Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Er IN THE INED-] Voshimura Suzuki's Mat Mladin shook off I the rust of an extended conrralestence to humble the World Superbike regulaE in a test at Phillip lsl.nd. Not tlEt drd was hii irterc quite tfle oppocite, Hhdin rEde a poinq before ald ftr dle test. of sayirE *Et he was there to prepare for his seven$ AMA Superbike Clra npirmhip dd that tre ddnt ere wfia de others dil. l-levr6 in dle mino.ity in tha beliet Mladirls crew chief, fellow Australian Peter Doy'e, said he'd totten a barraSe of phone calls anticipatinS $e showdown- 'Everybody was waiting for ffroyl Corser and [Mat] Mladin to shape up on trre track together - a lot of people in this coun- try had been waiting to see it," he sair, and then added, "People were harring bes on it." The pair never squared off, and that was fine with Mladin. His point was that he was testing himself and an updated 2006 Suzuki GSX-R I 000, and both perforned admirably. Mladin hadn't ndden since having ankle surgery on September 9. The surgery was a success, but there were complications. Mladin overdid his rehabilitation and aggra- \rated his Achilles' tendon, which hadn't had much moyemem since an ultr-a-light accl- dent I 0 yea6 ago. The long recoverT forced him to skip a November test at California Speedway and another in Decemb€r in Dq/tona. But he declar€d the ankle heeled after testing at Eastem Creek, iust ou6ide of Sydney, prior to the Phillip lsland test. The test nearly ended before it began, lust after lun.h on Tuesday, the fir.t of the four-day test, lYladin had a horrilic highside near Hayshed on an out lap. Doyle said he was going 220 kph (137 mph) at ttie time. li'lladin wasn't sure what caused the crash and didn't want to blame a cold tire- "Bottorn line is, I was at fa!|t," he said. "lt was just a little bh o, a mistele I made. But no, a cold tire had nothinS to do wi$ k." The day ended with a trip to the hospi- tal, and 25 stitches - seven externaland 18 internal - on his left elbow. "The hole was the size ofa silverdollar," Doy'e said- As for the Suzuki? "He f-ing dertroyed it," Doyle said. "lt made a mess of the bike. The boys built another one up." "lt definrtet afie.ted me the next day," Mladin said. "lwas liftle bit slow on the sec- ond day. Obviously, I wa5 prett), beat up. [His leSs and buttocks were heavily b.uised,l So I was definitely a bit sore on the second day. Then, the morning of the third day, I started to loosen up, and I felt pretty good, and that's when we started to lay down some good times and really 8ot irto some good, hard testinS whh Dunlop." Tires, suspension, brakes, swinSarm, clutch, and fuel-iniection m+pin8 w€ro all on the agenda. The new swingarm wasn't noticeably better "Wher we run at Eastem Cre€k. he said it was tood on half the track," Doyle said. 'And at Phillip lsland, he .aid you cant tell the difference. We've narrowed down a few of our parts for Fontara, so hopefully we'll knock those over and make decisions there." There were three sets of forks. "l went ri8ht through them," l*'lladin said, "and then went back to fie se( that was best and stuck with them for the last couple of days." Teammates Ben Spies and Aaron Yates said they got better feel out of the new front fork. l'lladin didn't. but said thati "The improvements were something that I defi- nitely noticed. l've had no problem with front-end feel on the motorcycle at all. lt worked in a lew different areas a little bit better for me, especially in one key area that I seem to make a lot of lap time up. lt helps with the way that I ride. But, again. I think the forks that they ended liking are not the ones I like an) ay." Clutch problems denied Mladin an almost certain victory at Fontana last year. And it caused him to be cau(ious elsewhere. The team tested a clutch made by Eskil Suter at Fontana and Daxona, and Mladin got his chance a! Eastern Creek and Phillip lsland. "For Eastern Creek, we got to the point where it wa5 very good and then we moved on," Mladin said. "There was a couple of lit- tle thing! l'd like to see happen before we get to Birmingham at the end of April- But generally the clutch worked really well and much. much better to start with." At Phillip lsland, the clutch isn't as much of an issue, because you don't back the motorcycle into the corners as much. "There's no really, really hard-braking areas," Doyle said. "We weren't coming here to break lap records and to set up for Phillip lsland and E3stern Creek, we were aompo- nent testing ard problem sokin8 a few little issues we had last year. I think we achieved 95 peacent of wha( we ret out to do, And, by the v{ay, the lap times were good." Doy'e said Mladin had around a dozen laps in the l:32s. lYuch of that can be put to the updated Dunlop tires. Having gone through 20 rears and three fronts, Mladin set his fast lap on a tire very similar to the one used by d'Antin Ducati's Foby Rolfo in the Ausrralian GP Mladin's best was a l:12.2: Rolfo's was a l:33.841. "The proof's in the puddint," i4ladin said. "l mean, 33.8-something on that tire. We ran around in the low 33s- We could do easy low 33s on tires that were worn out. We did low l3s on 2o-lap-old tires. lt painr me a little bit in a way, because I know the Dunlops aren't that bad. The bottom line is the last time a good rider was on Dunlops wa5 Wayne Rainey, and he won World Championships. It'd just be nice to see one of the top riders on one of the top bikes on their tires. because it would really help. Obviously what we re doing in America to have some of those GP tuys on the tires as well." A new lront tire emerged as a favorite for Mladin. who used the 758 front almost exclusively last year. ''He doesn't like the next-harder com- pound," Doyle said, "so they've brouSht one pretty much in bewveen the wvo, a bit more durabiliry, a bit harde( and a bit strongertire, too. He quire liked it. Apparently that will be in the U.S. lineup for everybody next year" Mol talcdin tukes o breok ot Phillip lslond. Mladin can't remember when it was flrst fitted. but he did say he did his best times with that tire. ''Generally it offered a lmle bit more in every area, I feel," he said. "A8ain, people load the front trre rn many drfferent wa/s in many different parts of the corner. Vvhat's good for me may not be tood for some other or might be better than some others. Yot ve got many different styles of racinS on the racetrack and how riders ride. They load the tires in different parts of the corner, entry midcorner - it's different for everybody." The net gain of the new front and rear was that the tires showed better than they had during the GP "We're always hearing arguments that Dunlop hasn't got this and Dunlop hasnl tot this," he said, "but when a Superbike can turn up at Phillip lsland for a test and 8o a second and a half quicker than the fascest GP did on the same rime tire, it iust shows rhar the tires are not being used at their mosc, that's for sure." lYladin's times were impressive for a number of reasons. He hadn't ridden at all for four months. Unhke Pirelli. the spec (ire in World Superbike, Dunlop has very little recent Superbike data at Phillip lsland. The World Superbike Suzukis are more powerful than the AMA bikes. The world Superbike riders test frequently and race a( Phillip lsland. And this was the first time Mladin had ridden at Phillip lsland since a short stint on a Suzuki RGV-500 in 2001. "lt's been a long time, and the track cer- tainly has chanSed a lot over the past few years, which is one thin8 I noticed the ,irst couple of laps on the track there," he said.'A lot ofrun-off room on the racetiack- They ve moved a lot of sttrff A lot of the key points that I remember the mcetrack bein8, espe- cially from l0 or ll yea6 ago from racing in Austral,a, certainly w€ren't there. And the whole place looked very very different to me- Any time yor.r can crash on [hi8h speed] ahd end up 20 firds away from the closest wall, you know you're on racetrack that's spenr a lot of time and effort on safety," Doyle said the two main differences between AMA and World Superbikes are gearboxes and cams. What it added up to was a 6 mph top-speed advantage to Corser. Doyle sard both (eams run MoTec data acqui- sition and that their results \ryere overlaid on top of each other. "lt's a clear l0 kph in favor of World Superbike," Doyle said. "There's wvo rea- sons for Lhat. One. obviously, gearbox rs quite important at Phillip lsland. And we're pretty much limited to a standard tearbox or a homologated one or one ratio. And camshafts. They're free. And Corser and Kagayama aren't big guys, either. I wouldn t Mladin's l:32.2 was by far the best time. Fellow Australian Corser turned a best time of l:32.79, well under his Superpole time of l:33.398. But in a posting on UX -tu zuK, www.cydenews.com, Corser is quoted aj salng: 'On race tircs, Mat lMladin] wa5 probably about half a recond - or two- or thre€-tenths maybe - slower thaa me. On an average. He put on a qualiller and put in a I :32.2 yesterday, but my times were done on a rece tire. So I .ould probably get under rhat time on a quaiirying tire." "we don't have Qs in AMA and I'm not a fan of qualitlng tires at all," Doyle said. "Th€y're usel6s and actually probably f--int dangerous for us to run in a place like Philtip lsland when they don't make any rense to us," Ar to Mether Cors€r used a Pirelli qtlalifi- ei Doyle wouldn t spefirlate. However, he did say "He did a race simuhtjon and h€ never got within half of secord of his b€st time." "lt doesnt matter wtat Troy lcorler] says," Mladin said. "The bottom line is, if he wanE to believe I use quJirying tires, that's grcat. As I said from ttte rirst day of the test, tlle comparisohs reilry cent be rnade; their rnotorq/cle, from an enSin€ perspctive, has actuaily got nrore horsepower than us. Their gearboxes are open. and also their cams are op€n, whi.h in the AIYA is not the cas€. Things like that really - as far as comparing times b€rween Troy and myself - realt it's a lhde bh of a ridiculous $ing !o do, and it's some0rrE I haven't done at the test because I refuse to get invotued with that. The fact that Troy said it was a little bit disappointint, beaause I'd expect more from a World Champion than to say lvhat he did. From fiy side of things, ifTroy feels he nee& to belie\r'e that, to feel good about himself, that's llne. From my side of things, it's a very successful test, and wfien we tet back to America" we'll putting some of the stutr we tested in to use in the Arnerican charnpionships-" Hennf Rd, Abrdtms o o o like to sav l0 horseoower. but I -- can clearly say t s lu kph. - - {g I O FEBRUARY I, 2006 . CTCIE NEI'Ys Mlqdin smoke: hir tire during lhe re(enl lesl in Austrqlio. :! ,r-, t -.1 , 6 n Ents lsland Test t { t L

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