Pickpocket
Pickpocket
RACE WATCH
Miguel Duhamel shows the kids how it’s done at Daytona
THE 62ND DAYTONA 200 WAS A CLASSIC RACE OF MANY lead changes among six men and a close contest all the way to the drafting finish. A prudent forecast for the winner of the 200 picks a fully developed motorcycle and a rider who both understands tire conservation and the draft. Such a forecast was well satisfied by a rejuvenated Miguel Duhamel in his remarkable fourth win on the high banks.
What had proved impossible to forecast was the weather, and five weekends of rain had mystified even the locals. More rain on Sunday forced the 200 to be rescheduled to Monday.
Pole-sitter Ben Bostrom-riding a factory Honda RC51 like Duhamel-finished second, a welcome result after what was a dismal season for him last year on a Ducati in World Superbike.
The human surprise of this event was that tire abusers can repent and reform: Kurtis Roberts, who a year ago burned up his tires here with flashy sliding, turned in a mature, rubberconserving performance to finish third on an RC51 in Erion Racing colors. Yoshimura Suzuki’s Aaron Yates, revered for his sideways-on-the-brakes corner entries and tire-smoking exits, looked like a winner, leading at two-thirds-distance on a new GSX-R1000-based Superbike. Sadly, he was forced off track in Turn 1 by a backmarker. He rejoined, some seconds down, to finish fourth.
Fifth finisher-another mature Daytona strategist-was Eric Bostrom on the overbored 778cc Kawasaki ZX-7RR. Following was early-leader Mat Mladin, who could not make the tires last on his Yoshimura GSX-R1000. The Australian was trailed by new teammate Ben Spies, also on a 1000. Distinguished privateers Michael Barnes, Jason Pridmore and Shawn Higbee completed the top 10-all on the newly legal liter-class Suzukis.
KEVIN CAMERON
CON
How do you make close racing with lOOOcc V-Twin Superbikes and both 778 and lOOOcc Fours? Previously, AMA and World Superbike pitted lOOOcc Twins against 750cc Fours, their displacement difference being notionally compensated by the higher revs of the shorter-stroke Fours-equal power from equal air-pumping ability. Despite this, in WSB Twins have dominated, provoking calls for a formula adjustment. AMA’s 2003 rule change allows 750cc Fours to be overbored 2mm, and permits lOOOcc Fours-provided that their valves be of stock material and lift. The close racing at Daytona this year is the happy result.
The quality of the racing belied what had been a turbulent off-season. The AMA’s late-coming decision on equipment rules left little time for teams and manufacturers to respond. Factor in the scarcity of pre-season practice-at Fontana it blew a gale, at Daytona and Laguna Seca it rained-and things were made even tougher. Yoshimura was so short of time working with the big GSXRs that it flew the team off to hot, humid Malaysia to practice with the MotoGP squad. Mladin said that without that track time at Sepang, they definitely would have been “behind the 8-ball.”
Yamaha, meanwhile, simply withdrew from AMA’s top class to focus on its new YZF-R6 in Supersport racing, releasing former Superbike pilot Anthony Gobert in the process, one of many personnel changes in the paddock. Handling and computer specialist Ammar Bazazz, a factor in Mladin’s past AMA titles with Suzuki, took his analytical skills to the free market and at Daytona was working with Honda. Last year’s Daytona winner Nicky Hayden left the American Honda team to ride the factory RC211V MotoGP bike, and Ben Bostrom returned from World Superbike to take his place.
Long-serving Honda race technician Ray Plumb described the current RC51 racebike as “a really good motorcycle,” just as the RC30 and RC45, in their final seasons, were before it. Now, there is news of a new four-cylinder called the RCB1000. It is a seeming law of development that immediately after a design’s maturity comes its replacement! At Laguna Seca in 2002, RC51 in-corner grip was improved by emergency increases in chassis flex, achieved by radical measures such as deleting select engine-mount bolts. Today a “kit of collars and spacers” allows any desired degree of coupling or flexural independence to be achieved between chassis and engine. A visiting HRC test rider played the chassis adjustments like a piano to make handling music. This is a great advance over the 2001 bikes; lateral stiffness kept them from hooking up.
Suzuki has needed more power for several years, making the AMA’s new offer of lOOOcc a gamble worth the obvious risks. Reliability was impressive and team bikes needed few handling adjustments in pre-qualifying practice. Thirty privateers also chose GSXRlOOOs as their Daytona rides-of the 72 qualifiers, 60 (83 percent of the grid) were on Suzuki 1000s or 750s. Three of those Suzuki-mounted privateers were in the top 10 at the finishall on new 1000s.
Why has Suzuki been short of power with its now-obsolete 750cc Superbike? A responsible small maker funnels most of its R&D money into product, leaving less to burn gloriously in the eternal flame of racing. The result is affordable, raceable production bikes, which is why there were 60 Suzukis in the race. Mladin’s three national titles on GSX-R750s were the result of the prickly coalition of Suzuki, Yoshimura and the creative trackside crew centered upon Mladin himself.
A big engine can make competitive power without extreme, narrow-powerband tuning. The ideal result is wide, plentiful torque-a fine tool for racing (especially for privateers!). The same power can be made by a 750cc engine (such an effort reportedly cost Honda $17 million in the RC45’s final year), but the usual result is an unrideable, tireburning “nothing below 12,000 rpm” powerband. The choice is obvious.
AMA’s chosen means of lOOOcc power control-valves of stock material and lift-have powerband effects. Steel valves weigh 40 percent more than the usual titanium racing items, and this extra weight at racing rpm requires either killer spring pressure or longer valve timing to allow time to open and close under good control. With ruleslimited lift, making power at higher revs requires extending valve-open duration to compensate. Yet as valve timing is extended, top power is boosted while bottom power fades.
When asked if the new GSX-R1000 got his attention, Aaron Yates replied, “Ohhh, yeah! It’s right there-you don’t have to wait for it. It wants to spin everywhere.” This suggests that the new powerband is indeed wider than the old, and that there’s plenty of torque. One retired racer commented that the Suzukis seemed to “hit pretty hard around 8000-9000 rpm.”
As practice began, the Suzukis showed their speed, Mladin dueling back and forth with Honda’s Roberts for quick time. At one point on Thursday morning, the three Yoshimura 1000s were 1-2-3. Yet there were problems: Mladin overshot the chicane, and announcer Roger Lyle, watching from that point on the track, repeatedly noted Mladin’s rear tire giving up on the exit. Further evidence that Mladin’s speed was not without cost came from his later chicane crash in qualifying-which he attributed to tucking a harder front tire.
Meanwhile, Roberts was going at least as fast on the Honda, and without his signature tire trouble. His career has been slowed by frequent falls and injuries. Might he turn out like Randy Mamola, much hailed but never champion? Admirers were confiding that, “He’s working with Freddie Spencer now,” but anyone who knows Kurtis, knows he’s no more likely than his famous father to be talked out of his riding style. Answers-if any-would have to come from his own intelligence.
Eric Bostrom was brilliant last year, making the antique Kawasaki look a lot better-funded than it is (these things still have carburetors!). In the off-season, the team tested with Japanese lmm-over pistons (767cc) and with U.S.-made 2mmovers (778cc). Team Manager Mike Preston is a former top 125cc motocrosser and a very competitive man, eager to push all his programs-the new 600 and 636, as well as the overbored Superbike-forward. They needed more power, and bigger pistons supplied enough to create handling problems-the eternal cycle of development.
Problems there were: At least two of Eric’s machines smoked their engines. Yet he rode hard and his bike lasted, qualifying and finishing fifth-good going for both team and rider.
In the past, Kawasaki has had development work to do each time bore was enlarged and stroke shortened, in the interest of making room for larger valves for higher-rpm power. In one case, it took two years for the new engine’s combustion efficiency to equal that of the previous, longer-stroke design. But enlarging only the bore is a different story-the combustion chamber doesn’t become tighter as it would if the stroke were shortened. Provided valve size remains the same, the larger bore just widens whatever squish there is, possibly even enhancing combustion. Whatever the case, the Kawasaki improvisation was impressive.
Mr. Controversy, Anthony Gobert, rode for Austin Ducati-one of the new instant teams created by making the right phone calls and offers. The bikes were ex-factory WSB-spec 998s, but with the smaller AMA-mandated throttle bodies. Does the bike really matter to Gobert? His self-optimizing control circuitry quickly fathoms a new bike’s every quality. Did he really break bones in his hand during “boxing that is part of his normal training regimen?” Don’t boxers wear gloves? Never mind-details like that are left on the starting line. He gathered speed slowly through practice, then had to pull his number-one bike off the 200 start grid with a broken front brake lever and race the spare machine. Gobert came from nowhere on lap six to pass Eric Bostrom for fifth, eighth lap was third, and then in the lead for several laps. There after, he dueled with Duhamel, remaining in the top five through the first tire change-until appearing from the top-20 at the halfway mark, was up? The Australian’s engine had misfired in the early laps, then c and ran strongly, allowing him to tell himself, “We’re going to win pretty easy,” adding later, “I was doing it supercomfortable.” After the first tire change the engine cut out, then ran again, but smoked and quit.
More Ducati bad luck at the Speedway? By necessity, parts lifetime on these engines is optimized for the shorter World Superbike duty cyclenotice Ducati does no endurance racing. Yet the bikes clearly have the speed to lead the Daytona 200. Anyone care to fund an extended reliability development program?
A novel feature of this year’s event was the absence of qualifying tirestires that boost grip by employing extremely soft tread rubber, but live at most three laps. For this reason, Nicky Flayden’s 2002 qualifying record went unbroken. Instead of Q-tires, softer normal race tires were used in qualifying. If Dunlop is in the future challenged by another tire-maker (any ideas?), Qs will surely return.
During practice, I asked Yates if the Suzuki 1000 has anything like a torque-limiting ignition-retard program in lower gears, to help save the tires. “If it does, it isn’t evident,” was his reply. Torque control would be up to the riders.
Walking along pit lane during qualifying, it was easy to see whose tires were doing what. The worst were Mladin’s, graining deeply in the left-center region that runs against the banking at top speed. On one of these, the grained region was also worn almost flat. By Friday night it was clear something had to be done-maybe a little “typing” on the laptop that talks to the engine-control computer. Both Mladin and Yates were riding hard to achieve their times, so there would be no lOOOcc free lunch. Yates had at least one big slide that brought Dunlop men to his front and rear tires on the trot after he pitted.
Roberts, too, overshot the chicane at least once during practice, but concentrated on long runs at race speeds of 1:50-1:51. Running a race segment of 18 laps (the usual number before a pitstop in the 200) provides priceless tire information-more valuable than constant inand-out fiddling with settings, undertaken in hope of improved lap times. Running a string of laps also familiarizes the rider with how the bike will actually feel as fuel bums off and the tires fatigue. It allows exploration of tire-conservation strategies. Whatever his reasons, Roberts was looking more like a methodical Chuck Yeager than a hotshot 10-lap wonder. He ran a full 18-lap race segment in Friday practice-and his rear tire looked good.
Duhamel is traditionally invisible in Daytona practice, then jumps up the lcaderboard in the race. He lowsided during qualifying-proof of earnest effort. Despite his recent spotty seasons, Duhamel remains an experienced Daytona tire-manager and last-lap “air-finder”-think of the 600cc Supersport wins he has snatched through brilliant drafting.
Ben Bostrom said early in the week, “At first, the bike seemed stiff and weird. I was missing Europe-a lot! But then we got more practice and I began to get into it.” Ben was smooth at the chicane exit, smooth everywhere. He crept upward through the five practices-then set pole time in Thursday qualifying. Life was suddenly good back in the U.S., where the tire that favors his style-Dunlop-is king.
All the personalities, all the technology, all the skills, go into the complex algorithm of Daytona. As the day wore on, the bikes you’d expect to lead-the mature design, the RC51-came forward. On lap 57, the last of 200 miles of racing, they were 1-2-3 exiting the chicane-Ben Bostrom in first, with almost enough daylight to do the job. Roberts’ drive in second place was weak, Duhamel was well-launched, and with his ability to “see” air velocities, he mapped a likely corridor forward for the lead. He took it at the line-by .069 of a second. It takes years of experience to earn these fractions of a second.
