On the first of three days of Dunlop tire testing on the 2.9-mile short course, Hodgson worked his way up to what would be the fastest time of the day on the new down-spec American Honda CBR1000RR.
The lap of 1:38.626 mins. was slower than he’d qualified for this year’s Superbike race, and 1.5 secs. slower than he’d gone in the race. But the track was dirty and the bike was slower, knocked down a peg by the more restrictive American Superbike rules.
That said, he was encouraged by the performance of the much more stock Honda and the fact that he was able to get up to speed quickly on a dirty track with a slippery infield.
“So, just hard to get your head around Daytona again, not the scary banking or anything like that; that’s a piece of piss really. The hardest bit is you go to the infield and you’ve no grip again,” he said. “The bike backs in because there’s no grip, so the bike’s backing in everywhere. It’s just a weird place. It’s like no other track. Half of me feels like you’ve wasted the day, but you’ve got to get the bike set for this track and get comfortable with it, so that’s what we’ve been doing all day.”
The team had a test plan coming in, but wasn’t able to stick to it. Because Hodgson is currently the lone rider, everything falls to him. And the American Superbike class has been relegated to second citizen status, with four hours of testing from 1:00-4:00 p.m., while the Daytona SportBikes get three hours in the morning, from 9:00 a.m. to noon, then a three hour night practice session from 6:00-9:00 p.m.
“The track is filthy, you know, the track that we’re riding on, so that’s hard as well because not many people are wanting to ride around it because it’s dirty, and there’s not many people riding around,” he said. There were rarely more than five American Superbikes on the track at the same time. “Today, like I say, feels like a bit of a waste. I did at least 50 laps. I were trying to clean the track up for everyone. Obviously, Yamaha were having some issues with their bikes, so they’re not doing many laps, which is normal, because it’s a new bike. And there’s not many people riding around.”
The new engine spec mandates stock connecting rods and pistons, along with other more restrictive modifications. It left Hodgson with a bike that’s “nicer to ride, because you’re not fighting it. Modern day superbikes are bloody powerful. You’ve either got the electronics taking away the power or you use your rear brake. Well, I’m doing neither today. It’s quite nice to ride the bike and it’s not wheelying its brains out everywhere. It’s more like what I’m used to, the old style of riding.”
Gone are the Ohlins forks Hodgson has spent much of his career on, replaced by narrow stock units with an Ohlins fork kit. That, along with a 17 inch front wheel and different spec front tire, gives an entirely different feel, one which Hodgson took to.
“Do you know? It’s nicer? It’s weird. It’s nicer,” he said. “I think everything last year was just a bit too stiff, a bit rigid. And it was hard. We got a bit of a numb feeling all year long.
“And with the standard fork tubes, it’s got that little bit more flex. And I know just speaking to (Jake) Holden, he didn’t have as many issues as me, obviously that’s what he ran on last year. Our lap times were close on a lot of the tracks, which is embarrassing, because you’d assume I’d be quite a bit faster with the bike. But there were times when he was pretty much as fast as me.
Hodgson ran the stock swingarm 90% of the time, preferring it over the HRC kit item. “That’s the beauty, that’s why we’re pretty excited about this year. We essentially ran a tuned-up Superstock bike.
“Did you look at the Kawasaki (ZX10R) by the end of the year? I mean, that looked like a MotoGP bike. It really did. I sat next one at Mid-Ohio on the line and looked across at Jamie (Hacking) and then looked at his bike and it was the first time I’d stared at it and I thought, holy s–t, I looked back down at my road bike and looked at his MotoGP bike.
“So that’s why we’re pretty excited about this year because really have got really good road bikes. So the rules hopefully are going…I know I’m going to be able to do the same lap times and I’m sure that some of the other guys aren’t going to be able to the same lap times they were. So hopefully we’ve got a chance.”
Friday American Superbike:
1. Neil Hodgson (Honda) 1:38.626
2. Larry Pegram (Ducati) 1:40.595
3. Blake Young (Suzuki) 1:40.964
4. Ben Bostrom (Yamaha) 1:41.292
5. Chris Ulrich (Suzuki) 1:42.121
6. Josh Hayes (Yamaha) 1:42.403
7. Doug Toland (Honda) 1:49.579
8. Jeremy McWilliams (Buell) 2:14.615
