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/128326
I Briefly... I Doug Chandler spent a session tinkering with his footpegs and shifter and handlebars, but it didn't take long for him to feel at home on his Ducati.The 1999 winner of the Superb ike race at Pikes was back on a race bike for the first time in nearly a year, since leaving the No Limits team after Road America last June. Being a private team - the HMC Ducati Milwaukee Formula Xtreme effort gets no factory support - Chandler was able to run promoter's practice on Fri- day. He ended Saturday's first Lockhart Phillips USA Formula Xtreme practice session - the only one he'd get before afternoon qualifying - in second at 55.262, splitting the Hondas of Jake Zemke (55.802) and Miguel Duhamel (56.462). He qualified third behind Zemke and Duhamel. "I was pretty impressed with how the bike was straight away," Chandler said. "It seems a lot like the old Ducati."The power isn't there, and what is there is reduced by the Rocky Mountain altitude. The frame flex and seating position seemed the same, Chandler said. "Here you don't need something awful fast. You need something to carry comer speed ."Chandler used the first laps of Friday's first session to shake down the bike and shake the cobwebs off. (His onlyon-track time since last June was aboard a KeithCode California Superbike School Kawasaki ZX-6RR at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca a month ago.) "Then I started focusing my riding,and it started to click from there , Each time out I lo nger lasti ng re co rd s in road raci ng: Chand le r's ave rage speed and winning t im e at PPIR. C handle r set it in 199 9 , and it wasn't bettered un til today and then not by much . Bo st ro m averaged 85 . 14 7 mph , incrementally be t t e r tha n Chand le r's m ar k o f 85 .133 . Er ion Ho nd a' s Jake Zem ke , w ho p urs ued Bostrom rele nt less ly, ended up second , 1. 135 second s bac k afte r closing to w ithin a te nth o f a seco nd late in the race. Yoshim u ra Suz uk i's Aaron Yates was t hird , some 20 seconds down and holding off American Honda's Miguel D uha m e l by .0 32 of a second on the run to the stripe. Fifth went to American Honda's Ben Bo st ro m. Shooting, nea rly debilitating back pain struck Bo st ro m abo ut halfway int o the race . He was in front o f D uham e l at the t ime but had to let him go, t hen settled into his own spot, unchallenged . Yoshimu ra Suzuki's Mat Mladin was sixth after being fo rced to pit fo r a t ire change . Mladi n bu rn t up his rear tire t rying to first hold off Zemke, then chase him until the 38 t h la p, when he pull ed felt mo re comfortable." There we re more adjustments to make, and he had to be deliberate with his shifting, but that would eventuallybeco me second nature . "The bike's by far ahead of me right now," he said alter qualifying third. "My biggest prob lem is just getting in my mind what I need to be doing quickly right now. The toughest thing is just getting my backshiftsright. I'm wasting a lot of time just thinkingabout getting my foot under the shift lever and shifting the thing correctly, and I'm just wasting too much time rather than thinkingabout getting into the comer. I worke d on that a lair bit this last session, and it went reallywell. It was a bit less of a distraction for me so I lelt that was a bit of a help." in. " We were ho ping we we ren't going to ha ve a problem , bu t we w e re prepared to come sixth today, " Mladin said. " I cost myself fifth pla ce for thi nkin g a bout it too lon g. If I would have come in wh e n I first kne w the tire was gone, it wo uld have bee n a close race for fift h with Be n [Bostrom] at th e e nd , b ut I le t it go t oo lon g." T he u pshot was t he loss of a few mo re c ha mpio nship points. Aft er e ight o f 18 ro unds, he lea ds Ze mke, no w second, 268-249 . Duhamel is third with 24 5 . Eric Bostrom jumpe d to fo urth wit h the victory. From th e se ve nth s pot o n the second row, Bostrom s ped to the fron t , battling by Mladin in the loo ping run to turn three. "And then from there things really went great, and I was like 'This is going pretty good,' and we're maki ng a couple of tenths a lap an d if we can do th is for 48 laps I' m go ing to be pretty comfortable," Bo st ro m thoug ht . "Unfo rtu nate ly, t hat's not the way it went." Bostrom gave notice that he 'd be a fact o r during the mo rn ing warm-up. " I saw his t imes t his morni ng, w hatever it was the last sti nt o f laps he did , it was on ly four or five la ps, b ut t hey were all low 55s, like 5S nat, 55 .1 s, ' Zemke said . " I knew just seeing that that he had found some speed somewhere. So I knew at least in the beginning he was go ing to go out straight away. The race here is so lo ng , it's hard to say what the tires are go ing to do for anybody Chandler proclaimed the 749R as "probably the best bike I've ever had here at Colorado [th rough turn one]." Chandler had only one Ducati 749 at Pikes Peak, the second one in its component parts on the truck. They were hoping to be ready for last week 's race at Barber Motorsports Park but will have it for Road America In two weeks . Can Chandler put a scare in the dominant Hondas1"I'd like to think Ican," he said. "I just don't know if I can straight out of the box," After qualifying, he said: "I think there's a fair bit left in me, but I'm not going to push it. We're going to have some fun and hopefully race with those guys." Crew chief Gary Medley was in the pits, but missingwas the Chandler family, His wife Sheri was home with the children, [ett , Rainey and Quincey, who are stillin school. They' llmiss the next round at Road America for Jett's junior high schoo l graduation. AmericanHonda's Miguel Duham el was Continued on page 19 www.cyclenews.com CYCLE NEWS • JUNE 2, 2004 17