Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

Marlboro Yamaha's Eddie Lawson and Kel Carruthers will start their fifth year together in 1988; last year they finished third. 44 same ladder as Burgess, a nd has even wo rked beside hi m. H e has wren ch ed Suzu kis and Hondas. In 1987 he prepar ed Randy Mamola's Lucky Strike Yamaha, a nd was the envy of a ll th e o thers for the freedom he was allowed. For wh ere H onda ac tively discourages on-track tun in g experime nts, Yamah a not only encourages th em , but even relies on the m to contin ue develo p ment of th eir V-4 YZR. Sinclair is a n ar dent tuner and deve lopment engineer, who sta rted making rac ing bikes go faster in hi s na tive New Zeala nd. ".We co uldn' t get any flash parts th ere, so we -had to make the m a ll o urselves . Of course, we ma de all sor ts o f mi s-ra kes.c.b u t it w a s a grea t backgrou nd. " H e race d fro m the age of 16 to 2 1, pic ki ng up a National 250cc titl e before " I rea lized I was more inte rested in what was goi ng on un derneath rile wi th th e mach ine than a hea d of me on th e' track," After a spe ll in th e U.S " he joi ned the Eu ropean circ us in 1976 wi th pri vat eer Stu Avant, a nd was taken on by th e works Suzuki tea m for Pat H en nen , until H ennen 's cras h , th en Du tch man Wil H artog until h is precip itate reti reme nt during 1981, Virllini o Ferr ari in 1982, and Mam ol a In 1983, It was th en th at saw Sinclair show hi s development skill. just bolting th e Suzu kis together right was no lon~er eno ugh, for th e squar e-four engine had been aba ndo ned by th e fa ctory , and wa s becoming obsolete. Sin cla ir p ro longed its co m peti tive life for severa l mor e seasons - using this cran kcase wi th those cylinders, making and mending and tryin g the com bina tions. He sh rugs it o££ now as parts-bin engineering, but it was something he d id uncommonly well. In 1984, he moved to Honda with Mam ola, mistrustful of the Suzuki factory's a tt itude to racing. "Suzuki was th e trendsetter, the ir bike was th e yardstick. Then, on a whim, th ey decided to sto p. I beli eve that if you are sell in g sport i n g goods, yo u should be in th e sp or t. " Sinclair has a positive grudge against people who tak e racing less serio us ly than he. "The re a re too many p eop le to whom it 's a toy - a weekend hobby. That why it's so good to be working now fo r a gu y like KR (Ken ny Roberts), because he is com p letely dedicated." Even so, there are str ictly a limited number of top-level jobs for racing mechanics, and he found himself back with Suzukis in 1985, with the now independent HeronSuzuki team 's innovative honeyco m b co m pos ite material " ca rd board box " chassis and rider Rob McElnea. "T he concept was interesting, but they spoiled th e whole deal for want of hinng eno ugh guys. " , Thus he was relieved .to be given the chance to join Rob ert s a nd rejoin Mamola on the Lucky Strike team, where a fter working o n th e other maj or racing bikes, he encou nte d the Yamaha V-4 for the first time. His ap p roach to the mach in e was stud ied. " It ta kes a while to figure o u t a new bike, and for the firs t year we delibera tely ra n th em as th ey came from th e facto ry. All year, we saw things th at co uld be done d ifferently, and some of th ose ideas were in the bike for 1987, but as a wh ol e the new bi ke was p re tty off-bea m ." T he fa ct o ry h a d d edi cated its major developme nt work for 1987 to a revised a nd grossly en la rged coo li ng syste m . Si nclair wa s n o t impressed, a nd rapi dly discovered th at if he taped over the center portion of th e radiator, th e ru n n ing te m pera tu re was un af fected, H e. promptly removed tha t section to use th e intak e area for someth ing he identified as far mor e important a system to supply the ca rb ure tors with coo l a nd rela tively ca lm air. " T he biggest thing is airflo w into a nd -throug h the carb ure tors . Mos t of o ur work was directed towards th a t. We've do ne a lo t of pl ayin g with sea led a irbo xes, with a di gi tal pressu re ga uge that th e rider can read while he's testing the bike, It 's still very hit-and-miss, though, a nd we're mak in g a com p u terized vers ion for the 1988 season th at will be able to reco rd th e informatio n, so we can exa mi ne it in detail la ter," T hese e x per i men ts in 1987 rem ain ed inconclus ive. . T h ey included a special fairing with the still-airbox built in, sh ifti ng the entire radiator across to th e rig h t, a nd u sing the left-hand a ir intake ' pu.vly for engi ne induc tio n. The ' cai'fiuration was cleaner, but th e bike was slower. "We don't really know what conditions we want in th e airbox," said Sinclair. "That's wh at we're trying to find o u t." H e says Honda has a g reater understandin g. "That's wh at you get when you put 200 people on th e job . Honda should win every year, rea lly , But with Honda, if th ey build 'a lem on, it stays a lemon." Sinclair is no t ena mo red wi th th e cloak-a nd-dagger elem ent th at has come into ra cing, though he's prepared for th e struggle betw een th e tuners to develop into a m aj or con£li ct. "Back when I was with Suzuki in '79, we all kn ew exactly wh at th e o the rs were doing to th eir bikes. Now, every thi ng is more secretive. In 1987 we did things that we d idn 't even tell the factory abo u t." Sinclair al so had ideas on chassis development, with th e major goal being Increased stiffness. "The limit to sti££ness is cost," he grins, a pragmatist's axiom. He feels wellplaced on the Roberts team, with th eir intention of go ing way beyond th e factory in imp ro ving the works bikes, even to the extent of building their own frames. But his greatest strength is co mbining crea tive inova tio n with th e more bas ic skills o f a pra ctical ra cing -b ike e n gi neer, producin g mach in es th at are not on ly fast but a lso re liab le , rid eabl e a nd u ser frien d ly. Thus whe n Mamola was havin g trouble with hi s arm pumping u p, Sincla ir weld ed a cr ude but e££ective set of , kn eepad s' o n to th e frame, to tak e some of the rider 's weigh t under brakin g; an d thus wh ile Carruthers was having persistent carburatio n p roblem s throughou t 1987, his bikes stu mbling a ud ibl y whe never th e riders ope ned th e th ro ttle, Sinclair's were pulling ou t of the bends as clean as a whistl e. " It's not th e carbs tha t are im portan t - it's what's suc king on them," he grins enigmatica ll y, understandably declining to reveal details. He admits: "It's been many years sinc e I' ve learned as much as this year (1987)." H e's taugh t some of th e ot hers a good lesson too. Erv Kanemoto Erv Kan ernot o is further a lo ng th e learn in g curve. In th e Am er ican manner (of japanese extra ction, he is U.S. born ), he arrived in Eu rope as a full -fledged p ro tuner with his o wn su pe rstar,' Freddie Spencer. T hey won every thing goi ng, as long as h is rider showed u p. Eve n so, Kanem o to env ies the mecha nica l freedom th e Yamaha tea ms have. He was d raw n into his racing by'his love and understanding of th e a bstruse ways of two-st rok e eng ines, bu t hi s pre-emine nce has on ly to listen to the exhaust note to know abo u t a n en g ine; onl y to exchange a nod and a gesture with Freddie to know which way to adjust th e suspe ns io n to lift his on- trac k p rogress a no ther notch. R obbed b y hi s own se n io ri ty within H onda of the chance to make' hi s own porting experime nts, Erv still spe nds time listening to the engines a nd making his deducti ons. It 's a ll dat a, and data - whethe r wr itten or com p rised o f hi s own expe rie nce - is what he th rives on. " I like to figure out what com binations th e o the r guys are usin g. There are so many differen t com bina tio ns possibl e with a two-stroke, different wa ys o f a rra ng ing .th e cy li n der porting, the exha us t profiles, th e whol e gas £low. The amazing thing is that th e results a re so sim ila r. Two very different bikes can do exactly the same lap time. " I ask th e factory for two or three co m bina tions, eac h o ne with the power cu rve differently placed, to suit the different circuits." Although Sp en cer 's absence meant he had little d irect input o n th e 1987 NSR, he was pl eased to note that a lot o f things th ey'd talked abou t with H onda had been incorpor ated in th e new design. Back in th e good o ld da ys, Kan emoto's ear was a tuning tool for hi s own ideas . He sti ll has th e ideas, but nowadays o ther people put th em in to practic e. " Whe n I want different cylinder designs now, I tell H onda what we want to do, in terms o f cha nging th e power cu rve, a nd th ey do it. They're not doing a n ything I couldn ' t do, but it'sa matter of time. They have th e resources in japan to do the work a nd test it p roperl y on th e dyno, wh ile I' m busy rac ing . / Honda's Erv Kanem otc will work exclusively with Niall Mackenzie in '88, following the retirement of Freddie Spencer. n ow drawn him into the HRC structu re, where his ro le is more th at o f a senio r co-ordinator. Worse still, his rider has missed the past two years. Kanemoto has spe n t' too long now as tuner without a fork. Alone among the top four, Kan emota has no personal racing experience. H is devotion has always been excl us ively to th e machinery, with an instinctive flair for tuning twostr ok es. H e worked only to earn money for racing - "I'd buy a wh ole case o f cylinders a nd do different things to all o f them, just learning a nd expe ri me nting. It was only later that I go t serious a nd read enginee rin g papers, and I was p leased to see I was on th e right lines." Kanemoto worked with two-time G ra nd National Champion Gary Nixonand others before the miracul ous partnership was forged with Freddi e Spencer. Of course, Spe nce r's riding was inspired, but the often almos t wordless rapport betw een him and Kan emoto was a formidable asset. Erv had, after all; , " In' th e end, th ough, th e ra ce track makes the best dyno. " There was a perfect exa m ple in 1987 of hi s tuning by remot e contro l, when Sp en cer returned and th e pair came up with a request for th e power peak to be moved up th e rev range, and for the engi ne to carry on revving past th e peak instead of running out of breath as in its original form. This would, have sacr ificed bottom-end, but ironically Kanemoto believ es it would hav e sol ved the p er verse problem of over-powered wheel sp in at Misano and jarama. "It's the sudden rush at the bottom that causes problems with tires. The power has to be linear. " Even more ironically, th e new cylinders arrived after th ose races, in time for Spencer to practice with them in Brazil " before he withdrew from th e race . "Freddie said th ey would have . been good," Kan emoto adds, rather wistfully. Spencer's would-havebeens are something he 's had to get used to. But the work with the porting files .

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