Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

.. .... . .. . ... . . ~ " ~J" explains otherwise. The book is full of statements from top riders regarding road racing a nd those statements add credibility to Clifford 's (and others') theories regarding such things as frames, engines, exhaust systems, tires , etc. Diagrams of GP circuits with a top rider describing a typical lap, brief profiles and candid pics of the superstars all add to the book's appeal. Bloody well done. Peter. .. C(") .. . l-< 0.. < ,. ~ Team Suzuki By Ray Battersby Published by Osprey Publishing ltd. Hardbound. 240 pages $30.95 including postage Motorsport. 6115 Gravois. St. Louis. MO 63116 The Art &. Sc ience of Motor Cycle Road Racing By Peter Clifford Published by Hazleton Publishing Hardbound . 260 pages $19.90. incl uding postage Motorbooks Int ernatio nal . P.O . Box 2 . Osceola. WI 54020 P e ter Clifford, a graduate mechanical engineer whose byline has appeared on these pages as well as in motorcycle • - 38 publications around the world, presents - in layman terms - an explanation of the scientific p rincip les involved in road racing. While it can sta nd on its own as a book for beginners, I'd recommend Keith Code's A . Twist 01 the WTist be read first by th ose making their initial venture into road racing. Clifford's book is . not an instruction manual per se, it's a road racing textbook that will hold the interest of everyone interested in road racing whether they be a participant or a fan . None other than King Kenny Roberts wrote the foreword and the three-time World Champion sums up the instructional value of "how to" books: " You can teach the guys to race . or rather what you really do is save them time. If they're any good they'd find out sooner or later anyway." Roberts stresses the importance in knowingwhy a bike reacts in a certain manner: "When you can think about riding a motorcycle, understand what it is doing and know how to improve it , then you don 't hav e to go getting yourself pumped up to ride it fast .. . If you comprehend what the bike is doing then you 'll know its limits and be able to ride it to its maximum wi thout wondering whether you're goi ng to fall 0[( any second." 120 photos, 20 of them in color, appear in the book and most of them are by the wizard of road race photography, Don Morley. For us, the book is worth the selling price for two photos: a look at Robert s on the banki ng at Daytona with his TZ750 compressed down to within an inch or so of the asphalt, and a shot of Barry Sheene in the process of what appears to be a major get-off. Sheene Motocourse 19B2-1983 By Peter Clifford Published by Hazleton Publishing Hardbound . 192 pages $39.90. including sh ipping Motorbooks Int ern at ional. P.O . Box 2 . Osceola. WI 54020 The seventh annual edition of Motocourse is on a par with the six which preceded it, and that means it needs no review. Every superlative one can think of has been used in describing the series of road racing books. We've said it before and we'll say it again about this year's M otocoUTse, it belongs on the bookshelf of every road race enth usiast. . . Once again, the h ighl ig ht of the book is the p hotogr ap h y and, once again, the man behind th e camera in most cases was Don Morley. 50 full co lor photographs (by Morley) and over 250 black and white photos .accornpan y the text of the coffee-table book. While the color photos are the real eye-grabbers, the black and white shots are excellent as well . We loo k forward to each year's MotoCOUTse and offer the following criticism because we're nitpicking' and we're American: first , we wish the publisher would increase the number of pages devoted to the admittedly small but growing Am erican ro ad race scen e, particularly Daytona, and secondly, be more accurate in editing. The latter was first brought to our attention by the disparity of years regarding Freddie Spencer's age between Motocourse and The ATt i:r Scien ce 01 Motorcycle Road Ra cing, both edited by Clifford. The former incorrectly sa ys Spencer is 24, the latter correctly has him at 21'years of age . And is there a man on the international road race scene who has had his name misspelled more often than Spencer's ace tuner, Erv Kanemoto? That's Erv , Peter, nOI "Irv." While those are just two minor errors we noticed, finding those two immediately makes us wonder if there are not more. But nitpicking and patriotism aside , Motocourse is the one book we'd purchase if some strange force limited us to a single purchase. On a scale of one to ten. it 's definitely a ten . If you 're a regular viewer of The Johnny Canon Show, you 've seen and heard his sidekick, Ed McMahon, hold upa book and say, " Everyth in g yo u ever wanted to know is contained in this book }" Carson usually quips, " Wro ng , beer breath. " Well , in the case of Ray Battersby's Team Suzuki, everything you ever wanted to knowand more-aliloutSuzuki's works road race machinery is in the book. From the 1953 bicycle-based 58cc Diamond Free through the 1981 XR35 (RG500 Gamma) GP road racers, Ba ttersby offers a technical but easyreading look of the bikes campaigned by Suzuki on race tracks around the world. Adding interest are comments from men who designed, built, maintained and raced the bikes. Over 200 photographs complement Ba ttersby's wo rds, wit h the mos t In teresting being p ies of the innards of such bikes as the 1957 RK67 and its l-l-speed gearbox that was less than 8-inches wide! Several chapters cover the development of the present 500cc GP racers tha t Ba ttersby calls "Suzuki's rockets." Ba tt ersb y, who joined Heron Suzuki's service department in England in 1976, has scored with his firstever full length book. While most dust jacket blurbs are mere hype, the following from Team Suzuki's dust jacket accurately sums up the book: "Tea!" Suzuki is !lot just the most derailed road raang motorcycle technical history yet published but is a human story too. Designers, managers, mechanics all have their say notwithstanding the huge amount of rider anecdote also available ... Indulge in some of the world's most exciting and successful road racing motorcycles." A Twist of the Wrist By Keith Code Published by Acrobat Books Soft cover. 142 pages $15.95 including postage Acrobat Books. P.O. Box 480820. Los Angeles. CA 90048 In the sixties, when I was first frying my hand at clu b road racing, I asked Gary Nixon, one of the greatest road racers of all time, to give me some pointers. "Get on the gas as hard as you can. brake as hard as you can, and get back on the gas as hard as you can. That's .a ll there is to it, " said Nixon, dismissing me. Years late!, I approac~ed Nixon and asked h im to work wtth me in wri ting a series of articles alo ng the "how to " line o f instruction. He shrugged and said, "I thought I told you all about that years ago. There's nothing to write about. You just do it. " While that approach might have worked for Gary Nixon , it didn 't work for me and I soon returned to spectating. If Keith Code's A Tw ist 01 the WTist had been available in the sixties, I might still be road racing. Code 's approach isa thinking man's . approach , and Code makes you think. Agraduate of Code's CalifomiaSuperbike School, Team Kawasaki's Wayne Rainey says in the book 's foreword, " Keith made me think before we got to the track, while I was on the track, and ajter I got 0[( the bike. I don't know if everyone can get into the winner's circleas fast as I did, but I know now that being able to think about your riding is important. Get that part done first." And that's where Code's book comes in . Not everyone can attend Code's classroom /race track school, but anyone wh o road races or is contemplating road racing, sh ould read this book: (You're excused, Kenny Robert sl) Dozen s of ill ustra tions and pho tos accompany Code's text, and comments (printed in the margins) by Superbike champ Eddie Lawson add interest to the book. T h e book's su btitle is The Motorcycle Road Racers H andbook. That last work could have just as easily been " brain boo k.' Jack Mangus Next w.eek Ascot T1" covera~ ,..

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