Cycle News

IN THE WIND P26 ing with the AMA now," Buckley said. "We have some things pen- ciled in with the speedway and the factory groups for post-October to do a test there. We certainly get better results there [in October, vs. December when Dunlop used to hold its annual test at Daytona]. We get warmer weather and more representative of what we see in March so we always felt that was a better time. We've got some stuff penciled in for October and we'll certainly be coming in there with a baseline of what we learned here. We will learn something here this weekend, obviously. We'll come back with that and probably some secondary options and we'll put these guys through the paces in October and do some endurance stuff and see where we are. We're definitely going to need to have a test before the race in 2015." So what do the riders think? Three-time AMA Superbike Cham- pion Josh Hayes was honest in his assessment of the change. There's still some fear. "I'd be lying if I didn't say that it was," Hayes said. "In 2012 I had a front tire issue in a 15-lap race. No one in my generation is easily go- ing to forget the accidents that we saw on Superbikes going around the banking. I don't think any of us are lighthearted about how fast we go around the banking. "The race is a long way off and I have some faith. I think they [Dun- lop] can put together some safe tires. Now how good is the per- formance going to be on those tires to be safe? That's a question I don't know how to answer. I just don't have enough information. Right now things seem to be go- ing okay, but we're going to have a lot of things we're going to have to deal with. What if we show up and it's one of those really hot weekends? We've seen that hap- pen in the past. This one is a fairly cool weekend and last year was a fairly cool weekend. Those are things we're going to have to tack- le in time and see how it goes. As for right now, there are so many things that are unknown… fuel ca- pacity? What's the fuel capacity? That's going to determine a lot as to how many laps we can do on the motorcycle anyway. Tire safe- ty, a strategy based on your mo- torcycle and how long the tire will hold on, and different things like that. It's a lot of unknown. When you just say, 'Hey look we're going to ride the Daytona 200 on Super- bikes," do I have concerns? Yes I have concerns, but there's a lot of time for us to address a lot of those things before we get grid- ded up in 2015." The other riders present ex- pressed excitement at racing Superbikes again in the Daytona 200. Roger Lee Hayden, who has never raced in the 200, was one of them. "I'm really looking forward to it," Hayden said. "When I grew up amateur racing, we came to Day- tona every year and the big thing was to come here and watch the 200. When I'm done racing, I want to say that I at least raced the Daytona 200. I think it's great, especially for the fans and stuff who get to come here and watch the premiere riders riding in the premiere class. I think it's good for everybody." Veteran Larry Pegram was an- other who expressed concern. He's hopeful the risk is worth the reward. "I think for me it's the right way to go as far as putting Superbikes back in the 200," Pegram said. "I've heard from Mr. Chitwood and Mr. Gentry that they are all in and it's going to be a premiere event. If that's the case, I'm 100 percent confident they are going to do it, but it's a big risk for us to put Superbikes around this track – even for one lap. Basically for 200 miles it's a big risk but I think we're all willing to take that risk if the AMA is willing to do a big pro- duction and make this the biggest race like it was back in the day. It's going to take a lot of effort from them, but we're willing to take the risk if they're willing to do it. If we show up here next year and this place is what it should be as far as promotion and everything, I think we'll all be happy. I think as riders if it's not, were going to be pretty upset because we're taking a big leap of faith to go out and do this. It's a handful to race a 200 horse- power, 200 mph motorcycle around this racetrack, but we're willing to do it so everybody has to hold up their end of the deal and hopefully we come here and have the biggest race in the world again like we did back in the day." Paul Carruthers

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