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/127827
FillED I' LICaTiI. ,••a..11 I. eliDES .IT lEI SllHTlaCI a•• TIE lalAl IllS 16 It's true - watch Doohan in action in the early laps of a race mixed up with the field, and note how his bike always looks so stable and planted compared to others around him. It's a function of the way he rides the Honda, as much as getting the suspension and chassis setup right - and the thumb brake is a key ingredient. "Basically, the back brake is a device for controlling the suspension and the aspect of the bike, as well as to help the steering, trying to keep the geometry of the bike as neutral as possible," he says. "I don't like going into turns with the forks bottoming out, back wheel off the deck, chasing the front wheel - and I never rode Like tha t, even before my accident. Back when I started road racing in the production class, I was used to riding my dirt bike, and it took me a real long time to gain the confidence to start braking hard with the front brake as well as the rear one on the race track! "People think I've got some kind of an advantage with the thumb brake, so lots of them copy it, but really it was only a response to getting back to riding normally after the accident, when I had to learn how to ride the bike with my right foot flat on the peg, since I couldn't bend the ankle. Before, I used to wear out a lot of right boots using the rear brake leaned over - so now, I had to regain that ability, and J.B. (Jerry Burgess, Mick's race engineer with HRC) and Honda came up with the thumb brake - which at least saves. Nankai some boot leather." End of class - but before the practical exam, what plans for '97 changes to the bike? Isn't the Honda so nearly perfect, it's hard to improve on? "Well, I dunno," Mick says pensively. "We're going to try the old 180degree firing order again, just to see if we can't leaIn something from that. With the new cylinders and airbox and various electronic improvements, it might not be too bad. And I reckon you might be able to control the rear wheel better than with the Big Bang motor we've used ever since '92. During that time, we've got 30 more horsepower, but lap times haven't dropped, so now I reckon it's time to find out why. One reason for sure is weight - it's crazy the FIM keeps making us load up the bikes and maintain the l30-kilogram (286pound) four-cylinder limit, all for no good reason - for sure, it has nothing to do with safety. Look at the data traces and you can see that my four-cylinder and Tadi Okada's Honda twin have the same midcorner speed, but the V-twin's entry speed is much higher and it gets on the gas earlier, too - all because of the weight advantage. If we could get some weight off our bike and improve our entry speed into a turn, then for sure there'd be a better transition when you get hard on the throttle, and that'd bring a big improvement in lap times. "But that's all political Basically, the strong part of our motorcycle is the engine, and reliability. But the Honda's been the same for SO long, others have started to catch up again, so we need to work on the chassis to make it as nimble as some of the other bikes on the track. If we want to stay ahead, we'll have to work at it:' The next day at Eastern Creek, Mick Doohan rode a l80-degree Honda NSRSOO "screamer" for the first time in five years. He broke Alex Criville's new lap record, set two days before on a Big Bang Honda, by well over one fuJI second. Back to the future for Honda and Doohan in '97? ~