air fre ight bill this year. There's going to be a lot of develo pment tires going back and fo rth to AMA this year. The best we've got is what's going to be here [starting at Daytona in eN a few weeks time) ." CYCLE NEWS • JANUARY 14. 2004 61