Cycle News

Cycle News 2014 Issue 13 April 1 2014

Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles

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obviously pretty good: not only because Rossi now seemed to be back in the game, but be- cause of the closeness of it all behind him, and the fact that satellite riders Alvaro Bautista and Bradley Smith (both front-row qualifiers, Smith for the first time) played a leading role, after the self-inflicted early absence of Jorge Lorenzo. Until they also fell off. Even Rossi said later: "Maybe Dorna had a good idea." But the extra personnel up front had little to do with the rules, and all the twists and turns in their provenance. The difference for Smith, Bautista and all the other non-factory-team guys was that they'd had three nights of testing at Losail. And certainly in Smith's case, he's also developing pretty handily as a rider, in his second MotoGP year. Yes, Aleix Espargaro did finish fourth, on a fully fuelled ex-factory Yamaha using the new Dorna-supplied control electronics under Open rules. But it would have been seventh but for those three crashers. And in any case, he was using the same tires (his Open-class "hard" op- tion, the factory riders' "soft"). The greater revelations came in free practice, when the older Espargaro dominated, using his soft tire, right up until it mattered, in qualifying. No doubt feeling the pressure, he crashed twice in the session. The Ducatis, now in a sort of purpose-de- signed sub-Factory category, enjoyed the same advantage. And made the same tire choice for the race. The real lesson was that fiddling with the rules and offering different levels of technology didn't make a deal of difference in the end - and since the main aim of these rule changes is aimed to- wards eventual simplification – with identically fueled, fired and shod Open-spec bikes only from 2016, it cuts deep. If the racing gets better when you introduce a bewildering array of different levels, all with differ- ent technical possibilities, won't it get worse again when these differences are all ironed out? CN VOL. 51 ISSUE 13 APRIL 1, 2014 P127 LOOKING BACK 40 Years Ago April 9, 1974 We're not sure what was going on with the cover of Cycle News 40 years ago, but perhaps it was something left over from the previous April Fool's Day issue… We did get serious for a bit and covered the Lame Puppy Enduro in California, and the Tecate 500 Enduro in Mexico. Only about 80 of the 800 Tecate starters finished… We also traveled to San Diego to cover the San Di- ego Scottish Trials won by Marland Whaley… We road tested a kid's Big Wheel plastic tricycle purchased at a Woolco De- partment store. Yes, we did. 30 Years Ago April 11, 1984 Banzai! Pictured on the front page of Cy- cle News 30 years ago was Ron Turner leading the pack down Saddleback's in- famous Banzai Hill at the start of the 125 National. Johnny O'Mara, Ron Lechien and David Bailey made it a Honda sweep that day… Eddie Lawson won the open- ing round of the GP Series in South Af- rica. It was his first-career GP victory… Bernie Schreiber won the World Trials round in Wales. 20 Years Ago April 6, 1994 Luca Cadalora was featured on the cover of Cycle News 20 years ago to ac- company our next-day coverage of the Australian GP. The race was won by John Kocinski… Troy Corser won his first Superbike National at Phoenix… Mike LaRocco won the Charlotte Supercross. 10 Years Ago April 7, 2004 NHRA, the Triumph Thruxton 900 and GNCC were all featured on the cover 10 years ago… Regis Laconi and Gary Mc- Coy were the latest new winners in World Superbike… Mike Alessi was the star at the Lake Whitney GNC MX. Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives

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