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/127651
latest factory developments, at the same mark as Doohan. Then, o ver a mph slower, came the best of the rest - Alex Barros' Suzuki. A bit of a crushing dis pla y of top-speed dominance, no? With circuits getting steadily slower a n d m ore tw isty, maybe the reason Hond a isn't winning races is because their bikes will onl y go fast in a stra igh t line. Don't thin k so. Mick Doohan scored his warmly-applauded comeb ack victory at Mugello on a track that, while it do es ha ve a long front straigh t, subjects chassis and engine to a punishing exam w ith a -variety of turns. And, until he made a mistake that his weak physical condition prevented him from correcting in time, Doohan looked set for a nother w in on perhaps the most b reath lessly taxing track of all from a handling stan dpoint - Laguna Seca. The same could be said for Itoh in the final ra ce of the yea r in the swithcbacks of [arama, excep t the rea son he fell off in the lead was straightforward rider error on a slow tum. Honda can count themselves as having been unlucky again in pursuit of their .glitterin g title prize. Doohan wa s still way below par in fitness all season long, in spite of his gritty showings, and Beattie and Itoh were still GP novices in terms of learning the circuits in Europe, where all but the early-season action was concentrated. To explore the conundrum of the NSRSOO Honda's performance on different types of tracks, I had a unique double encounter with the Speed King of the SOOcc class. First I rode Alex Cri ville's Team Pons bike at [ararna in Spain the d ay after the final GP of the season. Later in the year, I was given the opportunity to ride Doohan's bike at Suzuka in Japan. While sunny Spain lived up to the tra vel b ro chures, sod den Su zuka was gl oomy and w et. Fo r tu na te ly , I r e m em b ered to pack the cha nge o f u nd erwear needed after rid ing a 288poun d bike whose engine now d elivers "over 180 hp" (actually believed to be 184 hp at the gearbox ) at 12,500 rpm in the rain! Honda's major change for 1993 on the 112-degree, single-crankshaft V-fou r engine was to move the air intakes for the carbon fiber airducts tha t lead to the bank of 36mm Keihin dual-body carbs from the nose of the fairing to the flanks. This was done in an effort to reduce drag and especially to reduce turbulence in the airflow, caused by deflection with the leading edge of the fairing. At th e same time, the airbox was redesigned so as to be almost 100% sealed and pres. surized. After the first couple of races the high-pressure fuel pump (needed to deliver a spray of fuel to the injector nozzles with every engine revolution on the fuel-injected bike) was also fitted to the carbureted machines because the improved engine dynamics were draining the ra ther small floa t bowls on the Keihins, and causing fuel starvation with the risk of possible seizure. Ongoing development with cylinder and exhaust design, coupled with the im p roved in ta ke sy stem, yielded an extra 5 hp compared to 1992, though the design of the 54 x 54.5 mm engine was essentially unchanged . Coupled with the much superior aerodynamics, the imp rovement in performance this yielded was dramatic. Whereas the 1991 preBig Bang NSR had trapped at 192 mph, the '92 bike was actually slower at 190 mph as Honda traded top-end speed for greater rideability . But in 1993 they redressed the balance - and how. The NSR500s went 6 mph faster than the year before, and that was with an engine with a less steep, more rideable power The NSRSOO's 112-degree V·four engine sits In an ex1ruded aluminum, twln-spar frame. The NSRSOO Is stlllthe speed king of the SOOCC class. curve, which Doohan switched to midseason because it suited his rid ing style better, Riding Criville's bike at [ararna only und erlined Honda ' s evolutionary achievement - this b ike is 50000 fast!! Admittedly, it might be an impression magnified by th e tight confines of th e Spanish track, but the same day I'd been riding thr ee slower and, frankly, mu ch less intimida ting V-four Yamaha YZR500s, in cl u d ing th e e x-Freddie Spencer Yama ha France big-banger. The differ enc e in p erformance between the Yamahas and the Honda was phenomena l. Jus t take a sim p le (? - well, er, crucial) fact or li ke the balls-ou t braking from w id e open in sixth gear for the tight, first-gear right hander at the end of the straigh t. All the bikes were filled with hyperpowerful carbon brakes, and all w eig he d the sa me , g ive or take a pound, at 286 pounds.Whereas even a novice 500cc racer lik e me could flirt with the 2OD-meter board at the end of the straigh t before squeezing the brake lever for all I was worth on any of the . Yamahas, d oing the same thing with the Honda would have been an invitation to scratch in the kitty-litter on the outside of the tum. On the Honda, beca use it's so much fast er and more po werful, you have to brake much earlier. In my case, wa iting until the 300-meter board was history meant a steep increase in the pulse rate while I ju-u-u-u-st m anag ed to get it stopped in time to make the tum. Oka y, I'm surely not as bra ve as regular rider Criville - same go-faster initials, tho ugh - and I'm sure he waits qu ite a few more meters before throwing out the anchors. Still, this is a bike which puts the performance of GP SODs into perspective - it's a bullet. It's al so su rp risingly tractable and forgiving to ride at low engine speeds, as I found in the rain at Suzuka. A couple of years ago I rode the las t of the old-style, pre-Big Bang NSRSOO Hondas in the wet in Japan, and this was a character-building exp erience d esigned to test the strongest set of nerv es. Eve n with "only" 170 hp or so on ta p, the much fiercer power delivery of the 180degree "double-strike" motor - in spite of the wealth of electronic ga dget ry aimed at making the bike more ridea ble - meant you had to be ready for the back wheel to step ou t at almost any mom ent when you switched on th e power. You wouldn't say Doohan's 1993 bike was exactly a pussycat by com parison, bu t the extra t raction offered b y the Big Bang motor - with all fou r cylinders firing within 66 degrees (accordi ng to Cagiva's calculations from analyzing the Honda exhaust note on an oscilloscope) - is dramatically eviden t. It will pussyfoot around turns as low as 4-5000 rpm, ca rb u r etin g more cleanly than m any streetbikes, while you pl uc k up the courage to tug on the th rottle w ith the right hand. As confidence g radually increases, you realize what an incredible motorcycle this is - how could any thing this fast and powerful be so forgiving an d responsive to ride in the rain? In the end, you go for it - win ding the throttle w ide open as yo u head round the last right hand sweeper befor e the Suzuka sta rtline. Cha nging up through th e gears gets the front wheel all ligh t, so the bars start shaking lazily in you r h ands w here you've backed off the steering damper to give you rse lf mo re of a chance to save a slide. Well, not all of us have Doohan 's hyperswift re actions ... Doohan doesn 't even change the suspension settings from dry to wet conditions, preferring to run Showa's 43mm upside-down forks an d rear sh ock fairly soft all the time to get a better ride and give th e suspension a chance to work. Criville's bike, on th e other hand, couldn't ha ve been more different - the suspension -settings were much harder, which on a bumpy circuit like [arama makes the bike a real handful to ride. The way that both wheels cha ttered the tires over the rip ples round the d ownhill left hander lead ing into the Bugatti hairp in was fr ankl y fr ighteni ng, and everywhere e lse the Pons Honda seemed set up much too stiff to get good suspension response. It also felt as if it had a rather a long wheelbase, making it no tab ly less delicate to steer th an th e trio of YZRSOO Yamahas I was riding. It was a real handful to change d irection with in some of the tighte r turns - it just wouldn' t go where I wanted to point without a lot of physical effort . On the other hand, it was ultra stable around the fast downhill tunnel swee per on to the ma in straight. I was - ahem ra ther pleased to d isco ver, fro m the printout from the tea m's chass is guru An tonio Cobas's 24-channel telemetry unit, tha t I was some three mph faster than Criville through this tum (106 mp h to 103 mph ), b u t a humblin g 8 mph down on top speed at the end of the following straight! " Don't expec t a works contract jus t yet!" laughed Cobas later. "You're only quicker the re because you 're d oing the comer wrong. With bikes as powerful as these, you have to sacrifice a bit of corner speed to get th e machine upright earli er, to use the fat part of the tire for good early drive ou t of the tum. That's th e biggest thing th at rid ers from th e 250 or 125 classes have to learn when they start racing SODs - they can' t use so much an gle, and th ey ha ve to cha nge their riding style accordingly. The same applies to you." Okay, to th e dunce's corner - but, couldn't the bike be set up to be a bit more responsive, especially since Honda m ade onl y one ch a ng e to the ' 92