The Castrol Honda World Superbike team completed a two-day test at Miller Motorsports Park ahead of this weekend’s round of the championship, and just a reminder for Europeans, the races will be run on Monday and not on Sunday, as it’s Memorial Day in the States.
Strangely enough the Dutch based team chose the Utah circuit as their test track this season, because as Jonathan Rea quaintly puts it “they sucked here last year.
” The team spent Sunday and Monday testing in drizzly weather some new parts that included a new swingarm and suspension components.
We nominated Miller as our test track this year because last season we really struggled with bike set-up.
I really enjoy riding here in America but the bumpy nature of the circuit makes it very difficult to find the optimum settings for the bike,” said Jonathan Rea, who put in 100 laps over the two days.
“My team have pulled out all the stops though, and we had a lot of new items to test.
The weather wasn’t on our side, so the track conditions were pretty dirty out there.
I found a better feeling for corner entry with a new swing-arm and this really helped the feeling when the tyre life starts to drop.
I also had some new suspension items to test and, while we found some positives, it will take more time to get it dialled in properly.
We are in much better shape now to start the weekend and as always we will do our best.
While team mate Ruben Xaus said, “We know that Miller has some difficult features because it’s very bumpy due to a lot of cars using this track.
We experienced a lot of chatter on the first day which we struggled to find a solution for.
I tried to adapt my riding style a little to improve the lap times but unfortunately had a small crash in the afternoon which stopped our progress.
The morning of the second day we worked hard to improve the set-up and lap times in between some pretty bad weather conditions and in the end found something better.
We tried a new brake system and a softer chassis which made a really positive step forward, as well as helping me find a longer life for the tyres, which is really important for this track.
I’m pleased to say that I finally found a good base set-up for the race weekend so hopefully I can help to push the whole team forward.
”