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/127933
Even la s t year's desmo two-stroke d idn' t behave like this ; it mus t be th e rear s hock - too soft for my extra weight. Let's stop and fix it - for surelv Carl can't be rid ing like th is all th e time. "Yes, I'm afraid he do es ," said Fogart y ' s race e ngineer, Tony "Slick" Bass , apologetica lly. "You' ve jus t had a firstha nd ex perience of w hat Car l's been up aga ins t a ll season, and w ha teve r we've don e to t ry t o fi x it , th e problem ' s s ti ll th ere . We mig ht m a ke it a little better for you by changin g to a hard er rear spring, but we can' t di al it out. Sorry!" Well , o kay, let' s go back out and try to ana. ly z e this. Th e fie rce power delivery delivers impressive accelera tion, but onl y seems to be a problem when I'm shu tting the gas under braking a n d th en o peni ng again h ard from a closed throttle whil e still cranked over. If I stop trail-braking and try to brake only in a stra igh t line, then enter the turn wi th the throttl e already partly open, it seems to p rime the gas and doesn' t mak e for such a fierce picku p. Thi s takes practice, though - and anyway, riding like that is okay by yourself, but tryin g to ou tbra ke so meone in th e he a t of a ra ce, t he n rem embering to watch ou t for the muscular megato rque on the way ou t of the tu rn yo u've ju st taken the lead in, wo uld be ano ther ma tter. And anyway, the busy suspension respons e still doesn 't go away. Hmmm. " I knew stra ight away at the start of the season something wa s wrong , but I wasn't sure wha t," says Fogarty. "The bi g gest prob lem w a s acce leration. It doesn' t seem to pu ll out of tu rns, so yo u drop the gearing - bu t then it' s wrong for other co r ne rs, w hich is wh y, at eve ry circuit, I've struggled to ge t the rig ht ov erall gearing . There's a big hole at th e bottom of th e powerband, so it doesn 't kick in till much later on - but when it does, it comes in ve ry fiercely. Th is mak es it very hard to ride in the turns, so I keep running wide all th e tim e, like I' m in th e wrong gear. That was my main com plain t wi th the chassis - not holding a proper line; I've tried cou nteri ng tha t by going in wi de and lea ning over more, bu t then I' m losing traction and eve n falling off because of that . Same thing if I use one gear lower: Then you lose grip, and watch out, or yo u' re on yo ur ea r. Because th e gearing's wrong, it's no t hol d ing th e bike toge ther - so once the tire goes and the gearing's a little bit ta ll, it starts pogoing th e rea r shock a nd upsetting th e bike, lik e what happened to you. And it's true w hat yo u say about changing d irection, like in th e Assen chica ne tha t's bad as well. It falls in nicely, but th en it' s unbelievably heavy to pull it up a nd flip it over on th e o the r side. The '95 bike wa s mu ch nicer, and that's why I w anted to try it aga in, even with the smaller motor and less power - but we never did ." It speaks volumes for Ca rl's phenomenal grin/a, his agains t-all-od ds determinat ion to ov erc ome adver sit y and w in races in the tou gh est, most competitive class o f road raci ng tod ay, in sp ite o f having to cope with such inherent problems wi th the bike. tt (Above) Fogarty puts up with a bike that has less stabilityto keep the steer ing lighter and make direct ional changes easier. (Left) This is the first year in which Ducatl hasn't been able to increase the displacement of its V-twin in search of more power, though it was needed to keep up with the Honda. The res ult? The peakiest Ducati twin eve r. N o wonder they love Carlo in Italy h e' s th e tw o -whe el ed equivalent of Nigel Mansell w he n he d ro ve for Ferrari : II Leone Inglese - The English Lion. But red- mist racing of this calibe r is hard to mai ntain over a full 24-race season w it ho ut m akin g u n fo rced erro rs, an d it was p ro bab ly inev ita ble th a t soo ner o r la te r even a ri de r with an almost accident-free record over the p revio us three seasons wo uld succumb to the pressure and start crashing . It' s a bit of a miracle Foga rty led the points tab le as lon g as he di d , rea lly - especially with Ho nda's new su p remacy in engine perfor mance. "We we re okay on fast tracks wit h lo ng s tra ig hts, like Hocke n heim, because th er e wasn' t hardly any thi ng betwee n u s on top sp eed - th e b ik e' s d efinitely fas ter tha n in ' 95," Fog arty say s. "But anywhere else, where acceler ation counted mo re, we were ge tting left beh in d - soo n as I got anywhere near, by cornering faster, they' d just ge t on the ga s o n th e way ou t of th e turn, a n d motor away from me - very frus trati ng." Well , yes , but what happened here was arguably of Ducati's own making. . Unable to increase ca paci ty fro m '96 to '97 in order to co u n te r th e g row ing threat from Honda, the Italian engi nee rs we nt for mo re power at almos t any cost (except reliab ility). To wi t: Troy Corser's P ro mo to r tea m bl e w mo re t ha n 20 engines in '96 en route to the world title it nearly lost th rough mech anical fail ures (tho ugh Corser's eagerness to rev t he b ike as high as 12,700 rp m can' t have helped - this year's rev-limiter is fixed at 12,500 rp m). . That mean t no t only a 3.3-pou nd heavier, more robust and stiffer frame for this season, with stronger construction (which meant, among ot her things, that engine bolts stopped breaking like befo re) but also a lighte r-cast magnesiu m swi nga rm to th row 4.4 pounds mo re weight bias on to the fro nt w hee l (weight d istribution is now 53/47 p ercen t - not bad for a 90-degree tw in ). In a d d ition, a re vi sed 98 x 66 m m, 996cc e ngine with ne w cas tings a n d other modifications was ho mologa ted , like the chassis, w ith the 916SPS stree t r eplica . Th ese engines included n ew cylinde rs with Wider-spaced studs and a thicker allo y sleeve (still chro me- plated, as befor e) to stop them from crackin g, as often happened in '96; stronger, heat treated cra nkcases; new cylind er heads w ith bigger inlet ports, revised comb ustion cha mbers a nd on occ asio n larger val ves, matched by a bigger sea led airb ox with larger-diameter aird uc ts, in turn necessitating a slig htly wider fuel ta nk; closed-up ratios in the six-s peed gearbox, reflecting th e peakier pow er curve; a revised exha ust sys tem; bigger oil and water radia tors, to cop e wi th the hea t genera ted by the extra po wer; a nd mos t impo rta nt of a ll, a ne w pair of jumbo 60 m m th rot tl e b od ies fo r the Weber /Marelli EFl, up from 54m m last year an d just 50mm in '95. Together wi th other co rresponding modifications, the larger thro ttle bodies did their job by d eli verin g the biggest horsepower hike the Ducati has enjoyed in recent yea rs: an 8-bhp increase over '96, all the wa y th rou gh th e power cu rve , m e a n in g 155 bhp a t th e rear w hee l at 12,200 rpm, measured acco rd ing to Du cati 's ISO method - or abou t 168 bhp at the gea rbox by the more conventional yards ticks others use. That's still a way d own on Honda' s 180-bhp-plus mark for the title-winning RC45, but the V-twin's narrow chass is and wid er spread of so lid pow er mad e up the differe nce - excep t for the way in which said pow er was d elivered. T hink abou t it. Ima g in e s tic kin g a 60m m carbu r e to r on a 50 0c c si ng le: You 'd never ge t the thi ng to run at an ything less than max revs on full thro ttle. Well, thanks to the wo nders of the electr on ic age, Du cati's cle ver engineers have ma naged to program th eir dualinjector EFl to let them throw more fuel mix tu re at eac h of their cyli nders than anyone has yet managed in the history of two-w heele d ro a d ra cin g - an d Chili's bike has a W hopping 108mm of trail, making for a more stable mount but one that' s tough to muscle through a ch icane or even to lip into comers. they've been rew ard ed by that dram atic increase in ou trig ht power. How ever, there's a tradeoff, as I d isco ve re d fir sthand a t Assen, a nd w ith which Carl & Co. have been struggling t o co pe a ll seaso n: p o or throttl e response. That lovely, liqu id, low-down pickup and mid range torqu e that' s bee n a tradem ark of every Duca ti V-twin thus far has been tra ded for an all-on or alloff light-switch power delivery coupled wi th a massive increase in torqu e. Wh ile th is surely d elivers the numbers on the dyno chart and allows the Vtwi n to stay wit h the V-four on to p en d, it's certai nly at the cost of rid ability especially when combi ned with the light-acti on but relatively im precise butterfly throttle, which d elivers brutal bo ttom -end response . "I u sed to be able to lap A lbacete practicall y all in th e sa me gear," says Fogarty. "Bu t now (tha t) there's much nar rower u sabl e power, you're having to change gear all the time - and there 's also not the stro ng, progr essive power delivery there us ed to be." Well, okay , mayb e you can' t make an om elette wi thou t br eaking eggs - but if. the hand ling suffers in the bargain, then perhaps it' s not worth'it. How abo ut Chili's bike? Presumably that has the sa me person ali ty d efects. Hop from one to the other - and immediat ely notice how the Ga tto lo ne bike of su perbike racing's "Mr. Nice Guy" has a much tauter, togeth er ridin g p osition , wi th a more ra tional hand lebar-to-seat-tofootrest ratio, with the bars tucked in closer compared to Carl's wider-spread ones.