Copyright 2002, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

By David Swarts

Yoshimura Suzuki’s Mat Mladin, Jamie Hacking and Aaron Yates recently completed their first test since the Dunlop tire tests at Daytona International Speedway in December of 2001.

After the team spent January relocating to a new facility less than a mile away from their old race shop in Chino, California, the three-rider squad tested their new 2002 Suzuki GSX-Rs at Bragg-Smith Motorsports Park in Pahrump, Nevada from January 31 to February 2.

The track in Pahrump is a relatively-new, 2.2-mile-long, 35-foot-wide road course located near the border of Nevada and California. The facility hosts no sanctioned motorcycle road races, but is a popular testing location for California-based race teams.

According to Team Coordinator Rich Doan, the team further evaluated new parts first tried at Daytona. Yates and Hacking split time between their GSX-R600 Supersport machines and GSX-R750 Superbikes, while Mladin, who tended to his new Suzuki dealership in Australia during the off-season, spent all of his time at Pahrump on his Superbike. Mladin’s best Superbike time was approximately 0.7-second faster than his teammates, but no lap times were released by the Yoshimura team.

Even though Doan termed the weather as “brisk” at times, there were no crashes during the test.

Yoshimura Suzuki plans to test alongside many other AMA teams February 12-14 at California Speedway before returning to Pahrump in late February for a one-day Daytona dress rehearsal.