eil Hodgson questioned
his own sanity the first
time through the east
banking at Daytona.
"Horrendous. F·&%ing
horrendous. I can't believe what it's like.
It's like nothing I've ever done before."
This from a World Superbike Champion.
"It is incredible. It's absolutely incredible.
That is a fight all the way around there.
There's no rest." Phillip Island, Catalunya, Monza, Oulton Park - none of them
had prepared him for NASCAR three and
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four. ''I'm not afraid to say, it's scary as
hell." Two days later, the Englishman had
become a convert. '" don't feel fazed by
the banking; I'm flat-out all the way
around it." The throttle on the Ducati
Austin 999 F05 was pinned through the
banking for his 16-lap run. '" don't feel
afraid at all. It's funny how you just adapt
to that banking."
Why the transformation?
Once a year, it's worth dusting off the
most trenchant quote about the Daytona
dual-compound tires. Summing up the
24 JANUARY 26, 2005 • CYCLE NEWS
dichotomy of the bowling ball left side
and bubblegum right, Rob Muzzy, then
running the Kawasaki team, said,
"Daytona tires are s$%t. You just hope
that this year's s&%t is better than last
year's s@#t."
In 2005, it clearly is.
"When [Neil Hodgson] started on last
year's race tires, he was pretty concerned
about the banking," said Dunlop road
race manager Jim Allen, who will serve as
the Ducati Austin service manager. "It
was definitely getting his attention, and
then he got a bit more comfortable on it.
Then we put the first of the N-Tech [new
technology] tires on, and he just came in
and said, 'It's much more stable.' Then he
put another on and said, 'I'm almost
enjoying the banking now.'''
The new 2.95-mile layout negates lap
time comparisons to the old track. What is
known is that average lap speed is down
about 13 mph. Eric Bostrom retired the
old 3.56-mile track record of I:46.835 at a
clip of 119.960 mph. Yoshimura Suzuki's
Ben Spies' best lap on the new course is
