Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

I AMA SUPERBIKE T ~ S::I: ~~;ement about t he D aton a 200 , a race some t hought was in doub t in light of the failures of Dunlop tires in the tw o previous Daytona tests. Tho se failures p rom pted the AMA to invited Dunlop, Michelin and Pirelli to an extraordinary two-day tire test to make certain the tires w ill endure the 200·mi le Superbike race and the new big. bo re Superstock race . T he 200 will re main 57 laps after the AMA was assured the tires wo uld last between pit sto ps, w hich w ill be at t he discretion of the teams. The re had bee n some ta lk a bou t three man d ato ry pit stops . How ever, in Superstock concerns abo ut late-race tire wear caused the AMA to shorten the race from 15 laps to 12. With a long histo ry of making Dayto na 200-winning race tires, Dunlop was certain it could build a t ire t hat co uld survive the de teriorating race surface , high G·fo rces, high speeds, and the weight of the newbreed Supe rbikes and Superstock bikes while st ill offering tra ction and rideability. It did, though the riders found a new hars hness at certain lean angles. Michelin improved the breed as we ll, though it suffered two fallures, one o n Eric Bostro m's Ducati Austin F·04, which lost tread o n the rear tire . Pire lli also took part in the AMA·organized test, but in a mo re limited fashion. Pirelli's tires we re hung up in U.S. custo ms at t he airpo rt and w e re n't available until noon on the secon d day of the tw o-day test. O nce Pirelli got going, it discovered t he corn pou nds to be a little soft. They'll be improved for the race . Dunlop was re presente d by the thr ee-man Honda Superbike team . Ben Bostro m, Miguel Duhamel and Jake Zemke . t he trio sharing two Hon da CBR I OOORR te st mules , o ne of which Bostrom destroyed o n Mon day afternoon. Kawasak i brought Tomm y and Roger Lee Hayden o n the new ZX· IORR. Jaso n DiSalvo, w ho suffered a catastro phic failure in Dece mber, was the o nly Yamaha rider w ill ing to take part on the ultraswift RI. Ducat i Austin's Eric Bostr om was the lone Michelin Supe rbike rep, w it h Valvoline EMGO Suzuki's Steve Rapp and Vincent Haskovec doing Supers tock duty. Pirelli had Prieto Racing's Geoff May, Empire Racing Suzuki's Lee Acree, and Michael Barnes. Follow ing t he Decembe r failure , Dunlop's roa d race manager Jim Allen said, "It' s reaso nable to assume t hat the things we do from this point on w ill pro bab ly 44 Jan. 26,2004 :_ Daytona Tire Test STORY AND PHOTOS BY H ENNY RAy ABRAMS Ll IT LOOKS LIKE THINGS WILL GO ON AS PLANNED FOR THE DAYTONA 2 00 (Top) Ben Bostrom (ISS) le a d s Tommy Hayden (22) during AMA· organized tire testing at Daytona International Speedway. The tests were conducted to see if the 200 and Superstock ra ces at Daytona wou ld present a safety issue from a tire standpoint. (Above) Jason DiSalvo was fast, very fast, on his Yamaha RI Superstocker. FEBRUARY 11, 2004 • CYCLE NEWS increase t he lap times and red uce t he grip, I guess. That's a distinct possibllity." The lap times at this test weren't ste llar, and the best t imes were do ne on qualifying tires. Lap times dur ing the enduran ce runs were in the expected I:50-5 I range . Ben Bostro m, the 2003 pole-sett er; predicted the new tires and new machines would produce a new lap record in qualifying for the 200. "It' ll be a '46," said Bostro m, wh ose 2003 pole time was 1:48 .376. "We 're obviously happy on more than one front ," Allen said after the test. "Basically, we accom plished the missio n. We improved on the 16.5s [Superb ike tires] , which were good in Decembe r, and improved on the 17s [Superstoc k] as we ll. We came out of the re w ith no tire prob lems at all. "We had so me reasonably fast lap times . We t ried to instill some co nfidenc e in the riders and te ams, and I think we did." Rider fee dback suggeste d a stronger carcass th at tra nsmitted more of the harshness of t he tra ck, as well as less traction. The Supe rstock rid er s were more adamant than the Supe rbike riders. ':A they do is spin, and you just have to ll 40th Ann iversary cope with it," said DiSalvo, the fastest of the Supe rstock riders. ':And once yo u learn to deal with it, it's all right. And yo u have to set the bike up for it. You know it's going to be sideways; you know you're going to be smo king t he rear tire . That's just how it is." Kawasaki's Roger Lee Hayden , in his first ex pe rience on a big bike at Dayton a, said it was "like riding on ice " after t he first day. "I was doing 5 Is, and it felt like I was doing 47s," he said. "It's like there 's no grip at all. It's almost mor e scary in tu rn one." Second day se tup changes helpe d som ewhat. "D efinitely the t ires, eve n w he n we get t he m working a little better, the re 's still no tract ion." Allen said, "It's interest ing that trac tion was do wn. The riders repo rted to us that grip was not as good in January as December in the 16.5." As for the harshness, Allen said they we re aware of it and wou ld correct it o n the Marc h race tire. ':At maximum lean, the tire felt harsher on t he bum ps," he said. "We' re going to go back and get tha t fixed for March. We think we know the reaso n for t hat, and that won 't affect the integrity of the tires. That was a side effect of what we did. We wan t

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