MotoAmerica Superbike racer/team owner Kyle Wyman is testing

a new Magneti Marelli advanced electronic system on his Lucas Oil/KWR Ducati

Panigale V4 R today and tomorrow at Pittsburgh International Race Complex, in

Wampum, Pennsylvania, and so far things are going about as well as Wyman could

have imagined.

“We spent all day on track with zero hiccups, no down time,”

Wyman told Roadracingworld.com in a telephone interview Monday. “Everything has

gone off exactly how we wanted it to.”

It did, however, take a significant amount of time,

preparation, networking, and assistance for Wyman and his team to enjoy a trouble-free

first day on track with the new electronics.

Immediately after Wyman chose to race at Ducati Panigalve V4

R in 2019 he established contact with Ducati Corse and began communicating with

Paulo Ciabatti, the Sporting Director of Ducati Corse.

“I’ve been feeling the love from all around,” said Wyman. “We

got the electronics on the Tuesday after COTA [April 16]. I had ordered them a

while back and was trying to find time to install them and get them up and

running. Unfortunately, it was three events before we could do that.

“I found out shortly after [meeting with Ciabatti and Gigi

Dall’Inga, Ducati Corse’s General Manager] at COTA that Ducati was going to try

to send an engineer to help me. I was like, ‘Oh, sweet! I wonder what that’s

going to cost.’ But Ducati North America helped get him over here.”

This past weekend, Wyman, his crew chief Gary Dean, and his

electronics technician Darrin Marshall met up at the Wyman family workshop in

western New York, and Ducati electronics engineer Fausto Ghafar flew in to meet

them.

“Fausto works full-time for the Barni Racing team in World

Superbike. So he’s a Ducati Corse employee and he’s contracted to work with

Michael Rinaldi,” said Wyman. “Gary and Darin spent all day Saturday getting it

about 95% there. Then Fausto came in and all day Sunday we finished up stuff.

They had to program everything and set up all the strategies and all that.”

And after spending $16,754 on the electronics kit, Wyman

said he found the installation to be relatively pain-free.

“The thing that’s really cool is it shows up and for the

most part, 90-95% of it is like this goes here, that goes there, boom, boom,

boom. You just bolt it on,” said Wyman. “I hate the term ‘plug-and-play,’ but

it’s a kit system. It’s not like we have to get a wiring harness made. There’s

part numbers for everything on the bike. They’ve done such a good job

developing the package, so it makes sense.”

On Monday, Wyman shared PittRace’s North Course with the

Yamaha Champions Riding School (YCRS), with whom he normally serves as an

instructor, but this time it was an educational experience for the man who normally

does the teaching.

“For me it’s a huge learning curve understanding what I can

ask for versus what I can’t and how to approach things and think about the bike

as a whole unit. Because I’ve never ridden on anything like this. It’s always

been kit stuff, kit ECUs,” said Wyman. “Working with Darrin, he’s got so much experience

in this realm. He just brings a different approach.

“It’s amazing to me what electronics can do for you compared

to what I thought it can do. As a whole the ceiling becomes so high. The

outright lap time maybe doesn’t get that much better, but your ability to be

consistent does because the bike becomes easier to ride. That’s really what we’re

going to gain.

“I think also today was so good for me to just go out and do

laps and be by myself because there’s no timing and scoring, no people, no

nothing. I can just go out and get to know the bike, and that’s something I

haven’t got to do until today. So that’s been one of the most valuable things.

“It’s been a weird day for me because I feel like I’ve been

a rider today [as opposed to being a rider/team owner/team manager]. I go over

and I want to tell [Marshall] it’s doing this here and that there, but he

already knows what it’s doing from looking at the data. So I just wait until

they have something new for me to try. It’s been kind of nice.

“I sat there a little bit and watched what they were doing

[within the system], making changes and stuff. The sophistication plus the

intuitiveness of the Ducati software is pretty impressive with what you can do

in a short amount of time.

“And they can simulate a change before they do it! And then

they can look at the data of what you’re about to do before you send the bike

out on the track. It’s pretty crazy, but apparently that’s something they have

at Yoshimura Suzuki and Yamaha, as well. Pretty unreal.”

Because Wyman only rode on half of the PittRace course

normally used by MotoAmerica, his lap times today were irrelevant, but he did

record one interesting number while doing practice starts.

“They run data for practice starts,” said Wyman. “So I guess

I went 0-100 kph (62 mph) in 2.7 seconds, and the record of all the V4 Rs around

the world is 2.6 seconds. So I’ve got the starts pretty good. And that’s with a

stock motor, so I’ll get the 0.1-second when I put in the Superbike motor, but

at this point the motor’s not our weakest link.”

Wyman said he will get the opportunity to ride on the full MotoAmerica

course for half a day on Tuesday, when he and his team continue to

test.