Copyright 2002, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

By David Swarts

American Honda held a two-day test session November 25-26 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in Las Vegas, Nevada for new Honda riders and teams to become acquainted before heading to the Dunlop tire tests at Daytona next month.

“Just to get everybody familiar working with their new crew. Nothing in particular. Just got new team members (working together) and everybody out there riding around and getting to know each other,” said American Honda Team Manager Chuck Miller. “It was in conjunction with the AMA awards ceremony. We were all out there, so we just went out to the speedway there as well to get a little bit of track time. It was windy and chilly, but we got some good track time. Again, more of it was just to get everybody in synch with each other; we’ve got some new team members this year. Before you can get into the deep testing and development, it’s more of just getting the personalities lined up and helping teach the new guys where everything goes in the truck. We’ve got the real testing starting at Daytona, then we have a pretty aggressive test schedule through the off-season to try and get prepared for (the season opening race at) Daytona.”

Taking part in the test were American Honda’s Miguel Duhamel and Ben Bostrom; Erion Honda’s Kurtis Roberts, Jake Zemke and Roger Lee Hayden; Bruce Transportation Group Honda’s Marty Craggill and Jason Curtis of the No Limits Motorsports Honda squad.

Honda only had one 2003 CBR600RR available, and the bike was shared by several riders. “Everybody rode it,” said Miller. “We had a few items we wanted to start Miguel with to test. Again, it was cold, and we weren’t there from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. or anything like that. The first day was kind of a slow start, and Miguel kind of rode it the first day. The second day, Ben and Jake and Roger. I think everybody but Marty ended up throwing a leg over the thing and taking it out for a little bit. Nothing real significant except that it was the first time they had all been on it. So it was nice to get everybody a little bit of time on it before we get to Daytona. We only have one, but we’re hoping to get our other ones here in the near future so we can all be testing on them at Daytona.”

“It was a street bike that they just put bodywork on; it had suspension and a pipe,” said Zemke of the CBR600RR test bike. “Miguel rode that quite a bit. Ben rode it a little bit, a few laps. I got like 10 laps on it, and Rog, I think, got four or five laps on it.

“It was good. Daytona (the race) could be tomorrow, and it would be just fine. (laughs) The thing is awesome, actually. I only rode it for 10 laps and the tires were completely roached by the time I got on it, but the thing was completely unreal! The thing is really, really good. Once we have time to play with it, them boys are in trouble this year, I think.

“We were just sorting through some stuff we already had,” continued Zemke on his 954 testing. “We tried a couple of things, a different set of forks, stuff like that. Just kind of fine-tuning it really. Not really anything new to throw at the thing, just trying to make what we’ve got a little better.”

Conditions were not ideal as the test was hampered by low temperatures, but more importantly, by the strong winds that have been ravaging the southwest United States recently. “The wind out there was unreal!” said Zemke. “The wind was just howling; it was blowing like mad! The first day was really bad. I think it was gusting to like 50 (mph). It was blowing you all over the place, so we didn’t really ride that hard. The second day, it was only blowing about 25, so it was a little bit better but it was still pretty bad.”

The conditions may have caught Kurtis Roberts out as he crashed the first day, injuring his thumb enough to not ride the second day. “He jammed his thumb. Nothing more than that,” said Miller. “It was sore, and again, the conditions were poor out there with the wind blowing. There wasn’t much testing going on. It was more just kind of some riding and joking more than anything else.

“It was sore the second day. He decided not to ride because the conditions were the same. He had just come from Vegas the week before. We had done some testing with him out there. He had very little to gain, so he opted to sit out the second day.

“He didn’t think it was going to be that big of a deal. He could move it, it wasn’t swollen, it wasn’t blue, nothing like that. So we don’t anticipate any problem there, and he is planning on coming to Daytona. Nothing major at this point at least.”