Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

B< & I I ,ffr r ? r ol +,,/ t-* ?t "), /f, iO - / Schumi Bides With Mamola fr - '.'aF "l patted Randy [Mamola] on the back a cbuple of times to remind him that I've got the Silverstone GP .fff""X.?RI;'j, Eormula One legend Michael I Schumacher took a ride on the Marlboro Ducati tyvo-seater on race mom_ ing at the ltalian Grand Prix, samPling a bit of rider Randy lv'lamola's style, after having lapped the track on a sin8le-seater Ducati himself earlier in the yeat. "On a bike, you feel the sPeed more, you feel the machine movinS around more, whi.h is very different from a cai" Schumacher said. "Plus, when you are rid- ing with someooe, you don't know what's going to happen, and that makes it interest- Safety First Road America president and Seneral manager George Bruggenthies saw an editorial column on the back page oI Cycle News and thouSk, "That's a good idea." The idea was to engate riders in any discussion of track sa{ety or revr sion. So he called AMA road race manager Ron Barrick and asked him to convene a meetinS of riders at Road America on Friday eveninS, And the result was that everyone benelited. with the riders impressed and encouraSed that a track manager would listen to their concerns, "l think the meetint was productive," said Yoshimura Suzuki's l"lar Mladin, one of five invited riders. "We sat down for half an hour and spoke of plans. And then we sPent at least one hour on the circuit," (ln fact, the entire meeting went on for more than 2 l/2 hours.) Mladin said that BrugSenthies had his media manager, Julie Sebranek, taking notes. "Certainly, we carne up whh sorne good ideas as to hc,v, we can fix a few things, namely the back straigh( down there throush the for_ est," l'4ladin reported. "lt's just a rnatter of the track having to put up the firn& to do it now. "This mcetrack's improved a lot," ln4ladin added later, 'and they were very re(eptive yesrerday. lt's iust a matter of the job being done now. Hopefully we'll see some improvements for next yeat All of us. Eric lBostrom] and Jamie lHacking] and Ben lBostrom] and Tommy lHayden] and myself, we all said to the 8uy when we left, 'we're iust a phone call away. lfyou're not too proud to gve us a call, we'd come uP and help, whatever. Have a look.' So hoPefully they'll take that as it's meant to be- "ChanSes that are tening made to a lot of these racetracks," l'lladin stressed, are not made with any input from any of the racers themselves. The track desilners are great at designing racetracks. The/ need people out there that are seeing it with a different eye to know what it looks like at 160 mph when you're cranked over in founh gear." As an example, he used Road America's turn one, ing. I pafted Randy on the back a couple of times to remind him that l've 8ot the Silverstone GP next week." What Schumacher didn't reveal was thar he'd been tryin8 to get l"lamola to take the short (ut ba(k ro the ptts on hrs se(ond flme around - but unfortunalely il was closed. s.huma.her - who. like most F I drivers. is a maior fan of MotoGP - rode to the track from his home in Swirrerland on a Harley_ Davidson V-Rod. ivlichde, Scott "There's some nice run-off, but if you actually know what you're lookint at, turn one comes back in very very quickly, and a highside out of Lurn one and you'll end up in the car-catch fence. We don't see it very ofren, at all, but unfortunately this rs racrnt and thinSs happen." Bruggenthies said the riders raised a lot of concerns he had never been made awale of. Some could get done immediatelf some could have been done w€eks a8o. "We're iust tryinS to develop a tar8et," he said, One of the areas tha( BruSgenthies has been discussing for years is the Billy Mitchell BridSe - sp€cillcally lhe track undemeath. where there's insuflicient run-off on the rider's right. "l've been strugSling with the l'litchell Bridge for years, and just Soint back and Ionh, and the FIM has flip-flopped on stuff," he said. 'So I don't v/ant to build something or make a change that isn't tood for a long time for all disciplines. Last nighr I think we identified an optimal target of what the track should be like for Ai4A Superbikes. And now it's my job to fiture out howwe can 8et some of this done. And a lot of this stuff would be simpler and we could do at the end of the season- Some of it is bigger stuff. Some of it is budget stuff. But at least we've 8ot to know where we need to be, And that's all we real- ly did last nitht. And everybody was really cooperative. I know for next y*r's event, they'll see a lot of chanSes-" The llnal objective for BruSSenthies is an FIM-sanctaoned race- 'Absolutely," he said. "we're a treat track. The bikes 80 fast here. we need a world Championship event. That's my larget. Atways has been. lt's iust been hard identit- ing that. The tartet seems to keep

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