Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Mv Oww Fhce 96 Aaron Gobert 'Just had a tough one," Erion Honda's Aaron Gobert said after finishing ninrh in the Superstock race. "lwas iust ridint it as hard as I could. To stay on it, tiat was the pace I could do." Gobert quali- fied eighth and started ninth before hoving up one spot. Tha!'s as far as he d g€t as he struggled with front grip, "F4ainly the long rums, the front efld - I was relying so much on the front end. Dunlop had a really good tiret I was using the best tire they had, bur ir was stillgetting hot and 9th Place greasy. From lhe start of the race, I was fighting that problem. That s about it really. l've got to keep working on it until I tlnd what I need." 4 Josh Hayes Sth Place Erion Honda'sJosh Hayes qualified fifth and fin- ished fifth. Fifth was about as good as he was 8oin8 to do. Hayes chased, then passed Yama- ha's Eric Bostrom on the seventh oI 17 laps. Bostrom stuck with him until the l2th lap when Hayes was able to ease away. AI the end, he had exactly two seconds on Boslrom. Thrs morning we tried a huge gamble," Hayes said. The team took the best out of his raae bke. and back-up bike and took it into the race. "Quite honestl),, I had a bad test here and sent us in a bad direction, so it's kind of me backpedallint and fixing problems that I created. So once the race got toing I knew what I had to work with, so there's no sense in worrying about what changes I want to make." The gamble paid off. "lt s the most comfortable l've been on the motorcycle this weekend. I didn't make any big mistakes. I just put prett), Bood laps coterher for me, when the tire wenr off I still felt good, was able to keep going." 6 Damon Buckmaster l4th Place Damon Buckmaster strutSled with grip on his Anack Kawasaki ZX- loRR. Buckmaster said that both he and reammate Ben Attard had bad days, pamly, at least, because they hadn't tested in the heat that enveloped the race weekend. "We havent lested rhese things in the heat and we're sufferint." he said. "No side grip, on both front and rear of the bike. We both had some sort of balance issues with the bike, for sure." The problem appeared whenever they opened the tas. "Going in on the front, when it was loaded. over it, and then coming off - no side Erip." 99 Geoff May 4th Place Team M4 EMGO Suzuki's Geoff May was hop- ing for a mistake that never came. May ran tn third untilYamaha's Jamie Hacking made a pass on the eighth of l7 laps, then eased away and went after teammate Jason Disalvo. ''l think the Nvo Yamaha guys tD,in8 to make a break in the betinning and iust used up their tires," May said. "My toal was just to stay with them as lonS as possible. Hopefully they'd come back to me. 8ur I ended up having some rssues later in the race, as far as a little bit of chassis set-up issues. We didn\ ger in enough long runs to find out what would happen in this kind of heat. The wealher kind of hurt us rhere, as far as getting enough track time to fiture out what it would do af(er so many laps. I was riding the thint as hard as I could wirhout crash- int, to try to get up there to try to get up on the box. 32 Eric Bostrom 6th Place "We had a little lack oftrip and a little chatter in the front," Yamaha's Eric Bostrom said of his Superstock YZ F-RlLE. "The Dunlop front that we like, they didn't really brin8 to this race." Bostrom hounded Erion Honda'sJosh Hayes for che first l2 laps of the race before Hayes started (aking out bit chunks oftime. Bostrom blamed himself, and a track that he's not rond o[ "The biggest thing is I probably iust wasn t quick €nough here. I think next weekend [at Califomia Speedwayl will be good. I'm looking forward to gettin8 onto there. We need to mechanically tet more grip out of the bike. The thing was iust dancing the whole mce." 1 Briefly... Continued lrom pdse 19 Turkish GB the third round of rhe MotoGP World Championship, Rain of Biblical proportions srruck rhe Birm- inSham a.ea prior to the race weekend, with a record 3.58 inches falling on Thursday and more on Friday. Torrential .ains and hail rav- aged the area, but. amazintlx there was no serious damage to any race gean Kurtis Roberts said that boredom drove him to a two-race deal to ride the Team M4 EMGO Suzuki Formula Xtreme bike, rhe first of which was here at Barber. but he added that he liked the team, the bike, and the tires, and expected to be on the podium. "The onl/ reason I'm kind ofdoing this is I was kind of bored when they called," Roberts said. "They have a good team. but my main thing is being in Europe or being on a winning Superbike. Right now I was kind of iust waiting around, trying to tet som€thing lined up like that, maybe a testing deal. We'll see what happened. Robens said this was- n't the lirst contact he'd had with the team. "They had talked to me about doing rhe whol€ year the last few years. I mean, I have other plahs I want to do," he said, adding that none of the perspective iobs were "treat. I've Eot to ge! all the management stufffigured out. so it s always workrnt for me instead of against me. Right now it's get- ting beater We're gefting tome things ironed out. The main thing is come here and have fun. and hopefully put it on the podium-" As for the FX GSX-R600, Roberrs said, 'The bike's realrygood- The chassis work really well. It's allvery new to me, The tires are new. We haven'r had much time Lhrs week- end. We went well at the test. I think we can do much better in the race, hopefully, and maybe put it on the podium like we feel we should." Roberts has raced on Dunlop and Michelin tires. This was his first experience with Pirellis. "The tires give me a lot ol feed- back," he said. "They have a diflerent grip levelthan a Dunlop and a different grip. When they kind of fall ofl, they fall offand they don't grip in diflerent spots than rhe Dunlop did. When the Dunlop falls off, it'll have a lot of side grip on drrve and a lot of lean antle. Where there maybe don't have the lean-angle Brip, but they seem to have a little bit better side grip on drive. 8ur I haven't been on the good Dunlops for a while either" Following next week's race at California Speedway, Roberrr said he plans to go to Europe to speccate at some MotocP and World Superbike races "and try to tet something lined up for there for next year." He'd hoped to fill in on the Winston Ten Kate Honda for the injured Kerl Mu8- geridge. but lhe |ob wenr ro World Super- bike ioumeyman Giovanni Buisei. "lguess lhat Bussei did some testint for them and stuff like that so they had to 80 with him." And what about ridinS his father's bike, now the KR2l lV and nor rhe Proton KR he rode previously? "l'll 8et on it again. With a Honda motor, sh--. who wouldn't? You'd have to be Are qualifying tires back in the Superbike clast and, rf so. wh/? After taking rhe provi- sional pole on Friday, Yoshimura Suzuki's Mat MIadin traced it to Honda. Honda requested that Dunlop bring soft tires from now on, so we can all qualit on soft tires, which we all sort of had an agaeement that that wasn't going to happen. probably really tor the lasr couple of years I guess," he raid. Yes and no, according to Dunlop road-race managerJim Allen. "Last year, several of the teams - a lot ofthe teamr - used 205/60 in soft compoundi205/50 is standard conslruc- tion - standard sales tire in so{t compound for qr.rafifing. There's a profile difference in that nre. lt s quite a bit flacter than the NT tire, the 200/70. So Honda had asked is there any possibihty? lt requires a different ret-up for the bike, ratherthan change back and forth. They didn't want to get away from the idea of using a soft tire altogether for qualifyinS. So what they asked is, is ir possible to make a tire more similar in shape to the NT tire? So whar we did was the NT mold and put a conventional tire in it. In that respect, Honda did ask for somethint ditfer- CYCLE NEW'. MAy3,2006 23 -\r /- li L a -...! 4 ,r- I k ) _.-, .l More to the point, Allen said, the motivation is e(onomics. "The tires we're doing, while they're not race tires, they'.e not true quali- tying tires- They're not NT (New Technolo- gy) tires made in the same mold,' he said. "The reason we're doing it is because we have a capaciry problem with NT's. It does- n't matter what we say or do or what the teams say or do, rhe long and shorr of it is, come qualifying, they put a new NT in, put a new ti.e in to get a good lap time. So esren- tially they're using a new race tire to get a tood lap time in qualifying, which cuts down on the a\railable quantity for lhe mce. Rather than waste good N1-s for qualifying, we're doinS a cheaper. easier version of the tire in the same rize. whi(h is nor a race Lire, but is not a true qualifying tire. So it essentially puts us in the same position of having quali- rying tires - except the),,'re not. I agree it's a bit ofa strenge ,tuation, and a step back from where we said we were going to be. " Kaw"asaki's RoSer Lee Hayden said he was "a little bit surprised" after qualifying on rhe front row in only his second Suprbike race, but he tempered his enthusiasm by sayint "everybody's so close. a few tenths will move you up a lot ot spots. And honestly, we're still not that close to Suzuki, so can't be too thrilled. I was happy we made a lot of chantes last nitht to the bike - made ir a lot better - a lot easier to ride. l m really lookrnt forward to the race. I was a little nervous last nitht, because I knew (he pace /ester- day - I couldn't do for 27 lap6. Today I feel a lot better. And I'm lookint fon /ard to it." Kawalaki's Tommy Hayden was on the ,ront row for the flrst time also, even includ- ing his earlie. Superbike srint with Kawasaki. "We made some chanSes overnitht and that dellniteh/ made the bike ersier to ride today, a little better," he said- "lt felt good. We had a really good test here. We're actually iust now to where we were testing. The track's a little 8reen, a little slick. So everyone's offa linle bit. Just able to have some clear track and put some good laps in." Like Roger Lee, Tommy was honest about his progress. "We've 8ot a little time to make up to Mat lMladin] and Ben [Spies]. At least now we're going to start with them and that's the best way to learn is to get there. Where you're losing and where you can improve. Hopeful- ly we can do that and hopefully rry to pick it up a little bit more." Conrinued oo poqe 25

• Cover