Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Febrtdry 7-8, 2006 Preseason Testing At California Sp€€dwau I I I Enere were Tew surDnses tn I *r" linal all-teams oreseason I ,"r, at Carfornra Speeoway. I Yoshimura Suzu ki's Mat I Ytuain was rhe fasresr rider overall and Yamaha's Jason DiSalvo was fastest in Formula Xtreme and Super- stock. Kawasaki's Roger Lee Hayden was fastest in Supersport, by a considerable margin. Honda continued to experiment with swingarms, while approaching the season in far better shape than they did a year ago, And it was windy. So it went in Fontana, where Mladin proved tha! las! month's tesls on track in his native Australia was time well spent. "We were running through a bunch of stuff that we started testing at Eastern Creek and really done some good tesring at Phillip lsland, so rerunning through a bunch of things," he said after topping the times on day one with a lap of I :24.708, according to the Al'4A clocks- Mladin's 2005 pole time, on a softer rear tire, was a 1123,612, and his best race lap was a l:24.562. Mladin beftered that time with a l:24.448 on Wednesday, the second day, though he never had all the best comPonents in place. The stronger 2006 motor was run before lunch, and after lunch they tested the 2005, alonS with diflerent forks and a different swingarm. "No doubt about the engine, we knew that," he said. "Even in Australia we tried it. And then the forks are the same really, except for a slight change, but the same as what I raced on in [Road] Atlanta, which were better than the ones that I raced on in Virginia lnternational Raceway], the week before Atlanta. And the swing arm, definitely found some improvement. We never had anything close to together This afternoon we had it as close as it was going to be, except we had the '05 motor. The '06 is quite a bit better." Mladin's lone mechanical DNF in 2005 came at Fontana. With a seven-second lead and eight laps to go, his clutch failed- The entire Yoshimura Suzuki team has been testing a clutch made by Eskil Suter. Resuls have been bener, but not consis- tent, until this test. 'Actually, I think the clutch works bet- ter in many different areas but the one ar€a that it didn't suit, and we've [worked] in that area here with different things, and it came good," Mladin said, adding that it comes off the line like a motocross bike. "What we linished off with this afternoon, the last setting, when I went out and done three or four laps, that's what we'll start with, lt's good, real- Iy good, And we did some starts.'' But the wind meant that test wasn't ideal for lap times. That will have to wait until March in Daytona when Mladin will debut the full 2006 race bike. And even after, on the more conventional circuits. "Realty, the motor will make the big difference there," he said of Daytona. "When we get to the real racetracks, that's when we'll see everything put together pretty good." Mladin's teammates didn't fare as well. Aaron Yates crashed on the morning of the lirst day after coming together with another rider. He broke his shoulder blade, though he says he'll be ready for Daytona [see "ln the Wind," page 8]. Ben Spies concentrated on the Suzuki GSX- R600 Superspon bike and also had an inci- dent with the same rider that Yates hit. Ducati Austin's Ben Bostrom finished with the second fastest Superbike time after a limited day of riding on "You go le{t up thsre," Eri. Bostrom (32) exploinr o fuw things to brolher Ben (I551 ot fie re3r. Wednesday, Bostrom believes the Ducati F06 is a strong weapon and chose not to make wholesale changes. "We worked ourselves into a circle," he said- "l watched Neil [Hodgson] change ever),thing today and yesterday. I tried that yesterday and went right back to my old settings. I figured it's better to iust ride the bike and when I got a little bit frustrated I iust got off the bike and took an early lunch. I rode one hour in the morning and maybe one hour in the after- noon. But that's all you really need to do because we have a good package. I just need those two hours to really ad+t to the bike." Teammate Hodgson, who finished with the sixth best Superbike time, said much the same- Bostrom said the team made a few small suspension changes, then concen- trated on testing tires for Dunlop. But he said that nothing he learned in Fontana would help in Daytona. "The track's completelr the opposite," he said. "Can't even think of one corner that helps me out." The American Hondateam is in fa. bet- ter shape than they were a year ago. Back then they were scrambling after the late 2004 edict that they d be developing their own Superbikes after yearc of racing HRC (Honda Racing Corporation) works bikes. The HRC kit parts are still ayailable, and some are used, but much of the motorc/- cle, especially engine development, is done in-house- lt's now payinS off- Jake Zemke,inished with the third fastest time, only .135 of a second behind Bostrom. "We're definitely a little closer to l"lat [Mladin] there until he decided to go faster the last time he went out there," Zemke said- "Still, we're within almost half a second. So that's definitely a big improvement from where we've been. It's Sood to see. I think only about the fifth or sixth lap out on the bike today I was already in the 25.2s and we were able to pretty much replicate those laps all day long. We were able to be real consistent riSht there, 15. 1, 15 -1." Zemke's best lap was a l:25.1 18, The Honda CBR|000RR is much far- ther advanced, but there are still deci- sions to be made, mostly in the rear oI the bike. The team has two swingarms, an HRC kit item and one made by Team Roberts,.along with frve different links and rrarious Ohlins shock. ''We're pretty excited around here compared to what we went through last year," Zemke said. "L,ast year at this time there was a million quesdon marks going into Daytona. \Mereas this year... we're pretty set on a direction. The bikes are working. Our motor package, our suspen- sion package, eveD/thing is working good. Looking at my times I was able to go the same on both swingarms. l!'s iust they give the bike a different characteristic with either one, but at the end ofthe day I was 32 FEBRUARY 22 ,2006 . CYCLE NEWS AMA SUP€RBIK€ Mqt ,{lodin hqd his fir5l lfot€5ide ( { -i a Pickino uo where he left off, lrta \tAlodin leads oll t I I {- I Z- I comers in Fontono test BY HENNY RAY ABRAMS F. 7 9t tl ' JI #,#' 'lr -2t' 'aY .a- ! r]

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