Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

INScott RouSseau THE TAPES By W ell, it's been coming for a long time, and unless you're a hardcore dirt track fan who also happens to be completely blind, time is very nearly up. The Honda RS750 dirt tracker is well on its way to becoming extinct. You may recall that about one year ago I pleaded Wlth Honda on this very page to do something, anything, to shore up the venerable RS because it still is a ~ery popular engine with many of the pnvateer teams who have neither the t:UJ:e nor the engineering savvy that the I1val Harley-Davidson XR750 requires. The RS always has been a true bolt-up piece, with quality components that fIt together properly the first time. and thus require no major machining in order to reach their maxium horsepower potential. Most of the top Honda mechanics will tell you that they can teach almost anyone who has seen the inside of a few motorcycle engines to put one together and make competitive horsepower right out of the box. Unfortunately, those pleadings ap~arently fell on deaf ears, and the situation has only gotten worse. Not only is Honda completely unwilling to re-create any type of a contingency or parts program for the faithful teams that have con tinued to run, and run very well, Wlth an engme that Honda has officially deemed "obsolete," but the parts prices for the RS750 have been skyrocketing uncontrollably over the past two years. eed examples? Many of you know of the tragedy that befell ~eter~n Texas racer Terry Poovey earlier this season. Aside from the absolutely priceless loss of friend and mechanic Lou McCory, Poovey also lost practically every piece of equipment that .he o~ned in that fiery Michigan traf~ic aCCident. He figured his total eqUlpment loss to be in the neighborhood of $95,000, but he vowed to return - on a Honda. He said he'd buy it in boxes if he had to. P.oovey has returned, on a HarleyDaVidson. I wonder if it had to do with the fact that the parts-bin cost of a Honda motor alone is now about $28,000, roughly equal to three HarleyDaVidson XR750 engines. I have it on good authority from another top Honda team that you could buy finished cylin~er ~eads from HRC - complete with titaruum valves and trick springs - two years ago for the already astronomical prIce of $3800. Today, rough castings With no valvetrain hardware sell for right around $6000. Crankshafts, good for about three seasons, have increased from $3000 to $5000 in the same amount of time. It doesn't take a genius to see that Honda is pricing !:he RS right out of the game. HRC has been saying for quite some time that the parts are drying up. Maybe that's true. I could sit here and say shame on Honda for letting that ha~pen - in fact let me go on record as saymg so. But the end of the road is in Sight, and I have nothing more to say other than to do another one of my "Great Carnac" impersonations and predict that the Honda RS750 will be completely dead in three years. We will then be down to one-brand racing. I hope I don't even have to waste space explaining to you that this could be the knockout blow to a sport that has already' been on the ropes for the past five years. Rather than bitch about it it's time to do something about it, and 'I've got another one of those goofy ideas floating around in my head that just might work. Hell, it could be better than what we have now. It could mean more manufacturers and thus more brand recognition and participation to a sport that desperately needs both. Are you ready? You have to turn the clock back a ways to remember when the series was run under the old 500cc OHV /750cc sidevalve formula. It was back around 1968. Harley-Davidson did battle with its. ~athead KR750 racing engine while Bntish firms Triumph, BSA, orton, etc. ~ere finding success with their produchon-based 500cc twins. Then along carne the 650cc English motor, which was a logical choice for racing. Sensing a changing of the guard, the AMA decided to do away with the old formula and allow for a 750cc displacement limit across the board. Kitt~ 650s, punched out the additional 1OOcc, were perfectly legal for use. Though I wasn't there to see its immediate effect, I would hazard a guess that the new rule worked for many reasons - two of them being that it didn't alienate anyone who was already competing, and it lent credence to brand recognition: "Why yes, sir, that Triumph has the same motor that Gene Romero used to win the Sacramento Mile." You get the picture. How we got where we are today could fill volumes, and it usually does. Suffice it to say that the AMA was homologating motorcycles back then 200 at a time - and now it only homologates engines - 25 at a time - and those Grand ational engines are racing engines. They are costly to produce, purchase and maintain. It is high time we start thinking about a productionengIne formula - something that has clearly worked well in the AMA road racing and motocross series - in Grand ational racing. !i you look at the current crop of twin-cylinder four-stroke engines that could conceivably fit into this category, then you will immediately recognize that the 750cc displacement limit needs to be changed to reflect the times. I propose raising that limit to 1000cc, which would allow production-based V-twins like the Kawasaki Vulcan BOO, the Yamaha Virago or 1pM 850, Honda's Hawk 650 or its rumored forthcoming 1000cc superbike engine (manufacturers could be allowed to homologate only one engine model every three years or so), the soon-to-arrive Suzuki Desperado 800, the Ducati V-twin like that of current GNC campaigner Andy Tresser and the Harley-Davidson 883 all would fit in. I would further propose that Triumph be allowed to homologate its 900cc triple if it so chooses; we don't need to worry about four-cylinder TZs ruining the sport anymore, so set the limit at three cylinders and they are taken care of. Next, I propose that the teams using those engmes be allowed to modify them any way they see fit to produce, say, 100 horsepower - no more - as measured on an official AMA dyno, which would be at every race on the Grand ationa! circuit, a la NASB road racing. Get caught making more and you're outta there, pal. It's that simple. ow, I've already heard the argument from one former AMA official that his tech guys already have figured out "six different ways to cheat a dyno." I don't buy that, not if the rider and machine are randomly ordered to report t? the .dyno, knowing that a stiff fine/pomts penalty would be imposed if they were caught cheating. I've also had one former team owner tell me that he thought a horsepower limit would leave the teams with "nothing to work for." But wait a second. Are the teams currently suffering more from a horsepower shortage or lack of a way to get it to the ground? I see an awful lot of new chassis on the circuit this year. What are those teams working for? Could these bikes be as competitive? Well, I asked none other than former Honda RS guru and current Kawasaki road race team manager Rob Muzzy that very question after I'd heard rumors th.at he'd been approached by Kawasaki to do ~ feasibility study on the Vulcan motor wjth an eye toward dirt track racing. Muzzy told me that the answer was simple - the Vulcan 8 wouldn't stand a chance against the or RS, but could absolutely work agains a Honda Hawk or similar equipment. Dirt track team owner Bill Snyder h been developing a Honda Hawk wi rider Kris Armentrout for the -past tw ~asons'. and it looks and runs every bi like a dirt tracker should. According t Snyder, the bike currently is maxed 0 at 85 horsepower. Armentrout wa allowed to practice the bike with th other G C boys at the Sedalia Hal Mile. It was two seconds off the pace Two seconds in a series where hea times can vary as much as six seconds What could Snyder do with 250cc 0 extra capacity against similarly pre pared equipment? I don't know abou you, but I'd like to find out So then, what should be done so not to alienate manufacturers of the tw racing-only engines currently in exis tence? Let 'em run at 750cc, for now perhaps with even more restrictions as to give the new motors a chance. Bu also serve notice that by 1998, non-pr duction engines would no longer b legal 10 Grand National racing. Keep in mind that the Honda R ~robably will be gone already by tha time, and Harley-Davidson is rumore to be getting set to start messing with highly modified 883 in a state-of-thedirt track chassis. More feasibility stud ies, and perhaps a way to eventuall retire the XR? Maybe so. I hope so So. there you have it. That's my idea. Admittedly, these are rough guidelines, and I trust that the AMA would hav the ability to iron out the details if th new formula were ever to be consjdered. Now, you may hate it, or you may have your own ideas to enhance or find fault with my plan. Either way, I'd love to hear from you. So send Cycle News a letter, or look for me at the next Grand National. I'm usually not too hard to find. The bottom line is tha t I think thi.s format would be one of the ways that we could possibly take the grand old sport of AMA Grand National dirt track racing and make it a grand new sport of the '90s - maybe take it to that theortical next level that everyone always talks about. And it would be hard to argue with the potential for success out there with production-based engines and multiple manufacturer involvement in the series. We could even call it something cool, like Oass C racing, or something. Hey, wait a minute... no LOOKING .BACK, 25 YEARS AGO... SEPTEMBER 28, 1971 84 15 YEARS AGO... SEPTEMBER 23, 1981 Suzuki's Sylvain Geboers won the 500cc International class at the first-ever U.S. Motocross Grand Prix, held at Carlsbad Raceway in California. Huskymounted Torlief Hansen got second and Dave Bickers took third on a CZ. C:Z:mounted Brad Lackey was the topfJn~shlng American in fourth place, while Americans Gary Jones and John DeSoto got sixth and ninth, respectively. Tim Hart won the 250cc Support class on a Maico, followed by Bryar Holcomb on a CZ and DeWayne Jones on a Yamaha... Cyc1e News highlighted some new products and one of them was Harley-Davidson's rnini-eruiser for kids called the Shortster that had a three-speed gear box, lights, and highrise handlebars. Jay Springsteen led every lap but one of the Syracuse Mile to win the 28th ational victory of his career. Hank Scott and Scott Parker finished second and third, respectively ... CaJifornia's Bruce Penhall made a dream come true by taking the World Individual Speedway Championship in London, England, securing 14 out of 15 possible pomts. Denmark's Ole Olsen and Tommy .Knudsen took second and third, respectively, after a tie -breaker race... America took its first-ever Trophee des Nations win when the team of Danny LaPorte, Donnie Hansen, Johnny O'Mara and Chuck Sun shocked the world in Lommel, Belgium. The Belgian team of Andre Vromans, Harry Everts, Eric Geboers and Mark VeIkeneers finished second and the Dutch team of Gerard Rond, Kees van de Ven, Henk Van MierIo and Bennie Wilken got third. 5YEARS AGO... SEPTEMBER 25,1991 They.s. J~or World Trophy team of CJ.ui.s Smtth, Steve Hatch, Jimmy LeWiS and David Rhodes accomplished something that hadn't been done in 18 years by winning the Junior World Trophy at the 66th running of the International Six Days Enduro in Czechoslovakia. Holland finished second and Poland finished third ...Suzuki's Kevin Schwantz won the 500cc GP in Le Mans, Fr~nce, followed by Honda's Michael Doohan in second. Marl- '·1 boro- Yan:aha's Wayne Rainey took third and 10 the process wrapped up his second consecutive 500cc World Championship... Ryan Young won the final two rounds of the AMA/ ATC Nation1j"7'irT::::Ir;-r-~a~1 ~C~h~.ampionship Trials If Series in Massa- 1~~~5~;~='='S:' _ Rhode Island and and chusetts ""' won his fourth national champio nshi p in the process. Young also broke fi ve-time national champion Marland Whatley's mark of 27 wins, with the 28th coming in Rhode Island. (N

• Cover