Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Round 1 AMA SUPERBIKE My Mar. 6 , 2004 ~ AMA Chevrolet Superbike Championship OWN RACE 77 Jack Pfeifer 1 2 Ricky O rlando 4th A scoring snafu? No, just a consistent ride from a privateer not used to running anywhere near the front of a 5uperbike race. Jack Pfeifer 's fourth-place finish in the 200 came as a complete surprise to everyone, Pfeifer included. "It 's just awesome," Pfeifer said after the race. "I was hoping for a top 10, but fourth is fantastic. Last year we were in the top 10, but we had a problem with t he bike · a throttle posit ion sensor went bad two-thirds through the race . Everyth ing just went perfect today. done this long enough to know towards the end to put it on cruise and make sure we're We had a tire get a little loose on our second tire, but we came in and changed it - it didn't come loose until there at the end. After that first miscue, it d idn't look like we were going to finish this race." 47 the right time. We changed it and had just enough to go the distance. The fuel light came on just as I crossed the finish line. I looked up at the board, but I didn't believe it. I figured there had to be somebody out there with 177, or it was 78, and the lights went out - something was not lit up . I felt that can't be right , and I kept going my own pace - and it worked out pretty well. " 21 Pascal Picotte weren't exactly record setting. Rear tire and gas... 45 seconds. Both tires and gas... how about three minutes? "Then I started to have concentration problems," Picotte said. "I'd look up at the board and see number 77 [jack Pfeifer] up there in fourth, and I'd be thinking, 'I've passed that guy like three tirnes.' " But Pfeifer wasn't spending all his time in the pits. "After our last 45-second pit stop, I just ran some laps. We should have finished fourth, but it's still a good finish for us. We ran the RI with slick tires , some suspension work and a pipe . I can really feel the sweet spot with that bike, and it's there. I know we can make it better. We were shooting for a top 10, so we're pretty happy." Lee Acree 5t h 8th to run the same Pirelli front throughout the race . His pit stops weren't quick, roughly 50 seconds, but they were consistent, and it kept him on the track. "Our strategy was to run the same front tire ," Caylor explained. "It might have slowed us a little at the end, but 57 laps on one Pirelli front tire and only have the pace drop a second or two.... We settled down and tried to do consistent laps. We came in eighth and fifth. What a debut for Empire Racing - Lee Acree and myself, in my first Daytona 200 ," 20 Aaron Yates DN F Aaron Yates had a relatively uneventful race until all hell broke loose on the 49th lap when he and Anthony Fania got together. And then it only got worse (see In The Wind) . Prior to the crash, Yates wasn't completely happy with his Yoshimura Suzuki. "The race was going pretty good," Yates explained . ':AJI the other guys must have had some sort of other strategy for the pit stops because they went in really early for the first tire . There toward the last stint , I was thinking, 'I probably got a good chance of winning this because they have to make a pit stop,' I'd been watching my lap times after the ..._oOiI....""'''''''_... pit stop, but the second tire I got a vibration about five laps in, and it was spooking me . I was- n't going around the banking wide open, and I was letting off and trying to be easy on it. It was getting worse and worse, and I guess I w asted a lot of time with that. I probably shou ld Lee Acree's Daytona 200 debut was a memorable one, the Empire Racing Suzuki rider ending up fifth. "This was my first Daytona 200, and hopefully we won't go anywhere but up from here. I feel pretty good about taking a Superstock motorcycle and have just come in and got a new tire . I was try ing to figure all that in my head - how much time I would waste in the pits or staying out there for 20 laps. Mat [Mladin] came out there in front of me with like 10 laps to go, and I ran with him for a few laps. I was kind of frustrated with the bike because it didn't feel like it did in the morning warm-up or the days before. The coming out and running consistent times , staying rear suspension was just sort of packing, and I couldn't get a real consistent slide anywhere out of trouble, and everything ran perfect. Nothing went dramatically wrong. We ran a sprint front tire and made it go the whole 200 miles. It was there late in the race; the tire was incredible," 155 Ben Bostrom and let the bike now and ride it like I have been doing with the worn tires during practice and stuff. It either hooked up or stepped out fast . It was just a handful the whole time." 32 DNF American Honda's Ben Bostrom went into the Daytona 200 thinking he had a good chance of w inning. After all, he'd qualified second and was one of the consistently fast guys on race rubbe r. His problems started straight away. "W he n I left the starting line, I felt the clutch kind o f whip in my hand a little bit," Bostrom said. "The bike was perfect out there. The bike was great. The Honda was definitely the winning bike . When I came in the pits and I did another start, on my sec ond tire, I finished the clutch off - something inside starting making noise . That was all she wrote. We had a funny strategy. I was out there, and I was riding around pretty fast, and when Eric [Bostrom] and I would lead , w e' d do these great lap times, and then Miguel [Duhamel] would get in front and kind of let these back guys catch up a little bit. I was like , 'Come on Miguel, let's go ,' And I'm like, 'O h, shit , Miguel's not going to go. He 's too much of a racer,' The team did a great job. I think I had the best bike out there. I'm just riding through there [the banking] three-quarter throttle." 18 Op ie Caylo r Without quick-change wheel equipment, Caylor opted 7th Picotte Racing's Pascal Picotte didn't have pit stops in th e Daytona 200. He had pit visits , pit afternoon teas, perhaps. Running at the tail end of the lead pack early on , the French Canadian's problems started on lap 10 when his electronic shifter started act ing up, making the ignition cut in and out. Then the pit "stops" started, and they 45 6th You don't normally crash in the chicane and get up and walk away. You definitely don 't get up, find your bike basically unscathed and continue racing . As for finishing sixth , forget about it. But not in this case . Orlando crashed early, suffering very little damage to his bike, and he continued on to finish 6th - his bestever Daytona 200 result. "I didn't think I was going to pick it back up and keep riding after I went down," Orlando said. "I picked it up, everything was working, I took off on a cautious lap, and then I picked it [the pace] back up. I was pretty amazed, number one, that I fell down, and number two, that we continued and finished sixth. I've MARCH 17,2004 • CYCLE NEWS Eric Bostro m DN F Ducati Austin's Eric Bostrom looked poised to be the only man capable of truly challenging Mat Mladin in the closing stages of the Daytona 200. Unfortunately, the bike didn't make it that far, ending Ducati and Michelin's bid at victory. "T hings were going really good," Eric Bostrom said. "I got off to a poorer start than I wo uld have liked to . I was kind of kicking myself in the butt because the lap times weren't where I wanted them to be. Then it seemed like as time went on, I got more comfortable with the conditions, and every- th ing started coming easier, and I could run a quicker pace. So I was like, 'Wow, we're all right.' I didn't quite know what was going to happen in the whole grand scheme of the race , but I figured if we could go as fast as we can every lap, then tha t has to be our best strategy. I thought that everyone would have to pit three times. I thought they would just out o f a safety issue. I was glad that Michelin said, 'Hey, we're going to stop three times,' I thought that was the wise thing to do . It's a shame that we got a puncture in the oil cooler. It's a real shame. It's such a dirty track, and you 're following a lot of bikes out there, so who knows. The bike was fast. Everyth ing was working great. I'm really disappointed with our Daytona because we could have had a great finish, butI'm also really lucky that we didn't have that problem 20 seconds later. I could have had a 160 mph crash or something. What does that tell you about the place we're racing at ." 40th Ann iversary

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