- Scott Russell (Ducati) -
“I think we’re doing OK. You want to always be the fastest guy, but I realize we got some more to do and I’ve got more time than anybody on this particular bike. I was about fourth or fifth fastest so we’re right there in the hunt. I know what it takes to win on Sunday. Today, I’ll take it for what it’s worth and learn from it and come back tomorrow.” On winning the Rolex watch “I’m going for it, for sure. We got a little bit of work to do so I’m ready to put it on the line. Hopefully in the morning practice we’ll get there and the afternoon, we’ll get the
watch.”
- Eric Bostrom (Kawasaki) -
“I’m pretty disappointed right now. Things aren’t really going our way. Hopefully, tomorrow will be a new day. We’ve got to change a bunch of things on the bike basically. I just had some things that basically didn’t agree with
me.”
- Larry Pegram (Ducati) -
“This morning went well, but this afternoon kind of stunk. I crashed this afternoon. We’re kind of fighting the setup. We’re trying to find the setup like everybody else. I just front in Turn 1.” How bad was the damage? “Nothing we can’t fix. Just some body work.” Chances for the pole “Our chances for the pole are good. It went good this morning right away. We got a good setup, we just got to get it a little
better.”
- Steve Rapp (Ducati) -
“We can definitely go faster than that. As soon as you put on qualifying
tires, you can pretty much take a second off on most tracks. Everybody does it. It depends on the conditions. We need another day to set things up and we should be
good.” How’s your confidence at Daytona? “The more you ride, the more confident you get. But also we’re working off the same bike this year. I didn’t have to start over again like last year. When you’re not sure, it creates not confident. I feel confident on the bike and I making more decisions and I’m confident that they’re the right
ones.”
- Tommy Hayden (Yamaha) -
“I’m real happy. We had two different bikes with two different setups. We’re
kind of just sorting through that and through some tires. I feel right now we’ve got a pretty good setup. There’s still some other stuff we’re going to try to work through. We’re sitting third and it’s definitely good for the first day.” Chances for the pole “We’ll get through the morning and try to learn some more stuff. For sure, I’m going to go for
it.”
- Aaron Slight (Ducati) – Aaron Slight is racing at Daytona for the first time since 1993. The long-time World Superbike competitor is working on learning a new motorcycle and re-learning the Daytona International Speedway’s 3.56-mile road course. He spoke after his first session on the track Wednesday.
“Well, always when you come to Daytona it’s very daunting, it’s a very different track. I struggled this morning. The thing is you got to have
a very different set-up so we’re going to change the whole bike this afternoon and it should be a lot better. And you just need track miles. I finished fourth here in 1993 so it’s been a long time ago. “The track is about the same, but it does seem to be a little bumpier than it was the last time I was here, but it’s the same track and you have to use hard tires so… Knowledge is the answer here and the one’s with the knowledge go fast
here.” When asked if he’d made a decision yet on whether or not to race in America the rest of the season:
“We’re going to discuss my future plans here this weekend and decide what I’m going to do. The rest of the
year.”
- Jamie Hacking (Yamaha) -
“This morning Superbike went really well then things changed and it warmed up a bit and we had to change rubber around and we lost a good bit of grip. Overall I don’t have too much time on this bike yet. I’ll get it figured out. We tried a good bit of stuff this session so there’s something somewhere that we’re missing. I just need more time on the bike. I have no idea what the bike
does.”
- Nicky Hayden (Honda) -
“We’re struggling a bit. We’re a little bit off where we need to be, but
we’re going to make some changes for tomorrow and just keep going. On his penchant for not qualifying well, yet doing well in the race: Does he think that will be the case this year? “I sure hope so. It’s a little bit different at this track since we do so much testing we should already have it figured out or be close by
now.”
- Kurtis Roberts (Honda) -
“We got a brand new bike here we haven’t even ridden up ‘til today. This morning I was trying to take it easy and get my mental things together. This afternoon was a little better. Matt’s quite a bit ahead of us right now and we’ve got to catch that back up. We’ve got to at least get a half a second a lap better to have a chance to beat him here. Overall for my first 200 it’s going pretty good.” On the recent testing in Japan
“We were just doing some wind-tunnel testing, but nothing I feel will help us win the race here. We worked on some riding positions that may help on the final lap. You can’t ride like that every lap, but maybe on the last lap we’ll have a little
advantage.”
- Mat Mladin (Suzuki) -
“We’re doing the sort of times we did here in December (testing), we’ve made a few improvements on the bike and we can get some more out of yet. We know we’re going in the right direction so that’s the main thing. We’ll probably do 47s. We could have done some last year, but we couldn’t get a lap in on a new
tire.”
|
| Rider |
Bike |
Time |
| MATHEW
MLADIN |
SUZ |
1:49.999 |
| STEVE
RAPP |
DUC |
1:50.385 |
| TOMMY
HAYDEN |
YAM |
1:50.883 |
| KURTIS
L ROBERTS |
HON |
1:51.106 |
| SCOTT
RUSSELL |
DUC |
1:51.391 |
| NICKY
HAYDEN |
HON |
1:51.461 |
| ANTHONY
GOBERT |
YAM |
1:51.702 |
| ERIC
BOSTROM |
KAW |
1:51.871 |
| MIGUEL
DUHAMEL |
HON |
1:51.935 |
| AARON
W YATES |
SUZ |
1:51.967 |
| JAMIE
A HACKING |
SUZ |
1:52.24 |
| LARRY
PEGRAM |
DUC |
1:52.304 |
| MICHAEL
A SMITH |
HD |
1:52.503 |
| AARON
SLIGHT |
DUC |
1:53.425 |
| JIMMY
MOORE |
SUZ |
1:54.006 |
| PASCAL
PICOTTE |
HD |
1:54.412 |
| CHRIS
ULRICH |
SUZ |
1:55.081 |
| MIKE
D CICCOTTO |
SUZ |
1:55.094 |
| ERIC
C WOOD |
SUZ |
1:55.252 |
| RICHARD
J ALEXANDER JR |
SUZ |
1:55.519 |
| JORDAN
M SZOKE |
HD |
1:56.031 |
Riders
Preview the event
Mladin - Russell
- Hayden - Duhamel
2001
Daytona Preview
The
History of Daytona and past winners |
