Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

With Ducati North America's racing plans up in the air, Neil Hodgson doesn't know where he'll be racing next year. "I don't really know what's happening next year - I really don't," Hodgson said under the Parts Unlimited Ducati team awning at the AMA Superbike round at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course on August 5. The best-case scenario has him landing a seat on the Xerox Ducati World Superbike team. "In the ideal world, I'd be riding in World Superbikes with the factory Ducati team," he said. "If I can't get that ride, then I'd be happy to stay here. It's not that I hate being here, but there's some question marks about this team. No one's too sure what's happening there. There's a lot of unknowns. I thought I'd know by this weekend, but it's not the case." Hodgson doesn't see a lot of opportunities among the other AMA Superbike teams. "I think everyone's sort of set up over here," he said. "Everyone's on two-year deals. That's what I was told - I know the Honda guys are, Yamaha's all sorted out, and I was told that [Ben] Spies is sorted out. "Because it's a small championship, it's only when you realize it when you look for a ride, and if a team pulls out, all of a sudden there's nothing." Among the rumors floating around is that former World Superbike Champion Carl Fogarty would run a second factory Ducati team in the World Superbike Championship. Would Hodgson ride for him? "No," was the succinct answer. The reason is a because of a number of unkind things Fogarty said about his former friend. "I don't know," Hodgson answered, when asked what happened between them. "He retired and then when I started doing well, he started to slag me, which I found very offen- sive. So - no." Hodgson also doesn't relish the thought of another year on the less- than-competitive Ducati 999. The AMA's recent decision to legalize trac- tion control has helped, but the V-twin can't run with the leading Suzukis and will have less hope with the release of a new GSX-R1000 in 2007. "The prospect of stay- ing on this bike in this championship is about as exciting as... you can imag- ine how exciting it is," Hodgson said. "It's been tough the last two years and it's only going to get tougher if they run the 999 again over here. Where, in World Superbikes, it'll be tougher, but at least we're running the best 999, not the B version. [Traction control gave him] a little bit of confidence to turn the throttle a little bit ear- lier, but it actually wasn't working so good to be honest. It was probably working about 20 per- cent [at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca]. It's weird, it is weird - it feels like the bike's misfir- ing. It's just weird, you know what I mean? Basically, you can turn the throttle on a lot ear- lier than you've been trained to." Hodgson turned the fastest lap ever by a Superbike during a test at Mugello last year using the traction control. "What happened at Mugello with it, I did a three-day test and it was on day three, so I was into my rhythm," he said. "Everything was incredibly perfect. I wasn't thinking about any- thing else. And they said, 'Now we'll switch to traction.' So I was accurate everywhere and then I knew where to turn the throttle earlier almost, because I'd got everything calculated. I knew what I was doing. So it was really easy to adapt to it, bang, you know what I mean? Where, when you come to a new track and just don't have it running properly like Laguna, so you're just like trying to play around with it a little bit." Hodgson's Achilles' heel is his inability to adapt to the AMA schedule. He prefers the structure he learned in years of riding at the World Championship level, two one-hour sessions each day, fol- lowed by the warmup and the race or races. "I'm a really methodical sort of rider," he said. "It's not an excuse at all. It's not like I could win here if we had two, two-hour sessions. I like to take it step by step; I don't like to take any unnecessary risks. I've always been the same. You can't change the way you are. And the way it works over here with short sessions, you can't. And I can't get into any sort of rhythm and that's why I seem to struggle a lit- tle bit. And near the end of every race, I'm always quite strong, the second half of a race I've just sort of got into a rhythm. I have to get into a rhythm. I wish I wasn't like that. I think the years of doing it like I've been doing it, I can't change. I'm trying to change. I was really aware of it this winter and I thought I've got to change for this season - I've got to be on it straight away. But I can't do it. I set off and I think I'm on it and I'm three seconds too slow. It's not a lame excuse or anything like that, it's just the truth of how I feel about it. I find it dif- ficult." That said, his lone podium this year, and the closest he finished behind the winner, came at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca where he had only two half-hour sessions to set up the bike, pick a tire, and adapt to the traction control. Henny Ray Abrams Where Will Hodgson Go? W ill Ducati field a factory Superbike team in the 2007 AMA Superbike Championship? It seems unlikely, but the official announcement won't be made until the Ducati North America dealer show in Salt Lake City on August 21. Ducati North America CEO Michael Lock said Ducati Corse had three options on the table and that continuing in the series hadn't been ruled out. "No decision has been made, and because no decision has been made, people assume the worst," he said. But, he admit- ted, the Ducati 999 had become increasingly uncompetitive in the AMA series with little hope of a turnaround in 2007. "The rules are already set for next year for AMA Superbike," Lock said. "That presents us with some challenges." The deci- sion would be based on "balancing the needs of the short term with the needs of the long term," he said. "The things we have coming in the next two or three years [in terms of new models] are very exciting. That's the reason it's still up in the air." "I can assure you of our commitment to Superbike racing in America," Lock said in regards to whether they race next year or take a one-year hiatus. "We're going to redouble our efforts to the Superbike class." Ducati Corse Superbike racing boss Paolo Ciabatti, when questioned about continuing with the Parts Unlimited AMA team in 2007, refused to confirm if it is about to close its doors. He did, however, speak about the reasons why racing in the USA is a difficult prospect in any season: "It is not just about money," Ciabbatti began, "although the American series is very expensive to compete in. Aside from the financial considerations, there are also the regulations, which allow us less tuning than the World Superbike regula- tions," Ciabatti said. The AMA series is the most expensive of Ducati's efforts because of a lack of outside sponsorship, Michael Lock has said. Ciabbatti and Corse engineer Ernesto Marinelli will be at the August 18-20 Virginia International Raceway round of the AMA Superbike Championship, while Lock's in Salt Lake City with the dealers. "I'll be in Salt Lake City and we'll be thrashing out the final details with the team there [in VIR]," he said. World Superbike and British Superbike use the same tech- nical regulations, which allow the twins to use different gear- boxes and camshafts. They also allow traction control, which was only recently legalized in AMA Superbike. "Ducati Corse does not like developing more than one spec of Superbike," Lock said. "One spec of Superbike for the three major Superbike Championships in the world - that would make my life infinitely easier. The rules are totally at odds with where we are in racing Superbikes in World Superbike and British Superbike. There's no reason we shouldn't be competitive." He doesn't blame the rules, rather, he said Ducati hasn't been forceful enough in helping negotiate the rules. "What do we have to do to get what we want?" he asked. Henny Ray Abrams/Gordon Ritchie C Y C L E N E W S • AUGUST 16, 2006 11 Ducati to Pull Out of AMA? PHOTO BY NELSON & RILES Neil Hodgson gives Ben Bostrom a ride back to the pits after Bostrom crashed at Mid- Ohio. Are they both out of rides for next year? Neil Hodgson gives Ben Bostrom a ride back to the pits after Bostrom crashed at Mid- Ohio. Are they both out of rides for next year? Yosh's Own Traction Control Used At Suzuka The Yoshimura GSX-R1000 ridden in the Suzuka 8 Hours the last week of July used a prototype traction-control system developed by Yoshimura. "There's many different ways of making traction control," said Fujio Yoshimura. "Our system is based on the amount of acceleration. If you have a very quick acceleration, then the computer catches that and retards the ignition timing. Our system is made by Nippon Denso and it's 100-percent commercial based. It's an efficient sys- tem at a lower cost than the factory system. In the U.S. they run a factory system. We run a commercial-based engine management system called EM Pro. What Mat Mladin and Ben Spies run is 100-percent factory and made by Mitsubishi." Fujio Yoshimura said at the 8 Hours that his 2007 race kits offered for sale will probably include traction control with the advent of the recent AMA deci- sion to officially allow traction control. "I think next year's race kit will have traction control in it," Yoshimura said. "It is almost developed now. For example, we are running it now. It is legal in Japan. Only in the U.S. is trac- tion control illegal; the rest of the world is okay. What we have now is much more developed. Last year it was only halfway. But this year it is a much improved version." Tracy Hagen

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