Peter Doyle has been Mat Mladin's crew chief for many years now, the Australian duo have enjoyed incredible success together on American soil.

This week Peter dropped us a line to let us know how their season has gone thus far and also comments on a few other things in the AMA paddock.

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As you know we have a bike this year in the GSX-R1000 and also a new set of rules that have been introduced for 4 cylinder 1000cc machines.

We had our first run on the new bike at Daytona during the annual Dunlop tyre (tire over here) test last December. Unfortunately we lost two of the three scheduled days due to rain, not a good way to start with a totally new bike.

Suzuki decided that we should go Sepang Malaysia as they had a test scheduled there for their MotoGP team in January, this was a good move as we got 4 good days of testing in and learnt a lot about the new bike. We ran into 'Bargs' (Glenn MacDonald), 'Chucky' (Scott Breedin) and 'Pitty' (Andrew Pitt) who were testing there as well, so we got together for a beers and crapped on about the good old days.

We ran into Troy Bayliss as we were leaving and he seemed pretty happy with how things we're going for him with his new bike.

We headed back to the USA at the end of January for a couple of tests scheduled for Fontana and Laguna but again we lost a lot of time due to poor weather. Actually of the eight scheduled test days we had in the USA, only on one day did we enjoy what you would call good weather. So off to Daytona we went a little unsure of how competitive we would be against the other factory machines.

As it turned out we got our arses smacked by the big H who went 1,2,3 . There were some positives for our team with Aaron Yates a bit unlucky not to get on the rostrum when he had a run in with a lapper, and Ben Spies rode well in what was his first superbike race.

Mat was arguably the fastest guy at the track all week, we just couldn't keep tyres under him.  It was that bad that two of the tyres we used in the race were down to the construction cords.  A fast crash in practice didn't help matters either. It was also the start of the Mladin v Roberts war.

When Mat crashed in qualifying Roberts was on the provisional pole. Mat got back to the pits and onto his spare bike with about seven minutes to go in the session, when he went out Roberts went out behind him and sat there. Mat came down past the start finish under the paint at about half throttle and Roberts sat behind him doing the same thing. Mat wasn't too fussed about it but pointed out that if want give it out you'd better make sure you can take it. More on that later.

After Daytona we really needed to sort out a few problems if we were to make an impression at the next race, so we decided to skip a one day test at Sears Point and go to Fontana the scene of our next race for two days of testing, at around $10,000 USD a dollar a day mind you....

Suzuki sent out some engineers, Showa came up with some new suspension settings and Dunlop bought some different tyres.  It all paid off as Mat went on to blow everyone away in the races there.  Adding to that great result was the fact that Aaron (Yates) made it a 1-2 in the first race and Ben Spies won the FX race quite easily.

Predictably, some of the other factory teams got the shits and started complaining that the rules are no good. I guess they forgot what happened at Daytona 4 weeks before....

We had bit of a break between Fontana and Sears point and during that time two more  Aussies have joined the team.  Johnny Asher, who worked with Reg and myself in Europe and Australia some years ago, has started working with us over here while young Jamie Stauffer is riding the GSX-R600, first slated for Aaron Yates, for the rest of the season.

There are a few people around not happy about two more of "the Australians" working here, they seem to feel it's there country and they're series, probably a good thing that the management and the people who count don't think like that.

Then off to Sears we went.  That place makes Baskerville look very good and makes Broadford MX track look smooth.  We had to twiddle our thumb for two days due to poor weather yet again.  Sears is one of the many circuits in the USA that can't be ridden in the wet.  Finally on Sunday the boys managed to do a warm up and the grid was decided on championship points.  It was a bit like racing the way racing was 20 years ago, a one day event with no bullshit attached.

Mat hosed them again.  But it is not just machinery as if you get to see any of the footage it is simple to see that Mat is riding harder and better than anyone else out at the moment.  Of course, the opposition are still complaining about the rules being unfair we reckon the are full of it and frankly, we couldn't care less.

They had their chance to choose a bike but obviously the didn't consider it well enough.  Honda have factory supported Fireblades here, Yamaha the same with the R1s and Kawasaki have the ZX-9R, but they chose not to run them.  Suzuki had two bikes to choose from in the GSX-R750 which we could have big bored to 800cc under the rules or we could choose the new GSX-R1000.  Obviously Suzuki made the right decision. 

I think the biggest problem with the RC51 Honda is that they don't have Nicky Hayden riding it.

Enough for now, we are at Road Atlanta this weekend for a double-header and then have three meeting in the space of four weeks.  I will write something for mcnews.com.au again then.

Regards

Peter Doyle

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