By David Swarts

Erv Kanemoto’s Bridgestone tire testing team of Shinichi Itoh and Nobuatsu Aoki will test alongside current MotoGP Championship teams at Brno following the August 24-26 Czech Grand Prix. The test, tentatively scheduled to start Monday, August 27 with Telefonica Movistar Suzuki’s Kenny Roberts and Sete Gibernau, will mark the first time that the Bridgestone development team has shared a track with a current Grand Prix team.

This will allow Kanemoto’s team to compare the performance of the Bridgestones againt real competition under the same conditions. The test is expected to continue August 28-29, when Red Bull Yamaha’s Noriyuki Haga and Garry McCoy also test at Brno.

Bridgestone engineers have spent the last several months with Kanemoto, Itoh, Aoki and a pair of Honda NSR500s, developing Bridgestones tires for competition in the 2002 Grand Prix season.