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/128004
Tech By Lance Holst he top level of racin g divides people in to tw o m ain g ro u ps: tho se who have and those w ho wish they d id. When the World Superbike Cham pionshi p rolls into Laguna Seca Raceway once a year, th e d elicat e balance in the AMA tea ms shifts, w it h most of th em suddenly feeling like have-riots. Fitting of a World Cha mpionship series, the World Su perbike teams are corres pondi ngly better-equipped and better -fund ed th a n th eir AMA cou nterparts . For a u niq ue perspective on this, we talked with one of the few men in the world who has the experience of competing at both levels, With Rob Muzzy's background as a former World Championship and multitime AMA Championship team owner comes the wis dom to kn ow that things are not exactly as they seem. Trad itionally, the have-nots see only the poten tial o f th e parts w hi ch are beyond their g ras p and o p tim is tica lly think of th e greate r suc cess that would be theirs if only ... But Muzzy has been there a nd d on e th a t ga me, a nd he's come away fro m it a b it smarte r . He knows that there's a pri ce to pay for the privilege of bein g the Top Do g and claims th at , in fact , w ha t most teams hope for wo ul d actually h urt them mo re tha n help. "W hen we were the World Superbike team, basically we were the lead engineerin g team as su ch," Mu zzy explained of the vears (fro m 1993 to 1996) when he rim th~ Kawasaki World Superbike tea m in ad d itio n to his AMA team. "We were the Ka w a s aki tea m . We ยท ha d sta ff assi gned to the team from Japan , and there we re eng ineers . We did initial testing . We were the first stage for anything T Alook at the otherside of World Superbike racing ki gives him unique insight in to the va rious levels of ra ci ng p arts . In s imple ter ms, they're of ten lab eled "kit" parts a nd " wo rks " p arts a n d, in ad d it io n, Mu zzy ex p la ins th e hi gh est le vel o f exotic part s as "e ngineering " parts - a level m ost d on 't even know exists. Kit parts are commo nly known as those tha t are available to retail consumers or priva teer race rs. Wor ks parts ar e defined as factory-support-onl y pieces that are n' t available at any pri ce, typically because th e factories d on't wa nt them to fall into th e w ro ng h an d s . Engineeri ng parts, according to Muzzy , are the p ro totype pa rts that are th e ea rl y development s tage of works p arts . Throughout hi s history with Kaw asa ki. Mu zz y has been pri vileged to us e all of the above, so he perh aps better than an yone else - kn ows not onl y the ad vantages of being in such a position, but th e d ownside as well. Here he explains the process of developin g parts, from "eng ine ering" parts to those ultima tely sold to cons umers. "Let's say that they (Kawasaki) come u p wit h a new part through their tes tin g and d evelopment en gineering," Mu zzy explained. "It will go to the World team fir st , th en th e domestic (Jap a n) team, then they'll trickle d own to us and wh oe ve r e lse is at the ne x t level. Fo r ins tan ce, the sw ingarm that's on (Doug) Chandler's bike is a works swingarm . It wa s developed last year a nd bec ame ' available (to us this year). Th e wa y the process w orks, and 1 think it works this way with an y team - 1 know it was when 1 was at Honda - is, it starts as an 'en gineering' part, mean ing it 's ju st a . test pa rt. They make one, tw o - very seld om an y more th an ' that. They m ight try 10 di ffer ent swi nga rms a nd th ey test the m through th e engin eering d epart - o HAilE tha t go t don e - in ot her wo rds, any new w orks p art and th e d evel opmen t. We were the top of the ladder as suc h. "O f course, it ' s very differen t no w .(wi th his AMA team), but it' s no d ifferent than before we d id all tha t," Mu zz y exp lained . "N ow we are down the lad der a ways. You 've got the Wo rld team as number one ; the do mestic team (AllJapa n Series), which is number tw o; the Suzuka 8 Ho urs team , w hich is number three; and then su p po rt teams, like ours in th e U.S. A t least that' s ho w it was w he n we we re th e World team. That's prob ably th e sa m e as it is no w, b u t 1 don 't kn ow for sure." Muz zy' s back ground wi thin Kawasa- . '" '" '" 42 FIM tech nical ins pec tor Steve Whit elock doesn' t m ince wo rds when it comes to the FIM's new fuel regulati ons. "They (the AM A) get to run on ga soline," he said. "We have to ru n on kerosen e, as I've started calling it. We have to ru n on zero-percent lead and hav e to be hydrocarbon-based . Our fuel is essen tially 100 research octane and 90 mo tor octa ne . Basically, we run less than su p rem e pump fuel." Whitelock conten ds tha t the parity in 600cc Supersport lap times be tween the AMA bikes, under the more res trictive AMA rul es, an d the World Supersport bikes , wi th their more liberal modifications, comes down to fuel. "They ge t their ho rse power in a can, we ge t ou rs with a porting tool ," he said. Despite Whitelock's grim view of the fuel situation, howev- " It ' s ju st like tire testing," Muzzy said, drawing a common analogy. "A ll this stuff about tir es, (w ith people say ing) , 'O h, bo y, if 1 had the ti re s those guys have..: Wh at they d on ' t realize is, tha t guys like Doug Cha nd ler, and whoeve r the guys are that ge t the engineering tir es, w he n th ey test so me of those. ti res , yo u ca n' t eve n rid e o n the m . Th ey're s he lte red from a ll that, b ut' when they get to th e p riva teer, it's a' D HAilE NOT ment and mayb e the Worl d Su pe rb ike rid ers and m ay be wit h so me of th eir do mestic test riders. "Then, m a y be out of those 10 swingarms , they might narrow it down to a couple of the m that maybe one guy on th e World tea m lik ed thi s one a nd one gu y on the Jap an ese team liked this one. So then they make a cou ple of them . So now there are two di fferent types and then they mi gh t make five of them . Now they're 'w orks' parts . Now they're availab le to the works teams. Given, then, that it shows reliab ility and still (has) promise, then it still remains a 'works' par t, but it will also become available to teams like ours or other hig hly suppo rt- GASOLINE ItS. KEROSEIt#E ed teams that qualify for 'w orks' pa rts . If it's an 'engi neering' part, probably we' re (Muzzy's AMA team) not going to get it. But 'works' parts that are available are available to us . "We used to be the tes t team and it's not all that it's cr a ck e d up to be . Because you spe nd a lot of tim e tes ting s tu ff th at d oesn 't wo r k . You test 10 th ings and if you' re lu cky, one works. So tha t means tha t you ran nine th ings that did n't, and yo u spent the time to run those nine things. And th at doesn't mean that the one that wo rks is be tter, it m eans i t works. It might b e b et te r you're not real sure for a while. "I m ade the com ment befor e tha t the privateers th at say, 'O h, m an, if I had th at stu ff they've go t..: Well, it would rui n them. It woul d, because it's all that privateer team can do to come here and get their b ike, wi th th e st uff t hey already have now, set u p and get read y to race, let alone to take th e tim e to go throu gh stu ff that "even guys like Doug Cha ndler ca n 't rid e . A n d th ey d on't unde rsta nd that. " er, the Vance & Hines and Honda crews didn't ha ve any com plai nts . "We d id n't do anything to our motors," said Hon da crew chief Ray Plumb. "We just opened u p the cap and poured the gas in . Eric (Bos trom) hasn't com p lained a bo u t a drop in power, and normally riders are pretty sensitive to that. " Vance & Hines crew chief Jim Leona rd had a bit of last-m inu te pr ep work in swapping the 54mm thro ttle bod ies they run in the AMA to the World Superbi ke Series homologated 60mm un its, but his mach ines didn't seem to be su ffering as a resul t. "These parts arrived the day before we left the shop, so we finished putting the bikes together up here yesterday," Leonar d said . "Our stuff is workin g really good. We're probably giving up some acceleratio n and outright horsepower - probab ly more acceleration than anything - but our guys aren't compla ining. There are probably five gu ys in the hunt to win, and our two guys are in that mix." so u n d , safe ti re th a t mos t p eo pl e ca n ride on. 'Things that wo rk bett er in racing are p ret ty -fa r-o ut id ea s," h e sa id with a. lau gh. "Otherwise, they wo uld have been tho ug ht of before. It's not like we haven' t been racing motorcycles for a while. So these thi ngs that yo u test are just bra instorms , they're som ebody's wild idea . 'That's one thing that 1 will say about Kawasaki : Every 'works' part that's used on the race team for a yea r and it's still reli a bl e an d thev ha ven't made so mething bette r, it becom es a 'ki t' pa rt. Every 'ki t' part was a 'works' pa rt at one time. Like gea r-driven ca ms, those have been 'kit' parts since... We we re the firs t ones to use th em in '96 w hen th e new bike came out. The next year, in '97, it became a 'kit' part. It's the exac t same part - actually they're bette r, because they learned th rough th at year and im p roved them and pu t them into prod uc tion. 'That's one thin g that I've not rea lly seen from the other manufacturers . 1 can say, almost verba tim, that any 'w o rks' p art tha t held up reli ably for its fir st ye ar of being a 'w o rks' pa rt be came a 'kit' part an d wa s availa b le to ever y, body, becau se th at' s their goa l. They wan t p eo p le w ho r u n Ka wa s ak is to have the best they ca n have. But yo u have to understand, yo u couldn't just give these... well, like, let's sa y the firstgea r drives. Some of the first -gear d rives ju st blew ou t the fro nt of th e m ot or. If you give th em to guys like Stev e Griggs