Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127650
John Kocinski's Cagiva V593 iewed a s an engine dyno graph, Cagiva's 1993 Grand Prix season would have an enormous hole in the powerband. After a superb third place by new recruit Doug Chandler in the opening GP in Australia, in which he showed that the Lady in Red was a real contender for victory - after a hard winter of development (equipped with Michelin tires and Ohlins suspension once more instead of the Dunlop /Showa setup of 1992 and the Eddie Lawson era) - disappointment set in. Chandler struggled to recover from a hand injury sustained in open practice in Malaysia, and new recruit Mat Mladin's learning curve was as steep as could be imagined, being pitched from Nationallevel superbike racing in Australia into the red-hot cauld ron of 500cc two-stroke GP racing on the world stage. Just as Ch andl er appeared to have recovered his form, with a fine fou r th place at Assen, he hu rt himself again in a bonerattling crash at Muge llo, only this time even worse .The init ial expectations aroused by that first result Down Under remained unfulfilled. Then, dramatically, things began to turn around. First, wild-card rider Carl Fogarty, on loan from the sis ter Ducati superbike team for a single race, barely missed earning a rostrum finish at Donington Park when he ran out of fuel on the last lap, and was relegated to fourth place in the run to the finish line. Fogarty returned to four -stroke duties in an effort to clinch the World Superbike title, but for the next race at Brno he was replaced by team manager Giacamo Agostini 's surp rise package: John Kocinski, the enfant terrible of GP racing - and a proven winner in the 500 class. Those paddock skeptics, who had dismissed the Kocinski/Cagiva combo as two brilliant-but-erratic forces combining to produce a no-hope contender, had a rude awakening. It was a marriage made in heaven, blessed at the alta r of GP s ucces s . The m ercu rial Koci nski, more Latin in temperament than American, found an ideal home in the GP paddock for his phenomenal talents . He suddenly had a team pre pared to tailor the motorcycle to his exact needs, with a response time far quicker than that of the Japanese factories. Fourth in the Czechoslovakian GP in his first ride, he followed that with another fourth place on Cagiva's home ground at Misano. Then he scored a landmark vic tory on his home territory at Laguna Seca in the US. GP - the first time a Cagiva had ever defeated the assembled might of Japan Inc. on equal terms in dry conditions. Then, in the final GP of the season at [ararna, in the Spanish court of John's girlfriend Toti, which he has now adopted as home base, Kocinski took a deci sive pole position and was set to make it two wins in a row. But that was befo Shinichi Itoh crashed his works Honda right in front of him, and the Cagiva rider had to take to the dirt to avoid running him over, shattering a carbon brake disc in the process. That was a cruel disappointment - but the Cagiva GP team is now making good power at peak revs, rea dy to launch a determined challenge in the 500cc World Championship this year, with Kocinski signed to a one-year contract, and a now healthy Chandler returning. The hole in the powerband is history! Nevertheless, if you ha d told me 10 years ago , when I first tested a works 20 The 1993 Cag lva V593, as ri d d en to a victory In the U.S. GP by John Koci nski. Cagiva 500, that the Italian team would ever end a season setting the pace in the 500cc GP class - with the Japan ese struggling to withstand them and regain their accustomed supremacy - I'd have taken some convincing. A decad e of test riding each successive Lady in Red would only have reinforced that s kepticism, for while there are highs and lows, the Cagi- vas I've ridden have been frustratingly inconsistent in their level of competitiveness against Japan Inc. Those days are gone. Building on the s olid achie vement of Lawson's 1992 b ike, th e new V593 racer is not only argu ably the most aesthetically beautiful GP racer of the modem era, it's also right on the pace. And, as the chance to ride it during one ofthe team 's regular autumn test sessions at Mugello showed, there's been a quantum leap in the performance of the twin-crank, SO-degree V-four crankcase reed-valve motor, which in its latest Big Bang version has all four cylinders firing within 70 degrees (as I rode it) or 90 degrees, depending on the state of tune and type of circuit.