Throwback Thursday: The Art of the Pit Stop
Larry Lawrence | February 9, 2017
Henny Ray Abrams Photo
In this week’s Throwback, the time machine dials us back 20 years to March of 1997 and that year’s Daytona 200. This is Tom Kipp making a pit stop on the factory Yamaha YZF750R Superbike. Pit stops were a big part of the Daytona 200 and could be the difference between winning or losing.
In the early days of the race pit stops were mostly to refuel and take on oil. But over the years with softer rubber and faster lap times, tire changes became a regular part of the stops. By the late 1990s the stops had become a fine-tuned team ballet that top squads practiced time and again to perfect. Some even went as far as to video tape and review practice stops in an effort to find ways to shave tenths of a second off the process.
Amazingly the factory teams, with quick-change and quick-fill components, could perform a stop for two new tires and fuel in about 10 seconds, barely giving the riders time to take a quick drink of water.
Today, with no races as long as the 200-miler on the MotoAmerica Superbike schedule, pit stops are very rare today and usually only seen if track conditions, from wet to dry or vice versa, dictate a tire change.