Superbike For the Common Man?
Superbike for the Common Man?
ROUNDUP
Hot laps on Mat Mladin's Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R1000
MAT MLADIN'S DEPARTURE FROM AMA Pro Racing could not have come soon enough for his competitors. There is no denying that the Australian and his Yoshimura Suzuki team, headed by crew chief Peter Doyle, were more often than not the class of the field. Over the course of his Superbike career, Mladin amassed an unprecedented seven titles and 82 wins, 78 of which came on GSX-Rs.
Late last year, I attended a post-season test at California Speedway, where I got a brief impression—five laps on each of Mladin’s American Superbikespec GSX-RlOOOs—of how Superbikes have changed since the Daytona Motorsports Group implemented new, stricter class rules.
Back in 2005,1 rode Miguel Duhamel’s AMA Superbike-spec Honda CBR1000RR. The French-Canadian’s factory-built machine was as intimidating and potent as anything I’ve ever ridden. That includes the works Honda RC211V of Dani Pedrosa that I rode at the end of the 2006 MotoGP season at the Circuito de la Comunitat Valenciana in Spain.
Not the case here. To begin with, Mladin’s motorcycles were perfectly set up for my 5-foot-11 frame, with brake and clutch levers, beefy motocross-style footpegs and thick seat pad ideally placed. Better yet, Mladin ran a street shift pattern— one down, five up. The first of the two machines I rode turned much more quickly than the semi-street-legal, 176horsepower Yoshimura Suzuki GSXR1000 that I had ridden a few months earlier at the same location (“Stealth Superbike,” November, 2009). The second bike had a different fork offset, for more stability and slightly slower steering, which provided some indication of how dramatically the chassis can be changed to meet the demands of different racetracks.
“I liked my suspension hard most of the time, but setup varied at each track,” Mladin told me. “I never believed in the magic setup. I always set it up to go as fast as possible at each track.”
Personally, I preferred the latter configuration because I was able to adapt more quickly to it during my limited time on the track. Suspension settings were firm, yet the Öhlins cartridge-equipped fork and premium TTX shock offered excellent damping characteristics, smoothing sections of the track where I had previously struggled with a stock, headand taillight-equipped streetbike.
What was the biggest difference for Mladin between the ’09 GSX-R and his personal favorite, the 2005-06 model? “I think the biggest effect on me was dealing mentally with racing a glorified streetbike with a stock fork, etc.,” he said. “I just never got excited about it. It was a completely different bike, and I never really came to terms with it—purely because I didn’t enjoy riding it.”
Me? I couldn’t complain. Power delivery, fuel/ignition mapping and the bike’s traction-control intervention were all set up perfectly. Revs built in an absolutely linear manner, which made controlling power easier. While the Suzuki didn’t feel anywhere near as powerful as Duhamel’s Honda, acceleration out of the tight second-gear comer that leads onto Cal Speedway’s back straight was very strong; front-straight banking speed was awesome. A light tug on the handlebars was all that was necessary to loft the front wheel in the lower gears.
Even more impressive was the stability that the bike showed when transitioning from the infield to the superspeedway. I was able to keep the throttle pinned without experiencing any of the headshake I’d felt on other bikes at that same spot on the track. It was a lot of fun, in other words. For a rider of Mladin’s caliber, however, new class rules robbed the bike of some of the excitement—and skill-—required to effectively pilot a “Superbike.”
“A couple of times, I had some good rides on that bike,” admitted Mladin. “But mostly, I just sort of rode around.
I just never got into it. If I had been racing Ben Spies, I would have gone a lot faster.” —Blake Conner
