FPR’s Aussies Make Tracks at Phillip Island Test FPR’s Steve Martin and Garry McCoy made further encouraging strides forward during today’s second day of testing at Phillip Island, with extensive evaluation of engine and chassis developments proving successful. Another trouble free day of running enabled both riders to maximise track time and using the latest specification of engine development, Steve knocked off over a second from his best time of yesterday to post a 1:34.2, also an improvement on the team’s best lap time from the 2004 race weekend at the costal circuit. Team mate Garry made significant in-roads with the set up of this longer swing arm configured FP1 and was able to run half a second quicker than yesterday with a time of 1:35.7, although cooling conditions from mid afternoon denied him the chance of taking to the track on a qualifying tyre. Team Manager, Jack Valentine commented, “Overall I’m really pleased with how this test has gone. Having found a good race set up yesterday, Steve’s focus today was on testing the latest engine specification and we’re really happy with how that performed, so now we need to get working to bring that on line as soon as possible. Garry continued work with his longer swing arm in order to find a good race set up, and is now at a point where he is comfortable and confident on the bike, which again is great progress. Now we’re just looking forward to next weekend’s race and even more developments to get us to where we really want to be.” Steve said, “I know I say this at every test but I am really happy with how the last two days have gone. Each time we go out things just get better for me and that’s a great credit to all the team’s hard work. I’ve got a good set up for the race here at the Island and the latest engine specification I’ve been testing today is really good. It’s a shame we won’t have that in the bikes for this next race but it’s great to know that we’ve got some really good things to come.” Garry said, “Things have started coming together for me today. We continued where we left off yesterday with more set up work of the longer swing arm, as my aim for today was to get to a point where I felt comfy on the bike and had a good base set up for the race here. I had to go out on my second bike in the afternoon which doesn’t have some of the latest engine developments, and also, even though we moved over all the parts from my first bike, it still didn’t feel quite the same so we had to spend a bit of time working through that. But I feel we achieved what we set out to do at this test and I’m more comfortable on the bike now than I ever have been which is great. I’m looking forward to the race and carrying on with making even more development progress.”