Track
lap record: 1’25.507
An. Gobert – Ducati (99)
Track record: WSB lap record
1’26.144 T Corser – Aprilia
(01) Race
Laguna Seca will
be a big weekend for HMC Ducati rider Doug Chandler who will
compete in Saturday's AMA Superbike race and both World Superbike
races on Sunday. A Salinas local, Laguna is Doug's home track
and the former Champion knows it like the back of his hand.
Both Doug and Ducati have had good results at Laguna - Doug
has two AMA wins to his credit; Ducati five, but most impressively,
they have won seven of the last 14 World Superbike races held
at the California circuit.
It was during the March test that Chandler first rode the Testastretta,
finishing fastest overall with a best lap time of 1'25.65 -
0.055 seconds faster than Bostrom in last year's Superpole.
The former champion is looking forward to going back there and
hopes to do even better. If they do, he feels it will put them
right in the heart of the action. "We should be very competitive'"
he explains.
Laguna is a very technical difficult racetrack, one that Doug
likes because it's a challenge. With its elevation changes,
blind turns and small straight away it's everything a good racer
would want in a track.
The challenging track will make going hard for the HMC technicians
though; the elevation changes and off camber corners makes the
bike difficult to set-up for Laguna Seca. It requires a lot
of compromises to ensure the bike will work on every part of
the track. Turns six and ten especially. Turn ten is a positive
camber corner while turn six has negative camber. They are both
fast turns so the bike must be stable in both. Getting good
traction in turn six is important to get the drive up to the
cork screw and the drive out of eleven is important for the
drive up the hill.
Turn five has a change in camber. As riders enter they will
have the advantage of positive camber but as they head out of
the corner it turns to negative camber. Their bikes will usually
experience some chatter and many riders have high sided in this
section.
Doug's strong point is coming out of nine and setting up for
turn ten. He is known for making his passing moves in this area.
There will be some changes between Doug's AMA machine and his
WSB machine. The WSB will require a different set-up for the
new tires that have a different diameter and construction. It
will be running 60mm throttle bodies instead of the 54mm throttle
bodies required for AMA, which in turn will require different
fuel mapping. Plus the bike will be running unleaded instead
of leaded fuel. The engines will generally be the same bar a
small change in gearing.
But will the riding be different? "In the past it's been
typical that the World riders have slightly better bikes and
the ability of some of the riders is better, which is how it
ought to be," says Chandler. "I'm real proud of our
AMA guys and I think it's going to be a fun weekend with all
of our guys in with the world guys. It's going to be very interesting
to see what the outcome is going to be".
Doug and the HMC Ducati team head to Laguna on a high note,
fresh from their podium finish at Brainerd. Both are confident
they can repeat the performance at Laguna
