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
- - - ~ .. - ~~~-------- . --- - . (Left) Though Honda's NSRSOO underwent few changes from Its 1995 version to the '96, it remains the class of the field. (Below) Teacher and student: Who beller to lake riding tips from than the master himself, three-time World Champion Mlck Doohan? By Alan Cathcart Photos by Kel Edge 12 et's face it, you haven't exactly been checking the mailbox each morning to see when this issue with the latest version of my annual "I-rode~ the-500cc-World-Champion-GPbike-for-five-whole-laps-and-Wow!-it'ssooo-fast-and-anyone-who-races-one-isa-demigod" story in it was due up, have you? No, 1didn't think so. Still, here it is anyway - only with one slight twist to a tale that you can only get away with telling every so often - especially if the bikes that's cleaned up the world title, winning all bu t two of the 15 Grand Prix races in 1996, has remaiJ;led essentially unchanged for the past five years, as the Honda NSR500 has. This time, you're going to hear how it should be ridden. So, instead of telling you what a hero 1 was to wobble around Eastern Creek the day after the final GP of the '96 season on Mick Doohan's 200-horsepower NSRSOO Honda "only" four seconds slower than a new kid on the journalist roster named Kevin Schwantz, 1 decided to seek professional help and ask Dr. Doohan to help me write the SRSOO Honda rider's manual. Maybe next time I get to ride Mick's missile I won't be -a humbling 10 seconds slower than teacher's own best race time the day before, on what is for him just a 90-second lap. . See, no matter how many latest 'n' greatest works superbikes, slick singles, battling twins and what-if prototypes you may get to sling a leg over each year, and even if you are a reasona bly experienced active racer with a respectable resume that might include the odd win and a titl.e or two, there's always one kind of motorcycle that's beyond your talents to criticize or even truly assess: a factory 500cc GP bike, and especially a Honda. Eleven successive years of being honored to ride each season's works NSR500, inveterate speed king of GP racing's premier class, has taught me to be duly humble about my own level of riding ability. Truly mastering such motorcycles isn't only a question of cultivating an acquired skill that few of us, however competent on other kinds of race bike, will ever possess. It's also important that if you are lucky enough to be one of the handful of humans on earth to be blessed with this two-wheeled equivalent of a martial art, you groom that skill and keep it constantly honed. No offense to Kev the Rev, but the sedentary scribes who were taking bets on how many minutes faster than the rest of us he'd lap on the Doohan Honda forgot one important fact: This is not backgammon or archery, but an action sport that's a physically demanding test of skill and judgment, coupled with bravery. Even matching privateer qualifying times on a strange works racer you're riding for the first time demands a level of mental preparation and understanding of the bike you have to build up to, without generally being allowed to fiddle with the setup and five laps at a press party is a photo opportunity, not a serious test. Under the circumstances, for yours truly to lap "only" 10 seconds off Micksan's true race pace denotes realistic endeavor rather than a sense of inadequacy. Even when Mick pointed out afterward that we were riding the bike on wet-weather engine settings, to tame its tigerish talents. Okay, we're not worthy, we're not worthy! Right - baseline first. How has the Honda changed from the one 1 rode a year ago in Spain after the last GP of the '95 season, and Mick's second world title? "I guess we've reached the stage where we're just fine tuning the existing