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/127932
RACER TEST ~r aRagawa's Kawasaki ZX-7RR ·,.A · . ,r By Ala n Cathca rt Photos by Ala in Laregle (Above) Kawasaki's ZX-7RR was the surpri se ofthe 1997 World Superblke season. After a lackluster debu1 year In '96, it was Turnaround City for the bike that rider Akira Yanagawa · himself a revelation took to two wins. (Left) Though engine performance Is greatly Improved, top speed is n't what it could be as a result of the wide fairing. t w as no co ntes t which motorcycl e won the Most Improved Performer awa rd in the 1997 World Superbike series : Kaw a s aki' s Z X-7RR . After a debut season in '96 frau ght with developme nt trouble and poor results - only Antho ny Gobert's brilliance helped d isguise th e fac t th at the a ll-new sh or tstroke "Green Meani e" still had sand in its shoes (s h o r t o n acce le ra tion and struggling on top end) - Kawasaki mad e good with a venge ance in '97. With team man ag em ent sw itched fro m Bend , Oregon ' s Mu zzy operation to Harald Ec kl in Germany, new boy Akira Yanagawa co nfirmed the Z X7RR' s step-up in perfo rma nce by winning two races in his d ebut WSC season, while teamma te Simon Crafar would su rely have a t least matched that if he hadn't suffere d p erpetual mi sfor tune that saw him rammed ou t of con tention in no less than three rounds by other riders and suffer tire or other probl em s in more races when well- placed for victory. After riding Gobert's '96 Kawasaki a yea r ago a t tw isty Albacete, I wasn' t overly im pressed wi th its engine per for mance - a fa ct co nfi rme d by th e Eckl team's disappoi nting first tests in January '97 at Phillip Island, w ith the same '96 hardware. Two months later, though , the Eckl team sa w their '97 bikes for th e fir st time , jus t a week before the first race of the season; on the sa me tra ck - and ho w much b etter th is n ew equi p men t wa s got un derlined by Yanagawa and ~rafar qual if yin g on th e front row, Just a w hisk er away from pole. Rid ing Akira-sa n' s bike at the op posite end of the season, at Sentul, und erlined what a far su pe rio r p acka ge the ZX-7RR has now been developed into a t n o little cost in te rm s of effo r t by Kawasaki engi neers, or of budget, I'm su re. The biggest d iffer enc e you notice at once is the po wer delivery and torque curve. Where last year's bike belied its 73 x 44.7mm sho rt-stro ke co nfigu ra tion (the s ho r tes t in th e Su pe rb ike padd ock), struggling to build revs quickly as well as ru nn in g ou t of br eat h up high , this year' s factory Kawasaki is a di ffer ent breed of green screa mie. While it'll pull smoothly ou t of the tight first chicane at Sentu l like a roa d bike, fro m as low as 5800 rpm on the tacho at part-throttle or fro m 7000 rpm in wide-o pen racing mod e, ther e's a stro ng, relatively torqu ey cha rge u p to five-fig ure revs, w he re thing s s ta r t h ap p enin g much fas te r. Fro m 11 ,00 0 rpm up , e n g ine s p ee d build s up notabl y quicker than it did befor e. Ok ay, not as fast as the Hond a, but a hu ge im proveme nt over last year's bike, and enough to keep yo u well on terms wi th your rivals, says Yan agawa. "On ly the Hondas are faster on acceleration," savs Akira (a.k.a. "The Shark "). "A nd now 'we have same performance as Ducati s, but easi er pickup from low rpm." Bu t this ye a r's en gine also cha rges ' hard all the way to the 14,50D-rpm revlimiter, the power curv e flattening a little over 14,000 revs, but still pulling quite strongly - it doesn't tail off and start gasping for breath up high like before. . However, this appetite for revs isn't translated into ou trig ht speed. Though