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/128089
Honda didn't have much luck In 2000 with Its new NSR5oo. WIth mid-range power reduced, the riders had a hard time feeling the connection between the throttle and the rear tire. When the extra horsepower did arrive, It did so rather violently, making the bike difficult to ride. engineers decided to go for more top-end power in an effort to counter Yamaha's new straight-line supremacy and the YZR500's superior jump out of a turn, as well as a revised chassis to handle it. Fine, except for one thing: HRC was late to class with their homework, so the new bike didn't get tested properly in the off-season, thanks also in no small part to Criville's illness and an injury to Okada - plus the fact that one of the crucial winter tests took place at Welkom in South Africa, whose high altitude meant a loss of horsepower, which masked a new problem in throttle response. This meant that the works Repsol Honda team riders turned up for the first few races with a bike whose fierce power delivery and vicious engine acceleration gave them big problems in terms of traction - actually getting the extra power to the ground was impossible, and tire life was greatly reduced, because of wheelspin. Midrange power was actually reduced, making it hard for the riders to feel the fabled connection between the throttle and the rear tire - but when the extra horsepower did arrive, it did so in an explosive way that unhooked the back end of the bike: fine on a dyno, not so on the race track. Trying to resolve this via chassis modifications and suspension settings proved impossible, so the works team reversed out of the dead end they'd just gone down and, for the third race of the year on home ground at Suzuka, went back to the old '99 engine and chassis package - and especially the longer, slimmer expansion chamber exhausts which had been replaced by shorter, fatter ones, that were the only outward sign of the internal modifications (cylinder heads, porting, ignition and exhaust valve curves, mainly) to produce the more explosive power delivery. This was only a partly successful effort to make up for lost ground, in a season in which all three Japanese manufacturers were now level-pegging - the two-bike Suzuki team won four races in the year, and the bigger Yamaha and Honda squads six each, in a sea- son when eight riders in all won at least one 500cc GP each. In fact, it was the Pons Honda lease team riders Loris Capirossi and Alex Barros who initially showed best for Honda in year 2000, using '99 bikes essentially identical to those Criville had used to win his world title. Those bikes produce roughly 7 hp less than the new-generation NSR500, but are much more rideable. But then as Honda's new signing, reigning World 250cc Champion Valentino Rossi started to get the hang of racing a 500, it was he that swiftly became the Honda standardbearer, with no less than 10 rostrum visits over the course of the season, including two race wins in Britain and Brazil on what had been another '99- cue •• (Below) Alan Cathcart rode the NSA500 In the rain at Motegl In Japan - not the most lde.1 conditions In which to ride a 500cc Grand Prix racer. n .. _ S ' JANUARY 31, 2001 15