From a Honda press release regarding further testing of the RC211V on Wednesday, August 8 at Suzuka Circuit in Suzuka, Japan:

Day two of the Honda RC211V Test Session

Weather Hampers Ukawa at RC211V Test

The second day of the Honda RC211V test was held in the same cloudy weather with intermittent rain showers as the opening day.

With Valentino Rossi, Shinichi Itoh and Manabu Kamada undertaking the first day of RCV testing yesterday, it was the turn of Repsol YPF Honda WGP 500cc rider Tohru Ukawa to test the V-5 four-stroke machine today, August 8.

Reigning Superbike World Champion Colin Edwards (Castrol Honda), who had stayed on in Japan following his winning ride in the Suzuka 8-Hours, with Rossi, was a special guest at the test today. The American took the RC211V out for a few laps but the track conditions were not good at the time.

Tohru Ukawa:
“The track conditions were not too good but I felt comfortable riding the machine. The RC211V is simply a fast machine and I felt the torque and power of the motorcycle. There are still many changes to be made after this test but with its high potential it is heading towards a positive outcome. I am looking forward to testing the machine in better conditions.”

Colin Edwards:
“I was curious about the machine but I didn’t do many laps because of the conditions but it was interesting. The machine has good torque and power and I enjoyed riding it. But it’s back to work for me now, in the Superbike Championship. I don’t have time for anything else right now.”

Copyright 2001, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

By Bruce Wilkins
Photos by Bruce Wilkins

Doning his racing leathers for his first track session since a horrible crash earlier this year at Daytona, Scott Russell took some surprising laps earlier this week around Virginia International Raceway. He recorded several 1:29 laps, coming in after his first hot lap session grinning from ear-to-ear.

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A smiling Scott Russell gives the thumbs up during testing at VIR with HMC Ducati Crew Chief Owen Coles (left) and team owner Mitch Hansen (right).

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“I’m thrilled to be back…I never thought I’d ever be able to race again the way the injuries were at first,” Russell said during a Tuesday afternoon practice session on VIR’s North Course. “I’ll be honest with you, I never expected to be able to come here and run this fast.”

He arrived at VIR with low expectations that quickly evaporated after sharing track time with teammates Steve Rapp and Andy Meklau, as well as fellow road racers Kurtis Roberts, Miguel Duhamel, Nicky Hayden, Doug Chandler and Eric Bostrom.

“I rode my streetbike around a couple of days last week and I thought, ‘Man, I’m going to have a rough time when I get to VIR,'” Russell said. “But the racebike is actually easier…it’s lighter, the brakes are better, it made it a little bit easier on me riding it.”

Russell concedes he has not fully recovered, but doing wheelstands coming out of the downhill turn into the front straight, Russell showed many of his peers that he is well on his way to becoming fully race-ready. “I had some problems with shifting because I lost a lot of feeling (in his left foot) and nerve damage from that crash,” Russell said. “But I expect to be 90-95 percent when I come back here to race. Hopefully, I’ll be back.”

As for when, where and if he will return to race at the AMA Superbike finale at VIR on the weekend of September 28-30, Russell and his team remain mum, but with obvious smiles of high hopes and solid confidence brought on by Russell’s remarkable recovery-in-progress.

HMC Ducati team owner Mitch Hansen is every bit the optimist, despite the tragic start for the new team. “It is a start-up year and, of course, we couldn’t have started up on a worse foot with the crash,” Hansen said. “It took the wind out of our sails with a bunch of new guys working together for the first time…it was devastating to the team.”

However, the adversity faced by the trying year is a source of pride for Hansen. “I’m very proud of my team, but especially so for Scott. (The crash) has made us closer as a group; made us stronger. We haven’t won yet…but the key word is YET.”

Hansen believes that Russell’s return to the track, even in a practice session, is the turnaround story of the season. “Scott is incredible…he’s not up to speed yet; he hasn’t even really rehabilitated his arm and his leg. The left arm and left leg are a little bit thinner because he hasn’t been able to work them out…but give him another four or five weeks.”

HMC Ducati Crew Chief Owen Coles is another true believer in Russell’s comeback prospects, especially after receiving a call from Russell last week in which the racer complained about sitting around his home for six or seven months in pain. “He still has some issues with some bones that haven’t healed up in his arm yet. The doctors really didn’t want him to get on the bike…but we said to him, ‘Listen, we’ll get your bike ready, just come on out here, there’s no pressure, just have some fun.'”

When he did come back into the pits after his first run, Russell “couldn’t even talk, he was grinning so much from ear to ear,” Coles said. “The whole paddock was happy to see him back. It put that smile back on his face.”

One of the factors that Russell has pointed to as important to his ongoing recovery is the expressions of concern from so many fans. “It was awesome. When I got hurt you just couldn’t believe all of the letters and all of the responses we got,” reflected Russell. “It really showed me how many fans I do have out there and it’s just nice to know. I want to thank them for all of their support.”

Honda’s new RC211V four-stroke Grand Prix racebike was ridden in public for the first time Sunday, at Suzuka Circuit prior to the start of the Suzuka 8-Hours race. Taking turns at the controls were 5-time 500cc World Champion Mick Doohan and Manabu Kamada; Kamada is an HRC test rider and was the reserve man for the winning Suzuka 8-Hours team of Valentino Rossi and Colin Edwards.

Doohan proclaimed the bike to be “quite good and fast” but said he doesn’t want to race again himself.

Today, Tuesday in Japan, Valentino Rossi, Tohru Ukawa and Makoto Tamada are testing the RC211V, with Edwards scheduled to watch and hoping for a test ride himself. Before the 8-Hours race, Edwards said he would like to test the RC211V but had not been invited to ride it. Now that he and Rossi have co-ridden to the 8-Hours victory, Edwards may get his wish.

Responding to a post dated 8/6/01, headlined “Latest Loudon LRRS Incident Likely To Lead To Rider Sanctions” and based on what we were told by New Hampshire International Speedway Motorcycle Safety Director Jerry Wood, LRRS racer Pat Salonis sent roadracingworld.com this e-mail:

After spending the past several days with the injured rider, Charles Chubbuck, at Dartmouth-Hitchcock hospital as he underwent surgery to stabilize his shattered L1 vertebra and fractured L2, I returned home and saw the post on your website. I then shared the post with him.

Charlie is unable to speak for himself at the moment and when he is well enough, he wishes to address this issue. Right now, all his efforts are concentrated on getting well.

While it’s never been his intent to draw attention to this, he is bothered by the lack of facts or partial truths as represented in the posting. He’s disappointed in that it quite literally adds insult to injury.

This incident was witnessed by several people including other riders and cornerworkers.

While the statement made is true, if you dissect each piece, it clearly does not describe what happened that day.

While Charlie may have slid into a fire extinguisher or other cornerworking equipment, that equipment was propped up against or right in front of the concrete wall that Charlie slammed into. Make no mistake, the wall caused his injuries, not the “equipment”.

Further, the statement “next to the end of a wall” is extremely misleading. The wall in reference is likely the tire wall that covers some of the concrete wall in Turn 2. So yes, Charlie slid feet first into the concrete wall to the right (next to the end) of any tire wall, and yes it is not ‘normally’ an impact zone but obviously sometimes it can be.

As written the statement might be suggestive that he did not hit any walls, only cornerworking equipment and that is completely inaccurate.

While some action against the junior rider seems appropriate, he was only the first 1/2 of the equation that day, the wall was the other 1/2.

I hope that this clarifies the situation and might give you enough information to amend the earlier post on your site.

Kindest regards,
Pat Salonis
LRRS #62

Copyright 2001, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

By David Swarts

During testing at Virginia International Raceway on Monday, August 6 and Tuesday, August 7, Scott Russell lapped just two seconds off of the pace set by Honda’s Nicky Hayden, Kawasaki’s Eric Bostrom, and Russell’s HMC Ducati teammate Andreas Meklau on the 2.26-mile North course at Virginia International Raceway near Danville, Virginia.

The session marked Russell’s first ride on a racetrack since being involved in a horrific starting-grid crash at the Daytona 200 last March.

According to HMC owner Mitch Hansen, Russell, in his first visit to VIR, turned low 1:29s compared to the high 1:26s turned by Hayden, Bostrom and Meklau. Hayden and Bostrom tested at the facility in 2000.

“If you can imagine, he’s very weak, but he wanted to ride,” Hansen said in a cell-phone interview from the track. “(Scott) was doing low 1:29s. Yeah, incredible. It just blew us all away. His expectations were that he just wanted to go out there and ride a little. He didn’t even want us taking times, but obviously we couldn’t resist and he was just about two seconds off the pace, really.

“We grabbed one of his bikes, which Andy is using, we had it all set-up and ready to go for him (with his last set-up) when he got here. We were hoping that he could do maybe five or 10 laps, and that’s all we thought he would be capable of doing. I’d say he put in a good 40-50 laps.

“He rode both days. I didn’t think he’d ride today. He came out walking like a soldier, all stiff. But he took a couple of aspirin and he was fine and ready to go.”

What makes Russell’s feat more amazing is that temperatures were in the high 90s with equally high humidity.

“He’s very weak and gets fatigued,” explained Hansen. “He can do two strong laps and that’s about it. He’s got a long way to go yet, but my God! We’re so impressed. I mean, it’s incredible. I don’t think anybody else could do what he’s doing.

“Actually, the hand was fine,” said Hansen when asked about the nerve damage in Russell’s recovering left arm. “The arm’s a little weak because he hasn’t been able to work out. But the biggest obstacle right now is his ankle is so swollen yet that he doesn’t have a lot of motion. So shifting was the biggest problem. Of course getting off the seat, he was using just the leg muscles in the right leg.”

When asked about a possible return to racing for Russell at Pike’s Peak, Hansen said, “No, I think Scott is basically riding to get his confidence back and see where he’s at physically. But I don’t think you’ve seen the last of Scott Russell, that’s for sure.”

What about Russell making a racing appearance before the end of the 2001 season? “That hasn’t been brought up because we just don’t know,” said Hansen. “Obviously, if he can only do two laps strong, he’s a long way from returning to racing. He’s going to do a lot of riding. Ducati gave him a streetbike, and he’s gonna go out and ride that. He’s gonna start riding his dirt bike again, and that will get him back into shape.

“But overall, the test actually went very well,” said Hansen of the real business matter at hand. “Everybody was grouped together: The Kawasaki, the Honda, and our Ducati team. Everybody had very, very similar and close track times. I think there were three guys that got into the 1:26s. I believe they were Hayden, Bostrom, and Andy Meklau. Andy was really going well here today and did a 1:26.92. And Steve (Rapp) just missed getting in the 1:26s. He had a 1:27.01.

“The guys loved the track. The facility is second to none. It’s a marvelous facility. The people are just fantastic. I wish we had 10 more places like this on the schedule. They really thought of ways to help the motorcycle crowd. Usually, we’re the second-class citizens when it comes to going to a racetrack because everyone seems to cater to the car people. But these people here have been unbelievable.”

Hansen said that he didn’t see anyone have any crashes or mechanical troubles during the two-day tests, but Meklau had a problem. “Andy hit a bird, and wouldn’t you know, he hit it with his left shoulder. And it was a big bird,” said Hansen. Meklau has been riding with a broken left collarbone since before the Mid-Ohio race.

In a separate phone interview, Virginia International Raceway General Manager Jack Abbott said that the changes made to the North course, based on rider suggestions following an AMA test in 2000, were received well by AMA riders. Run-off areas were leveled, barriers removed or relocated, trees moved, but the most notable change was the creation of another passing zone by opening up the entrance to the “Roller Coaster.”

“The guys say that they have four places that they can pass now,” said Abbott. “And even with the extreme heat that we have right now, the track surface is holding up well. The guys say that the grip is good. We’re gonna have a great race here in September.”

Virginia International Raceway is the host of the 2001 AMA Superbike series finale, scheduled for September 28-30. Tickets are available at dealerships near VIR, or can be ordered by phone at (804) 822-7700, or online at www.virclub.com.

ESPN2

6:30 p.m. Motoworld

Speedvision

12:00 p.m. AMA 600cc Supersport Brainerd
1:00 p.m. AMA Formula Xtreme Mid-Ohio
2:00 p.m. AMA Superbike Brainerd
3:00 p.m. FIM 250cc Grand Prix Germany
7:00 p.m. Bikeweek
7:30 p.m. American Thunder
8:00 p.m. FIM 125cc Grand Prix Germany
9:00 p.m. FIM 500cc Grand Prix Germany
10:00 p.m. AMA Formula Xtreme Brainerd

All times are Eastern Daylight Time.

From a Honda press release:

The latest test session took place at the Suzuka Circuit today, August 7, 2001. Valentino Rossi(Nastro Azzuro Honda), the Honda NSR500 WGP rider, took part as the first GP rider to test the RC211V.

The weather interrupted testing, continuous rain during the morning finally cleared up at 2:25 p.m. Although it looked to have cleared up for the day, the rain started to fall again later in the afternoon which forced Valentino to finish the test sooner than he wished to.

With the rain lasting until lunchtime Honda changed the program for the day and Rossi took to the track in the afternoon. After a few laps on the RC211V he returned to the pits to give project leader Heijiro Yoshimura, and his engineering staff, his initial impression of the machine.

Rossi made his wishes known to the test team who prepared the machine set-up to suit his riding style and he went out again. However, due to the changeable weather the test was stopped at 5.00. p.m.

Shinichi Itoh and Makoto Tamada also tested the machine, as they had on previous occasions. But Rossi was the first Grand Prix rider to test the RC211V.

Test Condition
Date: August 7, 2001
Place: Suzuka Circuit, Mie Prefecture 5.85913km.
Weather: Cloudy with rain showers.


RC211V Test Ride Comments: Valentino Rossi

“It was very emotional moment for me, testing the new Honda GP machine,” said Rossi.

“Because it’s the beginning of a new ‘Era’ and I was very excited to test the four-stroke V-5. Due to the rain the track was wet and I rode the bike only in the afternoon but it was enough to understand the character of this bike. Of course we are still at the beginning of the development and we have to work a lot to be competitive but I feel we are going in the right direction and I think this project has good potential.

“Of course today I was not interested to the lap time and my main task was to give information to the Honda engineers to develop the bike according to my wishes. It has been a very interesting experience.”


Heijiro Yoshimura: Person in charge of RC211V development.

“The biggest problem we had today was the weather conditions. The track had dried for the afternoon session so we extended the test time but again it started to rain. Because of this we were unable to test as much as we wanted. The course condition was also slippery which held us back from judging the character of the machine completely.

“Although we had these problems, we can say that we received the necessary comments from Valentino that will help us for our next test. His comment was to the point which will help us for the future improvement of the machine, so we can say that we had a very good session after all.”

Honda’s Superbike World Champion, Colin Edwards, together with 500cc Grand Prix rider Tohru Ukawa, will test the RC211V tomorrow.

Colin Edwards is curious to know all about the performance of the RCV but denied he was interested in racing the RC211V in the Grands Prix. The American confirmed he will definitely race a Superbike for Honda in the 2002 season.

Copyright 2001, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

By David Swarts

Ricci Motorsports plans to offer transportation for 12 bikes and gear from Woodinville, Washington (near Seattle) to the Suzuki Cup Finals scheduled for October 23-28 in conjunction with the WERA Grand National Finals at Road Atlanta. The bikes will be hauled inside the team’s 46-foot United Express Lines trailer, and, for $500, riders will be allowed to send one bike, extra wheels, and a couple of bins of parts, tools, equipment, etc.

Ricci Motorsports owner Gary Ricci pointed out that, “With the new payout system, 20th place pays out $500. We’re just trying to give racers from the Northwest the opportunity to go to the Suzuki Cup.”

Racers interested in sending a bike or bikes with Ricci Motorsports can contact Gary Ricci at (425) 424-3888 or via e-mail at [email protected].

From a Kawasaki press release:

Team Kawasaki would field two Superbike teams on the starting grid in today’s prestigious but gruelling 8-Hours race. Kawasaki Riders Akira Yanagawa and Hitoyasu Izutsu paired together, with Gregorio Lavilla and Tamaki Serizawa forming the second team. The race staged around the undulating Suzuka layout would pit both rider and machine to 8 hours of punishment throughout the heat of Japan in mid summer.

Akira/Hitoyasu produced a stunning qualifying lap, pushing their green Ninja ZX7-RR Superbike to the outside of the front row with the fourth-fastest time. Gregorio/Serizawa would start from the third row with the 10th-fastest qualifying time.

Akira discussed his race strategy saying, “We really need to be in the leading group of riders throughout the race to have a chance. The weather is so hot and humid and I know this will affect a lot of riders at the end of the race. I think if we can be there at the end the fireworks will start in the last few laps.”

Gregorio said, “The most important thing is to avoid crashing and complete the race. I will try my best against the fast local riders and some big-name international riders. This is the only way to achieve good finishing results and promote the Kawasaki name.”

Race Day:
The hopes of all the Kawasaki Racing Team were dealt a severe blow early on in the race when Akira crashed into the back of a slower rider. Initially the crash damage wasn’t seen as very severe. On returning to the pits, the damage forced extra-unscheduled pit stops moving them down the order into 40th. Both riders recovered remarkably, clawing their way back up to 12th position, before another two race crashes. Eventually they finished the day in 23rd place.

Gregorio/Tamaki were consistently in fifth and sixth place up until the latter stages of the race. Gregorio was just starting his final session when he tried to overtake, on the inside of a much slower rider, around the Spoon Curve. To avoid hitting the rider, he was forced onto an unusual line and highsided heavily on the exit of the corner. Gregorio was unhurt but his ZX7-RR Ninja Superbike didn’t fare that well and both
were forced to retire.

Overall a disappointing end to a race that can be summed up by Mr.Takata, the Head of Race Engineering, “We should move on from this nightmare, however, at the same time we should learn something from this experience–that’s what we must not miss.”

Gregorio said, “It’s been a tough weekend. We both were riding the bike really well and it looked as if a podium was within our reach throughout the race. In the end it’s disappointing to have worked so hard and not get any result at all.”

Akira summed up his race by saying, ” We didn’t have much luck in the race after qualifying so well. It’s a shame because the team worked so hard just to get us both out onto track after the first crash. We all wanted a better finish but at least we tried.”


From a Suzuki press release:

SUZUKI RIDERS YUKIO KAGAYAMA, AKIRA RYO AND ATUSHI WATANABE finished third in the prestigious Suzuka Endurance race less than a minute and a quarter behind first place at the end of the eight hours.

The Japanese trio took advantage of the new regulations allowing three team riders and started from pole position following an immaculate lap from Akira Ryo in final qualifying yesterday and remained on the lead lap despite Yukio Kagayama riding off of the track at Spoon Curve.

The race was won by Colin Edwards and Valentino Rossi (Honda).