Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
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TEAM #RIDEHVMC DUCATI PANIGALE R RACER TEST P108 ing the start/finish straight. Let the revs drop below 6000 rpm off corners three and seven and drive suffers—first gear is short enough that it's not used (at least at NJMP), while second gear only starts giving solid grunt at about 6500 rpm. The Panigale R is thus the most four cylinder-ish engine yet seen from Bologna, requiring high revs to produce the high horsepower needed in MotoAmerica competition. Once you're above 8000 rpm, however, hold on. The Panigale R builds speed like a bullet train accompanied by one of the best induction sounds known to man as you snatch fifth gear briefly via the race-pattern Ducati Quick Shift-equipped (up and down- shift) gearbox. The front straight seems very short when you've got 188 horsepower in your right hand. Keep the motor in the 4000 rpm-odd power range and it'll COREYALEXANDER Twenty-two-year-old Corey Alexander's been a profes- sional racer from the day he turned 16. A former Red Bull Rookies, AMA Superstock and Supersport racer, this year has seen Corey jump straight into the big time with his uncle's team on a totally different bike to the competition. How has the jump to the 1200 Ducati been this year? I've been riding 1000s a bit, but this bike is different. I basically raced GSX- R600s my whole career, until last year. As far as the issues we're facing, I think they are symptoms of that a bit. The hard part as a rider, especially a young rider, not really knowing how to decipher what is what. If you look every- where else in the world, the Ducati is pretty competi- tive, so there's no reason it shouldn't be here but first you've got to figure out how to make it competitive. You're on K-Tech suspension as well? Yeah, pretty much what Shane Byrne's team runs in BSB (British Superbike Championship). I've been on K-Tech for a long time now and I don't see it being much different to Öhlins. Last year I rode Öhlins on the Tuned Racing R6 and I preferred the K-Tech over it. Now we know the equiva- lent settings from Öhlins to K-Tech, and we're getting notes sent from European Superstock on the right setting for this bike. One of the things we were trying to accomplish was putting more weight on the front to get it to help turn. So right now it's soft in the rear with a lot of preload and a little bit stiffer in the front. We started out the final MotoAmerica weekend trying everything. I think we started on 1.0 springs on the front and no preload, a lot of preload, high, low—we're not looking for a window. We're looking for a house to build a window. It's been interesting for me because I'm learning but at the same time it's tough because it's all on me. What were some of the issues with the elec- tronics over the year? We had the Tune Boy software at the start of the year and we'd try to clean up the fuel maps on the stock ECU, but the problem was that we were only editing the top layer. The stock ECU, it's crazy how good it is. There're so many layers to it. We were editing basically the top layer of the fueling and we needed to be able to get in and go to every layer, but we didn't know that. We would go in, look at the data and say, "Okay, it's running really rich here." So we'd go into the Tune Boy software and add a 10 percent change, and I'd go back out and ride and it was no different. Eventually we figured out we were only editing the top layer of the map, so all year we were throwing these 10 percent, eventually 30 percent changes, and it was actually making it worse because the bike was compensat- ing for these changes itself underneath the first layer of the map. We then tried a technician from Byrne's BSB team called Wolf, and he used his software and we raced at Laguna Seca, and we finished with two top 10s. Then you got your Ducati Corse techni- cian in? That's when we really started to kind of make some progress because we had finally had somebody there who really knew the bike. He went back in and again saw some stuff in the fuel mapping that needed to be fixed, and he basically hacks the ECU and flashes it with Ducati Corse soft- ware. That's where we're at now. It's been a big change.