Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

But the stopwatch does not lie, and John Kocinski himself, who stayed on to be present at my test, couldn't restrain a smile when he saw I'd lapped two seconds faster on his bike than on Troy's. I was pretty pleased, too - I went four seconds faster than 1'd ever managed in a race on the same Assen short circuit with my Yamaha twin or Ducati Supermono. The wonky speed-shifter might have been responsible for some of the difference between the two bikes, as well as the growing familiarization with otherworldly velocities that I'd started to acquire after 40 laps on the pair of Ducatis. But part of it, too, surely came from the difference in setup of the two bikes - about as radically different from one another as you could expect. Troy has his 996 set up what I'd term the Australian way, wi,th a relatively low rear ride height, quite soft suspension settings and a fair bit of trail, all to create a bike that is stable, rides bumps well, and gives good traction out of turns. The rear shock was a bit too soft for my extra weight, leading to a ·fit of the shakes under hard acceleration exit(Opposite page) Dukln' it out: John Kocinski's Ducatl superblke (left) and Troy Corser's. (Above) Kocinski's bike Is set up with a more radical geometry than Corser's. While Kocinski's bike turns with the quickness of a GP machine, It's got a more nervous feeling thaI) Corser's. (Right) Corser's bike Is set up much more softly than Kocinski's and is ultra-stable through fast sweepers. year's 955. That means Ducati has traded some of the '95 prototype jumbo desma's extra midrange for more speed and top-end power. But the result is a huge increase in overall performance that you immediately feel when you ride the bike. Two laps on the Corser 996 I rode first at Assen were enough to convince me of what a huge step forward it represents over last year's world champion desmo V-twin. The acceleration is awe-inspiring enough, but the top-end speed is now literally mind-altering. I honestly can only compare it to riding a 500cc GP bike. Suddenly, Assen doesn't have a main straight behind the pits any more, just a series of fast curves with a wideopen squirt between each one. The extra weight the Italian bike must carry compared to last year is forgotten when you twist that wrist. The Ducati rockets out of turns like a V-four iwo-stroke weighing 65 pounds less - no wonder former 500cc GP riders like Chili, Kocinski and Hodgson have been c;hosen to ride these so-potent pieces of hardware. And if Corser really does move over to GP racing next season, he's already done all the homework he needs to be right on the pace from the first outing. This motorcycle is a very far cry from the lusty V-twins of the Doug Polen era just a handful of years ago, when Doug would gear the bike to use only five or even four gears out of the six-speed gearbox at some tracks. Now, to max out performance, you need to work the gearshift hard, keeping the revs up high in the hyperpower band. Pity that the KLS speedshifter fitted to the Corser bike was just as over-sensitive as when I rode Fogarty's world champion a year ago - if I could have worked out which of the three switches above the Pi System combined ECU I tacho I information center turned it off, I would have. Interestingly, John Kocinski scorns the use of a speed-shifter. "I don't think it's good for the gearbox, and anyway the telemetry says I close the throttle for just five thousandths of a second to shift gear, so that's faster than an electronic system," he says. Hard to argue with that. He also changes gears mainly by feel rather than using the tacho and doesn't rev it as hard as Troy, who has the rpm writ large in numbers on the Pi module, whereas John prefers to just go by the curve of the tacho sweep, and have his lap times come up large on the screen instead. However, don't get the impression that to obtain these horsepower figures, Ducati has sacrificed too much of that midrange punch. It's still perfectly possible to go pretty fast by riding the torque curve and shifting up at 11,300 rpm, where peak power is delivered. Just not fast enough to stay ahead of the Hondas, that's all. The power comes in at 6,500 rpm like before, enough to let you pull cleanly out of a slow turn like Assen's National Curve, but the 996cc motor kicks in hard at 9,600 rpm, a thousand revs higher than previously. And unlike before, there's a really strong dose of extra power from 10,800 rpm upward, and while the engine may peak at 500 revs higher than this, the big difference is that it holds the power all the way to 12,200 rpm, where I changed up. This was the engine that Troy had used in both races the .day before, after lunching two motors in qualifying, so in deference to its high mileage, I didn't explore his personal 12,700-rpm rev limit until the last lap, and while it kept pulling okay, I'd have to say the only time you'd need to rev it this high is to save a gear between turns. But in spite of its hard life, the engine felt strong and smooth, with an appetite for revs it was a thrill to feed. I mean, this bike is fast. Swapping to the Kocinski bike - with a fresh engine installed the night before the test by the Ferrari team's hard-working mechanics - confirmed the impressive performance of the jumbo motor, even if this'one seemed to vibrate a little more and wasn't quite as free-revving. It still had the same appetite for revs as the Corser bike, but felt a little tighter, even after 20 laps of the Assen National circuit. ing the chicane before the pits that I'm sure could be dialed out. But the Promotor Ducati was superstable through those demanding sweepers c;Iown the main straight of the Assen circuit, and again under hard braking for the chicane and ational turn, where two hard stops in quick succession didn't faze or fade the cast-iron Brembo discs that are now spaced 28mm further apart than before to allow more cooling air to reach them. The slipper clutch that allows you to use the big twin's useful reserves af engine braking came into its own at the· chicane, though bottom gear was too low on both bikes to be able to use it there as Carl Fogarty did last year, with his special gearbox with low bottom gear ratio. But while I can't honestly say I used the Doohan-type thumb rear brake Troy has adopted for hard stops, it seemed to come in useful in the ntiddie of the chicane, where hitting it sharply to stand the bike up helps you change direction quickly, as well as using the meaty part of the tire to allow a hard, early drive out of the turn. "I like to get it to try to steer on the front quick, so I can go into the turn, \0 0\ 0\ ,...... Cf)" ,...... l-< (J) "S (J) :> o Z 13

• Cover