Dunlop
Dunlop has been the de facto control tire for years in AMA Superbike. Other companies have made various attempts, but with little success.
"Our history is a racing history,"...
"Our history is a racing history," says Dunlop's Allen, shown here discussing tire issues with Corona Extra Honda's Neil Hodgson. "We feel it's a valid way to market tires to the sportbike market."
"Obviously, our history is a racing history," Dunlop racing boss Jim Allen said. "We've always raced. We feel it's a valid way to market tires to the sportbike market. It was either become involved or stand on the outside looking in for three years. It's a chance to continue racing, learn what we can and develop where we can, and carry on presenting Dunlop's image as a performance race-driven product."
Dunlop has won every championship in every class for as long as anyone can remember. Officially, Dunlop has won the last 19 Superbike titles and 23 overall, and it supplied tires to the vast majority of the field (and all of the factory teams) last year. The change to a control tire wouldn't be difficult for the Superbikes, but the new Daytona SportBike class would take some time.
"The [superbike] tires we're using this year are essentially what we used in Superstock last year, the same two sizes," in 17-inch rather than the 16.5-inch tires that superbikes ran last year, "and some of them are updated," Allen revealed, especially in the compounds. "But it's nothing we wouldn't have done had things stayed the same. The compounds we used in American Superbike this year...we saw from time to time through 2008, particularly towards the end of the year; as we sorted through compounds, the same ones kept coming up as being viable options for 2009. And that's traditionally what we did-we change compounds on what we learned throughout the year. For instance, in Superbike this year we have 6704 front as the soft, 6680 as the medium, and a 6671 as the hard. All of those compounds we saw last year in either Superstock or Superbike over the course of 2008. The rear compounds in Superbike, we have two, 7704 and 6680, and the same story there, we used those either in Superstock or Superbike or both by the end of 2008."
"In theory, we have to load so that if all 25 Superbike riders decided they were going to use the 6704 front, we have to have enough to supply all of them with six each, which is what they're allowed to have, plus enough for the ten guys in Superpole," Allen said. Same for the nine rears. "So there're a lot of tires that get carried that don't get used."
The riders get stickers for six fronts and nine rears and it's up to them how to use their allocation and when they get to their six and nine, Dunlop lets the AMA know.
Dunlop has basically been...
Dunlop has basically been the de facto control tire in AMA racing for decades due to its dominant performance. But now that it must supply all competitors, the company has had to shift gears a bit on how many and which tires it ships to the track.
Dunlop's Jim Allen has been...
Dunlop's Jim Allen has been running the company's American racing operations for decades, helping to structure a domination that has weathered many assaults by competitors.
When AMA Pro Racing announced...
When AMA Pro Racing announced that it was going the control tire route for '09, Dunlop made a concerted effort for probably the last serious national Superbike championship available. "It was either become involved or stand on the outside looking in for three years," said Allen. "Obviously, option B wasn't a good option at all."
Also like Bridgestone, Dunlop is saving considerably by shipping the slicks by boat from the company's headquarters in Birmingham, England. The DOTs are made in Buffalo, New York, where Dunlop U.S. is headquartered.
In general the superbike times are about the same, which is impressive considering the mandated Superstock-spec engines and Mat Mladin's general lack of competition. Both races at Auto Club Speedway were faster. "So considering that the bikes are Superstock bikes with faster engines, I think the lap times with American Superbike are pretty much where they should be," Allen said.
The same can't be said about Daytona SportBike, where the times are slower by at least a second a lap and often more, "and I think that we can accept responsibility for that, if you want to put it like that. We can say that a lot of that is tires. The reality of a spec tire series is such that economics come into it. In the case of Daytona SportBike, Moto-GT, and SuperSport we use American-made product because we can guarantee supply, and that's probably the biggest reason we're not using UK stuff. The Sportmax GP-As that we're using in those classes don't match lap times of the D211's that we used last year in AMA 600 Supersport. We said to teams clearly at the first race of the year that this is the case, we don't pretend these tires are equal to what you had last year. We said that we will improve [them] over the course of the year."
The Sportmax GP-A showed very odd wear and one team complained it favored the V-twins, whose torque allows them to drive much harder off the corners. Post-race inspections showed the softer tread on the shoulders would wear properly, but the center tread looked brand new. Allen said on the new tire, "the distribution of the tread, the ratio of the center compound and side compound, will be changed."
Unlike in Superbike, where the tire make-up is set, Dunlop plans to introduce new tires in the support classes at the AMA races on the Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix weekend. "We're free to change the specs at any time, according to the AMA, as long as everybody has the same specs," Allen said, adding, "We want to do better, we will do better. You'll see it by the end of the year."