Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Ducati Austin: Eoing lnternational The Ducati Austin team wasn't so mr.rch a team in 2005 as h was a collection of employ- ees. Most of them worked well together. but there were a lew who diiln't belong, and one in particular wa! a divhive force. For 2006, the (eam has been reworked, with one Bostrom replacing another and a more veteran teahnical crew. The race engineer for the entire team (and Neil Hodgson) is Gabrielle Raccio, who worked the World Superbike Championship with James Toseland for the past tlvo years. Hodgson's new chief mechanic is Paul Hal- lett, a Brit who's worked on the Ducati MotoGP team for the past three years and before that in World Superbike with Troy Bayliss. Australian Anthony "Skip" Wamock worked with Hodgson in World Superbike oh the GSE Racing team, and atain on the d'Antin MotocP team. Hodgson and 8en Eostrom will also have their own data-man- a8ement technicians, a year after sharing Vttorio Bolognese, who lelt for Yamaha. 'Actually, we tried to improve the teem for this season and we decaded that after two yea6' experience we needed to make some changes," Ducati Corse Wodd and AI4A Superbike chief Paolo Ciabbani experienced. And also technically, he's been workint on the factory 2005 machine in World Superbike, which are very similar, if not the same as thir bike. We though( it was better to send him over. 'And, well, for the data guys, naturally, Vittorio Bolotnese hes tone to Yamaha and we had to find a replacement. He was working this year on both bikes. A natural setup is one per rider. which is what we have. And also we needed to have people who would be able to work in the work- shop in Atlanta all day. Before, with some contraated people who had other business- es, they would come only for the races. We needed people workinS full-time." For his second year in AMA racing, "lt's a step in the ritht direction," Hodtson said. 'A good bunch of tu!,s to work whh. Every- thinS was all right last year lust a litrie bit rough around the edges. And th€re were a few personality clashes in the team. lt's the old one bad apple, and there was definitely one really bad aprple. Personally, on his own he was alriSht, bu( he ,u!t created tension on the team." Hodgson said a lot of rhe ream was ask- and in8 for chanSes. Hodtson flew from his said. "Gabriele fRaccio] - home on the lsle of I'1an to l''larinelli at the Continued on poge 34 after working for Superbike trained meet with Ciabbani and engineer Ernesto Ohlins. But myself - both of them. When we've been testint since the beSinning of the yea6 l'm p.etty close on both sus- pensions." Miller said the final choice on all elements of the €quipment would be a Sroup call. "lthink that, kind oi our philosoph), is that now lhat we're doing our own development and doing more here in the United States. we do need to look at all options again," he sajd. 'And even stuff that we tried that didn't work before, we want to tD/ atain just to reconfirm that it is tood or is not good." l'liller said that last year they didn't have time to to throuSh ever).thing- Even though they tested betlveen races, they were still trying too many parts on race weekends. 'r{s you probably noticed or witnessed, there's so many different things to try and that was one of our problems last year, " Miller said. "We didn't have enough time to try everything. So we ended up starting to try things at the rac€track, which isn't a good thing. We need to be coming to the races, ready to race with a good setup, and we were comint to the races stilltrying stuffand linding a tood setup. But that's the goal for this year's off-s€ason test, is to real- ly nail down what our setups are. 'jAnd then we've also made a big push this year within Hondato separ:rte research and development from the rrcing tearn. We've definiret made a clear separation now; and we have agroup of individuals that's working in R&D, and we have agroup of individuals thaCs on the team side And hopefully we'll be able to develop on the P*D side and when it's proven conclusively that it's better, then we'll spill it over anto racinS. We have four tuys now that are in the R&D side for road racing - we actually have tlvo guys on the motocross side," With no comp€tition last year, Honda was able to be conservative on their engine tunint for the 200 miles of Daytona. With Yamaha in the mix. they no longer have (hat luxury "We're definitey concemed aborn Yamaha being invoh€d and any others that show up," l'4iller aaid. "So w€'re doing our best to tD/ to come up with new things, but doirE it cau- tioust so we don't stub our toe on the way." Storv aro pHoros iy HENNv Ray ABaaxs ast week we took at look at the Dunlop tire tests at Daytona with an overview of the test itself, an interview with Jim Allen, and team fea- tures on Team Kawasaki and Yoshimura Suzuki. This week's second part of the story features a look at American Honda, Ducati Austin, Yamaha and the support teams - or at least the riders who swapped positions in those support teams for 2006 season. Joke Zemke \ I t \ ,/, \ a \J ! I :l The team has been taking advantage of their connections inJapan to endurance test the CBR600RR engines. "The Soal is to come here with four machines and four riders [t!vo American Honda, wvo Erion Honda] rhat are all capable ofwinning, And we know it's 8oin8 to take all of that to to up against the big blue machine." The team has set February I as the deadline for the final engine packase. l,liller said Honda.lapan was "building a lot of stuff for us also, as far as assisting us with the endurance testing and some ofthe stuff that's difficult for us to do here in the Unit- ed Srates in our dyno facility. Their faciliry is already set up to do that stuff and tiey're expens at it; the Honda Engineering Stan- dards, HES, that we don't all necessarit know. And it's proprieEry to Honda only. So we've b€en trying to partner up with them a little more and use their experlise and their facilit),, while still allowing us !o be self-reliant and do our own developmen!. But they also keep their boundaries close so we don't step too far outside the box." American Honda won't completely walk away from Formula Xtreme after Daytona- lnstead, they'llturn it over ro lonttime satellite team Erion Honda. "We want to open up our doors to Erion Racing and allow them to any resources that we have to be successful," l4iller sard. "Because the goal is not to step away from Formula Xtreme, it's allow them ro be ru<- cessful, as it was in the year's past. So b), hirin8Josh [Hayes] and Aaron [Goben], we have the ridint capability, now we iust need to make sure they have the equipment under them to be successful." a , aa I I ,lc- I I l:, \ \ S ---1 L-* frdl? F 1 -i h Ben Bostrom CYCLE NEWS JANUARY I8, 2006 33

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