Well since I last wrote we’ve still been pretty busy, after Road America we all had a few days off before a test in Virginia, we had a little Barbie at my apartment and a few of the boys came over with the wives and we had a little drink, not too much, but enough that we have some photos of Reg, Johnny and Katsu (Yates engine builder) doing the full Monty, not a good look I can tell you.

We headed of to Virginia, the site of the second last race of the year and a circuit that has a bit of everything, it is pretty safe and in general is a very good facility. By the way a good facility over here means it has flushing dunnies and a lot less concrete walls compared to the other tracks. It doesn’t mean it has garages on pit lane or anything out of the ordinary like that. You wouldn’t believe it, but it pissed down rain for most of the test, we had 3 days scheduled and stayed on for a 4th, but it rained every day, and when it didn’t, water was coming up through the cracks in the pavement, in all we got about 2 good hours of track time in 4 days.

This has definitely been the year of crap weather over here; I think that makes 12 shitty test days out of 13 now. On a positive note though, I top scored in the ten pin bowling competition in all 3 normal games. Funny part was I still lost money due to the Mladin handicap system. It was an Aussie competition with Mat and Janine, Reg, Jamie Stauffer, Marty Craggill and myself taking part. Basically Jamie sucked but was coming good at the end, and Marty is the only guy who bowled better with his left hand than his normal right (but sucked with both). The non-racers were the standouts with Reg and Janine also giving the riders a flogging.

Brainerd was the next stop, up in Minnesota, and it has one of the fastest straights anywhere in the world, 2nd gear onto the straight and then full noise for 1.5 km then down 1 gear for what must be the fastest turn in road racing at present. Our data indicates 240 kph in the slowest part of the turn. Mat was straight on the pace in the first session and was consistently half a second faster than anyone all through practice. In the race Mat and Aaron Yates went straight to the lead and pulled away from the field at about half a second a lap.

Mat had just started to pull away from Aaron and had just got the gap out to 1 second when the rear tyre started to vibrate. He kept going for another lap then just after Aaron passed him the tyre came apart coming out of turn 2, a 5th gear left hander. Mat limped back to the pits and we threw a new tyre in and he went back out in 18th position. We ended up 7th at the finish however it was disappointing for everyone as it looked like all weekend that Mat would win comfortably. Aaron won the race and with Eric Bostrom finishing 5th, the championship now sees the top 5 covered by only 20 points. Speaking of Eric, he’s been whining that his bikes not as fast as the others, however when we seen our radar times on the longest straight in the country guess who’s bike was that fastest? Yep poor old Eric could only muster a 189MPH (304kph) out of his turd.

Next stop was Laguna for the combined AMA & WSB race. Suzuki wanted Mat and Aaron in both events so we had to build a 3rd bike for each rider in FIM spec, as you can imagine some of the boys have had their rings hanging out. The weekend turned out pretty good overall, Mat was actually fastest in every practice and qualifying for both AMA and WSB classes and won the AMA race on Saturday fairly easy.

Mat headed the 1st WSB race for 5 or 6 laps before fading back to 4th, he was knackered by about half way and the 4 days of riding were taking their toll, so we opted out of the 2nd race. Doing both classes is definitely a tough ask of anyone especially when it’s hot like at Laguna and at this level of competition. On Saturday alone Mat did 99 laps of practice and racing and was the only guy who ran in the 1 min 25 sec bracket every time he went out.

Anyway, Mat won the important race for us (AMA) and moved back into the Championship lead for about the 3rd time this year. Yatesy made it a Suzuki 1-2 and he is still in the hunt for the championship. Yatesy was pretty quick in WSB as well but tossed it down the road in both races, he still got a sixth in the first race though after the re-start.

The other championship hopeful had a bit of a shocker, and not just on the track. Eric Bostrom picked up a 3rd in the AMA race but Yatesy took him out (and about 5 others) in the first turn of the WSB race and he may have an injured shoulder. The worst I felt for him though was due to his theme for the weekend. He had these poxy white and orange leathers and was calling himself the “General E” I think it was. After ignoring this for a while I couldn’t help myself and I had to find out what all this “General E” crap was about. It turns out that he was doing this as a tribute to the “Dukes of Hazard”. You know that stupid television show from 20 years ago with the rednecks and hillbillies driving round in an orange shitbox (ED: Careful Peter, that was a Dodge Charger, a vehicle very close to my heart). After picking myself up of the ground from laughing so hard I couldn’t help looking at him and feeling sorry for him, he is nearing 30 after all.

We have been back at the workshop in Chino preparing for the next trip away, our trucks headed off to Ohio for our next race. The Mid Ohio circuit is again a nice layout, but the track surface really sucks. The tracks around 3.9km, fairly technical, very bumpy and a little dangerous. It does have flushing dunnies and garages though; while the garages are not on pit lane it’s still a bonus not having to put the canopies up on our trucks.

From Ohio we head to a new circuit in Alabama called Barber for a 3 day test, I’ve heard it’s pretty nice but I’ll wait until I’ve seen it with my own eyes before I comment. From there we go back to Virginia for a 2-day test, and then down to Daytona for a 3-day Dunlop tyre test. Then we head back to Virginia for the race at the end of August.

A bit of news is that Mat has signed up with Suzuki for another 2 years, which is great news for Yoshimura Suzuki and the AMA series. He’s already the all time pole position winner in AMA Superbike history, is 2nd and closing fast on 1st as the all time Superbike race winner and if he can win the championship this year will be equal 1st for championship wins, not a bad record. I'll catch up with you again after Ohio and try and fill you in on the other Aussies performances.

PD

Mat Mladin and the 2003 GSX-R1000 look the ones to beat this year in American Superbike