Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

Appointed Vice President, New Business for Harley-Davidson Motor Co., Dave Caruso. Moved Tony Smith Racing, to 1277 Cuyamaca, Suite G, EI Cajon, CA 92020,619/562-6784. Named Technical Service Representative Motorcycle Company in San Diego, California, Charlie Halcomb; a bronze medalist at the 1984 ISDE and former national motocross racer. Halcomb's responsibilities will incl ude dealer service schools, customer relations and magazine test bike preparation and introduction. Bought By CBS Magazines, 12 Zi£[-Davis magazi nes, incl uding Cycle and Car and Driver; CBS currently publishes Cycle World and Road &: Track; a CBS spokesman said that the company did not plan to discontinue or merge any titles. Reported Net sales for the six months ended August 31, 1984, by Honda Motor Co., Ltd., $5,565,858,000; inel udes sales of 1,586,000 motorcycles, 1,586,000 automobiles and 623,000 power products worldwide. Opened A Curriculum Development Office, by the Specialty Vehicle Institute of America, to dev,elop training programs for ATV riders; more information available from P.O. Box 279, Chadds Ford, PA 19317, 215/388-7381. RISK By John Ulrich Two weeks ago I became the first man on earth to total a 1985 Kawasaki Ninja 600R. I hadn't been on the ground 10 minutes when somebody on the scene - the Kawasaki press intro at Firebird International Rac'eway in P·hoenix - had called the Cycle News office in Long Beach, demanding tha the big news be included in the Industry Changes col umn under the infamous heading, "Wadded." (It was. I had written the item in my· head before I even stopped sliding, because I knew if I didn't print it I'd face the wrath of more-inhibited, Included A segment on training, hosted by moto-fitness expert Jeff Spencer, as part of Larry Huffman's Motorcycle World radio show, heard Sundays at 9:00 a.m. on KEZY 1190 AM and KWDJ 92.7·FM in southern California. Released A nine-minute video on Team Hammer's National Endurance Championship-winning 1984 season, entitled "Wheels of Endurance;" produced by Larry Huffman and directed by Paul Vogel; tq be shown at various motorcycle shows, Suzuki dealer introductions, and on cable TV. Threatened 300,000 acres of prime California desert riding area, including Plaster City and Glamis, by a request by the U.S. Navy for a new bombing and gunnery range; protests should be directed to the Bureau of Land Management. .Seen Camel Pro Series Champion Ricky Graham, Doug Chandler and Je£[ Haney, at an advanced California Superbike School training session taught by Keith Code, at Laguna Seca Raceway. Mangled One leg and knee ligaments belonging to Cycle News East Editor Jack Mangus, when he dabbed while ridinga military-model KTM in a frozen parking lot at the Austrian KTM factory during a 1985 model intro; Mangus underwent surgery November 21 and will be hospitalized in Braunau, Austria for three weeks. less-confident journalists I've exposed as crashers in that column.) Hey. I did it. I crashed that Ninja 600R in front of God, a goodly portion of the American motorcycle press, and an army of high-ranking Japanese engineers from Kawasaki. The poor guys fly over here with a fleet of Ninja Jrs. and the first time they turn their backs one of them is plowing into a dirt embankment at 70 mph and exploding into pieces large and small. My biggest concern at the time was the possibility that the motorcycle, barrelling along in front of me, would hop up when it hit the bank, wait for me to slide underneath it, and return to earth with a bone-crushing smash. Just as I predicted the motorcycle hit and jumped up off the ground maybe four feet high - and then I couldn't see anything as a cloud of dust enveloped the scene. But when I stopped I was short of where the Ninja landed, and unhurt. Kawasaki was well prepared they had three ambulances on the scene - and the medic who reached me first told me later that he was disappointed that he didn't get to send for the air-evacuation helicopter. "You were going pretty fast," he said, marvelling at my lack of injuries, and I had to correct him: when you've gone through dragstrip lights at 10.20 seconds and 139 mph on your back, stepping o£[ below 100 mph bewmes l'ess impressive. And when you've tasted asphalt enough times, you learn where to have the extra padding and triple layers' of hide built into your leathers; you learn which boots and gloves don't disintegrate at speed; you wear your back pad every time you get on the track. You also learn how to keep your head and custompainted helmet off the ground, how to lift parts of your body when you feel friction heat; how to compose Wadded items while whistling down the track without a motorcycle. I've been criticized before for a lack Suzuki's new RG600 Gamma is a water-CO,oled, rotary-valve. two-stroke square-four with electronically-controlled powervalves in the exhausts and a claimed 100 horsepower. The RG600 engine has bore and stroke of 54 x 54mm for 492cc displacement and uses four flat-slide Mikuni carburetors. The frame is made of Suzuki's indented-box-section aluminum alloy tubing and weighs just 18 pounds bare; claimed dry weight is 337 pounds. The fronttire is 110/90-16, the rear a 120/90-17. Seat height is about 29 inches and the estimated retail price in Canada will be about $3400 U.S.; it's not known if the RG500 will be sold in the U.S. Delivery in Canada is expected to start in July. of remorse upon crashing. You've all seen that GPzlooOR I destroyed at Willow in 1982 - that's it in the photo above. At the time, I worked for Cycle World, and the magazine published a photo of me trudging away from the wr.eck with the caption "Taxi I Taxil Oh, Taxi!" An irate reader responded that I was a jerk Cor my lack of concern for the motorcycle. Actually, I was preoccupied with a broken collarbone and interested in reaching the hospital. There were others there to load the bike and haul it away, and there wasn't anything I could do about it anyway. But this time ... this time I admit that I don't give a hoot about crashing that motorcycle, beyond being sorry that I marred the press intro and possibly embarrassed and worried the Japanese engineers. Because I know why I crashed. I learned'something, just like I learned something the last time I crashed one year, three months, one day, eight hours, 32 minutes and two National Endurance Championships before, when I slid out my Kawasaki G Pz550 in practice at Road America. It took me a couple of days to get the Phoenix scenario straight, to retrace everything I did, to pinpoint what it was that put me on my head and into the embankment with that beautiful new Kawasaki. To figure it out I had to talk with eyewitness Jay Gleason and road-racing guru Keith Code; I had to concentrate on that fateful last lap, perhaps my 30th of the day, following every moment, every thought, every action hom the impact point back. Now I know. I was moving through traffic at a fast clip, not racing speed, but at a much faster pace than I'd ever attempt on the street. The 6OOR, so small and light and quick-steering and awkward on my first lap, now felt comfortable and responsive, as close to a racebike as any streetbike, ever. Stable. Good brakes. Good power for its size. Easy to turn. Up ahead I saw Gleason, and noted that I was gaining on him. I pulled up behind him sooner than I'd anticipated, and, instead of waiting, decided to go around him in the middle of turn three, a right-hander with ripples at the apex and that fateful dirt embankment bordering it. So I swooped around Gleason, right footpeg skimming the pavement, found that my wider line had me headed perilously close to the dusty edge of the track, and notched back on the throttle. And lost the front end. And crashed. And slid unceremoniously into the dirt, as Gleason watched, he told me later, in fascination, wondering just what I had done. What I'd done is back off the throttle; that's a Perfectly normal response when a course correction is needed mid-turn; I'd done .the same thing dozens of times while weaving through traffic at an endurance race at Road Atlanta just four days earlier. The catch is that the racebike I rode in Atlanta had an 18-inch front wheel. The Ninja 6ooR, like most highperformance street bikes sold these days, carries the 16-inch front wheel that the marketplace demands. I've known for a year thaI 16-inch front wheels tend to turn in midcorner - I was shocked to see a doublepage, color photo of me 6n a Ninja 900 publishe9 in a German magazine and taken at the Laguna Seca intro of that machine in 1983; in the photo the bars and front end are turned in so far I wondered why nothing had happened. Maybe nothing happened because Laguna's turn nine is relatively smooth; turn three at Firebird is anything but smooth. . Keith Code had discovered the dynamics of the situation before I called him for his advice. Enter a corner with trailing throttle, and a 16-inchfront-wheel-equipped motorcycle loses the front end. That's why it took some riders so long to learn to ride RS500 Hondas, he told me. That's why he tells his advanced students with bikes sporting 16-inch from wheels to turn up the engine idle to 3500 rpm - making it impossible to back off completely. I won't go so far as to say that 16inch front wheels are no good, or that they shouldn't be used. As far as I'm concerned, they're just fine for street use. But I will say this: put a street motorcycle with a 16-inch front wheel through a racetrack cqrner near the limits of cornering clearance, run over some ripples, and back off the throttle, and you will crash. Think I'm wrong? Think I'm kidding? Try it. • 3

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