Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

eTECH Husqvama & Husaberg Four-Stroke GP MXers mThumpers are definitely back! 8< 0'\ ~ ... L{) ~ ;... Q) ..0 S Q) ~ ~ Q) Cf) 40 By Alex Hodgkinson T . he 29th da y of August will go down in the annals of mo tocross history as . the d a y tha t " rea l" m otorcycl es finally struck.back. . For that IS th e da te wh en Belgian Jacky Ma rten~ wr~ pped up the. 1 9~3 Wo.rld Cha mpionship 500cc MX title m Swi tzerland on a four-s troke-powered motorcycle - a 633cc Husqvarna to be exact. Not sin~e 1965 when Jeff Sm ith won the 500,:c tith; aboard a BSA has a World Champion ship MX cro wn been won on a m.o torcycle powered . by a fou;-stro ke engme. An d the last rider to w m a GP mot o ?board a fou.r-stroke was works BSA r~d er Dave N icoll , o.n Au gu st 10, 1969, m. Luxem bourg. ThiS fou r-stro ke moto wm ~rought las ted nearly 24 years and h appily ca me to a n end w hen Martens won the Finnis h 500cc MX GP on the 23rd day of May this year. It was late las: a~tumn, 1992, that :he motocross comrrus sron of the FIM dec:ded to a llow four -stro kes up to a capa~ty of 650cc to compe te on equal terms With the two-strokes on the 500cc GP circuit. The move was jus tified by the sport's ~lders as an atte~pt to breath: new ~ife into the once all-im po rtan t senes which was be in g un.dermi ne d by th e wit hdrawal of the final Japanese factory support from H.onda and Kawasak i. A ca pacity adva n tage for the fou rs tro kes with their less efficien t firi ng cycle is nothing new; the FIM road racing hierarchy acknowledged the handicap in their IT formu la as long ago as 1977. Just two leading riders - Ma rtens and Husaberg newcome r Joel Sme ts - have taken up the cudgels to represent th e fou r-stroke renaissance this year. Ironically neither man was influenced in his decision to ride a four-s troke by the FIM ru le change. " I had a lready s ig ned u p with Husaberg several wee ks befo re the limit was inc rea s ed to 650cc," exp laine d Smets, who was a mere fou r mon ths old when Dave Nico ll wo n in Luxembourg. "I use a 600 in in ternatio nal races, but that would've bee n allowed an yway. So much on my GP bike is hand-mad e that we do not have enoug h parts for me to race it in less important events. My GP bike for this year is just over 530cc and has virtually the sam e power as the 500 w h ich I ini tia lly tes te d a nd wh ich Bartolini rode two years ago." The 530cc capacity Husabe rg is not, as migh t have been expected, a 500 stroked to its phys ica l li m it. G ui do Vertem ati, himself a GP regular 15 years back, explained, "The eng ine is a shorts troke motor so th at w e can maintain hig h rpm. It is unlikely that we will try to make a bigger engine." Mar tens has of co urse been w ith Team Husqvarna since th e winter of 1991 /2 : "KTM only ha d bike s an d bonuses for me after my second plac e in the World Championship, and the offer came along from Husqvarna. The switch to four-strokes didn't worry me as I had alwa ys rid de n a KTM four-stroke at least once a year in non-champi onship events ." Eleven th in th e title chase on th e 500cc Husqvarna model la s t year, Martens firmly believes he should ha ve finished hig her. "I was essentially signed up to develop the bike last year, but my results were ve ry inconsisten t becau se my mechan ic was not puttin g the bike tog ether p r operly, " sai d Ma rte ns . " I don't ha ve th is problem anymo re now that Graham Ken t is wo rking for me." Ken t, the vo latile cockney charac ter who wrenched for Holland 's John Van den Berk who earned the 250cc title in 1988 and w orked for American Mik e Healey in his silve r medal campaign in 1991, had just completed a year in car racin g when t h e "calling" ca me. " I thought it was so me of my mates having a joke when I go t a call and a woman asked me if I was in terested in wo rking for the Cagiva group. I don't know why th ey a sked me, perhaps th ey remembered me from a few years back whe n I w orked w ith th em fo r Cle r t-Ja n Van Doorn . I thin k it irked a few peo p le when I la nded what is effectively th e only factory motocross mechanic job in Europ e." . Four-strokes are nothing new to Kent. "I learned m y trade in my dad 's shop work ing on the big-bo re road bikes and th e Husky is si m p le compared w it h that ," said Kent. Althou gh th e na me .H u s qv a rn a is Swedish, the brand has bee n exclus ively design ed and built in Italy since Cagiva, which also ow ns Du cat i and is by fa r the largest bike manu factu rer ou tside Japan, acqu ired the n a me in the late '80s. The H usqvarna hopes w ith Martens and Ken t for 1993 were no t in dou bt at the start of the season. "After just th e firs t month toge th er w e achieved a s mu ch as in the who le of last yea r," said the lanky 29-year-old Belgian, Ma rtens. (Below) Belgian Jacky Martens is the first four-stroke rider to win the 500cc title since Jeff Smith d id so on a USA in 1965. (Ab ove) Th e long-stroke fact ory 633cc Husqvama fea tures titanium foot pegs, discs, shock spri ngs and connecting rod. "A nd we continued to test. Cagiva wan ted the worl d title this year. They reacted immediately to any requests or suggesti ons an d th e re were fo ur engineers . w o rk in g f u ll - time on the project at Va r e s e; Ke nt is the o n ly off-road mech anic allowed in the main Cagiva R&D departmen t. People were surprised when I we nt out for the second an d third races in Austria after my nose was broken in to seven p ieces by a rock in race one, but with that commi tme nt from the factory, they had the righ t to expect that from me." Martens was a n a wful s ig h t in Sittendorf, Au str ia, his rid ing gea r splatter ed with blood and a combination of tear-offs and Roll-O ffs drilled onto the outs id e of his helmet. "We w ere lucky that no one p rotested because the holes invalida ted the helmet stam p. We also had to drill other ho les for ventilation," said Martens. , By the end of the thir d race, Martens' left eye had also closed right up an d he only had abou t a 30 -degree field of vision th rough the Roll-Offs, The factory specials from Husqvarna and Husaberg bear little rese mblance to th e mil d - man n ered produc tion fou rstrokes of recent years which have been aimed p redominantly at the "gentleman racer," often of advanced years. Th e Hu sabe r g fa cto ry effo rt with Smets is th rough th e Italian importers HIC, r un by the Vertemati brothers Alvaro and G ui d o - wi th their cousin Marcello . Guido and Smets' long-term mechanic Ludo Van der Veke n accompa n ied Smets to the GPs, while, Alvaro co ncen tra ted on th e World Cham p io ns h ip En duro Se ri es w ith [a roslav Katrinek, th e Cz ech ace who won the 1991 Worl d title for Husaberg.

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