Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

· The Italian April ia 250cc won its first Grand Prix in 1987 wit h t he skilled Lor is Regg ian i at the. helm. Test: Allrilia AF1 250 Road Racer ·l ightweight Italia~ road race winner By Alan Cathcart Unquestionably the .m ost imp ressive, as well as the most quixotic, series of performances in the 1987 G rand Prix road race season cam e from 28-year-old Itali an rider ' Loris Reggiani in ' the 250cc class aboard the R o ta xpowered Aprilia. Time and again he th rust the low-slung European machine in th e pa triotic tricolor Italian livery in amo ngs t th e leading group of japanese bikes, forcing his way to th e front of one GP after another by a combination of skill, bravery and willpower. Second place in Austria, after he'd qualified in pole position for the Italian GP a t Monza only to have the R o ta x en g i n e 's new d igital ignition break a pi ck-up while in th e lead, seemed likely to be foll owed by victory a t Donington, on ly for the indomitable Toni Ma ng to for ce hi s works Honda past three corners from th e end o f the race to take a narr ow Win . 52 But Reggiani and Ap rilia didn 't give up: in th e San Marino GP at Misan o, 20 mil es from Lor is ' home at Forlimpopoli wh ere th e team is based , he led from start to fin ish to score undoubtedl y the most popu lar GP win of th e season . in a ny class - and so end th ree years o f j apan ese dominan ce of th e 250cc divisi on. Reggiani 's victory a t Misan o was the cu lmina tion of his own personal fight-ba ck after th e most serio us of the many jnajor injuries that have dogged his career, when at t.he end of the 1985 sea son in which he finished sixth in th e cha m p ionship in the Aprilia's .deb u t year, he was badly hurt in a collision with a truck while riding an off-r oad bike ou tside his home. P artl y because o f the lengthy recuperation from this incident, but partly too because the tea m went up.a blind alley devel opmentwise with th eir '86 chassis, th e 1986 season was a poor one for both Loris and the team. But Aprilia boss Ivano Beggio had faith in Regg ia ni and team manager Mich ele Verrini, who has guided Loris ' career ever since he won his first GP as long ago as Si lverstone in 1980 on the 125cc , Minarelli, and for 1987 he recruited Dutch technician Dolph va n der Woude from Lav erda to work o n improving th e Ro tax engi nes , as well as co m missio ning a n a ll-new chassis a lo ng the lines o f th e success ful 1985 fram e, to be built in -h ouse a t th e Aprilia factory at Noal e, near Venice. The resu lt has confo u nde d those - amongs t wh om I mus t be honest a nd cla ss myself! - 'who wro te off th e Rot ax engine as a serio us G P contender for th e '87 seaso n . Regg ia ni's performance o n th e Ap rili a, as well as Andorran rider Xavi er Cardel us' emphatic victory in the hardfou ght European 250cc title race aboard a Rotax-engined JJ-Cobas, shows there's still plenty of life in the Austrian tandem -twin dis c-va lve engine yet - even if it do es date ba ck to as long ago as 1980! After returning from th e last GP o f the seaso n in Argentina, the Apri lia team had o ne more a p pointment before th ey could take a we lldeserved break before test ing begins of the new twin-crank dis c-va lve Vtwin va n der Woude has designed for ' Reggiani to race in 1988. At the postseason Spanish International at Ca lafat in October , th e annual Superprestigio that brings together th e lead ing 250cc GP riders to the seaside track near Tarragona, Reggi ani e m p h a s ized the Apr i lia 's ca liber - and his own - by winning th e third of the three 15-lap legs in det ermined style from Sito Pons and _ juan Garriga , on factory Honda and Yamaha respectively. In doing so , he not only rounded off the season in victorious style by taking the checkered flag in hi s fina l '87 race, but als o completed an , endurance test with hi s Ro tax engine, whose cra nkshaft had been fitted wi th new INA bearings in an effort to prolong its life, and clocked up its one- thousandth kilo meter during the course of his winning ride. J P ersonally, I was ra ther glad Do lph van der Woude's experiment paid off , because as long ago as . Doni ngton in july I'd arra nged wit h Michele Verrrini to ride the bike the day after this weekend - though originall y we thought it would be a t Vallelunga where th ere was an Ita lian ti tle round . th e same day, rath er th a n Calafai and the Superprestigiol . An ywa y, on the Monday morni ng I presented myself again at. the circ u i t, in time to watch ch ief me chanic Benito Savoia and his colleague Piero P edone - wh o knows a thing or two about Rotax engines, having raced a Cotton for many years with success in Ital y at th e start of th e '80s - warm up the bik e for me. Twenty la ps la ter, I'd passed the 1050 kms mar k in the Aprilia destruction test , 'a nd th e engine was not only runnin g as well as ever, but I al so had m y answer as to just how th is bike ha s got on terms with the j apan ese whi le o ther Rotax users have floundered. Okay, I know, Loris is o ne hell o f a rider - bu t' even he' s got to have th e tool to do th e job: wh at is it th at makes th e Aprilia so go od? The ans wer is tha t it' s all in th e carb ure tio n I ' hav e ridden over a dozen diff ere-nt Rotax engine d bikes , but never one which had suc h a wide spread o f usabl e power nor suc h in stantaneous yet smo o th th ro ttle response an.! power deliv ery . If you cou ldn ' t occasionally hear the disc va lves clattering away to th emselves down on th e side bel ow your knee, you might think you were on a reed va l ve bi ke, it' s so gradual and smooth. Forget the old days of razor edge power bands and sudden death deliveries with rotary-valv e motors: thanks to carefu l, painstaking testing, doubt less by th e timeconsuming trial and erro r met hod since according to Loris they've never had time to go bench-testing but instead have done it all on the track, van der Woude and his small band of men have refined the twin 38mm fla t-slide Del l'ortos' adjus tment so that it perfectly compliments the revised cylinders he produced af ter th ree GPs this season (which were then retro-fitted by Rot a x to a ll customers of their '87 engines), and the single set o f exhausts they use for all types of circu its. At the same time, the new computerized digital ignition introd uced this season by Rotax has enabled the team to select the idea l advance cu rve (out of the choice of four available) to suit the rest of the way the engine is set up. And finally, let's not forget those pneumatically-controlled, light and

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