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/128307
STORY AND PHOTO BY HENNY RAy ABRAMS • • ompames go racing ''And that's a bigchange; t hat's a huge change in philosoph y for us," Buckley says. Michelin's sudden interest in the U.S. market has motivate d Dunlop at a time when tire developmen t is paramount. Superbikes are o utgrowing t he available racetracks, and the new 1000cc Super stock class will feature very fast, very heavy motorcycles on 17-inch tires, a size that hasn't been in vogue in AMA Superbike or GP racing for some time . T he maxim "Win o n Sunday, sell on Monday" is at least as true for tire companies as it is for manufacturers. Dunlop and Michelin have known that for years, and they 've both been very successful in the ir arenas, Dunlop in all AMA classes and 125cc and 250cc Gp, and Michelin in MotoGP and World Superbike. Now in AMA Superbike, they 're meeting head -on for the first time in years on equal equipment, Dunlop servicing Yoshimura Suzuki and American Honda, with Michelin joining forces with Ducati Austin. The stakes are high, and no one knows that better than Mike Buckley, Dunlop's vice president for motorcycle tires. "W hat' s at stake?" he asks. "Not just racing, but selling products to the end-users. Market ing you r products and, really, why we go racing to drive our technology and cre ate image for our brand , and between us and Michelin there's a couple of different approaches here." Dunlop is the clear leader in worldwide sales , according to Buckley. For years , Michelin's inte rest in the United States was on the off-road side, most prominently with the American Suzuki motocross team. With injuries to 88 JANUARY 21, 2004 • CYCLE NEWS Travis Pastrana and the rest of the team, that investment hasn't paid off. With Eric Bostrom and Ducati Corse's renewed interest in AMA Superbike, the upside is much brighter. "They want to come to this market because they want a piece of that," Buckley says. "O ur goal is, we're good there. we want to maintain, we want to increase, and we really fee l the positive inject io n we get from a better racing position will allow us to defend and potentially grow our position globally." Having been involved in AMA racing continuously for years , Dunlop's built up reams of informat ion on building tires for specific tracks. Having a variety of riders and machinery helps, and if Michelin has reason to worry, it's because most of its development will be done by one rider. Buckley said Dunlop put its teams on notice that it wants a more active role in the preseason or pre -event testing. It will be look ing to do a higher level of development than it has done in the past with more partic ipation from the company's UK design staff. Instead of the team 's looking at preseason testing as machine tests, there will be tire tests as well. 40 t h Anniversary "Michelin's got talented people they don't want to lose," Dunlop's road race manager Jim Allen said. "We 've got talented people we don 't want to lose . You can only learn by developing ; you can only develop when you've got good riders and good equipment. So both companies are looking at Amer ica as a viable option right now. It certainly changes it in that there's going to be more emphasis here this year." Buckley said that by both brands' losing Wo rld Superbike - Pirelli's paid to be the spec tire for the next two years - there is budget, there is human resource that gets displaced, so it gets moved to AMA Superbike. "They're [Michelin] very good on the racetrack, perceived to be very good on the racetrack," Buckley says. "If you look at MotoGP or World Superbike in recent history, we can be read as being on the outside loo king in. We're positioning this as kind of our MotoGP for next year. They 've got a good bike, excellent bike; they've got an excellent rider. They're going to bring their best tires . We're going to do the same . We're going to benchmark where we stand, and t hen it's our o pportunity to market ourselves to the MotoGP paddock , to get our opportunity to get back into MotoGP at the leve l we want to be with the most competitive machinery that's available at that particular moment - which we haven't been there as well. No disrespect to the people we 've worked with, but it's clear we haven't been with the best packages." Dunlop may be involved with MotoGP in 2004 . It recently tested with the Proton KR team at Valencia, Spain, though that team would rather use Michelins. The only question is whe ther Michelin will produce enough tires to sell to the Kenny Roberts-owned team . Dunlop will also likely be the supplier for the WCM team , though their equipment situation is in flux. They'd like to lease Honda RC-21IV engines for use in Moriwaki frames but may have to make do with the hopped-up Yamaha RI motors they used this year. eN