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/127974
how to ride his Big Bang 500, and I well remember how instantly impressive his lap record times were on suc h a tw isty circu it. It is the kind of place you' d hav e thou ght the theoretically more tra ctab le Big Ban g mot or should exc el. Havin g had to forgo the chance to test-ride the result for m yself a t the end of its 1997 debut season, the chan ce to do wh at all of Honda's GP rid ers excep t Max Biaggi and Ale x Barros did in pr eparati on for the '98 season that just ended - ride them both - ans wered a lot of qu estions. But wha t abou t Biaggi? "Biagg i-sa n co nfi r me d his arra ngement w ith Honda for 1998 later than all the ot her rid ers," exp lained HRC president Yasu o Iken oya in a specia lly called press co nference at th e Cata lu nya GP. "We have two types of engi ne, a nd a ll riders cou ld choose at the beginning of the year which they prefer red, but Biaggi ca me lat er. As w e m a ke n e w p art s, Honda is working very hard to satisfy all requ ir em ents, but even if Dooh an- san was to ask .for a different type of engine, we do not have the eng ineering capacity to meet that requirem ent. " This lack of capacity was caused by the introd uction of unl ead ed fuel for the 1998 season whic h, as predic ted , red uced engi ne-component life (especially crankshafts) quite d rastically. Reputedly, this was by as much as two-thirds, meaning Ho nda had to work flat ou t to meet the race-to-race needs of its five SRSOO factory -supported riders - Dooha n, Okada and Alex Criville on the Repsol team, Ca rlos Checa and jo hn Kocinski on the Pon s / MoviSta r sq ua d - and two leasecus to mer privateers, Alex Barros and Biaggi. Tho ug h the HRC eng ineering team le d b y N SR500 proj ect lea de r Ka zu o Hond a (no rel ation ) w orked h a rd to overcome the severe reliability problems and reduction in service life caus ed by the new fuel. the problems would continue throughout the seas on. Doohan su ffered a d ram atic demise at the japanese GP on Hon da 's home ground of Suzuka when a suspected cra nkshaft failure sent him running off the track, the n by the three engine failures suffered by Doohan a nd C riv ille in q ua lif yi ng for t he Cata lu nya GP late in the season (two for Mick, one for Alex). Fina lly, th er e was the d em ise of the mot or in the Dooha n bik e mi d way th ro ugh ou r Mot egi tes t sess ion. No, it wasn ' t me on boa rd when it ha ppened - but it did mean I only got the cha nce for a single screamin' session on Mick's title win ner, compared to two on Okada-san's big-ban ger. Still more tha n enough time to arrive at so me unexpected conclusio ns, one of wh ich is: Don't let past prejudices ge t in the way of present judgem ent. I'll ad mit to approaching the Doohan World Ch ampion Screa me r w it h so me trepidation - even more than usu al wh en being let loose on a wh eel-spinning, firebreathing Ultimate Racer weighi ng just 286 pounds ye t d eliverin g close to 200 bhp. And it wa s littl e co nso la tio n fo r H ond a -s an to a dmit to m e th at th e sw itch to unl ead ed fuel had de nted maximum horsepower by 5 percent for the 1998 se ason o n both types of engi ne. (Ou tpu t dropped from aro und 195 bhp on race gas to a level under stood to be 183 bhp a t 12,500 rpm, in ad ditio n to blun ting throttle respon se and sho rtening se rvice life. It even resulted in the RC45 Superbike overtaki ng the NSR500 in the outrig ht horsep ower sta kes on the same dyn o, a fact gleefu lly emphasized by the four-stroke faction in HRC's engineering cad rel) In add ition to having Doohan's Screamer 18o-degreefiring-order bike on hand, . Tadayuki Okada's Big Bang closefiring-order mac hine was there for compa rison , Interestingty, . the Screamer was in some ways easier to ride than the Big Bang bike. Nor was it the fact of course-learning a new circuit like Motegi's Road Course (ve nue for the 1999 japanese GP) on a bike tha t, eve n with its red uced power ou tput, still br oke the 190-mph barrier at Mugello in '98 . Hon d a had tho ught of everything a nd given me first a street VTR1000 V-twin for cou rse learn ing, then the HARC Pro semi-works version that finished 18th in the Suzuka 8 Hours w'ith which to dia l myself in. or was it the duty of upholding Western ho nor by being the only gaijin (foreigner) among the handful of ja panese racing journalists invited to the test. No, m y unease ca me fro m th e last time I rod e a 18O-degree NSRSOO Hond a Screamer, back at the start of the decad e, w hen 500cc GP rac ers wer e raw-ed ged and razo r-sharp, and rear-wh eel steering was all part of life's rich passion in tryin g to rid e them . It came from being sca red out of my skin ab oard them by fourthgear p owerslides acce lerating past the pits at Suz uka, or round the hard -on-thegas sweepers leadi ng from the Hairpin up to the Spoo n Curve, , And in slo w bends...well, it wasn' l jus t a qu estion of backing it into the turn; b u t s p in ning it u p ou t of th em , too ~ which is very mu ch an acquired skill. SO when H o n d a in ven ted th e Big Bang mo tor in 1992 (soon to be followed by Cagiva, Suzuki a nd Ya ma ha) , a n d opened up pseudo four-stroke horizons of traction and dri ve on a GP SOD, it no t on ly made a pretend GP racer's test task mu ch less d aunting, it also opened up a new technique for racing them that was accessible to mor e riders, was eas ier on rear t ir es, and appeared to offer improved rid ability, and especially mo re traction. Until now . Because once I'd got over my initial relu ctance to twist the wrist remot ely hard on a bike even Criville fou nd difficult to master, I have to say that Mick's mo unt didn't live up to the stree t-scary expec tations that were a hangover from rid ing its Two-U p predecessor a t the start of the d ecad e. No, the firs t thing yo u noti ce riding the Doohan Screamer is how mu ch bet ter it pick s u p en gi ne speed th an th e Big Ban g bike I rod e immediat ely after it yet at the same time, how well it puts the power to the ground, eve n out of tighter turns. Paradoxically, it see ms to have a n icer torqu e cu rve and bett er power delivery, not the wheel-spinning blitz of the power of old . But it also picks up revs mo re qu ickly and freely midturn. I rem ember Dooh an exp lain ing two years ago how his main reason for wanting to make th e eng ine sw itch was to find a "d irec t connecti on be tween th e th rottl e a nd th e ba ck w heel," so th at the re was a qu icker engine response to thro ttle input. Well , I never rode th e ' 97 screame r on race fu el , so I ca n' t say how tha t turned ou t, but while u nleaded gas ma y ha ve now taken the edge off the 180e degree mot or , w ha t we are left wit h in the n o-lea d era is a bike wh ich also works the o ther way, w he re you definite ly ge t a bette r feedback throu gh the throttle of w hat the eng ine an d the rear tire is d oing than the BB. And when yo u hav e the kind of aweso me engi ne res p on se a n d d ram at ic picku p that a mod ern 500cc G P bike d e li vers, th is is a se rious ad va n tage. That's es pecia lly true on a high-speed turn like th e sweeper past th e pits at Suzuka, which used to give me so mu ch tro uble on the old Two-Up screame r - or a bend like the lon g, uphill third-gear righ t-ha nder leading to the top chicane at Motegi, on its successor. Here, the Scr eamer powered really strong ly and sm oothly, on rails through the turn, and gave me more revs on the same gearing, so I mu st have been going faster. Paradoxicall y the Big Bang b ike caused me problems, twice unhookin g the back w heel in a full-blooded powerslide that ga ve a tast e o f what racing these bikes in the real world is all about. It also gave my rival Naked-class and Classic ra ci ng rna te Takao Inoki - the Ja panese movie s tar w ho doubles as a real-life champion bike racer in his spare time - a big fright, because I'd just passed him on his w armup la p! It ga ve me a wake-u p call, too - sa me as the other hook-up p robl em I had ou t of Mot egi 's tight turn two, wh ere you mu st get hard on the gas early in the turn for ma ximum dri ve out of the Parabolica that follow s. A 8 a ~ 31