From a press release issued by Kawasaki:

MCCOY RECOVERING – PITT PUSHING AHEAD

Phillip Island/AUS ­ Wednesday, January 22nd, 2003: After a heavy fall off his Fuchs Kawasaki Ninja ZX-RR on the first day of testing in Phillip Island, Australian Garry McCoy took the second day off in order to recover from heavy bruising and a mild concussion. Even though he didn’t feel well enough to ride, McCoy showed up at the race track in the afternoon to visit his Kawasaki Racing Team and to observe the preparations of his bike with a new chassis that finally had been released by the Melbourne customs authorities. Team-mate Andrew Pitt and test riders Akira Yanagawa and Alex Hofmann enjoyed a mainly sunny day with easing winds, and all three of them further improved their lap times.

Garry McCoy (did not ride):
“With concussion, you normally need two days of rest, and probably seven days without any sporting activities, which is why I preferred not to ride today. I do feel a little bit better, but obviously not 100 per cent, and after spending the afternoon in the paddock, I’m now going back to my hotel room. I hope to have another good night’s sleep, and we’ll see how I feel tomorrow. If I don’t feel too bad, I want to go out there and do a few laps, just to have confidence in riding the bike again. The next test is about a month away, and I would like to leave thinking about other things than just this crash. It’s the first time in my life that I have concussion, and I just want to forget about it and do some laps, even if I go slow. The other thing is that the new chassis that I wanted to use here didn’t arrive until lunchtime today anyway. Not riding gave the guys in my team a bit of extra time to get the bike fully prepared for tomorrow!”

Andrew Pitt (82 laps ­ best time in 1:33.70):
“The rear swing arm on my bike started to cause some sort of strange vibration, so we put a new one in for the afternoon, and the bike immediately felt better again. We also tried some tyres, and the ones that didn’t have that much grip were good fun, because they allowed me to slide and smoke some rubber on the exit of the fast last left-hand corner. But we also found a tyre that was working quite well, and as we made some more good steps with the set-up of the bike, I’m pretty happy. In the morning, I did my fastest lap in 1:33.7, which I couldn’t improve in the afternoon only because we were trying so many things. I¹ll have another go at a better time tomorrow morning!”

Akira Yanagawa (56 laps ­ best time in 1:33.86):
“My wife and my two children arrived today, and having my family around seems to make me faster ­ almost by another second! I did my best lap time on race tyres, because when I went out with a softer compound, it caused a small problem with the rear end pumping. This tyre has more grip for sure, but the pumping slowed me down. Today we also tried another gearbox set-up, which made the bike easier to ride. But we still have the rear end pumping and a problem with the injection system to fix. It’s not even easy to pin-point what was wrong with it, because the response when opening the throttle seemed to change all the time. We need to have a good look at our data to work it all out!”

Alex Hofmann (81 laps ­ best time in 1:35.22):
“We did a lot of tyre testing again, but the Dunlop container still seems to be full! There are a lot of details that we find here and there, and we are making steady progress. I’m happy because my lap time came down once again. I’m only one and a half seconds behind the other guys, which is certainly not bad with my older generation bike. I feel good on this track, and my only problem is that every time I go out, I have to adjust to different circumstances. But that’s what tyre testing is all about, and I keep learning a lot!”