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WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 11
16:20 - A Whole Lotta Progress Goin’ On
A jam-packed Wednesday draws to a close, and there are a lot of smiling faces to be found all along pit lane at the Dunlop Daytona Tire Test. The weather has held up beautifully, and everyone has worked overtime—through lunch, that is—to generate as much feedback as possible on the new tires. This morning, the air was filled with nervous anticipation and a palpable impatience, but those anxieties have melted away as riders and teams have grown more confident with every passing lap.
“I’m really pleased with the progress we’ve made today,” said Jim Allen, Dunlop Road Race Manager. “Considering how many new bikes and new guys we have on so many teams, we’ve done extremely well in getting bikes and tires dialed in. Right now we have guys going at a race pace on Superbikes and 600 Supersports bikes, and that was the main goal. Take a look at the lap times, and even allowing for the new chicane, we have quite a few guys turning real fast, consistent times.
We began today by taking last year’s information and using it as an initial guideline for fitting 2003 tires today. The stopwatches tell us we’ve zeroed in on a pretty good combination of tire construction and compound, so we’re feeling a lot more comfortable about going into the Daytona race in March.
Hopefully, we’ll get to try some of the new, experimental tire configurations tomorrow, and the data we generate there will only put us farther ahead.”
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