When asked to rate the best tire tester of all time from his perspective at the recent Dunlop tire test, tire engineer Jim Allen said one man stood high above the others: former AMA and World Superbike champion Doug Polen.

"Polen was just the best,"Allen said. "He had an incredible memory for tires. He'd remember in September tires that he had tested in May. He remembered what worked, or what from another tire would work better in the one we were now using, things like that. It was amazing." Polen was a Dunlop rider and test rider for the company from the late 1980s until 1993, in which time Dunlop won two World Superbike championships and one AMA title with Polen.

Allen relates that having Polen on the bike was like human data acquisition. "He was really human data acquisition; he was phenomenal. He gave you almost too much information at times and you'd have to sift through it, but when you were finished he'd given a comprehensive look at a range of tires. He'd never make anything up just to tell you something, and he never needed a few minutes to think about what happened when he came in. He was always ready when his shield flipped up on his helmet."