PP: You say in 2007 you had a comparison. Did you have a 350 prototype in 2007?
PP: How long have you had a prototype that you've been able to ride?
SE: Actually, we started developing a new chassis quite early, like at the end of 2007, but the 350 engine was not ready by that time. I saw the first cases by the end of 2007, then a few months later it was put together, and then the baby was born on the dyno test. I remember the day they said, 'it's alive now, the engine is alive.' They did first a lot of dyno tests before I went out and rode it on a track.
PP: Did you ever experiment with a carbureted bike or was it always fuel injected?
SE: No, we started off with the fuel injection quite early, but then at one stage we had to go back to the carburetor because some of the prototype parts were on standby. So we went back to the carburetor and immediately we felt that we lost some good things. Then later on the new electric cabling and stuff came and then, yeah, it was right on, it was good to be back on the fuel injection.
PP: Did you try a bike with linkage and without, or did you always go with linkage?
SE: We had the go for the linkage from the beginning, so we had quite early some [form of] linkage in the frames. But the chassis went through many development stages. What we started with was not what we finished with.
PP: Was there ever any time riding this bike during testing where it really impressed you?
SE: Yeah, I remember one day taking it out to Lommel and I had to try out some new things and I went flying around the track there like my good days and I was like, 'Yes!' And I went home with a really great feeling, 'this was a great ride today.' My mechanic was with me, and he said, '$#&! you went quite fast around these turns here!'
We'll do our best here at Dirt Rider to keep you posted on this bike, but it looks like it's going to be a very interesting summer in 2010.