Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

mill io n) - in 10 years competing in 500cc G P racing wi thou t any notable success unti l this season, yet we didn't ask fo r the rules to be changed to favor us. Tell the ] apannese not to start complain ing because we' re beating . them in Su perbike racing! " It's a hard argument to rebut, yet i t seems certa in there must be some compromise if the long- term fut ure of the World Superbi ke class is to be u pheld - a fu ture which apart from the dis parity in the technical regulations seems ever mor e rosy, wi th riders of the cal iber .of Doug Polen , Niall Mac ken zie and now Dominique Sarro n and soon Kevin Magee joini ng in. In its infa ncy, SBK could be read ily dism issed as a credible rival to twostroke GP racing, bu t now even the most dedicat ed and bl in kered IR T A ' Eccol yte' mu st be aware of the th reat posed by the 'Diesels ' (what an inspi red choice of sponsor . . . ), however hard they may try to shrug off such sentime nts in public. Amazingly, few of the m appear to have bothered to visit a Su perb ike race to see what they're rea lly up against, especially in the post-I992 era when tobacco sponsors on which the major IRTA teams are totally dependent are likely to have their activities severel y cra m pe d, a factor which does not affect SBK at al l. However , on e su ch visi tor coul d indeed be spotted in th e ]arama SBK paddock, none other than th e ca nny Manolo Buril lo, Sito Pons' manager, who certainly wasn 't there just for a da y out at the races. Mayb e a Campsa Honda SBK team with one of the many promising young Spanish four-stroke riders, after Sito retires from GP racing in th e near fu ture? Is this the first chink in the IRTA armor .. . ? But if SBK is to become the viab le threat to two -stroke GP racing that it would evidently like to be, the apparent imbalance in favor of th e twins will hav e to be redressed one way or the other, perhaps by adopting a twowh eeled version of the NASCAR or German Touringmeister Series rules, wh ereby a winning car or ma rque has to carry a sliding weight penalty for the nex t few races, j ust to even everything up. T he result is extremely clos e and exciting racing, su ppo r ted by the public, sponsor s and -ma jor ma nufacturers, to the ap pa rent satisfactio n o f each ; maybe th is is what SBK needs to assure its promising future, especially with Suzuki posed to re-en ter the fray with their forthcoming new watercooled engine next season, th e lo n gawaited fuel-inj ected, 8-val ve VRIOOO Harley-Davidson V-twin also finally expected to appear, and the new fourcylinder Cagiva-Ferr ari certain to find its way onto the race tra cks, th ough probabl y not with direct fac to ry support. Add in the Tesi-chassised design powered by a full one -litre fuel inj ected version of th e Yamaha TDM850 engi ne wh ich Birnota has o n th e drawing boards, the new watercoo led Moto Guzzi Superbike wi th lengthways' Vvtwin engine and chain final drive that Alejandro de Tomaso is rep ortedly stump ing up the fina nces to develop, the 60-deg ree 1000cc V-twi n Gilera that is most definitely u nder develo p ment and expec ted to debut in 1992 in time for the '93 seaso n, and the now -dela yed water-cooled so hc born again BMW Boxer, not now due to appear befor e 1993, and the bas is for limitless evolution of the Superb ike cla ss into a true confrontation be tween all the world's major manu facturers, using bik es based on th ose th e general public can buy for the street, becomes obvious. Who knows, Triumph might even join in as well , after all ! But from the numb er of twins under develo pment, it's obvious tha t the equalization of the two different types of engine contesting the category bo th now and in the foreseea ble future is the crucial factor in Superbike's ab ility to realize its huge po tential. Ducati 's cu rre nt run of victory on the track (whence is derived its undoub ted commercial success in the showrooms) may yet rebo und against it, however unfair that may seem. But then , wh o says racing was ever fair, anyway?! (Above) The computer that controls the Ducati's Weber/ Marelli EFI management system has been moved to th e nose of the bike for 1991. (Left) The heart of the Due..ti • i ts 90degree V-twin, wa ter-cooled desmo engi ne. (Below) Kawasaki's en try in th e superbike wars is th e ZXR750R. So far it h as been the biggest ' ch allenge to Ducati in the hands of Australian Rob P hillis. componen t layou t, while retaining th e same bas ic tubular steel chass is which has become a trademark of the Ducat i marque. So for example, the comp uter controlling th e Weber/ Marelli EFI ma nagement system was mo ved to the nose of the bike, faced with carbon fiber rather than steel, and mo unted on a bracket which a lso serves as an air du ct to the inj ecti on' sta cks, a locator for the front nose cone, and the mount for the electronic instrument unit - itself housed in a carbon fiber body and gi ving a horizontal rpm readout (which unlike Bimo ta's comparabl e tacho is actually legible at speed! ) as well as oil temp and 'pres sure, and water temp. T hat whole exercise, incl udi ng using car bo n fiber brackets to mount the radiator an d fair in g , sa ved no less th an 8 lb. , according to Bordi - and that's before taking into account o ther goodies lik e th e titanium exh au sts and carbo n fiber .silen cers, th e CF rear brake torque arm, steel rear disc downsized from 216 mm to 190 mm wi th a smaller caliper, CF fuel tank, and su chl ike. The two works bikes also benefitted from an extra 1.1 lb. savings by em p loying a carboni steel front brak e cockta il, though sinc e Brembo hav e o nly been ab le to supply one set of calipers for the carbon discs so far, these are mounted on different sides to Ro che and Falappa's number on e bik es, without affecting th e handling adversely (see Honda chapter l). DUCATI: At the Top u cai i's do minance DSuperbikeyears of isoftheworld-class racing cu lminaintensive develtion of five opment on the four-camshaft, 8-valve , 90-degr ee, V-twin wa ter-cooled desmo en gine, says chief designer Massimo Bordi - bu t ironically, it wa s their wor k on th e chassis at the en d of their 1990 Cha mpio nsh ip season whi ch he clgi ms to be th e key to the Italian bike's current blitzkrieg success in the class. " We were happy with our engine developmen t, bu t real ized we could get a lot mor e performance out of the bike by payi ng m ore a tte nt io n to th e weig h t," says Bor di . " O ur bik e was very heavy at the star t of last season - 345 lb. wit h oil and wat er - but for the las t race in Europe , at Monza in October, we produced an 'evoluzio ne ' versio n which weighed 323 lb. already a satisfactory saving . But now for th is season o ur two facto ry rid ers, Ro ch e and Falappa, as well as the two leading custo mers, Polen and Mertens, wit h who m we have a con trac t to supply works machines which may not necessarily though have the sa me spe cificat ion as Roche's bike, all have mac hines weighi ng 314 lb. Even o ur customer Corsa racer weighs on ly 336 lb. and gives 128 bhp a t th e rear wheel , aga ins t 133 bhp at 11,500 rpm for our factory engin es." Bordi's men achieved this dramatic slimming program by pu tting 'the 8valve desmo on a strict diet of car bo n fi ber, and co m p letel y revam pin g A ho st of other details, even including shorter cables, have helped th e weightsaving program, but an important side-ben efi t in moving everything aroun d has also been to improve the weight dis tribution to 51/49% frontwar ds bias, rather than the rearwards 21

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