34X34: Daytona, Suzuka & Five Pairs Of Socks
by kevin schwantz
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
While in Daytona I did the HoF breakfast. I have the ring to show for it.
image by a camera
Here is my Daytona column.
First off, I guess I still don't understand why the Daytona 200 is the week after Supercross. Supercross seemed to help keep some people in the stands on race day Saturday. Someone said that the fan crowd for the autograph signing was well down. They signed 20 or 30 autographs, I guess. To me, it seemed kind of an empty weekend all weekend. With the exception of having to leave early to beat the crowd out of the dirt track, it never really was the situation here in the big track, anyway.
But besides that, at least we had great weather. I think we all watched the Supercross on TV last weekend and thought, "Whew, I guess actually we're kind of glad we're not here with them." But nice weather at Daytona this weekend.
A couple of crashes early on, Garrett Gerloff probably the one big injury that everybody's kind of distraught about. He's really young and seems to have a great future ahead of him, so everybody's hoping that he gets that femur fixed and gets back to racing. I'd suggest maybe go ahead and let it heal, don't try and get back as quick as you possibly can. I hope Garrett's doing well.
I'll start off with Supersport. The first day, almost 50 riders in the class. Fifty qualified. To me, that's a big, big improvement from where they were with last year's class. I think we had just over 20 down here last year. It kind of floated around that mark, maybe just got to 30 at a couple of events last season. Obviously the class sparked some interest, and it's good to see a bunch of young kids who've been around for a while, Red Bull Rookies' Cup kids, and kids who have come from other forms of racing, practicing their road racing skills, and doing a good job of it. I was a bit concerned that 50 bikes on the track at once might be kind of a recipe for disaster, but the kids rode like pros.
We had a couple of red flags over the weekend. But for the most part, nothing too serious with that many bikes on the track in a class that's got racers that new, coming to a place like Daytona.
The pressure that's always here at Daytona for a rider is immense. I don't think it ever gets any different, whether it's your first time at Daytona, whether it's your 20th or 30th time. I think you go out to race, and when you pull up onto the banking, you realize that you're on the banks of Daytona. It's pretty special.
In Supersport, James Rispoli with the win on Friday, but Elena Myers, who finished sixth, rode really well all weekend. I think she got muscled around a little bit those last couple of laps and just wasn't in the right position to get a good draft to the line. She was still only 0.7 second back from the win overall, so it wasn't a long ways back. But when it's that close racing, sixth or seventh doesn't really sound all that impressive. I think on Saturday the group was a little bit smaller, I think she knew a little bit more what to expect, and she played her cards just right. Rispoli had a little bit of trouble late in the race; I don't know exactly what happened to him, he drifted back to fourth. Hayden Gillim didn't look to have the motor that Elena had, and Cory Alexander being as big a kid as he is, I think he was going to really struggle to get in her draft and do much with her. She led out of the chicane, which for us isn't ever the right thing to do, but she'd obviously tested and realized that she had as good a chance winning it from the front as she did from anywhere else.
People have asked me about Elena. The lap times that she's doing and the group that she's racing with, she's obviously a really good rider. I think physically, we'd always think that maybe it's going to be something that a girl physically can't endure, a ten-lap race, at Daytona not as physical as most tracks, more about the overall speed of the bike. I think Elena's going to do well. Whether she's ever going to become a dominant force in 600 Supersport or Daytona Sport Bike racing has yet to be seen, but I think Daytona 2012 was a big step forward for her, and I think it's going to give her a lot of confidence going in. The boys probably need to worry about her a little bit, especially some of the longer, faster tracks.
Cory Alexander, I think, probably as impressive as anybody all weekend long. Second on Saturday, fifth on Friday. Hayden Gillim, a little bit of a struggle the first day, he was eighth - third on Saturday. All those kids are kids that I've known, kids that I've worked with. Both Rookies' Cup kids, actually. Miles Thornton, a much better fifth on Saturday than the 13th that he finished on Friday. So a really good mix of kids. Forty-nine people qualified, 46 started the race, 41 finished the race. I think that's great. That shows a lot of promise for that class. And hopefully, once again, shows some real promise for the future of American roadracing. If we can get some of these kids up and really rolling on these 600s and get them on Moto2 bikes or some kind of national championship in Europe where they can start learning some of the European tracks that the World Championship events go to, we might have a good enough crop of American kids right now that we'll be seeing some stars and stripes waving again in some of the smaller classes in Grand Prix racing.
Friday's Superbike race was very processional behind Josh Hayes. His teammate, Josh Herrin, got a really good start. He maybe kind of held Blake and Josh Hayes up for the best part of the first lap; I think Hayes and Blake both went by him after that. I think Blake just relaxed a little bit knowing that he was right there with Josh at the end of the first lap, and that's normally when Josh does most of his damage. With that, I think he got around to the banking and expected to be able to run up in the draft of Josh Hayes as he did last year, but Yamaha's done a bunch of work. The bike's got some legs on it this year. I think Blake was just a bit unprepared. Not quite ready for everything. A few little issues with the motorcycle, a few little things he complained about that they worked on, made some changes, some adjustments to the bike.
Saturday's Superbike race was kind of what we expected out of Friday. Blake came out on the top, but not by much. I think that's a lot of what we're going to see the rest of the season. I think Josh Herrin did a great job on Saturday, especially. A crash on Friday, a hole in the case, and then a mechanical ... probably not the way you want to start your first year in the Superbike championship but it'll get better. I'm sure there is a lot of pressure there, but we saw in morning warm-up, he and Roger Lee both, just as fast as Josh Hayes.
Blake had to work pretty hard. They had to really drop the pace from Friday to Saturday, to eliminate Roger and Josh Herrin from the equation.
On Friday, Hayes did four laps in the :37s, I think the first four laps, and then he backed down. He had a pretty good gap on Blake. On Saturday, I think lap 10 and lap 13, Blake did :37s. It was a whole lot faster race. The Suzuki didn't find any more top speed overnight, but we got the bike to handle and do a few things that Blake needs it to do a bit better. Hopefully we can be a big fight for the championship. I think last year was just a preview of what's to come this season.
I think we saw at the end of last season that Roger Lee Hayden really progressed a lot. He'd really gotten comfortable on that Superbike. The Jordan guys have kind of taken him and made him the top man on the team now, and Bostrom's now the man who's riding to prove himself. Rog was fast in practice and he was almost as fast as Blake all weekend. In the short little warm-up we had on Saturday morning, he was faster than anybody. He was top of the sheet. Daytona's one of those places that it's always tough to come to and find that speed.
Chris Clark, first time on a Yoshimura Suzuki at Daytona - not a great result on Friday, but he had some kind of electronic glitch, something that failed, that hadn't failed on that bike in a couple of years. It was a tough day for him. But to finish sixth on Sat, he made progress, consistency in his lap times. Hopefully we'll see some bigger and better things from him when we get to a track where maybe he's been before, maybe he's got a little better feel for, something that's more of a proper racetrack.
And finally, Daytona Sport Bike, the Daytona 200. I was looking at the lap sheet, and except for pit stops, it doesn't look like anyone ever had a lead of over a second. Three thousandths. One tenth. Under a tenth. Under a tenth. Under a tenth. All the way to the first pit stops, Westby leading it by 8.7, and then 19.8, until he pitted. Cameron led it by 1.2 for a lap, and then back in. Cameron Beaubier, Joey Pascarella, once again two kids who have been Red Bull Rookies' Cup competitors, showed some real stamina, and some real staying power in a class that's got a lot of talent and a lot of experience, as well.
Probably the coolest thing about it all is Perry Melneciuc winning it on an unbranded motorcycle, with Joey Pascarella, who I guess didn't have much going until the last minute when Perry got something put together. It seemed like the factory, Graves Yamaha, had a real opportunity to win. An unfortunate crash kept Garrett Gerloff from being there. And then Tommy Hayden coming in to fill in, having missed a whole day of practice, wasn't an easy thing for him to do, and for him to come in and get eighth place points of it, not finish too far out of the picture, I think shows that Tommy's still got some real drive and some real motivation left, which I think is more than anything what you need, especially in that class. And hopefully a bike that's got some good power to it, as well.
Early on, Aquino, Beaubier, Pascarella, MartÃn Cárdenas, DiSalvo a little bit of an issue early on and had to come from back a little bit, 12th or 13th, after starting from the front row. And then about midway through that first stint, before the first scheduled pit stop, he kind of sat up, rode straight through the chicane, slowed down a little bit. From what I heard, he thought he had a vibration. Watching him ride in, he must've given away 10 or 15 or 20 seconds riding around slowly. The Triumph guys pitted the thing, started it up, said it sounded fine, put some tires on it, put some fuel in it, and off he went. Having pitted as early as he did, I'm kind of surprised that he was able to get back into the equation without having to make an extra stop at the end. Obviously the 19 lap stint is not a real big challenge as far as fuel goes. With the race being 57 laps, that's what you've got to do to make it work out mathematically, to be close on fuel. For DiSalvo to have come back from as far as he did was impressive.
Dane Westby was a threat to win the race all day long until his last pit stop. A little bit of a clump of wheel weight on the exact wrong part of the wheel as they stuck it on the stand, restricted the wheel from coming out, and then having hit the caliper so hard coming out, it knocked the pads sideways. What they had to do was get back in and open the pads back up. So a tough day for Dane. The rest of the guys just seemed, as the first pit stops went through, they came back out and it was basically Cameron and MartÃn and Pascarella. DiSalvo was obviously still back there doing some decent lap times, trying to close the gap up.
The second stop comes. Westby finally made his way back, and then he has a real drama in the second pit stop, that stopped him from even being a contender in the race. I think in the end he was 44 seconds back. The first lap out after that pit stop he was about 29 seconds back, and I think as a rider that kind of just demoralizes you, when you realize the front's so far gone, that unless a caution comes out, there's no real reason to push. Just try and keep everybody behind you that's behind you. And as it all came down to the end, Pascarella and Beaubier looked as if they had the race to settle between themselves. Cardenas was slowly pecking away, and meanwhile, DiSalvo, from 12 seconds back after the last stop, is just hammering down getting there. The Triumph obviously has some pretty good speed. I think his team said Martin had several pretty interesting words to use talking about the speed when he first rode with it. But all four ended up bunched back together at the end. A backmarker in their way on the last lap going into the chicane, all focusing on that last drive out, I think disrupted things just a little bit.
There was another backmarker just before the finish line that I think helped Pascarella a little bit with the draft, to keep him clear of DiSalvo, who was less than a tenth behind at the finish. Cardenas got the short end of the stick there, and Beaubier snuck in and finished third. I think they had the same time, Beaubier and Cardenas.
It was a good to see. I think a lot of the kids who did well in Supersport last year have stepped up. Cameron's one of them. Pascarella's another one of them. Pascarella never really had a good steady ride that was real reliable last year. This year, being on Perry's bike seemed to suit him well. Perry seems to have a ton of confidence in the kid, too. You get an event like Daytona this under your belt, the momentum can take you to great places. I won the Daytona 200 on a Superbike in '88, and went on two weeks later to win my first 500cc Grand Prix.
So hopefully big things to come from Pascarella and the guys at Project 1 Atlanta.
Going back through the field a little bit, Tommy Hayden up to 8th. Tommy Aquino, new team, 9th place, right there in the mix. Of the non-finishers, Austin DeHaven, Benny Solis, Huntley Nash, a couple of guys who qualified really well, looked as if they were on equipment that was going to do really well - I don't know exactly what happened to them. It'll be interesting to see, as the season progresses, where the talent pool in Daytona Sport Bike goes to, because I think between Supersport and Daytona Sport Bike, we've got a bunch of kids under the age of 20 that have some world-class ability. We've just got to try and get them headed in the right direction, get them off to try and conquer the world. That's what you want to go try and do, is be the best in whatever class or whatever type of racing it is that you choose.
Not to take anything away from AMA, but the MotoGP World Championship right now is the pinnacle of the sport, by far. World Superbike has got some great competition, as we saw at the first round at Phillip Island.
It's good to have racing back going, I know that. I'm really looking forward to the first round of MotoGP.
I went to Suzuka two weeks ago for the 50th anniversary of the track. The track was built in 1962, and the first Grand Prix motorcycle race to go there was in '87, and Randy Mamola won that. It was a wet race and he won it on a Team Roberts Lucky Strike Yamaha. In '88, I went there and won. It was always a track that, I don't know, I always liked a lot. I did a lot of Eight-Hours and never won one of those, but it was always a track that I liked the layout of. It was fast and flowing and challenging and maybe a little bit on the dangerous side, so you kind of had to really not care, and want to win really bad and not look at the guardrails and pay too much attention to what was there that could confront you if there was an issue.
I got to do a couple laps this year. they have updated the track a bit. The first turn, second turn, they've moved all the guardrails back. You can see through all that. It used to be almost like you were kind of riding through a tunnel. Now you've got so much more vision, corner to corner. I still don't know that it's safe enough for MotoGP, and I don't really know about the section where, I guess the biggest problem that they had with MotoGP was off the back straightaway, that R130 at the top. It's paved out into the gravel now, and they're saying that's just about taken any accidents away that they used to have in that corner for motorcycles. People go in too hot now, and they just kind of ride out onto the concrete and they pull back on. But I think it's off the left side of the track there, where Kato got killed. I didn't really pay that much attention to it, as I said. I got to do one lap on Saturday and one lap on Sunday, so I didn't really have a big opportunity to scan the place.
They had beautiful weather at Suzuka. I heard the estimate was 45,000 people in attendance. Grandstands completely full. Myself, Wayne Gardner, his son Remy, who tested a Moto 3 bike on Monday and Tuesday, were there and many other. And tons of Japanese riders. Current, retired, a bunch of old F1 cars. Formula Nippon is the class that they currently race there - they look just like F1 cars. I don't think they're quite as fast or quite as advanced, but they actually did a race on Sunday, and it was very interesting to watch, because Takuma Sato was one of the drivers. He and two other guys that race Formula Nippon all the time just scrapped in absolute pissing down rain. Absolutely throwing it down. I was on the edge of my seat watching it. They weren't passing just playing. They were passing, a couple of times, one guy would pass the other, maybe got a little sideways, maybe lost a little down force, and it was great, "Oh, sh*t, he's not going to get it gathered up," right out to the edge of the track.
So it was fun. It was fairly well organized, as is normal for so much Japanese stuff. But they had us doing interviews in a certain place, and autographs in a certain place, and pit lane walks, and signing autographs out there, interviews with the media, and so on and so forth. It kind of reminded me about how chaotic it used to be, getting from the hotel at Suzuka to the garage area, and after the race.
It was a lot of fun, and it also gave me a chance to go by and visit with Suzuki. I talked with them a little bit about what their plans are for racing. Hopefully we'll get to see the big "S" back in Grand Prix competition sooner instead of later. Lots of talking going on, anyway. It's interesting to hear that they're so interested in what I think about what's going on in racing, and what I think they should do, and how they should do it. For me, that's kind of the big exciting point of the trip.
Admittedly, RS Taichi does make really nice socks ...
image by the three and the four
I got to play golf with the guys from RS Taichi, and I finally got to confront them on the non-payment of my contract in '92 which made me switch leather companies. They talked and talked and talked when they found out I was coming over, and asked that I please come spend the day and play golf. And I thought, "You know what? They really are going to do it. They're going to come good on what I doubted they'd do."
In the end I got five pair of Taichi socks and a Japanese dinner, is it. And a round of golf. And told, "Sorry, not my responsibility." And not, "So sorry, no, we can't do it." Just, "Come to the shop, sign some autographs for all our staff."
It was looking good with the invite and all the VIPs there. I was thinking, "This is going to be good, there must be a car or something waiting for me. There's got to be something!" So I stayed a whole extra day on Tuesday to go spend the entire day with them. For some socks. I might post a picture so you can see what $40,000 socks look like.
The Suzuka event was a lot of fun. I was glad I went. They had one of my Pepsi Suzukis there. It sat on the stage beside me when I did my interviews, but it didn't run. A lot of memories with that bike.
When I did ride at Suzuka, I rode last year's Yoshimura Eight-Hour bike for the two laps that I did. Riding it has kind of got a little fire burning again, that maybe I'll go back again and ride the Eight-Hour. So. More to come? Stay tuned.
by kevin schwantz
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
While in Daytona I did the HoF breakfast. I have the ring to show for it.
image by a camera
Here is my Daytona column.
First off, I guess I still don't understand why the Daytona 200 is the week after Supercross. Supercross seemed to help keep some people in the stands on race day Saturday. Someone said that the fan crowd for the autograph signing was well down. They signed 20 or 30 autographs, I guess. To me, it seemed kind of an empty weekend all weekend. With the exception of having to leave early to beat the crowd out of the dirt track, it never really was the situation here in the big track, anyway.
But besides that, at least we had great weather. I think we all watched the Supercross on TV last weekend and thought, "Whew, I guess actually we're kind of glad we're not here with them." But nice weather at Daytona this weekend.
A couple of crashes early on, Garrett Gerloff probably the one big injury that everybody's kind of distraught about. He's really young and seems to have a great future ahead of him, so everybody's hoping that he gets that femur fixed and gets back to racing. I'd suggest maybe go ahead and let it heal, don't try and get back as quick as you possibly can. I hope Garrett's doing well.
I'll start off with Supersport. The first day, almost 50 riders in the class. Fifty qualified. To me, that's a big, big improvement from where they were with last year's class. I think we had just over 20 down here last year. It kind of floated around that mark, maybe just got to 30 at a couple of events last season. Obviously the class sparked some interest, and it's good to see a bunch of young kids who've been around for a while, Red Bull Rookies' Cup kids, and kids who have come from other forms of racing, practicing their road racing skills, and doing a good job of it. I was a bit concerned that 50 bikes on the track at once might be kind of a recipe for disaster, but the kids rode like pros.
We had a couple of red flags over the weekend. But for the most part, nothing too serious with that many bikes on the track in a class that's got racers that new, coming to a place like Daytona.
The pressure that's always here at Daytona for a rider is immense. I don't think it ever gets any different, whether it's your first time at Daytona, whether it's your 20th or 30th time. I think you go out to race, and when you pull up onto the banking, you realize that you're on the banks of Daytona. It's pretty special.
In Supersport, James Rispoli with the win on Friday, but Elena Myers, who finished sixth, rode really well all weekend. I think she got muscled around a little bit those last couple of laps and just wasn't in the right position to get a good draft to the line. She was still only 0.7 second back from the win overall, so it wasn't a long ways back. But when it's that close racing, sixth or seventh doesn't really sound all that impressive. I think on Saturday the group was a little bit smaller, I think she knew a little bit more what to expect, and she played her cards just right. Rispoli had a little bit of trouble late in the race; I don't know exactly what happened to him, he drifted back to fourth. Hayden Gillim didn't look to have the motor that Elena had, and Cory Alexander being as big a kid as he is, I think he was going to really struggle to get in her draft and do much with her. She led out of the chicane, which for us isn't ever the right thing to do, but she'd obviously tested and realized that she had as good a chance winning it from the front as she did from anywhere else.
People have asked me about Elena. The lap times that she's doing and the group that she's racing with, she's obviously a really good rider. I think physically, we'd always think that maybe it's going to be something that a girl physically can't endure, a ten-lap race, at Daytona not as physical as most tracks, more about the overall speed of the bike. I think Elena's going to do well. Whether she's ever going to become a dominant force in 600 Supersport or Daytona Sport Bike racing has yet to be seen, but I think Daytona 2012 was a big step forward for her, and I think it's going to give her a lot of confidence going in. The boys probably need to worry about her a little bit, especially some of the longer, faster tracks.
Cory Alexander, I think, probably as impressive as anybody all weekend long. Second on Saturday, fifth on Friday. Hayden Gillim, a little bit of a struggle the first day, he was eighth - third on Saturday. All those kids are kids that I've known, kids that I've worked with. Both Rookies' Cup kids, actually. Miles Thornton, a much better fifth on Saturday than the 13th that he finished on Friday. So a really good mix of kids. Forty-nine people qualified, 46 started the race, 41 finished the race. I think that's great. That shows a lot of promise for that class. And hopefully, once again, shows some real promise for the future of American roadracing. If we can get some of these kids up and really rolling on these 600s and get them on Moto2 bikes or some kind of national championship in Europe where they can start learning some of the European tracks that the World Championship events go to, we might have a good enough crop of American kids right now that we'll be seeing some stars and stripes waving again in some of the smaller classes in Grand Prix racing.
Friday's Superbike race was very processional behind Josh Hayes. His teammate, Josh Herrin, got a really good start. He maybe kind of held Blake and Josh Hayes up for the best part of the first lap; I think Hayes and Blake both went by him after that. I think Blake just relaxed a little bit knowing that he was right there with Josh at the end of the first lap, and that's normally when Josh does most of his damage. With that, I think he got around to the banking and expected to be able to run up in the draft of Josh Hayes as he did last year, but Yamaha's done a bunch of work. The bike's got some legs on it this year. I think Blake was just a bit unprepared. Not quite ready for everything. A few little issues with the motorcycle, a few little things he complained about that they worked on, made some changes, some adjustments to the bike.
Saturday's Superbike race was kind of what we expected out of Friday. Blake came out on the top, but not by much. I think that's a lot of what we're going to see the rest of the season. I think Josh Herrin did a great job on Saturday, especially. A crash on Friday, a hole in the case, and then a mechanical ... probably not the way you want to start your first year in the Superbike championship but it'll get better. I'm sure there is a lot of pressure there, but we saw in morning warm-up, he and Roger Lee both, just as fast as Josh Hayes.
Blake had to work pretty hard. They had to really drop the pace from Friday to Saturday, to eliminate Roger and Josh Herrin from the equation.
On Friday, Hayes did four laps in the :37s, I think the first four laps, and then he backed down. He had a pretty good gap on Blake. On Saturday, I think lap 10 and lap 13, Blake did :37s. It was a whole lot faster race. The Suzuki didn't find any more top speed overnight, but we got the bike to handle and do a few things that Blake needs it to do a bit better. Hopefully we can be a big fight for the championship. I think last year was just a preview of what's to come this season.
I think we saw at the end of last season that Roger Lee Hayden really progressed a lot. He'd really gotten comfortable on that Superbike. The Jordan guys have kind of taken him and made him the top man on the team now, and Bostrom's now the man who's riding to prove himself. Rog was fast in practice and he was almost as fast as Blake all weekend. In the short little warm-up we had on Saturday morning, he was faster than anybody. He was top of the sheet. Daytona's one of those places that it's always tough to come to and find that speed.
Chris Clark, first time on a Yoshimura Suzuki at Daytona - not a great result on Friday, but he had some kind of electronic glitch, something that failed, that hadn't failed on that bike in a couple of years. It was a tough day for him. But to finish sixth on Sat, he made progress, consistency in his lap times. Hopefully we'll see some bigger and better things from him when we get to a track where maybe he's been before, maybe he's got a little better feel for, something that's more of a proper racetrack.
And finally, Daytona Sport Bike, the Daytona 200. I was looking at the lap sheet, and except for pit stops, it doesn't look like anyone ever had a lead of over a second. Three thousandths. One tenth. Under a tenth. Under a tenth. Under a tenth. All the way to the first pit stops, Westby leading it by 8.7, and then 19.8, until he pitted. Cameron led it by 1.2 for a lap, and then back in. Cameron Beaubier, Joey Pascarella, once again two kids who have been Red Bull Rookies' Cup competitors, showed some real stamina, and some real staying power in a class that's got a lot of talent and a lot of experience, as well.
Probably the coolest thing about it all is Perry Melneciuc winning it on an unbranded motorcycle, with Joey Pascarella, who I guess didn't have much going until the last minute when Perry got something put together. It seemed like the factory, Graves Yamaha, had a real opportunity to win. An unfortunate crash kept Garrett Gerloff from being there. And then Tommy Hayden coming in to fill in, having missed a whole day of practice, wasn't an easy thing for him to do, and for him to come in and get eighth place points of it, not finish too far out of the picture, I think shows that Tommy's still got some real drive and some real motivation left, which I think is more than anything what you need, especially in that class. And hopefully a bike that's got some good power to it, as well.
Early on, Aquino, Beaubier, Pascarella, MartÃn Cárdenas, DiSalvo a little bit of an issue early on and had to come from back a little bit, 12th or 13th, after starting from the front row. And then about midway through that first stint, before the first scheduled pit stop, he kind of sat up, rode straight through the chicane, slowed down a little bit. From what I heard, he thought he had a vibration. Watching him ride in, he must've given away 10 or 15 or 20 seconds riding around slowly. The Triumph guys pitted the thing, started it up, said it sounded fine, put some tires on it, put some fuel in it, and off he went. Having pitted as early as he did, I'm kind of surprised that he was able to get back into the equation without having to make an extra stop at the end. Obviously the 19 lap stint is not a real big challenge as far as fuel goes. With the race being 57 laps, that's what you've got to do to make it work out mathematically, to be close on fuel. For DiSalvo to have come back from as far as he did was impressive.
Dane Westby was a threat to win the race all day long until his last pit stop. A little bit of a clump of wheel weight on the exact wrong part of the wheel as they stuck it on the stand, restricted the wheel from coming out, and then having hit the caliper so hard coming out, it knocked the pads sideways. What they had to do was get back in and open the pads back up. So a tough day for Dane. The rest of the guys just seemed, as the first pit stops went through, they came back out and it was basically Cameron and MartÃn and Pascarella. DiSalvo was obviously still back there doing some decent lap times, trying to close the gap up.
The second stop comes. Westby finally made his way back, and then he has a real drama in the second pit stop, that stopped him from even being a contender in the race. I think in the end he was 44 seconds back. The first lap out after that pit stop he was about 29 seconds back, and I think as a rider that kind of just demoralizes you, when you realize the front's so far gone, that unless a caution comes out, there's no real reason to push. Just try and keep everybody behind you that's behind you. And as it all came down to the end, Pascarella and Beaubier looked as if they had the race to settle between themselves. Cardenas was slowly pecking away, and meanwhile, DiSalvo, from 12 seconds back after the last stop, is just hammering down getting there. The Triumph obviously has some pretty good speed. I think his team said Martin had several pretty interesting words to use talking about the speed when he first rode with it. But all four ended up bunched back together at the end. A backmarker in their way on the last lap going into the chicane, all focusing on that last drive out, I think disrupted things just a little bit.
There was another backmarker just before the finish line that I think helped Pascarella a little bit with the draft, to keep him clear of DiSalvo, who was less than a tenth behind at the finish. Cardenas got the short end of the stick there, and Beaubier snuck in and finished third. I think they had the same time, Beaubier and Cardenas.
It was a good to see. I think a lot of the kids who did well in Supersport last year have stepped up. Cameron's one of them. Pascarella's another one of them. Pascarella never really had a good steady ride that was real reliable last year. This year, being on Perry's bike seemed to suit him well. Perry seems to have a ton of confidence in the kid, too. You get an event like Daytona this under your belt, the momentum can take you to great places. I won the Daytona 200 on a Superbike in '88, and went on two weeks later to win my first 500cc Grand Prix.
So hopefully big things to come from Pascarella and the guys at Project 1 Atlanta.
Going back through the field a little bit, Tommy Hayden up to 8th. Tommy Aquino, new team, 9th place, right there in the mix. Of the non-finishers, Austin DeHaven, Benny Solis, Huntley Nash, a couple of guys who qualified really well, looked as if they were on equipment that was going to do really well - I don't know exactly what happened to them. It'll be interesting to see, as the season progresses, where the talent pool in Daytona Sport Bike goes to, because I think between Supersport and Daytona Sport Bike, we've got a bunch of kids under the age of 20 that have some world-class ability. We've just got to try and get them headed in the right direction, get them off to try and conquer the world. That's what you want to go try and do, is be the best in whatever class or whatever type of racing it is that you choose.
Not to take anything away from AMA, but the MotoGP World Championship right now is the pinnacle of the sport, by far. World Superbike has got some great competition, as we saw at the first round at Phillip Island.
It's good to have racing back going, I know that. I'm really looking forward to the first round of MotoGP.
I went to Suzuka two weeks ago for the 50th anniversary of the track. The track was built in 1962, and the first Grand Prix motorcycle race to go there was in '87, and Randy Mamola won that. It was a wet race and he won it on a Team Roberts Lucky Strike Yamaha. In '88, I went there and won. It was always a track that, I don't know, I always liked a lot. I did a lot of Eight-Hours and never won one of those, but it was always a track that I liked the layout of. It was fast and flowing and challenging and maybe a little bit on the dangerous side, so you kind of had to really not care, and want to win really bad and not look at the guardrails and pay too much attention to what was there that could confront you if there was an issue.
I got to do a couple laps this year. they have updated the track a bit. The first turn, second turn, they've moved all the guardrails back. You can see through all that. It used to be almost like you were kind of riding through a tunnel. Now you've got so much more vision, corner to corner. I still don't know that it's safe enough for MotoGP, and I don't really know about the section where, I guess the biggest problem that they had with MotoGP was off the back straightaway, that R130 at the top. It's paved out into the gravel now, and they're saying that's just about taken any accidents away that they used to have in that corner for motorcycles. People go in too hot now, and they just kind of ride out onto the concrete and they pull back on. But I think it's off the left side of the track there, where Kato got killed. I didn't really pay that much attention to it, as I said. I got to do one lap on Saturday and one lap on Sunday, so I didn't really have a big opportunity to scan the place.
They had beautiful weather at Suzuka. I heard the estimate was 45,000 people in attendance. Grandstands completely full. Myself, Wayne Gardner, his son Remy, who tested a Moto 3 bike on Monday and Tuesday, were there and many other. And tons of Japanese riders. Current, retired, a bunch of old F1 cars. Formula Nippon is the class that they currently race there - they look just like F1 cars. I don't think they're quite as fast or quite as advanced, but they actually did a race on Sunday, and it was very interesting to watch, because Takuma Sato was one of the drivers. He and two other guys that race Formula Nippon all the time just scrapped in absolute pissing down rain. Absolutely throwing it down. I was on the edge of my seat watching it. They weren't passing just playing. They were passing, a couple of times, one guy would pass the other, maybe got a little sideways, maybe lost a little down force, and it was great, "Oh, sh*t, he's not going to get it gathered up," right out to the edge of the track.
So it was fun. It was fairly well organized, as is normal for so much Japanese stuff. But they had us doing interviews in a certain place, and autographs in a certain place, and pit lane walks, and signing autographs out there, interviews with the media, and so on and so forth. It kind of reminded me about how chaotic it used to be, getting from the hotel at Suzuka to the garage area, and after the race.
It was a lot of fun, and it also gave me a chance to go by and visit with Suzuki. I talked with them a little bit about what their plans are for racing. Hopefully we'll get to see the big "S" back in Grand Prix competition sooner instead of later. Lots of talking going on, anyway. It's interesting to hear that they're so interested in what I think about what's going on in racing, and what I think they should do, and how they should do it. For me, that's kind of the big exciting point of the trip.
Admittedly, RS Taichi does make really nice socks ...
image by the three and the four
I got to play golf with the guys from RS Taichi, and I finally got to confront them on the non-payment of my contract in '92 which made me switch leather companies. They talked and talked and talked when they found out I was coming over, and asked that I please come spend the day and play golf. And I thought, "You know what? They really are going to do it. They're going to come good on what I doubted they'd do."
In the end I got five pair of Taichi socks and a Japanese dinner, is it. And a round of golf. And told, "Sorry, not my responsibility." And not, "So sorry, no, we can't do it." Just, "Come to the shop, sign some autographs for all our staff."
It was looking good with the invite and all the VIPs there. I was thinking, "This is going to be good, there must be a car or something waiting for me. There's got to be something!" So I stayed a whole extra day on Tuesday to go spend the entire day with them. For some socks. I might post a picture so you can see what $40,000 socks look like.
The Suzuka event was a lot of fun. I was glad I went. They had one of my Pepsi Suzukis there. It sat on the stage beside me when I did my interviews, but it didn't run. A lot of memories with that bike.
When I did ride at Suzuka, I rode last year's Yoshimura Eight-Hour bike for the two laps that I did. Riding it has kind of got a little fire burning again, that maybe I'll go back again and ride the Eight-Hour. So. More to come? Stay tuned.
