Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

broken. We tried to keep it as low key as possible. Called [Dr. Art hur] Ting immediately and flew up there the next day to get surgery. Q Wh at did he have to do? He had to put a plate and six to eight screws in both of them. It was broken in the same place, but the left one was a lot worse off because the bone had actually completely chipped off at the bott om. And t hen you had t o ca ll Suz uki. A No. We tried to keep it as low I'-'key as possible because we still had a coup le of weeks and we weren't sure on how the outcome of the recovery wo uld be . So we were going to try to keep it under wraps and then make it to the test in two weeks in Malaysia. I was walking in the pool pretty close to a week after the surgery. We decided to call it off and say the ankles we re bothering me . By now Suzuki had found out that they were broken, but they didn't really know how serio us. We got quite a bit of time off. I spe nt two or three weeks up at Ting's office doing the physio, and then decided that we weren't able to make the next couple of tests . I tried to get 100 percent. From there, my first time back on the bike I on ly got two tests befo re I had to race . It was a bit disappointing because the bike was making a lot of improvements. They just seemed to be listening to the riders quite we ll. I was a little disappointed I wasn't there putting my input in on what I would want on the bike in those beginning tests. [Grego rio] Lavilla seemed to do a goo d job. Kenny [Roberts Jr.] - he's really motivated right now and at the beginning of the season . He was defini tely putting in a good effort. but there's some things that me and Kenny do n't see eye to eye on with the bike . Just different riding styles. Either way, I only had tw o tests. I went to Barcelona for the fi rst one and Jerez. A Q Q A The weather wasn't great at e ither one. We neve r got a quality tes t because the wea the r was so cold. It never stuck on the grou nd, but it snow ed o ne or two of the days that we were ther e at Barcelon a. And it snowed all arou nd the mo untains and just the hills all around it. Those were all covered in snow. So it was freezing and my ankles were still pretty ten der at the time. I just wanted to take it easy. Most of the day we were running up towards the top 10. We tried a qualifier - the first time trying a Bridgeston e qualifier because that was anothe r thing I feel I was gett ing used to - and didn't have a lot of time on it at the beginning of the season . We tried a qualifier for the first time and the rubber, the compound wasn't right for the tra ck. Neithe r of them. Did you hav e to get another operation on your ankles aft er Donington? A I haven't done anything. They we re both ering me a ~ i t. It was basically just because I rea cted to the Q bike. The bike, I was coming out of the corner and the bike just ste pped out on me and it went into neutra l and then it wen t back into gea r rea l abruptly and it pitched me up in the air and my legs went flailing off and actually came back down and then got ran over by the rear tire. It just made it quite a bit sore. It was sore throughout the weekend. Wh en did you re a lly ge t a feel for the new bike and Bridgestones on a proper racetrack with pr oper t e m perat ure in it ? To be honest w ith you. it really hasn't started to come together fo r me until Rio when the new motor came . Up until then , we were still struggling. Then I got plagued with another injury when [Neil] Hodgson crashed in Le Mans and he ended up taking out me and [Norick] Abe. I ended up breaking the thumb pretty good right there. Jerez, we had a really bad race, just because of the wet conditions. First time we had a wet race and really, really rode in the wet with the Bridgestone tires . They were a litt le bit behind then. They didn't have the experience at the time , so we were struggling there. I was st ruggling at the beginning of the year. Ever since Le Mans last year, I've been struggling in the wet because I had three concussions all in the same weekend. like all three days I had a different concussion. Ever since then, I've been a bit sketchy in the wet. I fi nally got it back. We've had quite a few times in the wet now so far this season . It se e ms t hat the bik e is mu ch bette r this seaso n. lt was definitely better. The motor from last year, we had that a lot more fine tuned . The handling, the chassis, the package was definitely better from the year before. We had basically just tamed the motor complete ly and actually got it to a good working state in and out of the corners. But the new mot or definitely makes a big difference , definitely in the right direction . We got it to a good working state in and out of the corners. Last year the bike tended t o overst e er. You couldn't finish the corner. That pretty much got solved at the beginning of the year when they bro ught us new chassis and stuff. A 2:05.1 was by far my fastest time on a qualifying tire [in Malaysia]. We went back there with a new chassis, something that our side of the team was working on, my crew chief and everything that we were trying to get Suzuki to work with . They came back with that and immediate ly right after the season we wen t to Malaysia for a test that I did make on the Bridgesto nes, and I ended up running 2:03.3 on race tires . So I went from being 2:05. 1 being my fastest time [in 2003] and then 2:0 3.3 just on race tires. That was the Bridgestones as we ll. That was the first time on the m. Engine management se e me d to be a problem las t year. A That's one thing with the engine manageme nt and "",,tuff is they tame d it down. They took tons of the electr onics off and made it more natura l to the rider. Now, especially with the new motor, we can actually make changes to the bike and actually feel it immediately. whereas last year we co uldn't feel what was being do ne on the bike. We couldn't feel if it was more negative or more positive. Now, even with a little change, we can immediately notice a differ ence . It seems to be making bigger improve ment . Q A Q A Q A Q Q Are you using a fly-by-wire throttle? A To be honest with you, I don't really know. I know JIoilme and Kenny are on diff erent setups. He's definitely using quite a bit more electronics. But it's mo re like a half-and-half system. www.cycie news .com Do you get a ny benefit of his side of the team , of having Erv Kanemoto around? To be honest with you, we don't really know. Not yet anyways - I wo uld say - because that's Kenny's deal. Having Erv the re is strictly Kenny's deal. Right when we got the new motor at fi rst, Kenny had already had it for the first couple of races because I had the thumb injury and then had to sit out one and wasn't sure if I was going to be 100 percent for the first race that I came back to at Barcelo na. They ended up giving the new motor to him for a couple of races befo re I rode it. So he had time to work o n it. We definitely had to change the chassis around once we got the new motor. Right at the very beginning of it, we had to use a lot of Kenny's advice to get the bike set up, stuff that he had went through and stuff t hat I was expe riencing. They were similar. We 'd look at his sheet and see what he changed to make it better. Wh at is it abo ut t he new motor tha t 's so mu ch better? A Basically. it's so much easier to control. We can get .fI"it into the corne r now and just backshift the thing. For me right now, it's got a perfect amount of engine braking, the motor. The engine braking on it right now is perfect. It doesn't completely lock up. I don't use any rear brake. My rear brake is my clutch. I modulate how much engine braking is getting to the rear tire through the clutch. And right now, I can just bang dow n the gears and then not have to modulate the throttle until Iget into the final gear before the corner and then just slide it in from there. Kenny still uses an electronic clutch. He just uses tons of rear brake and then bangs down the gears and has an automatic clutch on it. That's one of the biggest differences, getting it into the corner. And then getting it out , just the way the bike revs coming out of the corner. It's a lot softer right off the bottom than the other bike. You can actuallyget on it a lot harder. It does n't wa nt to spin up like the other one did. The other one was real violent off the bottom and it just was not a linear characteristic all the way through the throttle through the gears . This one just make tons more linear power all the way up thr ough the thr ott le. into the gears . Wh at d id you have to do to t he ch assis to adjust t o the new motor? A Just minor stuff - just raising it up. Pivot height. Just "",,tuff like that . Before we just had to get the bike into the corner, just bang down the gears, the thing would wa nt to be locking up and sideways. It eliminates all of that and you can actually concentrate on how the bike feels getting into the corner instead of just gritting your teeth and having the thing sliding around everyw here. Now you can actually get it in, bang dow n the gears and just concentrat e on what's going on with the track. Q A Q Q Q What's lacking! A I think it's just horsepower rightnow.Just having to ride ~ hard on the brakes right now to compe nsate for what we've lost in power. Everything's been coming along so good that I'm happy with it. I'm ecstaticover it right now. It's just, right now for the future, to be bette r than anybody else, we got to get quite a bit of horsepower. Q The tires seem inconsistent. My that is, basically, they just A the feeling onMotoGP level for quite som edon't have experience Michelin does. Michelin's been here at the top of the time. It's just experi ence right now that' s lacking with Bridgestone. Yet , they ca n win a race with Makoto Tamada. Is that they way that Honda delivers the power! Is it easie r on t he tires than the way you and Kenny have to ride it? Q CYCLE NEWS • SEPTEMBER 1, 2004 35

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