Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

AMA/ChevyTr-ucks U .S . S uper-bike Championship Rounds 2 & 3 : Road Atl a n ta make a go at me , wh ich is what I wanted to do," M ladin said . " I d idn 't want him st uffing it under me in the las t turn . I'd s e en him and E r i c [Bostrom] yest erday h eading o f f down i n t o t here, and I didn 't reall y want to be a part of any of th at. So I j us t tried to keep it out as b e s t I could, and that w as it. " . Mlad in went on to say , " I looked over m y shou ld er com ing out of seven a c o u pl e of t im es at th e end an d noticed o n t he last la p he 'd obvi ou sly m ade a mistake or so meth ing, and I h ad plenty of ro om to so rt o f c r uise it h om e d own th at back stra ig h t and into t he corn er th er e. It w as a grea t race . He put a lot of pressu re o n me. It was a g oo d rac e . I had to g o h ard all the way to t he end . " Ya tes h ad K o ci n s ki c ov e r ed, th ough th e V& H D uc at i ri d er m ade a ru n for it, c om i n g u p a f ew 10ths short at t he end. F o r the lo ngest t ime , Yates sai d , he d idn 't k now w ho was in th ird . " A b o ut the first t ime I lo o k ed b ac k , I th o u ght tha t h e was p a rt of The time that Yoshimura Suzuki's Mat Mladin set to take the pole position on Frid ay was imp ressive, a new lap record in fact . But it wasn't the m ost tellin g number. The number with the most meaning was his average speed, an average better than half a second quicke r than anyone else. In Saturd ay qualifying, Mladin didn't im prove his time. He was prep ared to , but he didn't thin k he'd have to, and he was right. "We didn 't bot her with qua li fy ing today, we just dealt with ou r rac e set -up and it worked out okay because no one went faster," M1adin said. "This way we'll keep some qualifiers [tires ) up in the truck for later." Mladin's best on Friday was a 1:23 .782 /109 .140 mph -lap around the 2.52 -mil e Road Atl anta circuit, bettering his 1999 mark by nearly half a second. Even thou gh he was well fastest, he'd done the time on a qualifying tire and wasn't happy wit h his machin e. The team had tested in the past two weeks at Road Ame rica in Elk hart Lake, Wisconsin, and had found ways to help the suspension. Th e changes were made prior to Friday's qualifying session and they quickly discovered that they didn 't help. "ThIs morning [Saturday] we went back to the old settinqs," Mladin said. "It's a lot better on the tir es and more consistent." They also tested earlier in the season here at Road Atlanta. What they'd done during the Road Atla nta test was abuse the tires in an attempt to find the right settings for when the tires inevitably went off late in the race. That, and the improved speed of the new Suzuki GSX- R750 , m ade the difference in thi s year 's times, Mladin said . Some of it rubbed off on his teammate. Georgian Aaron Yates was second fastest after im proving on his Friday tim e, but it wasn't easy. The re were two red flags during the 50- minute session, which mad e it hard to get a rhythm going and played havoc with anyone who got caught out on quali fy ing ti res. Yates also found that the suspension settings he used on Friday weren't working. "I struggled pretty bad with the front end," he said after qualifying second about 0,4 seconds behind Mladin. "It was holding me up . We'v e kind of got it dialed in." Suzukis took the first two spots , with Kawasakis filli ng out the front row . The factory team of Eric Bostrom and Doug Chandler were third and fourth , respective ly . For Bostrom it was his first front row starting spot . sinc e the 1998 season and he thought he should have done bette r. "The lap wasn't stellar," he said. "I mad e lots of m istakes on the qualifier." On e of the red flags was thro wn when Vance £, Hines Ducati' s John Kocin ski crashed j ust in front of Bostrom . " Th e w orst th ing was w hen J ohn c r ash ed." Bostrom said . " Eve ry body had th ei r heads down . There was th is huge clo ud of dust." On Friday, Chandler wasn't up to speed and needed to improve drastically . He did, landing on the front row with a time about 0.9 seconds behind Mlad in. On average. Chandler was the closest to Mladin. clocking an average time about 0.6 seconds a lap slower. "Mainly we wo rked on set -up for today 's race ," Chandler said. "I was pretty happy with what we did today." 10 J UNE 14,2000 ' cu e I e ne'lN's (Above) Doug Chandler (10) le ads Jason Pridmore (43) and Miguel Du Ham el . Ch and ler fi nishe d fifth an d sin h In the two days of Superbike ra c ing. (Belo w) Kawasaki's Er ic Bostrom leads Pridmore, teammate Chandler and Nicky Hayden up the hill out of tum one in Saturday 's Superbike race. Bostrom went on to finish third. th e la p pers that we h ad j ust we nt by ." Yates said . " A n d t hen t he next la p I t o o k a nother look a nd h e was st ill ther e . I got to thin k in g, It's a red bike a n d a yellow hel met - I gue ss t hat must be Koc inski. I k in d o f kept m y eye o n him , and then about 10 la ps to go, I k ind of got going pretty good again and I th ink I pulled a li ttle gap. But th en at the end I slowed down a b it because my t ire was fee ling kind of greasy , and just wanted to b ri ng it home ."

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