Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

here today, it was like a race," Rossi said after the final day. "Of course, it's really nice to have so many Spanish fans, but today it's been quite dilficult lor me even to 80 from the hospitality [area] to the team truck. Yesterday I was confident thar we could find some bi8 improvements today, but honestly thar hasnt happened. and now I am quite worrjed. The vibration has remained, and at the momentwe don't know howto solve it. Yamaha and I'lichelin have done a lot of good work today, and we've lried many different tires and settints, but we are still slow. This is the last test, and throuShout the whole Pre- season period, we've always been fast and che bike has felt good, but this test ha5 been completely dif{erent. At the moment I am not sure what will happen in the race; we'll have to wat and see. I hope that Jeremy lBurtess, his crew chief], totether with the japanese engineers and the Michelin techni cians. can use all the data they have now to understand the problem and see how to solve it." Edward! was also a bit miffed with this latest test. ''lt would be nice if I could say that we ve solved all our prob_ lem5 today, but sadly it's just not the case, and we're still strug_ gling a bit," the Texan said. "l think we've really gone in circles a bit here. We've chanted a lot of thints, and we haven't reall),, concentrated on a race simulation or lhe endurance of the tire, we've iust been tryint to find ways to dial out the problems we have. To be honest, our pace isn't bad, but it's certainly not a winnint pace, which is frustracingwhen we saw in Barcelona last weekend how great our package is when it's all working. Yamaha and Michelin have more than enouSh information after three days, and I am confident that they will come back with something to solve our problems. Anyway, that's it for testinS. l'm headin8 home for l0 da)s to chill out a liftle bit, and let s hope that the new stliff we have when we come back for the race will help us oLrt so we can challenge for a win. ' The l7-round wodd Championship starts at Jerez on l'4arch 26. 3T1 YEARS AEO... Mdrch 23. ,976 The comical artwork on the cover of lssue #ll heralded the March 2l flat-track season opener at Ascot Park. Obviously, our cover hero needed to place a phone call to Ken Maery... Provint that there were "Buellish" rules controversies in road It was Shootout time atain, and lssue #ll fea- tured the 250cc motocrossers from the Big Four. After all the slamming of berm', bash- ing of bumps and flyin8 over the jumPs, we declared that the Honda CR250 was sli8htly better than the rest for pure motocross use, but we also said that for riders who also incorporated off-road in their repertoire, the Yamaha Y2250 was a Sreat choice... Keei \ran der V€n (KTM) was the sandman to beat at the Le Touquet beach .ace in France on February 23... Bobby "BooSaloo" Schwartz (Wes) won flve of his iix heats to eam the 1986 Spring Classic Speedway event at Costa Mesa Speedway on March 7, while "Sudden Sam" Emolenko (we3) won th€ Sprint Classi. a( San Berdoo on l,4arch 9. ,t] VEARS AEO--- March ZD, ,996 "Rain postpones Daytona 200" was the banner head on lisue # I l. but at least that rneant that ,eramy l.lccrath (Hon) made the cover, a8ain, Ior win- nint the Daytona Supercross. Mickael Pichor (Kaw) won the l25cc Eastern Regional main... There was some road racing in Daytona before the rain came. Rich Oliver (Yam) won the lmemational Lightweight 100k, and Aaron Yates led Yoshimura Suzuki teammate Pascal Picotte across the line in the 75(kc Sup€rsport race... Will Davis (ATK) overcarne a horreh- dous crash at the 600cc National one ni8ht ear- lier to earn the fiIst of his three career Daytona Shon Track wins. Killed in a racing eccident in 2001, Davis remains tied with Chris Carr for the most Daytona Short Tr-ack wins. Each man has three. l'd lik€ to say we're right there and everything s all gravy, but the truth is we still couldn't quite get the bike to stay in line and get hooked up as good as we want- ed. We ve made some proSress today, and ar the end we puc on some soft rires, not qualifiers, iust to see what it would do, and that dellnitely helped my lap time a lot. And I did a full race run to get a feelint, but it was hard to main- tain the pace. Nonetheless, I'm excited to 8o racins. TestinS is cool, but Soing toe to toe with the boys is the fun part." Somewhat of a surprise was lhe performance of the Camel Yamaha team. most notably world Champion Valentino Rossi. who was down in loth when the test ended. Both Rossi and Edwards suffered with vibra- tion problems throuShout the Jerez test- "There were so many people Kenny Rob.ds Jr. ir hoppy with fte ProgtGss ft. Hondo-engined KR bike is moking. !ll CYCLE NEWS . MARCH 22, 2006 17 I Kowosoki's Shinvo I{l #ifrElr-El ;r Volenlino Rossi ond his tosmmola Colin Edwordr sruggled on rc foctory Yomohcs ot Jcrar. t + , I A :l ,,-. I -rr t L"w :l -- ry ? -/ \ N n l(it f 0!r E racing even back then, we ran a photo of the monoshock-kitted Butler & Smich BMW Superbike. BMW didn't make a monoshock Superbike... limmy Weinert (Kaw) got a little revenge on Tony D. by winning the Houston Supercross, March 12-13. Rich Eirstedt (Hon) won the Open Support class... Marland whaley (Hon) bested Bemie Schreiber (Bul) and Lane Leavitt (Bul) at the second round of the California Stare liials Championship in Texas Canyon, California, March 13-14-.. A feature entitled 'Pitwall Perspective" on pate 18 took another look at the tire iisues faced by the road racing teams in the Daytona 200. ZD YEARS AEO... March 26- t9f,6 / I E

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