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
HONDA NSR500 bike's rideability by closing up the firing interval of the individual cylinders. Honda deserved the jump they got on their competitors with this piece of trickery, but fate's cruel blow robbed them of the 1992 world title when runaway points leader Mick Doohan was so badly injured in Assen. On to 1993, and the dawn of the fuel injection two-stroke era, with Honda again at the forefront. Though there's a veil of secrecy over whether Shinichi Itoh was actually using EFI on his NSRSOO Honda when he broke the 200 mph mark for the first time without wind assistance through the Hockenheim speed traps this year, there seems little doubt that Honda's five-year fuel-injection program is now about to start repaying the huge commitment in time, personnel and money it's eaten up so far. It may become especially useful next season when the new fuel regulations kick in, entailing a massive drop to a specification of 102 octane, low-lead fuel. This is expected to result in an 8-10 horsepower loss which will be much easier to counter with EFI. Though Honda became the first team to race an EFI-equipped two-stroke in GP racing (BMW and URS-Munch had already raced fuel-injected SOOcc fourstrokes in the past), they still didn't win the world title they hoped so much would be theirs. Even with a carbureted NSRSOO that was dramatically faster than in 1992, and also faster than the opposition, Honda still ended up a disappointing third in the championship. The Hockenheim speed trap roster tells the whole story: four Hondas at the top of the table, with Itoh on the injected (?) bike at the magic 200 mph mark, Daryl Beattie at 197 mph on the carbureted NSR, Mick Doohan some 4 mph slower, thanks to the extra drag of his still-injured leg which he was unable to tuck inside the fairing, and Alex Criville on the solitary leased NSR, the Spanish Team Pons' bike without benefit of the Michael Doohan 's Honda NSR500 ; surp risingly , Honda hasn't won a 500cc World Championship In four years. By Alan Cathcart Photos by Takeshi Akamatsu and Emilio Jimenez ft er another bleak season in which they won just two races and extended their SOOcc World Championship drought to four straight years without a tit le, Honda must be wondering just what they have to do to regain Grand Prix racing's most . cove ted crown. The days when they alternated titles with Yamaha seem long gone in the mists of time. It's already 1994, and Honda hasn't won a SOOcc world title in this decade. Not for want of trying though - nor for lack of technological endeavor and the budget to back up innovation. With near decade-long sponsor Rothmans taking its money to F-1 car racing, an era of belt-tightening may soon begin - but it hasn't affected HRC's efforts to probe the outer limits of high tech twowheeled development so far. The company that has steadily refined the NSRSOO into the Ultimate Racer of the modern era now relies very heavily on a whole range of electronic aids to performance that are both costly and time consuming to develop. But they have not ignored continued mechanical innovation, such as the introduction of the socalled Big Ban g engine format last year . The Big Bang worked wonders for th e A