Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

lane. Watanabe showed his front wheel to Deguchi going through the S-curves and Dunlop Curve on the following lap, but Deguchi's Honda out-accelerated the Yoshimura Suzuki out of the corners. Deguchi drifted wide around Spoon Curve later in the lap and it looked as if Watanabe could have passed Deguchi then. Instead, Watanabe followed Deguchi down the back straight and stayed in Deguchi's draft. Watanabe was now perfectly placed for a drafting pass down the front straight, and the anticipated pass for third happened in turn one at the start of lap 49. With no place to hammer down the Honda's horsepower in the S-curves, Watanabe slalomed through the switchback set of corners and left Deguchi behind. "I am not a good starter, so Aoki-san started for us," said Watanabe. "Also, I'm a bit tired. Our bike is the bike I use in the All-Japan Championship, so I am used to this bike. The tires and bike were very good, but my physical condition wasn't very good." Tsujimura, Watanabe, and Deguchi all pitted on lap 52, and Konishi finished his stint out in front until he pitted on lap 55. After the 57th lap, Ito had a 23-second lead on Yasuda. Tamada was third and a half-minute behind Yasuda, but out of sequence on pit stops. Aoki followed Tamada by 15 seconds with Okada barely two seconds behind Okada. On lap 58 Okada pulled up with Aoki on the back straight. Okada's passing attempt on Aoki at the Casio Triangle failed as Aoki showed defensive race craft. On the following lap Okada tried to set-up a pass at the hairpin, but back- markers ruined the plan. Fittingly, Okada drafted Aoki on the front straight at the start of lap 59 and made the pass stick. Over the next 20 laps Ito's lead on Yasuda doubled from 23 to 46 seconds. Okada, however, could only reduce the gap to Yasuda from 43 to 36 seconds. Aoki never re-caught Okada, but did well to limit damage relative to Okada to five seconds. C Y C L E N E W S • AUGUST 16, 2006 67 Jason DiSalvo rode in practice, but that was it, as the Yamaha reserve rider never got a chance to take part in the race. Yamaha and Kawasaki, that if Honda changed [to JSB], that Yamaha would put Haga and Edwards in the race and Kawasaki would put Shinya Nakano in the race, their star riders. It would make the Suzuka 8 Hours like it used to be in its glory days." Kawasaki's Shinya Nakano was at the 8 Hours, but only in an autograph-signing capacity. There was no factory Kawasaki entry, as has been the case since 2002. With all the wild-card entries in the JSB class and the regular FIM World Endurance Cham- pionship teams in the Superbike class, the World Championship points were awarded only to the teams competing for the champi- onship and based on the relative finishing order. In previous 8 Hours races the wild- card teams took nearly all the championship points. "It encourages the FIM teams to come over here," said Phase One Endurance team manager Russell Benney. "It makes Suzuka now a necessity if you are taking the champi- onship seriously. [In previous years] you could almost do a deal with your fellow competitors in Europe not to bother spending the money to get here, let's all stay at home in what's already a very busy period in the season any- way. But now we've got to come." Could the concept of wild cards racing against World Championship riders on the track, but not for World Championship points, work outside of Japan? Russell Benney was asked if World Endurance teams could race against AMA Superbike riders in a 200- mile race as a possible scenario. "I don't see why that could not work perfectly. I think it would be perfect. It would be enlightening for both sides. I think the AMA would not necessarily be dominate. You can see here that Suzuki Castrol are doing well in qualify- ing here, so the level at the top of FIM World Endurance is good. I think it's a great idea - it's fantastic. We've had 200-mile races at Imola that attracted a lot of wild-card entries. Why not go to America?" This year Yoshimura Suzuki joined the ever- growing ranks of teams using Bridgestone tires after years with Dunlop. "We divorced from Dunlop," said Fujio Yoshimura. "I asked Bridgestone if they would make their tires available to us. The reason I divorced from Dunlop was that Bridgestone has a better tire. We've been racing on Bridgestone tires all year in the All-Japan Championship." Phase One Endurance was having its own difficulties with Dunlop at Suzuka. "Our dilemma at the moment is one of tires," said Russell Benney during practice. "We've come across a brick wall. All of our riders are stuck on a particular lap time, which is about 2.5 seconds off where we should be, compared to our normal competitors. We know we are against a tire brick wall, and we've just broken down that brick wall with Dunlop. We think we can get the special stuff we need to improve our times. The Suzuki Castrol team are on a Japanese Dunlop tire deal and we are on a UK Dunlop tire deal. We don't have access to the same rubber as them, but by unlocking this supply we are at least next door to them and not down at the end of the road. The Japanese [Dunlop] tires are very different. The European [Dunlop] tires do not work very well here, and vice versa: the Japanese tires do not work well in Europe. We are very convinced that there are different ways that they bind their tarmac here. The compo- sition and structure of the tarmac is different from Europe, and the UK tires don't work here. We are not getting any visual wear, or cold tearing or disintegration of the surface of the tire. What we are getting a diminishment of the grip level far, far earlier than it should go; after only one or two laps." According to Satoru Horiike, the HRC pre- pared race bikes for the 8 Hours did not have a traction-control system. "We don't do traction control on the JSB race bikes at this moment. We should do this." Rumors of Nicky Hayden racing in the 8 Hours this year were well-founded, according to Horiike. "At the beginning of this season we already started to organize the rider situation for Suzuka 8 Hours. At that time we made a list with Nicky Hayden, and some possibility with Marco Melandri. Of course, Marco Melandri has a contract with the Gresini team, but we have a technical agreement between HRC and the Gresini team. We checked all possibilities. But recently the MotoGP cham- pionship become such that we had to ask [Hayden] to concentrate on MotoGP." According to Horiike, only riders on Honda teams with a relationship with HRC were con- sidered. "From British Superbike, we invitied Kiyonari and Karl Harris. But from AMA, we had no plans and HRC are doing no activity in World Superbike." The HM Plant team in the British Superbike Championship use HRC- based Superbikes, while the American Honda and World Superbike Honda teams develop their Superbikes independent of HRC. Five-time 8 Hours Champion Tohru Ukawa was missing from the 8 Hours for the first time in 10 years. "Tohru Ukawa became an employ- ee of Honda R&D. He can cannot race for Honda because he is an employee of Honda," explained Horiike. "He can race in a private team, but not for the factory team. There are many reasons for this, such as liability." Tadayuki Okada has now moved back to Japan after managing Hondas British Superbike team for two years to replace Ukawa as HRC's MotoGP test rider. "I ride every day. For the last two months I have had no holiday. I ride on Saturdays and Sundays - every day. Some days at Suzuka, then to Sugo in the north of Japan, and then back to Suzuka, then to Motegi - everywhere. So I'm in much better physical shape now, not just desk work any- more." Okada has been testing the RC211V and Honda's new 800cc MotoGP racer. The factory Yamaha for Colin Edwards and Noriyuki Haga was fitted with KYB suspen- sion components - a rather surprising situa- tion, since Yamaha has an ownership stake in the highly regarded Öhlins company. "One of the first things we asked was, 'can we go to Öhlins?' Both Nori and I are on Öhlins and we kind of surmised that we would be on Öhlins," said Edwards. "Then we showed up here and it's KYB. But in all honesty, it's not bad. The front works great, no problem. It's just trying to get the rear to hook up. I was actually pretty impressed by KYB's stuff." The bigger problem with the Edwards and Haga Yamaha was engine horsepower. "The power is never fine here, is it? Anytime you have to run one hour on a tank of gas you've got to lean it out. As soon as you lean it out you suffer the consequences," said Edwards during practice. "I got by Kiyonari and then he came by pulled 15 bikelengths on me on the back straight. That kind of distance is kind of hard to make up against someone of Kiyonari's caliber. You've got the front straight, back straight and all the little straights, and it adds up to a bit of time. Even when some guy with a number like '157' passes you down the back straight you think, 'damn! Am I the slow guy this year?' " According to Suzuka Circuit's timing and scor- ing, the top speed of Edwards' YZF-R1 was 267.8 kph (166.03 mph). The FCC TSR Honda and Yoshimura Suzuki tied for highest top speed at 280.6 kph (173.9 mph). The Okada and Deguchi HRC Honda and Toy Story Racing Honda were clocked at 279.7 kph (173.4 mph). The Kiyonari and Tamada Honda reached a speed of 278.9 kph (172.9 mph). The second factory Yamaha was slightly faster than the Edwards and Haga bike, but well down on competitive top speed at 269.4 kph (167 mph). Edwards was having his first look at Suzuka Circuit since the 2003 MotoGP meeting where Daijiro Kato was fatally injured. Since then a chicane has been added after the hair- pin to slow down motorcycles before the reach the point where Marco Melandri crashed at the same meeting and broke his leg. "The new tarmac is great. The new chi- cane is, in my opinion, is not Grand Prix wor- thy. All the new chicane has done is turn a dangerous corner into a little, tedious, high- side corner. The corner after the hairpin was dangerous, but at least you could do your own math and calculate your risk vs. what you would gain through there. With the way it is now, you have a higher possibility of a 125-mph highside coming out of the chicane. The wall is still there, so if you crash you are still going into the wall. I think there needs to be some rethinking. To haul an M1 through there and get on the gas with the wall sitting right in front of you - I'll pass on that shit." The Suzuka Circuit conundrum is that it was once ahead of its time as a track that combined a high level of technical challenges with a relatively good degree of safety. The newer racetracks that are coming on line and winning praise use the lessons learned from Suzuka. "I've never had a problem with this track," admitted Edwards. "I'm from the U.S. where the tracks are a hundred times worse than this. When I started testing here in the early days, I just knew there are a cou- ple corners that you absolutely cannot crash on. Once you figure that out, then it's a safe track - it's not bad. Sure, there is the possi- Briefly... Continued on page 68 Continued from page 65

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