Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

1993 World Championshi~ _er_bi_ke_s:_Part _o_ne fter the first six rounds of the 1993 Victors World Championship Superbike Series, change is in the air. After three successive seasons of domination by the Vtwin Du ca tis, the four-stro ke balance of power is shifting, and the Italian bikes are on red alert. Kawasaki's determination to wrest World Superbik e sup remacy seems set to be payin g off, afte r comb ining their Aus tralian and American tearns in to one h igh ly focused uni t under the control of Am erican Rob Muzzy, the Green Meanies are dead se t on winning the World Championship at last. After the Czechoslovakian round of the series at Brno, Kawasaki-mounted Scott Russell leads the wo rld, with teammate Aaron Slight fourth in the stan dings: both have showed that on slow and fast tracks alike, and under a wi de variety of conditions, the ga p between the Italian twins and their fourcylin der Japanese opposition effectively no longer exists. And yet. ..and yet: Ducati is sti ll the one to beat "They tell us Du ca ti are in trouble with to p s peed on fast circu it s - but Ducati still win!" says their chief de velop men t engineer Fran co Fame. "They tell us Ducati are in trouble on slow circuits - but Ducati still win! When they stop telling us we ' re in trouble - the n we'll start worrying!" After Gia ncarlo Falappa walked on water to two faultless victories at Brands Hatch, then followed it up with a win on the fastest track of all at Hockenheim, it seemed improbable Ducati could dominate at Albacete - but they did, wi th new facto ry fa vorite Ca rl Fog a rty sco rin g im peccable back-to-back w ins on th e slowes t circuit on the calendar. Though Ducati has taken a gamble on d elayin g the ad vent of their new 916 till next season, it seems .the "golden oldie" 888 may just be good enough to clinch the title for them in updated form in its final year of works competition. O r ma ybe not. Kawasaki m a y be leading the points table more thanks to consis tency than wins - Russe ll's victories in the second legs in Germany and Czechoslovakia remain the only time Ducati was bea ten in the first six rounds - bu t they' ve come very close to up setti ng the Duca ti d o min ance in alm ost every.other race. Yet, Kawasaki's tactics have been a little ha rd to fathom, whi le th e reason Ducati has achieved and retained their sup rema cy isn't too difficult to deduce: they pack the front of the gri d wi th works bikes - five in all this season, plus another thr ee or four wi th hands-on factory backing. Last season it seeme d th at Kawasaki had gotten the message - but just as Rob Phillis hit the fro n t of th e championship race, they withdrew all their other riders for other du ties, and left him to fend for himself against the crimson wave. Not su rprisingly, Robbie lost his title chances right then and there, as Ducati riders packed the fin ishin g order - yet this season Kawa saki ha s r educed their rider streng th to just two lead men, supported by two riders on killed bikes, Bontempi and Morillas. It may not be enoug h to assure Kawasaki the title that many in th e paddock frankly believe they deserve: it's their tum. If the od ds favor Duca ti becau se of strength in depth, on the machine front the two are now very equal, thanks partly to the new ll-pound higher minim um weight for tw ins of 319 pounds introduced this season with Ducati's acqu ies- A 20 cence - they could have insiste d it be postponed for a year, under FIM rules allowing one clear year's notice for rule changes. That's what is happenin g to the other part of the "adjustment" aimed at because the Formula One class is being replaced in Japan by superbikes - not jus t for the All-Japan Championships, but for the Suzuka 8-Hours, too . That means they won't be able to build their eq ualling up the two types of bikes, a re d u ction in the present 363-p o u nd weight limit for fours to 352 pounds for the 1994 season. Too bad the rule makers didn't think a bit harder and introduce a third set of parameters for three-cylinder trick works racers like the RVF and YZF, but instead they'll produce new model s u perbikes with a very high level of specification, costing a lot of money and built in ve ry small quantities - maybe just the minimum 1000 units for hornolo- Ducati is still the one to beat in the World Superbike Series, thanks in part to Carl Fogarty. bikes - perhaps 900cc and 341 pou nds in order to attract Triumph into the fray. Until then, the Ita lian-prepa red 900 Daytona Superbike which appear ed at the Albacete round (but was preven ted from taking part in qualifying) has no home at present in su perbike racing and that's a pity. As it is, the superbike world is heading for a big turnover next season, not only with the completion of the restructuring of the we ight limits w hic h will effec tively g ive th e fours a 22-pound bonus. Honda's retu rn with their V-four fuel-injected RC45 is now assured, as is the appearance of Ducati 's response, the s m all e r, more potent 916 w ith its Tamburini-designed chassis and singlesided swingarm. But that may not be all. "Superbike racing is abou t to ge t a big shakeup," sa ys a man who should know, Ohlins suspension guru (and form er s u pe rbike star r id er) And ers Ander sson. "Just wai t for '94: all the Japanese factories will ha ve new bikes, _ gation . For sure Suzuki has a new bike coming, we know Honda does too, Yamaha almost certainly (a fuel-injected YZF7) and Kawasaki perhaps as well all because of the Japanese rule change." Sounds like four-stroke Grand Prix racing by another name, and if true, will surely bene fit superbike racing tremendously. Not that it needs a lot of help, judging by the spectacle p rovided, for example, by the first race a t Hockenheim, which for those wh o were privileged to watch it live or on TV was su rely one of the most thrilling World Champ ionship mo torcycle races (for any class) ever staged. One, too, that saw Juan Gar riga make it to the front of a superbike race fo r the firs t ti me since he re turned to fou r-stroke racing after a seven-yea r GP career. This p rompted the inev itable comparison with 500cc GP racing by a GP journalist who "just d ropped in on the way to Salzburg" to ch eck out the alternative World Championship seri es, with disparaging conclusions. "Garriga 's performance s hows the real level of riding talent in Superbike," he said, after the Spanish rider had earned a hard-fought second place in the second race. "He cou ldn't really get on the pace in GP racing, yet here he gets on the rostrum straigh t away." Tru e bu t there are as many d ifferent levels of 500cc Yamaha GP bikes as there are of Ducati su perbikes, and perhaps if the Yamaha factory had bothered to supply Garriga with the sa me level of equ ipment the Kenny Roberts team got, he might ha ve got even better results in GP racing than he did. As it is, Garri ga had the best po ssible equipment for World Superbike racing, but of course in the next round on home soil at Albacete, he wasn't on th e rostrum - so what does that prove? Ask th e man h im self: "People in the GP world like to think of superbike racing as a very inferior form of racing," Garriga sai d in Germany. "But most of them have never been to a race. In fact, though the atmosphere in the boxes is much mo re sane, more human and more civilized than in GPs, su perbike racing is actually far more intense and competitive, because the bikes are all so evenly ma tched . Instead of two or three fad ory 500s which take off at the front and leave the rest behind, there a re 15 fact ory su perbi kes which have almost th e sa me lev el of performance, and this mak es the rider's role much more important, as well as being more exciting for the specta tor. I regard the move I made in coming to superbike The chassis is basically unch anged, but features a wider swingann for a 6.25-inchwheeL

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