Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

BTECHNICAL e World Championship Sup_erb ik _s _ _e_Se_rie orza • uca I _ of reali ty after five years of evolutio n. Superbike is a wonderful class whi ch , til now, has provided the public with th e closest raci ng ima gi nable, and each of the five ma rq ues in volved, a taste of success. But unless the y change the rules to redu ce or even elim inate the twins' weight adva n tage, I don't see a future for Su perbike racing beyond this season. " Strong pressure indeed from the representatives of the Japanese factories for a change in the Superbike rule s at world level ..:.. iro nically at a time when their counterparts in the 500cc C P class are trying to resist the FIM' s move to revamp the rules in favor of a twin-cylinder class, by retaining the four-cyl inder sta tus quo. At the point that SBK supremo Francis Batta agrees the dice are too heavily loaded in favor of the twi ns - for whic h, at this stage , rea d the Ducatis - for the continued good health of th e Superbike series, there seems a good bet that the rumblings of discord which hav e been gr owing in . inten sity since the season began at Easter will result in a concrete proposal to the FIM for a ru le change, though the earliest which that could take effect in any case would be 1993. And don ' t expec t Ducati to gi ve up their advantage without a bitter struggle at the po litical and public relations levels which th e Castiglioni brothers are pas t mas ters in ma nipulating. The open ing salvoes in thei r defense were bein g fired at Jarama: " It is completely unacceptable for the J apa nese teams to complain about the ru les now, just because we're bea ti ng them fair and square o n th e track," says Ducati chief engineer Massim o Bordi, fathe r of the all-eo nq uering 8-valv e desm o. "T hey had th eir chance to o p t for the twincylinder route five years ago wh en the rules were announced, and if they'd chosen to follow it, I'm sure they wouldn't be asking for a rule change now ! As it is, I have 500 bro ken engines in my development logbook to show how hard we have had to work to Jeans By Alan Cathcart Pho tos by Phil Masters fter the first two rounds of the 1991 World Superbike Championship Series at Doningto n and Jarama, it may be too early to talk about foregone conclusions for the rest of the series - but not by much. With all four races convincingly won by factory-backed Duca ti riders - three of them by series rookie Doug Po len , wh o might hav e had a clean sweep bu t fer a blown eng ine in the second Britis h event - and Ducat is taking all three pl aces o n the rostrum in the second race in Spain, abo ut the best hope the oppositio n have is that Polen , Roch e and Mert ens will be so worri ed abo ut beating each o ther, they might knock each o ther o ff and han d victory to th e four-cylinder J apanese-mounted opposition. There were ti mes in the second Jarama leg when that looked a distinct possibility, but with Polen scoring a decisi ve moral victory over the French reigning World Champion by coming from behind to pass him with almost insolent ease, the chance may have evaporated. Roche has yet to beat the Texan in six successive races (including Mex ico last December) whe re each has been mounted o n simi lar mac hi nery , and Polen's decepti vely cas ual way of crushi ng the opposi tion seemingly at will mak es him an odds-on chance to take the ti tle at th is early stage . Only the fast bu t inco nsistent Stephane Mertens seems to have the speed, and self-confidence, to run with the American at the moment . It is a very lo ng time indeed since a European marq ue achieved such do m ina nce over the best that the Japanese factories could produce . almost 20 years, and the MV Agusta era, to be exact - and not surprisingly, it hasn 't gone down well in th e SBK paddock. Chief bone of con tention is the undoubted advantage the Superbike rules o ffe r a tw in -cylinder machine lik e the Ducati, whi ch not only ha s a potential capacity adva ntage of lOOOcc compared to the maximum 750cc allowed the four s (and threes, if there were any: Triumph??), but also. a significantly lower weight lim it of 308 lb., against 363 lb. for the multis. Last year, this han dicap wasn't so evident because the Ducati factory had n 't rea lly paid close attention to weigh t-saving, preferring to concentrate on maximizing engine development. But they won the title anyway, and now with no less than 30 lb. pared . off last year's champion mach in e, the benefit is obvio us and ha s thrown the disparit y in weig ht regulations into sha rp relief. " We can live with th e capacity differen tial for twi ns, but not the 55 lb. weight handicap as well," says Kawasaki Australia team manager Peter Doyle. " It' s got to be either one or the other. not both, especially as Ducati haven 't even taken full advantage of either rule break just yet. but A 20 At least early in the season. the team of Doug Polen and Ducati seem to be virtually unstoppable in World Superbike racing. look ho w dom inan t they are already with an 88&c bike weighing 3 14 lb. I have nothing against Ducati, because they took advantage of the rules as they stood, and reaped the benefi t. but what's to stop Honda for exa mp le, bringing o ut a fulllOOOcc fuel- inj ected twin that scales right on the weight limi t, and blitzing Ducat i? T he rul es. are suppo sed to equalize twins and fou rs, not tip the scale o ne way or the other." Bep pe Russo, tuner to 1990 seri es runner-up, Yamaha-mounted Fabrizio Pirovano, strongly agree s. "T he reason wh y SBK has been so popular is because of the close racing between ma ny differen t bra nds of machines," he says. " Once you lose that , you lose the appeal of the class to the general pub lic and to sponsors , who just aren ' t interested in a ' mo no marca' category. T he fru strating th ing is that th ere's abso lute ly nothing we can do to p ut o ur bikes on an equa l foo ting wi th the Du catis, wh en we have to add ball ast in the form of an alternator that isn 't even con nected up j ust to beat the 363 lb. weight limit , and we are nearing the limits of development on a four cylinder street bike engine that has to be built in much greater numbers, because it' s Japanese, than an Italian twin. I'm Italian. I like to see Italian bikes winning, but not when theirs is a hollow victory because the ru les are tipped in their favor l" Jean D'Hollander, widely regarded as the guru amo ng Honda RC30 tuners outside the factory and th e man beh ind Stephan e Mertens ' rise to sta rdom o n th e J ap an ese bikes - this year he's tu ning for the suddenly competitive Dan i Arnatri aian - sums it a ll up well. " Ducati read the rule boo k rig ht at the begin n in g and spent a lo t of time and mo ney developing a winni ng bike, so they deserve to have the ir year of glory, " he says. " Bu t that does n't mean it can go o n forever, till someo ne else develops ano the r twin to take adva ntage of rul es that, whi le formulated in good faith, need to be cha nged in the light produce a twin whi ch is capable of beating the fours , so it certainly didn 't happen overnight or at littl e cost in human or fina ncia l ter ms. We were perfectly capable of designing o ur own four -cylinder engine - in fact, we have sin ce don e so in co nj unc tion with Ferrari and th e resu lts will deb ut under the Cagiva na me later th is year - but we looked ' at th e reg ul a tions and decided to bu ild a twin . So now j ust becau se we did tha t, and the o thers didn ' t, but ours proved to be the wisest decision , sho uld we now be pena lized for our achievement, especially after the investment we've made in our Vtwin develo pment? " A listen ing Gianfranco Castiglioni chips in: " Cagiva ha s spent over 100 billion lire ($50

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