Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Feb. 16. 2005 Team Test at Laguna Seca AMA SUPERBIKE Neil Hodgson (100) leads Josh Hayes (41) out of turn 11 at Laguna Seca. Hodgson came to Laguna fram his home on the Isle of Man. When he left Monterey, he was a happy man. Rain continues to hamper winter testing for the AMA Superbike teams and things like Yoshimura that. T he AMA Superbike winter testing season ended with everyone wanting and needing more: more laps, more track time, more develop- ment time, more time on parts, more time on tires, more answers. Weather was the culprit. Rain in Southern California knocked a day out at California Speedway with the same happening at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in Monterey. Yoshimura Suzuki took a look at the long-range forecast and decided to put in an extra day at Fontana, while the rest of the factory teams headed north, only to spend a wet Tuesday in the garage. Wednesday, the second day of the two-day test, was better, but not ideal. It, too, was shortened by rain late in the afternoon. The factory teams, minus Ducati Austin, plus a few of the satellite teams tested at Fontana the previous Thursday. When Friday rained out, Yosh asked for, and got, Monday. Erion Honda and Michael Jordan Motorsports joined them. "We find Fontana to be a good test track to test the limits of a number of different things that we need to test, and different components on the bikes and tires 46 MARCH 2, 2005 • II lUauld's Mat Mladin • -Honestly, we'd one really good day at over two very ordidays at Laguna any time. doubt. Probably, we'd day at Fontana days at Laguna any don't find Laguna to be a really teaches us a lot." IIkI the team didn't get every- you never do - but they made progress in advance of the season-opening IS-Iapper at Daytona International Speedway. "The two things we concentrated on we got through very well, we got through thoroughly, and while you never do have enough time, it certainly was very beneficial to get the whole day in there," he said. Mladin's and teammate Ben Spies' times, on race tires, were under the lap record. Up north, Neil Hodgson was on familiar turf. The Daytona test was a dizzying blur of very high speeds and hard tires. By the time it was over, Hodgson was ready to go home. Once there, he couldn't wait to get back to Laguna Seca, a track he knows as well as most American riders do. "It's important to come here as well, because I needed to go somewhere that I knew the bike really well, I knew the track really well, so any changes I made I could feel straight away," Hodgson said. "There was no, 'I'm on the right line? Is that a bump on the track?' I know this track with my eyes CYCLE NEWS closed. I know this track as well as any American, probably. It was important we came here." Tuesday was more typical of the Isle of Man, where he lives: cold and rainy. "That's why I was so pissed off yesterday, f·&k I was pissed off," he said. "Six weeks from Daytona, sat at home training, motivating, looking to come here. I didn't plan on rain. It wasn't going to rain . I'm going to California. Yesterday, I was in the gym. I left here about four o'clock. I killed myself there yesterday for two hours. I was so worked up, genuinely I was really, really pissed off. And then I felt better once I did that." Hodgson did a few cursory laps on a new Dunlop rain front on Tuesday, but that was it. On Wednesday, it was hard to keep him off the track. He was the most prolific of all riders and would have ridden more except for a pair of engine failures, the second of which ended his day. "Horrendous," he said of the engine locking up in Rainey Curve, "which is pretty rare. It's rare that something like that happens. It's a bit of a surprise. "Just as soon as I literally came out of the Corkscrew, accelerate really hard, and you just throw it in and shut the throttle, and at the point where I shut the throttle, it went sideways," Hodgson continued. "I just grabbed the clutch, and it sort of flicked back, and I let it out again, and it did a big slide. There's no runoff there. That's the problem. Of all the places. You've got six or seven meters [20 feet or so] before you hit the wall. The first slide threw right towards there. I thought, 'Oh, s#%t, this is going to hurt. But then I managed to correct it. It was lucky. There was no skill involved whatsoever." The second engine was pulled for a small oil leak. "They're just letting us sort of wear them down really," Hodgson said. "It's not too bad. I've no worries. I've every faith in Ducati. When they go racing, they go racing." Hodgson's best time was a 1:26.39, just off his best of I:26.36 done on race tires during the second leg of the World Superbike race in 2003. The time came during the race simulation that was cut

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