Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Riding the World Superbikes: Part Two s new By Alan Cathcart Photos by Kyolchi Nakamura ucati's sexy-looking 916 has proved to have as much go as show in its first season of superbike competition this year, winning 10 out of the 16 World Cha mpionship races held up to Mugello, as the series head s into an action-packed horne straight. The Italian factory 's lead rider Carl Fogarty stands a grea t chance of giving the new model a wo rld title in its debut seaso n, thanks to his gritty recovery from injury after a crash on someone else's oil in practice at Ho ckenheim, and th ree st art-to-finish double victorie s at Albacete, Zeltweg - and Assen. But a lmost as me ritorious has been the performance of Austrian privateer And y Meklau, currently holding a superb fifth place in the riders table and grappling with Tea m Ru mi's Ho ndamounted Simon Crafar for the honor of top privateer. Meklau, one of the firs t refugees from 500cc Grand Prix racing to return to the superbike class, has had a great season on his 926 Corsa Ducati customer racer - not only finishing second to Fogarty in both races at Zeltweg (his horne track with his home literally overlooking th e track) , but also p laci ng fo urth in Albace te, fifth and sixth in Indonesia, and sco ring regular top 10 points finishes. The fact that in doing so he has often beaten Fogarty's two surviving teammates (after Giancarlo Falappa's terrible "<:fl accident in Spain) in the works Ducati 0\ 0\ team - Fabriz io Pirovano and Jamie Whitham - not only confirms the young 0\" Austrian's tal ent but also underlines how competitive a mount the supposedI-< ly obsolescent 888-based Ducati 926 still QJ is. . Just check out the performance of u other Ducati-mounted privateers like Stephane Martens, Serafino Foti, Valerio de Stefanis to confirm that the 926 is still a very effective piece of kit. Which raises D ..... ..... "B o 26 an 0 the question - is the reason Fogarty wins races on the 916 only because he's such a brilliant rider, or is the new Ducati really new and improved, or ju st new a nd sexy- lookin g. Is it sim ply a triumph of styling over performance? The only way to find ou t was to ride them both. So, after the Austrian World Superbike round on the switchback, demanding and ultra-fast Zeltweg track, I lined up Fabrizio Pirovano's works Ducati 916 (which actually measures 955cc, thanks to its ove rbored m o to r) and Andy Meklau's p ri va teer 926 for a ba ck -to back comparison. And without knowing it at the time, I'd samp led the third pos. sible option for desmo superbiking, '94 style, when I raced in the Daytona 200 on a semi-works Ducat i in the Fast by Ferracci team, rid ing alongside future star Troy Corser on a specially homologated hybrid bike, consisting of the 955 engine in an 888 /926 chassis. All the options: now ali I had to do was find all the answers .. . MEKLAU'S DUCATI 926 STANDARD IS BEST By rights, the well-presented Promotor team 's pit should have had a Honda RC45 in it waiting for And y Meklau to step aboard and take rostrum finishes on in front of his horne crowd . But Promotor were the only team to sign up for one of the ultra-eostly HRC support bikes for the 1994 World Superbike season, and when they had a chance to evaluate the new Honda's performance in pre-season testing, they cancelled the deal and desperatel y tried to hunt do wn two of the 30 Ducati 926 Corsas - all sold and paid for long before the season started - built for 1994. "The Honda deal wasn 't what we were led to expect it would be," say s Promotor team manager A ndreas Muhlbauer. "And the bike just wasn't on the pace. Getting a Ducati was the only option, especiall y after Andy's win at Zeltweg last season in the only World Superbike round he contes ted, on a 926 rented from Edgar Schnyder." With help from the Italian fact ory, Promotor sourced th e two 926 Corsas th a t Fabrizio Pirov ano had used to cli nch the Italian Superbike title fo r Tea m Tardozzi. With the Italian se ries over jus t as the Worl d Ch am pionships opened at Doning ton Park, and Piro's works 916/955 delivered, the old -style 926 racers we re so ld to Meklau 's team and origina lly prepped b y Sch nyder before P ro mo to r secu red the ir o wn desmo specialist in the form of the Austrian Ducati importer's top engine man, Charl y Putz. "I 'rn not a tuner, just a guy who bu ild s e ngi nes th e way th e factory intended them to be," insists Putz modestly. "Some p eo ple try too ha r d to improve on what the factory has done, which is crazy - standard is best! For the sa me rea son, we never open the fuel injection control unit - you' re trying to compete w ith 50 people a t We ber/ Marelli if you do so. But what is importan t is to pay very close a tte n tio n to detail in building the engine - it takes me 40 hou rs to do one right, and a lot of tha t is go ing over and over th e sa me pa rt until I get it just so. Tak e the flyw heel gen erator, this is real heavy, an d with only effectively two real crankshaft bearings, it causes a big power loss due to vib ra tion if it isn't carefully balanced and tighten ed - and you need a lo t of care to do this correctly. Really, we just blueprint the engine: the clever guys are the ones at Ducati who can make a 926 twin rev to 12,500 rpm safely and beat a 750 four!" The 926 Corsa is a productionized version of Carl Fogarty 's 1993 works bike, bored out to 96 x 64 rnrn (versus a 94rnrn bore for the 888), fitted with titanium rod s as s tock, the same 37mm inlet/31mm exhaust valves as the 955 (but nirnonic, not titanium), and an improved crankcase"design to combat the breakage experienced by many rid - ers in the past , with the bearing and sh aft of th e lower timing-belt pulley reduced by 5rnrn wid th for extra meat to " be added to the casting. "They still cra ck cases, but usually bec ause the fl y whee l is loose, not because of a d esign fault," says Putz, who keeps a close eye on rocker-a rm wea r. "We thro w them away as soon as they start to ge t wo rn, which is expensive but absolutely necessary if you wan t to have perfect valve tim ing and good performance. For that reason , we also fit new timin g belts for every race." Compression rat io w ith the Omeg a pistons is 11.8:1, with standa rd earns and the new big-bore 48mm exhaust system developed on the '93 works racer. Ducati claim 142 bhp at the rear whee l for the 926 Corsa, a t 11,500 rpm, which Putz confirms, with imp roved pickup over the '93 888 customer racers, than ks to reduced weight in the crank assembly in spite of the 2rnrn-bigger bore. "The weight of one '94 Pankl titanium rod an d Omega piston is 320 grams," he says . "Versus 400 gra ms last yea r for a 94-bo re Mo ndia l pi s ton and ch ro memoly Pankl rod . That helps a lot to gain revs, but also Ducati d id a lot of work on lightening the rest of the crankshaft - the entire assembly on the 926 is 800 grams ligh ter than in 1993." All o f which helps ex p lai n how Ducati designer Massimo Bordi and his development team led by Franco Fame have persuaded their big bore V-twin to rev so high· the key to the kind of power tha t bea ts Japanese fours - with the aid of desmodromic positive valv e control. It's a unique package - but one that anyone can buy. "They made us open ou r engine to check the capacity after we fin ished fourth at Albacete," says Putz, "and the guy from Honda was trying to get a real close view inside it - so I gave him the cylinder head to look at! This is a production racer - nothing trick, just a lot of time spent getting things right, especial-

• Cover