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/128396
No Tire Test For Mladin B alancing risk and reward, Yoshimura Suzuki's Mat Mladin thinks the threeday Daytona tire test isn't worth it. So the six-time AMA Superbike Champion and defending Daytona Superbike winner said he won't be at the annual Dunlop tire test this December. "I think three days at Daytona is a big risk to take for a race that really doesn't mean anything anymore," Mladln said on Monday, September 12. "It's just a Daytona sprint race for us. To me, it's a big risk to take, three days at Daytona testing tires, for really no reason. These days, I measure risk with reward, and it's the reason why I think we've been able to be successful as a team. And these days, it's not worth that risk. If it was a 2oa-mlle race, and it was still the Daytona 200 Superbike race, I'd be there, no problem at all, doing three days of hard testing." Though he's made the vow not to come, he's yet to inform Suzuki. "I'll certainly be talking to Suzuki about not attending this year, that's for sure," Mladln said. Mladin is in the early stages of recovering from major surgery to correct problems with his left ankle. The ankle was originally damaged in an ultralight plane accident in Australia In 1995. More damage was done dUring a crash at this year's January Dunlop Daytona tire test. The procedure was performed by Dr. Thomas Bryan on Friday, September, 9, and he was quickly on his feet. Friend, fellow Australian and fellow surgery patient Damon Buckmaster said he was surprised by how quickly Mladin bounced back. "You wouldn't even think he had surgery," said Buckmaster, who had surgery to correct carpal tunnel syndrome at about the same time, and with the same doctor. Buckmaster saw Mladin a few days after the procedure. "He just came walking In like nothing got done," Buckmaster said. "I can't even scratch my balls properly." "I've been limping a lot worse In the last few months," Mladin said. "Had a little more grief with this ankle, since the test at Daytona In January when I crashed. And on the outside of my left ankle, in a certain spot, it's been getting sorer and sorer. They found a bone chip in there that they never know was there. They took the other one out from the other side. I had a piece of a bone about the size of a fingernail floating around In there. They took that one out that they knew was there. Then they just grinded on the bone that had a lost of build up and stuff over the many years, from '95, when I originally stuffed it up. The movement's just been getting less and less in my ankle, and it was time I really had to do something about it." For the most part, the ankle didn't affect him while racing. "Like at Road Atlanta, for instance, between turns six and seven, you've got that little short chute there," Mladin said. "You're still hanging off the right-hand side of the bike, and it's very, very difficult for me in that right there to be changing down gears and stuff and all that, lust because the ankle had very little range of motion. I'm hoping there's just a little bit more range of motion, that it is going to allow me to do a couple of things like that that just make it a little bit easier without thinking about it as much." Mladin also said the surgery will allow him to start running again, something he hasn't been able to do for years. "I'd love to get rid of the swelling," he said. "I'm trying to be as active as possible with it. It definitely helps. Already now, even with all the swelling, and all the rest of it, I already have as much movement as what I had before." Physiotherapy will likely begin on Wednesday, September 13, after his next doctor visit. "I feel good," he said. "I'm sure it's going to be another month before I can really play any court sports or anything like that. Certainly I'm going to be back on the bicycle this week and keep my fitness level where it is. I can start doing some work in the next month or so to raise my fitness level up and get ready for next year." Mladin will return from his home in Australia for the November tests at California Speedway in Fontana. As to the risk of missing the Daytona test, Mladin said he was confident that Dunlop would build a competitive tire whether he was there or not. "While it's a race that I want to win, because it's 36, 37 points, it wouldn't be the first time that I had to race where I had to back off just to finish the race because of tires," he said. '" did that in Atlanta. I was running more than a second off what I could've run because the tires couldn't handle the pace that I could've run. So I'm not too concerned about it. "To me [the Daytona test] is nothing but a pain in the ass, now especially," he added. "Three days there is certainly not worth the risk for a 16-lap race or whatever it is. Not worth screaming around that banking for no reason. The least laps there possible every year is, for me, a very smart way to approach that race." The next track Mladin's likely to visit Is Phillip Island for his home Australian GP in mid-October. Henrry RtJy Abl'Clms Motocross: The New Names AMA Superbikes To Utah Goodbye 250cc class. Hasea la vista 125cc class. Get used to the follOWing: AMA Supercross, AMA Motocross and ... AMA Supercross Lites and AMA Motocross Lites. Beginning with the 2006 racing season, the new class names will go into affect, AMA Pro Racing announced last week. The AMA National Arenacross Series will follow suit with AMA Arenacross and AMA The AMA Superbike Championship will head to the brand-new Miller Motorsports Park near Salt Lake City, Utah, next year, with the facility slat- Arenacross Lites. "The beauty of this plan lies in its simplicity," AMA Pro Racing CEO Scott Hollingsworth said in a press release. "With the inclusion of four-stroke machinery into supercross and motocross, tying class names to a particular displacement has been somewhat misleading and potentially confusing to casual followers of the sport. This direction accomplishes several objectives in terms of clarifying the classes, defining the hierarchy between the support and premier class, and building on the inherent equity and awareness of the AMA Supercross and AMA Motocross brands." The names are inline with what the AMA Supermoto Championship is already using. "We established this system with our AMA Supermoto Championship, and it is working well," Hollingsworth said. "The premier class in that discipline is AMA Supermoto and it is supported by the AMA Supermoto Lites class and the AMA Supermoto Unlimited class. The names also intuitively quantify the relative size of the bikes comprising each class without locking us into a specific displacement." The naming process for supercross and motocross has been an ongoing initiative at ed to host a round of the series AMA Pro Racing, commented Kerry Graeber, AMA Pro Racing vice president, director of on its 4.5-mile road course communications. "We've been studying our class name system for quite a while," Graeber said. "It has been on the agenda of the SX/MX Advisory Board, and we've considered naming ideas submitted by such diverse groups as fans, riders, sponsors and members of the industry. The objectives were clear, but we never saw anything that entirely met what we were trying to accomplish. With these new class names we're confident that we have now finally met those objectives." Steve Whitelock, AMA Pro Racing SX/MX June 16-18. CEO of AMA Pro Racing Scott Hollingsworth and Ron Barrick, series manager for AMA Superbike, visited the track last week and met with track officials to sign the deal. "We're thrilled to be part of this exciting new facility'S future plans and to be able to bring the AMA Superbike Championship to this part of the country," Hollingsworth said. "The construction of this all-new facility will also provide a valuable shot in the arm to the sport of motorcycle road racing in the United States by allowing us to expose the sport to series manager and the person within the organization most closely connected to the discipline. agrees. a completely new market." "When I heard the new names, I knew we had nailed it," Whitelock said. "The names track designs were shared with Barrick, who in turn shared them with several riders. "Any time a track provides us and our riders the chance to offer our expertise on a lay- perfectly communicate the two classes, remove the displacement confusion and fit out it's a good thing," Barrick said. "Motorcycle racing has completely different requirements than car racing, and we applaud Miller Motorsports Park for listening to us at the within each overall championship. I couldn't be happier, and I'm looking forward to rolling them out with the 2006 racing season." time when it can have the most bearing on the track's final design." 8 SEPTEMBER 21, 2005 • CYCLE NEWS AMA Pro Racing officials and riders have had the opportunity to offer input during the track's design and construction phases, according to AMA Pro Racing. Proposed facility and The full 2006 AMA Superbike Championship schedule is being finalized and will be announced soon, according to AMA Pro Racing.