<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE <div class='quotemain'>ROAD RACING - Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca Gets First Test
Be Careful What You Wish For
Doug Chandler was the first motorcycle racer to try the slightly re-worked Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca and his initial impression may not please the MotoGP Rider Safety Commission.
Following last year’s inaugural Red Bull U.S.GP, the commission, whose members included Valentino Rossi, Loris Capirossi, Sete Gibernau, and Kenny Roberts Jr., asked for a number of changes, the most drastic being the flattening of the crest on the run from turn six to the Corkscrew. The track spent over $7 million complying to the riders’ exact wishes, but what they asked for may not be an improvement.
“The thing I think is worse is going up the hill. I wasn’t impressed with that at all,” Chandler said after doing a handful of laps on the Kawasaki ZX-10R Superbike that he’ll ride in the Saturday AMA Superbike Championship round on the GP weekend.
“Before we were kind of down low going up that ridge, and we didn’t crest it or get to that crest until that little kink right before the Corkscrew, so you were kind of protected [from crosswinds]," Chandler said. “So now we come out of six and we’ve got to crest earlier and then a flat run up, so that’s putting us more on the ridge and with the hill moved, I was fighting a side wind. I could not get the bike over to the left side of the track. I was doing good to run mid-track. Because we’re going over that crest early, we’re more on the meat of the power of the bike, it’s wanting to wheelie sooner and we’re still trying to get it pulled back left, and so it’s a constant fight the whole way up the hill. What I’m thinking is if it is windy, you potentially could just cut that whole kink off and run through the dirt and back on the pavement at the top of the Corkscrew and maybe even off. I didn’t like that a bit. I didn’t think that was a very good move.”
Chandler said that eventually they could plant trees to cut the side winds, but that no immediate fix sprang to mind.
“I couldn’t believe how bad it was. We’ve ridden out there in stronger winds than that and for the life of me I couldn’t get over to the left side of the track.”
He also said changing lines made little difference.
“We’ve got that crest sooner now, to where before we had a nice gradual climb to that little dip, so you just run a nice smooth arc, get it back up to the paint and then you’d wheelie over that dip and brake in,” he said. “Now we’re going over the crest way sooner, and the bikes are accelerating…before you’d want that thing to kind of run out of gear for that first corner. This time there’s no way you can do it that way. Trying to pull off the corner, and you’re going over a crest and then it’s wheelying and now you’re right on that ridge and with the crosswind it’s not so good.”
Chandler noticed the greatest improvements in turn one, and in the run-off areas along the run to the Corkscrew and the outside of turn three.
“Turn one I thought was a lot better than what it had been,” he said. “The dip that used to be there, that we always kind of fight, seems like they kind of blended that in really good over the crest. Looking at it, it looks like we might have more camber. Just appearance-wise from what I kind of remembered going around there today. Where it’s really noticeable is going up the hill [to the Corkscrew] on both sides, there’s tons of room. And going into three, they cut that hillside back so there’s a lot of flat area, rather than just the embankment right there on the outside of the entrance of three.”
Overall, he said, it should make for a faster lap, because the completely repaved track offered better grip.
There were a few spots, including the exit of turn nine, that he thought weren’t smooth, but that might have been because the track was slightly dirty and he was off line.
What excited Chandler more than the new track layout was the recent success of his son Jett. Jett won his first race at an Oregon Motorcycle Road Racing Association event at Portland International Raceway two weeks ago, then backed it up with a second Novice class win.
“The second one they had him with 1000s and he come off - he’s pretty good off the line - and went down and just outbroke the two 1000s and just took off,” the doting dad said. “That was good. That’s my other focus is trying to do as many races as he can out here.”
Doug teamed up with his son to finish third overall among 37 teams in a four-hour endurance race.
“What Jett really liked about that place is the trees,” Chandler said. “Everywhere he’s gone has been desolate. He really liked going through the trees.”
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<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE <div class='quotemain'>Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca was homologated for the Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix on Thursday morning, one of several positive signs for the most prestigious motorcycle race in America.
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