SETUP REPORT - 27/05/2010Toseland and Crutchlow get set for Salt Lake City
Yamaha Sterilgarda riders Cal Crutchlow and James Toseland are
gearing up for the U.S round of the World Superbike Championship this
coming Monday at the Miller Motorsports Park in Salt Lake City. Last
year the team saw a double victory here at the hands of rider Ben
Spies, success they will be looking to repeat in 2010 with British
riders Crutchlow and Toseland.
The Salt Lake City round is the seventh of the 2010 Championship,
with six rounds now remaining before the finale in Magny Cours in
October. Toseland heads into this weekend in fifth place in the
championship on 125 points, 16 points behind Carlos Checa in fourth.
Team mate Crutchlow sits in ninth with 86 points, nine points behind
Michele Fabrizio in eighth.
"I'm really looking forward to Salt Lake City," said James Toseland.
"It's a brand new track for me. I got to drive a couple of laps in one
of the Miller Racing School's Mustang's this week which has given me
an idea of the track layout, but there's nothing like actually riding it
on a bike to understand it. I've always enjoyed coming to American
tracks to race, I love Laguna Seca and Indianapolis so I'm looking
forward to the challenge of learning this one and getting up to speed
as quickly as possible. I hope we don't have the grip level problems
as we did in Kyalami."
"It's great to be back here again," said Cal Crutchlow. "I loved racing
here last year on the Supersport bike; it's a great track so I'm really
looking forward to getting stuck into it on the R1. I know the bike works
well here, so I'm confident we can get up there and fight to be at the
front to finish the weekend on the podium." Miller technically speaking
according to Frankie Carchedi, James Toseland's Crew Chief "Kyalami
proved to be a tough weekend for the team, but James gained some
valuable points towards the championship. Miller is a new track for
James, so the key will be for him to do as many laps as possible in the
first few sessions and learn the track. The second day we will work hard
on the setting so that James can again fight for the top three places.
Miller racetrack is very different to Kyalami and has hardly any change
of elevations. We will work hard on making sure we can also maintain
good grip levels for the whole race, as this is a key factor for us. We
have some good data from last year and we will use this to our
advantage to work towards an optimum set up as quickly as possible."
Miller technically speaking according to Marcus Eschenbacher, Cal
Crutchlow's Crew Chief "The circuit has two or three
different characters, and at least two different tarmac surfaces to
deal with. You have the fast flowing part and then the last part which
is more twisty with a different tarmac surface so we have to see what
the grip situation is and what our level of traction is. We will start
with one bike on our base set up and the second bike we will try
something new. We want to have more dynamic transfer on the bike so we
will adjust the bike to achieve this which will hopefully give us more
traction without compromising steering. We will also try a new clutch
to see if we can improve on our starts."
Massimo Meregalli, Yamaha
Sterilgarda World Superbike Team Manager
"Miller Motorsports circuit
seems to be one of the good circuits for us, last year we ran very well
here with no problems so we're preparing for the weekend with
confidence and determination, we believe we can achieve good results.
After South Africa we haven't worked on our bikes as they came directly
from Kyalami to here but we are ready with a good base set up to begin
on Saturday with the first session."
The Yamaha Sterilgarda World Superbike Team riders will be looking to
build on the current run of victories by both the R1 and the R6 in the USA
national championships. Team Graves Yamaha R1 rider Josh Hayes took
double AMA Superbike wins in California two weeks ago, with fellow
Yamaha Pat Clark Motorsports R1 rider Ben Bostrom taking two second places
behind him to make it a double Yamaha one-two on the podium. The R6
was also dominating the AMA weekend, with podiums by Tommy Aquino,
Josh Herrin and Dane Westby. In AMA ProSupersport, the Saturday saw five
of the top six places taken bythe R6 whilst Sunday saw it take the chequered flag.
*Please note that this Weekend's World Superbike races at Salt Lake City
will take place on the Monday, not the Sunday. First qualifying sessions will
be Saturday and second qualifying and Superpole on Sunday.
), well then so be it. Getting in Saturday night.
