Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

Cycle News contributor Alan Cathcart puts the vastly-improved Cagiva V587 Road Racer through its paces during testing in M isano. Italy. Test: Cagiva VS87 Road Racer Italian GP weapon By Alan Cathcart Photos by Phil Masters This was the crunch year for the Cagiva 500cc road racing G P effort: put up or shut up time, as a poker player might term it. After six years of tackling the m igh ty japanese battalions in the blue ribbon 500cc GP class almost unaided, three totally different designs of self-built engines 14 (in -lin e rotary-valve, square-four rotary-valve, and wide-angle 90° reed-valve V-4), a variety of riders ranging from perennial favorite Virginio Ferrari, jon Ekerold (who finally gav e the Italian team their first- ever point), Herve Moineau and juan Garriga, and literally billions o £their own lire spe n t in th e unspon sored chase of glory for La Bell a Italia, Ca giva bosses Claudio and Gianfranco Castiglioni had reached a crossroads: give up in th e face of overwhelming odds, in which case nobody would blame th em for having reached a sensib le if inevitable deci sion, or go for broke and stake every thin g on one last throw of th e di ce. Being first and forem ost passionate supporters o f GP racing, as well as ga m blers par excellence, the y did wh at a ny self-respectin g Las Vegas card shark would have done a n d sim p ly doubled-up. Now that takes class! , Doubl in g-up en ta iled not o n ly hiring two top-line riders to create a two-man team instead of the single Cagiva rider seen on GP grids in previous seasons, but also demanded a completely new approach to GP racing, Cagiva-style. For the first time, an outside sponsor was not only accepted bu t actively courted by the two men whose machinery had previously only appeared in nostalgic scarlet and silver livery, recalling the golden age of Ital ia n G P dornination more than a decade a~o courtesy of the MV Agusta "Iire engines," and nothing else. To be able to go racin g in the manner they now deemed necessary, the Castiglionis bowed to the inev- itable and th e last maj or unsponsored GP team join ed th e m ob ile tobacco bri gade: fortunatel y, major sponsors Bast os , a Belgian cigarette bra nd , opted for a striking red and white livery that seem ed more Italian than Benelux. .T h e budget this yie lded enabled two first-grade , experie n ced GP riders to be signed u p , men who if they hadn 't yet showed the mse lves capable o f win n in g at the hi ghest level had never: th eless co me very clos e and were bo th top 10 fin ishers in the '86 500cc World Champio ns h i p: gritt y Frenchman Raym o nd Roch e was plucked from th e table just a he was about to sign a works uzu ki contract (m uch to the japanese tea m 's dis . p lea su re b ut doubtless, as things later turned o u t , to R a ym ond 's relief ), and Belg ia n Didi er d e Radig ues recruited to ride alo ngside h im m hi s first tas te of 500cc fourcylin der p ower after finishing top o f th e three-cylinder Honda-pow ered 'seco n d di vi sion' the previou s season. Didier's links with th e somewhat en ig m a tic French designer Alain Chevallier meant that Cagiva now found th emselves with an ex p erienced ch a ssis man capabl e o£ reso lving their perennial weigh t prob lem as well as any other handling difficulties, and the Castiglion is co m p le ted the scenario by permitting th e team mechanics led by Ezio Ma scheroni to build and develop th e n ew lighter, narrowa n g le 56° reed-valve V-A eng in e th ey'd ha d a lready designed up sinc e th e m iddle o f last season. H o wever , to make su re th ey co u ld co ncentrate fu lly on th eir ta sk of developing a European 500 GP bike that rea lly was ca pable o f taking o n a nd beat ing th e j apanese, in stead o f lagging about six months behind o n develop me nt o n a' co ntin uous ba sis, th e Ca stiglionis a lso co m p le tely reo rga n i zed th ei r racing effo rt imerna lly. PR su pre mo Franci s Barta, previo us ly tea m manage r of th e Sanvenero team who , let' s n ot forge t, were th e last n on-japanese to win a 500cc GP, admi tted ly th e ce n tro versial French round at Nogaro in 1982, bu t a G P nonetheless, was recruited to run the whole operation. An R&D team led by Mascheroni and Gilberto Mil ani , who together had previously ru n th e Cagiva GP effort as a so rt of m ech anics' coo pera tive, produced the new machines in- house at Varese, Ca gi va th en leased th e b ik es to th e Ba tra managed , Baste s-backed GP team, co nsistin g of an indepen de nt sq uad of m echa nics hired by Bar ta, pl us of co u rse the two riders. This way ,.the Cagiva men wou ld be free to conti nue working in Varese on new dev elopments and im proveme nts which wo u ld a llow th em to keep up with the j apanese , rather than always be falling behind. . The resul ts speak for th em selves. Forced to sta rt th e season with the old CIO/V 90° V-4 bikes (th e new engine was ready, but some confusion arose as to when a chassis Chevallier was supposedly building for it would be finished), th e team received the first '87 model Cagiva 500 in typicall y Latin fashion ai 3 a.rn. on the morning of the first day of practice for the Italian G P ea t Monza in mid-May. • . Without any testingwhatsoeveron the completely untried bike, Ray mond Roc h e qualified ninth on- the grid for the 500cc GP delle Nazione, ahead of no less than six japanese V-4s and in sp ite of missing the last two pra cti ce ses sions wh en h e totalled th e bike on co ld tires on Saturday morning, sen din g th e team back to th eir n earby Vares e worksh op to co m p letely reconstruct it for th e rac e, in which h e finished ninth aft er a t one time being as high ~s sixth, before the pow er- valve mechanism jammed. Thereaf ter , the Cagiva has progressed a p p reci ably and improved con stantl y, lea vin g the eq u a lly untried V-4 Suzuki far behind in terms o f p erformance a nd reli abili ty, and rapidly becoming accepted as a potent r ival to th e es ta b li s he d Yamaha-Honda hierarchy for Wor!d Championship points. • The V587 reportedly J)roduces 153 bhp at the countershaft at 11.800 rpm; 140 bhp at the rear wheel.

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