Dunlop sprung a new front...
Dunlop sprung a new front tire for the American SuperBike class without any prior notice or testing at Friday's rider's meeting at the New Jersey Motorsports Park AMA Pro event.
Nothing is more critical to a road racer than front end feel. Skittish front ends make skittish riders. Just look at the number of front end spills at last week’s Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix and the Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix at Laguna Seca. Riders use the same front tires for years at a time. They’re resistant to change. So when Dunlop decided to introduce a new front tire at New Jersey Motorsports Park, there were groans from the paddock.
The new specification front tire was announced at Friday’s riders meeting. There was some grumbling and some questions, but no debate. This was one of the tires in play for this weekend’s penultimate round of the AMA Pro Road Race series.
Dunlop’s point man Ian Willetts said that the new 6775 front was a bridge between the medium 6680, which is the consensus choice of most riders, and a harder option. There’s also a soft front, 6704, which is rarely a viable race option. The 6775 replaces the medium and the hard, which makes it a compromise and reduces the front choices to two.
Pat Clark Motorsports Yamaha's...
Pat Clark Motorsports Yamaha's Ben Bostrom wasn't quite so sure about the new Dunlop 6775 front tire. "I think everyone agrees that the front tire is a little bit strange this weekend. No one's quite used to it."
“So with the introduction of the 6775, we tried to bridge the gap between the current medium and the hard, so we offer the grip level of the current medium with the stability of the current hard,” Willetts said before acknowledging the timing by saying, “And yes, I will put my hand up and say from a communication point of view, from a timing point of view, maybe we could have done a better job. But we opted to make that selection available for this weekend with one eye on the future, not forgiving the fact that this compound in fact has been very well received in Europe, ahead of making the decision.”
Those partial to the 6680 find it a little harder, the ones who like the harder option, find it slightly soft. One rider said the front felt “weird.” And because of the preponderance of right hand turns at NJMP, the left side of the tire took longer to heat up and would quickly cool down if the rider cruised around looking for a clean track.
Pat Clark Motorsports’ Ben Bostrom addressed the front tire issue after qualifying third on a windy Saturday morning. He said the the big issue was the wind and that it was “quite tricky to ride in and you get some weird front end slides out there. I think everyone agrees that the front tire is a little bit strange this weekend. No one’s quite used to it. Then you have to factor the wind and, yeah, it’s a bit sketchy.”
The tire has been used in national Superbike championships in Germany and Italy, as well as World Endurance. “We constantly review, we gather all that information together and this particular compound 6775 has been very well received in other Superbike championships,” noted Willetts. “So we knew exactly how it performed, so we were coming with some confidence. And, to be fair, I think that on the feedback that we’ve had so far, the limited running that we’ve done today, it’s been very favorable, and has mimicked what we thought the level of performance would be; matching the grip levels of medium with the enhanced stability of the hard option.”
Provisional pole-sitter Tommy Hayden (Rockstar Makita Suzuki) sounded just a touch annoyed when discussing the tire. When asked if he’d used it, he said, “Yes, didn’t have a choice. Really, there’s the one no one ever uses, because it’s way too soft, and this one. So it’s all I’ve been on. I hadn’t ridden here in a year, so to say it’s better or worse I don’t think would be accurate. But it’s not causing me any problems. It’s working pretty good. I don’t have any issues with the front.”
Hayden said the feel was no different, “but again, it’s been a while since I’ve been here. Every track doesn’t always feel the same, but it’s not doing anything weird for sure. It’s not creating any more chatter. Turning seems similar. Nothing really stands out. So I feel it being a little bit different, but nothing has really caused me any problems.”
Interestingly, Dunlop said...
Interestingly, Dunlop said that the new 6775 will only be available for New Jersey, and that the tire options would return to the normal quota at the final event at Barber.
What made Dunlop’s decision even stranger is that the 6775 will be available for this weekend only; the 6680 will be the workhorse at the AMA season finale at Barber Motorsports Park at the end of the month. The New Jersey race is seen a necessity in determining the tire’s future.
“You can test and test and test, but really to be sure that the level of performance is acceptable, you need to have it in a real race weekend, in a real race environment to really get the right feedback,” Willetts said. “I’d be rather hesitant to introduce it for next year without at least one race under our belt. And that was the idea coming into this weekend. It would be our intention for the next and final event to return to the three standard options.”
As for 2011, Willetts said nothing has been decided, which “is not to say 6775 would be the final compound, but it gives us direction in terms of the chemistry, the make-up of that compound as to which direction we need to go next year.”