Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

IN THE INCJ Cramming Time At Daytona Test As of middoy on the finol day of the Dunlop tire test ot Daytono, Ben Bostrom was the foste.t of the superbike men. D ain on the second day of the three-day I'ounlop tire test gave an urgency to Monday's day three, with the full complement of teams and riders running straight through the lunch break on a cool, sunny day at Daytona International Speedway. With a day's work lost to rain, the teams and Dunlop had to rethink their strategies, cramming three days' work into two. "What we did is, we basically sort of prioritized;' Dunlop road race manager jim Allen said at midday. "Said, 'This has got to go, this has got to go, this has got to go, and we'll test these and these and these.' just sort of made some educated guesses on what he had and what the designers thought. That's what we're doing now. We pared It down. We'll probably do about two-thirds of what we thought." The missing day also meant that there would be less time for endurance testing, though Allen was confident that more than one rider would make a long run. "Some teams are still planning on it," he said. "Ducati has been through two compounds and two constructions, and then they'll start endurance testing based on what we learned. We've got fIVe compounds and four constructions, I guess. So we'll get through most of that stuff and make an educated guess. And it helps if you get different guys doing different things. "But the good news is, right now, there doesn't seem to be any overheating or any problems. Everything we've tried seems to fall in line with what we hoped would [happen]. Last year's tire is slower than what could be this year's tire. This year's tire still looks like it's operating in low-enough temperatures to give good grip and good distance." The second-fastest rider after the first day, and the fastest rider at noon on Monday, was Ducati Austin's Ben Bostrom, whose performance was eye-opening for a number of reasons: He'd never ridden on the new Daytona infield course; he'd not ridden a Ducati for three years; he'd never ridden the 999; he'd ridden on Pirellis this year; and his 200S season was disastrous. None of which seemed to slow him down. "Each time I get on the bike, I hope to keep improving half a second or so," Bostrom said during a short midday break on Monday, December 12. "The bike's just 14 quite good." Bostrom said he was still learning the infield and didn't feel very fast. Where he was making his time was on the brakes. That counteracted the time lost on the banking. "Unfortunately, I'm a bit of a pussy coming around the banking;' he said. "I don't seem to be able to hold the throttle wide open. I've done it a couple of times, but it just scares the hell out of me. I followed jake [Zemke] this morning. He absolutely annihilated me after the chicane and around there. I don't know. My balls aren't that big yet. I'm kind of letting it go. I try to make it back in the infield. I don't like that. Plus, it saves the tire when you don't hold it wide open on the banking." Of the tires Bostrom tried, none stood out. "We tried severaJ different tires; they're better or worse in different areas;' he said. "There's no significant time change on the lap. It's a little better here or there or worse in some spots. But the overall lap times seem to be the same." Yoshimura Suzuki's Aaron Yates concentrated on his Superstock GSX-R I000 in the early going. He was third fastest for much of the morning, though teammate Ben Spies would jump to the top once he got off his GSX-R600 and onto his Superbike early in the second half of the day. For Yates, going back and forth between the two 1000s gave him perspective and hope. "We've got to make some changes to the Superbike to get it to tum as good as the Superstock bike;' he said. "That's the biggest difference. And I'm having some JANUARY 4,2006 • CYCLE NEWS issues with the brakes on the Superbike, just the feeling and the stroke of the master cylinder, all that. It's not a good feeling for my confidence and for getting into the turns and stuff. I think that's my biggest struggle with it. We get all that straightened out, we should be able to go half a second, a second faster on the Superbike." Yates made it through all of the Supersrock tires except the qualifler, and he felt comfortable throwing around the big 1000. "We got the Superstock bike working real good;' he said. "It's real comfortable for me. The bike's just got such a good balance and stuff. It feels good pushing it around out there, sliding it around, especially the tight stuff. It flicks back and forth good. And it's running good, too. The Superbike, we've got kind of a direction to go, make some changes on it. I went through probably seven or six Superbike tires Saturday on it, so we got the second half of tires to go through on it." Yates was running the GSX-R I000 with the stock swingarm pivot after the adjustable pivot, which he'd run all season, was recently outlawed by AHA Pro Racing. "It was definitely a plus when we went that direction last year;' he said. "We really like to have that in it now. But we just kind of adjusted the chassis around and kind of got back where we were. It's working pretty decent." American Honda's jake Zemke was one of the few riders smoking the tire on the exit of tum one. The repaving of the infield section of the track has caused a change in the exit of the tum, with nearly all riders tracking true to the kink. "The tire I had on there had quite a few laps on it," Zemke said. "It was a pretty old tire, and with as cold as it was this morning, I was like... I saw [photographers] sitting over there. I was like, 'You can still spin it out of here if you want.' It's a changed beast, for sure. It's definitely a lot different than it used to be." The test concludes Monday afternoon, after which the teams have about a month hiatus before some start testing in 2006 at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in january. Henny Roy Abrams Aaron Yates st-s off his numbel~ .. pIaIe on his Superstock G5X·Rl000. 3D YEARS AliD... JANUARY Ii. 1975 Tony DiStefano (Suz) was still hot as a pistol, winning the 1 American Motocross Finals in Anaheim Stadium on December 13. Gaylon Mosier (Mai) was second, and Tommy Croft (Hon) was third. The High School Championship was won by Broc Glover (Hon)... Part one of a multipart feature, entitled "Search for The Great American Motorcycle" took a look at American motorcycle manufacturers. The first to be profiled was Rhode Island dirt-bike manufacturer PDY. .. We tested the Honda MR2S0 Elsinore Enduro, saying that it fit the gap nicely between the class-leading Husqvarna 2S0WR and the rest of the japanese enduros. 2D YEARS AliD... JANUARY B. 1991i Perhaps the most interesting item in Issue #50 was the letter from Kawasaki in our Voices section that rationalized Kawasaki's decision not to fire newly contracted motocross team rider Ron Lechien following his arrest in japan for possession of drugs. As Lechien's contract with Kawasaki had been signed before the drug bust but did not become active until january, Kawasaki made the decision not to terminate Lechien... Speaking of motocross, our opening feature was entitled the "The Brawn Boys;' dealing with the early era of '50s and '60s championship motocross in Europe. The feature contained photos of such early heroes as Les Archer, Bill Nilsson, Sten Lundin and jeff Smith. 10 YEAR AliD.•. JANUARY 3. 1991i Jeremy McGrath was the main man on our cover for Issue #50. The cover depicted McGrath, Cycle News Rider of the Year, tearing off his jersey to reveal his true colors underneath. It was a homage to a similar photo of Bob "Hurricane" Hannah done years eariier... In addition to McGrath, we ran feature interviews of Miguel Duhamel, jay Springsteen, Carl Fogarty, Steve Lamson and many more... Our Wind section bore the sad news of the passing of America's first World Champion motorcycle racer, jack Milne... We ran a long-term test on the Triumph Trident 900 streetbike and a racer test on Carl Fogerty's Ducati 955 World Superbike... Husaberg took out a full page touting its 1995 SOOcc World Motocross Championship with rider Joel Smets.

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