Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

.. HOWL By Dennis Noyes was sitting in' the media center at Paul Ricard a few weeks ago in the Spanish section where I hang out at the Grands Prix when Jesus spoke to me. He said, "Dennis, I just can't imagine a four-stroke Grand Prix bike." Now if a top professional journalist like my friend Jesus Benitez, who writes for Marca, the largest daily sports paper in Europe, has difficulty imagining a four-stroke in GP racing, then I guess it's time to recall other days and other sounds - sQurids that may be returning if the current plans to go to large-capacity four-strokes in the "500" class actually get off the ground. Of course, the sounds won't be the same, but they will certainly be different from anything heard in the Grands Prix since Giacomo Agostini's last win on the howling MY 500 at Nurburgring in 1976. The following is what 1 told Jesus about four-strokes: No one questions that today's 500cc two-strokes are wonderful racing machines. The reason for the talk of change is that the manufacturers say they want to bring the technology of their most highly developed and sophisticated racing machines more in line with their mainstream commercial products. If this does happen, there will probably be a transition period with today's two-, three- and four-cylinder 500cc two- strokes racing against still-developing four-strokes entered by the manufacturers - much like we are seeing with' production-based two-stroke motocross bikes running against Yamaha's 400cc four-stroke in AMA racing. . The Grand Prix four-strokes of Generation 2000 could be 200-hp, fourcylinder, fuel-injected bikes with slipper clutches and maybe even pneumatic valve "springs." The hypothetica1 GP 1000s would be around 84 x 45mm bore and stroke and produce t!leir 200 horses at around 15,000 rpm with handsome overrev potential and Grand Canyon-wide powerbands. Freed of the albatross of homologation rules, they could weigh a lot less than a 750cc Superbike. This is the kind of pure "blue sky" racing motorcycle that current World Champion Mick Doohan, among others, has called for. How long does it take to get from the drawing board to the race track? Kenny Roberts' Moden.as project cut years down to months in the mad I scramble to get up and running last year when sponsors kept KR waiting for funding. Remember, Rapid Prototype Profile technology means that you hand over the file and your hunk of magnesium ~ft.er breakfast and the castings are ready after lunch. The problem is making sure you ask for the right stuff. Jesus listened to all this, but still he doubted. "I can understand it," he said, "but I just can't see it." . So I tried to help Jesus see fOUTstroke GP racing, Grand Prix racing has a~ways been open to all atmospherically aspirated internal-combustion engines. The championship began in 1949, 50 years ago, with four-stroke technicians who talked the language of dwell and overlap, valve float and megafonitis, The 500cc warmup area of the early Grands Prix sounded like the pits today at Daytona Municipal Stadium when it roars with Rotax, KTM and Husaberg dirt track singles. The emergence and eventual domination of the two-stroke was a gradual process, with East Germany's MZ factory at the forefront. It was, however, the Japanese, and Suzuki in particular (thanks to an East German rider/technician, Ernst Degner, who escaped from behind the Iron Curtain), who broke the stranglehold of four-strokes in GP racing, But the eventual domination of two-strokes was delayed by Honda's firm dedication to fourstrokes. Ironically, it would be MV Agusta's Agostini who eventually joined Yamaha to end the four-stroke era and, even more ironically, Honda, the hard-line four-stroke factory, which would eventually develop the end game and unbeatable V-four NSR twostroke, This is far too complicated and lengthy a matter to enter into here, and Jesus' eyes were starting to glaze over, so, with apologies to history, we'll cut to the chase. By the mid-'60s, Honda's battle against all comers had taken them to extremes of complexity and miniaturization in four-stroke design, In 1966 Honda won the manufacturer's title in all five solo classes. Its all-four-stroke lineup consisted of a twin-cylinder 50, a five-cylinder 125, a six-cylinder 250, and four-cylinder bikes in 350 and 500cc. They introduced a six-cylinder 350 in '67. Can you imagine what all that sounded like? I arrived in Europe in 1968, just a year too late to hear the Hondas wail in anger, but it was as if the echo was still in the air. When the MV went howling past, you could almost hear the ghost of Hailwood's Honda filling the long gap before somebody lik~ Jack Findlay crested the hill, second and losing two seconds a lap on a Matchless single. In 1970 I was camped out on the hillside at Windy Corner on the Isle of Man, The sun doesn't go down until after midnight in the far North, I got back from the pub about 11 p.m. and read Motor Cycle in the door of my pup tent at sundown listening to the local news on my portable radio, mostly news about the Junior 350cc IT due to run the next day. At sunset I dropped off to sleep, black-and-chrome BSA Thunderbolt with clip-ons shining in the moonlight just outside the open flap, the cooling fins clicking and pinging lightly. I had just fallen asleep when the distant howl of a Grand Prix four-cylinder fourstroke awakened me, It was in the distance, carried by the night wind, faint but unmistakable, At first I thought I had dreamed it, but then I heard it again, stronger, and I pulled myself out of the tent and Looked up the hill into the Manx night. It was coming, coming hard." I saw lights dancing off the barren mountainsides and heard the raw howl of four open megaphones, I didn't know it yet, but what was Loose in the mountains on public roads with jury-rigged raUy lights was the works four-cylinder 350cc Benelli with the great Renzo Pasolini flat on the tank at 2 a,m., ripping up the night at 17,000 rpm on the run down to Windy Corner". and she was misfiring a little just before each gear change. It was a sight and sound I'll never forget. The bike was unfaired and Pasolini, with puddin' basin helmet and aviator's goggles, was hanging off the right side of the bike through Windy Corner. The lights were badly aimed - one to the left of the road, the other pointing upward at about a 20degree angle, sending a beam skyward toward the stars. I was probably 50 yards from the apex of Windy Corner when "Paso" nailed it on the exit, and the sound of the Italian Grand Prix four-stroke 350 running through the gears is with me still. I'could hear him YEARS AGO... ULY 4, 1968 20 YEARS AGO... JUNE 21, 1978 aIlon, Nevada, of all places, was th,e setting for our front-page story and photos, as we covered the Oasis Scrambles at the Fallon Rodeo arena. he main photo depicted 650cc rider Bob Clark right) as he took to the air with another rider in eavyweight action. Clark Later won the Open Moto ass aboard a Bultaco." Ron Nelson (Mon) won the OOcc Expert class at the Slo-Pokes Memorial Day otocross in Santa Maria, California". Dave Aldana Bul) won the 100cc main event at the Orange County hort track." Ronnie Rail (H-D) ended Bart Markel's opes for a third straight Grand National win by abbing the lead and keeping it at the Livonia 5-mile' ational in Ohio. Markel (H-D) finished second, howver, and took over the series points lead". John Hateey (Tri) romped to the Open Novice win at the first District 37 motocross to be held at Saddleback ur "The Latest Poop" section carried the bad news of the crash of American GP road race star Pat Hennen while he was competing at the Isle of Man IT. Hennen had just set a new one-lap course record and was 15 seconds behind leader Mike Hallwood when the accident occurred. He was cr.itically injured and never raced again". He had to finally work at it, but Bob. Hannah won the overall at round seven of the AMA/Mr. Pibb 250cc National MX Series in Sonoma, California. Hannah went 1-3 to beat Jim Weinert (Kaw) for the top spot... Tommy Croft used the same score to win the second round of the 50Dcc National MX Series at the same venue... Jay Springsteen (H-D) refused to let the motorcycle-claiming incident of his previous race derall his charge, as Springer chalked up his third AMA Grand National victory in a row at Harrington, Delaware... Scott Harden and Brent Wallingsford (Hus) teamed up to win the Baja Internacional off-road race. F O for maybe another two or three minutes. They never cured the misfire that had sent them out onto the roads before dawn. Agostini, on the MY, easily won the next day from a field of privateers on singles, and Pasolini retired. That was back in the days when MVs and other dinosaurs still roamed the earth, before Jamo Saarinen's brief and tragic career. Saarinen won the first two 500cc races (on Yamaha's new in-line four) and the first three 250cc races of '73, but both he and Pasolini were killed on May 20, 1973, in the 250cc race of the GP of the Nations at Monza in a 15-bike crash that was allegedly caused by a steady oil leak from Walter Villa's four-cylinder Benelli in the 350cc GP tha t immediately preceded the 250cc race. It was the sayonara outing for the green Benelli and the factory wan ted the old warhorse to finish its la t race. Several . independent reports confirmed that the bike was losing so much oil that they pitted Villa to add lubricant and then sent him back out to finish, losing oil all the way around Monza. (Villa was riding a direct evolution of the misfiring 350cc Benelli that Pasolini himself took for that night run on ~he Isle of Man when I was camped at Windy Corner.) Yes, I told Jesus, there was a time when four-strokes ruled GP racing, and, I added, oil-loss problems seem to ha ve been reduced. I don't know if it will ever happen again, I said, but wouldn't it be lovely to hear a big, bold, bellowing fourstroke with open exhausts amid the cacophony of the reed-valve twostrokes? We had started talking during 125cc free practice. Now the 500s were out for the Saturday morning run. We heard "big bang" Hondas, Yamahas and Suzukis droning along the home straight with the occasional sharper notes of Doohan's 180-degree "screamer" motor and the fierce-sounding green MuZ mixed in among the lowerrevving Honda twins and the threecylinder ModeI;las triples. There seem to be two distinct voices murmuring amid the rows of corn: One says, "If you build it, they will come." The other, even softer voice says, "If ~t ain't broke, don't fix it." I left Jesus in deep thought, staring into the screen on his computer. I'X 10 YEARS AGO... JUNE 15, 1988 . teve Morehead (H-D) grabbed the lead from the start and stayed there to win the Louisville Half Mile Grand National in Kentucky. Morehead led a HarleyDavidson sweep, as Chris Carr and Jay Springsteen followed him across the stripe... Rick Johnson (Hon) won the battle but Jeff Ward (Kaw) won the war at the San Antonio, Texas, round of the AMA, 250cc National MX Championship Series. Johnson went 1-1 for the overall win, but Wardy's safe pair of second-place runs landed the National title... Kevin Schwantz (Suz) survived the rain to win the German 500cc GP road race at Nurburgring. Eddie Lawson (Yam) finished fourth, extending his series points lead over Wayne Gardner (Hon)... Goat Breker thumped the competition as he clalmed the White Brothers Four-Stroke National Championship at Perris Raceway in Perris, CaJifomia... Damon Bradshaw (Yam) and Brian Swink (Kaw) captured . two wins each at the Spring National MX in Mount Morris, Michigan. 0 S 75

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