Copyright 2003, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

The Yoshimura Suzuki AMA Superbike team is planning on testing at the Sepang Circuit in Malaysia January 20-23.

According to Team Manager Don Sakakura, Mat Mladin and Aaron Yates will spend four days, “looking at some updated parts. It’s good to run four days consistently. The weather and the track are ideal to test at. We learned a lot there last year.”

Yoshimura Suzuki tested for four days at Sepang in January of 2003, and Mladin called the test “the most productive I’ve ever been involved with.”

Sakakura added that Mladin and Yates would most likely be sharing the track with the Suzuki MotoGP team of Kenny Lee Roberts and John Hopkins but not Ben Spies, the third member of the Yoshimura Suzuki team.

Sakakura said Spies would test his Supersport and Superstock racebikes during the same approximate time period somewhere in the United States. It will be Spies’ first test since a high-speed crash during tire testing at Daytona October 13.

Spies crashed when the rear tire on his Suzuki GSX-R1000 Superbike exploded as he passed through the tri-oval at 186 mph. He suffered serious skin abrasions — some requiring skin grafts – in his long slide on the pavement.