Linfoot casts off the best

Last year Dan Linfoot was Rob McElnea’s supersport runner.

Mid-season injuries ruled him out of the title race on the Node 4 R6 so McElnea switched him to one of the team’s superbike R1s for the end of season races.

For 2010 he’ll be Neil Hodgson’s team-mate on McElnea’s Motorpoint Yamaha BSB team  and had his first test on the revamped machine at Almeria last week.

MCN spoke to him about the test.

When you raced the R1 it looked like it threatened to spit you off in virtually ever corner. How was it at Almeria?
Very, very good.  I loved all three days of riding the bike. I can’t believe how different it is.

It’s so much easier to ride now and I blended right into it. This is the bike I wanted to kick the hell out of when I raced it. Now I love it so much I want to marry it!

What’s different?
It feels so settled now. They’ve calmed down the acceleration. It’s geared a lot taller now and, even when you are on the edge of the tyre, you can just drive off the corner and the wheels stay dead in line!

Did you change the bike much while you were there?
Not on Friday. I wanted to do laps and get a feel for the bike. I was learning the track, just like Neil was.

Then on Saturday and Sunday we played with the suspension a bit. I’m still on Ohlins. Neil switched to K-Techs and seemed to like them. We swapped bikes right at the end of the day.

And my intial feel – though we didn’t get many laps – was his set-up was a bit more twitchy than mine but I could see where the forks might be better.

They have a little more stability at the bottom of the stroke, which gives you a bit more confidence in the front.  

So on reflection – a good test?
After this test I’ll be smiling all the way into the new year.

Thanks to Mr (James) Ellison (who helped the team by testing the bike at Cadwell at the end of the season) for giving us the right direction.

I can’t wait to ride it again. It’s a different bike altogether from last year.