Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

INTERVIEW Bernie Ecclestone cle-Ramawe carry a complete At Cy line of high·performance partsand accessories, engines, frames, driveline, clothing, etc. Wedo all forms of transmission work, head work, engine building. dyno testing andframe work. Cylinderhead porting and flow testing 5 angle valve jobs Radius angle valve jobs Wiseco Piston kits on salel Mikuni and Keihin carbs on sale! Road Race Leathers on sale - $499.00 WE GIVE roo RESlILTS, /lOT PtIOMlS£S Hyt1II ".", , . f«y best n ,. /0,,51 price, gir~ /IS • ul/! CYCl£-RA~lNC. 5731 Seminole Blvd., Seminole, FL 34642 (B13139B-7115 ' IB13) 392·0866 NewFax No. (813) 393-3212 24 HOUR MOTORSPORTS Am erica's Motorsport Phone Network AMA MOTOCROSS, SUPERCROSS & ROAD RA CING ACTION COMMENTARY BY PAULCARRU THERS Racing NeWs Fro m The Source Want Ad Info. (2131427-7433 $$ CASH PAID $$ 30 USED STREET BI KES BERT' S M OTOR CYCLES 818-334-1 288/81 8-334-2926 obliga tio n to the FIM . We have an obliga tio n to see the next two years of o ur contrac t th rough whic h we wo uld do the best we can. Whether a cham p io ns hip is an o fficia l FI M cha m pionship or not is of no importan ce wha tsoever. T he im p o rt ant thing is wh o is riding and if so mebody put togeth er a series of races wit h the top riders tha t wou ld be a success instantly and I'd be very interested in TV rig hts. Of course. But you still hold TV rights to the FIM Championship (or the next two years. That puts you in a strange position. Originally the spirit of the agreement was to get not just a profit (or th e TV rights but to increase as much as possible the exposure of GP racing . .. And I will co nti n ue to do tha t. I will hono r a t all tim es exactly what I p rom ised to do . R eg retfull y o ur partners, Mo tom edi a , are not a llo wed to do wh at they say they wo uld lik e to do whi ch is to pu t profits second to exposure, but I will continue to wor k for maximum exposure as long as I have the co ntract. And I' ll tell you why . First because I ma de a deal a nd I keep my dea ls, a nd also beca use I'd never do a nyt h ing tha t could hurt th e teams. T hey are my friends an d I' d never do a ny thing to h urt them. . Let me ask you something about the teams. At Yugoslavia last year there was a big crash inv olving nearly. a dozen bikes at the start of th e 125cc race and cleaning all this u p and dealing with a hay bal e problem meant a long delay that went into th e 500cc race time slot. IRTA then convinced th e FIM jury to alter the racing program and send the 125cc bikes back in order to bring out th e 500s first . It was said that you were on the p ho ne demanding that this be done in or der to .make sure. th at the sponso rs of th e . 500cc teams received exposu re and th is ca used the 125cc teams to stage a sitin . The FIM had to all ow the 125s to run first because of this. Were you really on the phone to the Riejka paddock? Do yo u follow th ings tha t closely? Of course no t. I had no idea what was goi ng o n and whoeve r used my name was merely trying to mak e the point that the TV contract does exist and that whoever shows the race wants to know when it is going up. But I had nothing to do wit h this and if I had been there I wo uld have done not hing to try a nd alter th e o rder of events because there is no way tha t televisio n in terests or the promoters shou ld be all owed to interfer wi th the sporting side o n any event. T here was no ques tion of my tryin g to cha nge anything in Yugosla via. It ·s like th is, if I had a 500cc team and I suddenly saw that I was abo u t to lose a TV tim e slo t I wo u ld certa inly try and do so mething about it. If I had a 125cc a nd saw tha t I was goin g to receive TV ti me tha t I hadn 't counted o n , I wo uld try and make sure that thi s was th e case. But I'd su pport th e 125cc riders' dem and to run th e 125cc race before th e 500cc race as sched uled. It just doesn 't sound as if the thing was handled very professionally since th ere was so mu ch noi se mad e a bo u t it and so much wri tten abo u t it. 1£ Formula One racing deserves a 10 on a scale of professionality, where does that put motorcycle racing? About a three I suspect. Rising or fallingj I person ally feel we have seen abo ut the best of motorcycle raci ng fo r a little while any way. In addition to other problems which we will come to regarding regulations, we have a situation in the 500cc class that is worrying because last year there weren't enough bikes. How much does this concern yo u when yo u are att empting to sell TV? Whal this does is tha t it conveys that there is not very m uch interest in pu tting teams on the g rid by majo r sponsors. The television co mpanies look a t it and thei r concern is th at o ne day we will wa ke up a nd find o n ly eig ht bikes on the grid a nd this doesn 't look too good. Wh en the race is o n you know a nd I know th at it really doesn 't make any di fferen ce because the cameras are go ing to foll ow the bu nch up fro nt that is gelling o n with it, but the probl em is that th is would lead to a genera l perception th at there is no interest from manufacturers or . sponso rs a nd this is a problem. Plus there is the problem of where the new ride rs would come (rom since there doesn't seem to be any form of .racing that duplicates the situation of • riding big, powerful two-stroke fours. T his is a key issue. f have tri ed to explai n to Mr. Vaessen .. . a nd I'm not being presumptuous, bu t I have sp ent quite a lo t of time in mo torsports and tha t is actuall y all I do .. . [don 't have any other jo b so I suppose I ha ve a reasonab le amount of experience, and I think tha t a ll successfu l mo torsport comes from tech nical regul at ions, backed up by sport ing regulati ons. T hen let me ask you as an expert, what should th e FIM be doing to save the 500cc class? I believe the right way to go abo ut it is to find som e way of limit ing the power produced by a 500cc machine in order to ma ke su re you don 't see three factory teams with a 10 1 more horsepower than the privateers beca use the pr ivateers then know they have no cha nce and they can't attract a sponsor under those cir cumstances. You are describing th e situatio n just as it is today in the 500cc class. There will always be in any given year o ne motorcycle tha t will wor k better than the rest a nd on e rider who is faster than th e rest. frou can 't stop tha t and yo u don 't want to, but what you m ust ens ure is that th e regul ations ma ke it possible for a large num ber o f teams to aspire to winning races. I think the righ t way to go a bo ut it, although th is mi ght not be acceptable to som e, is to get on e man ufactur er to buil d all the engines, a nd have others make frames , and with o ne tir e ma n ufacturer who provides the sam e tires to everyone. What you can't have is wh at you had last year when a ll the top ride rs wcre on Michelin but some riders had ti res that were a seco nd a la p qu icker tha n the o th er Micheli n tires. If yo u have everyo ne on the same tires, runn in g the same motor, then the on ly variables are who has the best fram e, who sets up th e bike the best and who is the bett er rider. Now that is an id eal so lution if we are interested in providi ng close raci ng betwe en the top riders . Obviou sl y Honda might say, "That's a good idea , but only if we provide the motors." Then Yamaha wi ll say, " No we'll provide the mot or s." The FIM has proposed that all 500cc bikes be powered in 1993 by twincylinder motors. Is that a good idea? I don 't know. I'm told that most are against it, bu t you see all the FIM can do is make regulatio ns with at least two year's notice and then the manufacturers will decid e if th ey want to race or not under th ose regulations in two years tim e. But if o n ly o ne manufacturer decid es to stay a ro u nd and th at manufacturer decides to su pply o n ly one team , th en that is no goo d a nd you run the risk of that happen in g if you do not hav e an agree men t beforehand. You see, bik es are not a problem. Engines ar e the problem . If yo u don't have enough good com petitive ' eng ines, then you might as well forget about it. There will be frame builders. The problem is th at no one feels con fortable with making a co m mi tme nt for th e future if they are afraid that th e FIM will sudden ly cha nge everyth ing again. We have had some changes in plans already this year. The FIM Road Race Commission proposed that four-stroke 750cc engines be allowed and some teams even started preparing bikes, but this was not approved by the management council and now the twincylinder proposal has been made but still must be approved. Do you think the four-cylinder proposal would have worked? I don't believe that th ere has ever been a successfu l eq u ivalency formula. I wo nder. Maybe there is a move afoo t to get ri d of the 500cc cla ss a nd replace it with Superbikes. But until somebod y comes out of the closet and sets up so me rules th at are going to sta nd for a t least three years and which provi de for many teams wi th co m peti tive bikes you a re go in g to co nt in ue to have trouble. Wh at is ha ppening here is that the FIM doesn' t understand the overa ll picture. When FISA a nd FO CA had our sma ll con fro nta tio n th e o utcome of it was that the sporting side of Formu la One racing would be looked after by FISA, a nd th is incl uded the tech nica l side, bu t that FOCA woul d have in p ut o n the technical side, that FI SA would a lwa ys be g u ided by FO CA. In fact all the technical regul at ions that have been written in the las t 10 years have been proposed by the teams a nd FISA have been very, very good abo ut accep ting th em. It is the teams who know because it is not possible for somebody in FISA to be on top of the techn ical side. We have to make sure th at the engineers do no t go too far in their search for a short- . term ga in. T he object of raci ng is to go q uicker, b ut if yo u go too much q uicker too soon you run the risk of goi ng beyon d your circu its a nd if you cha nge the circ uits you ru n the ris k of losing the spectacle and th e TV a ppeal so you have to be ca refu l a nd sla p wrists of the eng ineers now a nd then . Yamaha says that they are prepared to build a considerable number of complete bikes and also engines for the 1992 season. They also say that the single-crank Honda NSR engine is much more expensive to produce than the twin-crank engines by Yamaha, Suzuki and Cagiva and that if they would cut back a little on power and build a twin-crank motor they could also produce motors as Yamaha plans . to do. This is exactl y what I've been saying. You heed a manufacturer to build motors th at teams can afford to race and yo u must make sure th at the motors a re abo ut the same in performance. There will a lways be someone who co mes along wh o will throw vast sums of money into the racing and yo u hav e to make sure that the regulations prevent a n y team from running away from the rest. 1 think th e FIM should impose carbu reto r restricters, That would even things o u t. But what just confuses the issue is to ha ve people saying that the 500cc bikes are too danger ou s. Th er e will alw a ys be crashes if peo pl e ar e racing. If you a nd I had to go o n push bikes sooner or la ter one of us would co me off. This will happen in ' I25cc, 250cc and in 500cc. What does happen is that yo u have a whol e bunch of guys wh o can ride an 80 horsepower bik e at the limit. It gets mor e limited as you go up and if you just keep going up yo u might get to the point at 200 horsepower where you 've only got one guy who I I

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