Copyright 2003, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.
Honda’s Jake Zemke told officials with AMA Pro Racing and Indianapolis Motor Speedway that racing Superbikes on the facility’s infield road course is possible, following a short, one-day test there October 1.
Photo courtesy of IMSPhoto.
“Yeah, for sure,” Zemke told Roadracingworld.com in a telephone interview late Wednesday evening.
The infield road course at Indianapolis Motor Speedway was constructed in September of 2000 to host the United States round of the FIA Formula One Grand Prix, which it has done annually since 2000. In fact, according to the Speedway, its 2000 race set a “modern day attendance record” for the Formula One series.
The infield road course is 2.605 miles in length and is run in the clockwise direction, which is counter the race direction of the Indianapolis 500 and the Brickyard 400 races run on the 2.5-mile oval. Running the road course, the 3047-foot front straight on the speedway oval is used. Racers take a right-hand turn one to enter the infield before reaching the oval’s Turn Four. Averaging 46 feet in width, the new infield section has 11 dedicated turns (four lefts, seven rights) and a 1755-foot infield straight. At its end, infield course racers turn right to re-enter the speedway oval at the entrance to Turn Two (infield course turn 12) and use the oval’s Turn One as the 13th and final turn. The last two corners have retaining walls on the outside.
“They’ll have to do something with the last two corners,” said Zemke. “Originally, they knew for sure the last corner, and then after doing some laps at speed in the afternoon, I kind of slowed down and paid attention to where my lines were taking me and stuff. And I said probably the last corner we would have to be slowed down going through that corner as well. The one that leads us out on to the [speedway] there, turn 12. We’re just getting out there too fast. It doesn’t seem bad, but you’re kind of using all the racetrack available. You’re coming right up to that temporary curbing. I was still leaving myself plenty of room to the wall, but in a racing situation everyone’s going to be trying to get the most out of everything. Whereas today, we were just kind of cruising around.”
Photo courtesy of IMSPhoto.
The experience was memorable for overall racing fan Zemke, who said, “It was just really cool, being the first bikes at Indy. That was just really neat by itself. As a kid, I grew up watching the 500 and the Brickyard 400 and now the Formula One race. So getting a chance to ride there is really cool.
“The track itself was pretty interesting. It’s really wide. You know how wide Barber [Motorsports Park] is [45 feet]. This feels almost wider than Barber just with the way the corners are and everything. I’m not sure on the dimensions on it, but the track itself is super wide.
Photo courtesy of IMSPhoto.
“It’s pretty slow through the infield. Well, with the gearing you need to get down the front straightaway, it’s like all first and second gear through the infield except for the one [infield] straightaway. But it still seemed to be OK and a lot of fun. I was leaving black marks everywhere. It was fun just to light it up coming out of all the corners.
“The track was actually really smooth. I didn’t feel any ripples or anything like that in it. There wasn’t really any rough spots on the track at all. I mean, they only use it once a year, and they’ve only been running on it for three years. That has a lot to do with it, but the pavement was really good. The infield’s all really flat. The only kind of elevation was coming out of the last corner on the banking there.
“The run-off was really good. There were only a couple of spots in the infield and really they weren’t anything. One, I asked them if they could extend one gravel trap out, and they didn’t seem to think that was any problem at all. Really, there’s quite a bit of run-off there in all the corners. It didn’t seem to be too bad. And all the permanent curbings were perfectly smooth, no ridges or anything.
“I think there’s a lot of opportunities [to pass] because there’s so much racetrack there to use. Just the fact that it’s so wide and in the infield all of the corners are pretty much linked together corner-to-corner. It gives the opportunity for running different lines and setting a guy up.” Zemke also said he had no tire or set-up issues in run about 35 laps, but he pointed out that it was cold. According to IMS spokesperson Ron Green, the temperature was probably 50 degrees Fahrenheit when the bikes went out on track.
Vincent Haskovec rode the Ducati Austin Superbike at the test. Photo courtesy of IMSPhoto.
Asked how he and fellow tester Vincent Haskovec approached the wall-lined final turn, Zemke said, “For now, we just rode through it. It’s obviously an area that they’re looking at, the last two corners, actually. Figuring out a way to get us through there. But for now, we just rode through there. I went through there pretty hard. It was comfortable to go through the last corner pretty hard. I mean I was fourth gear just about wide open through the thing. I would have to roll out of it going into it, then I could pretty much pin it from before the apex all the way through the corner. Riding by yourself, it was OK, but in a racing situation we would have to slow it down through there.” At the end of the front straightaway, Zemke estimated he was exceeding 180 mph, “for sure.”
Zemke said possible chicane configurations were not discussed with him. “Nah, we didn’t really talk a lot about it,” said Zemke. “They were more concerned with the rest of the racetrack, what our concerns were on that. And like I said, there were only two spots on the racetrack that I even had any kind of question at all on. It all looked really good.”
“They didn’t say anything as far as that went,” answered Zemke when asked if he heard any discussions on what type of motorcycle race – AMA Superbike, World Superbike or MotoGP – officials were looking toward possibly holding on the road course. “They only thing they said was they wanted to test the feasibility, basically, of a motorcycle on their racetrack and to see if it was even possible for us to run there. That’s all. That’s all they were really worried about.”