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spec bike. By mid-season he was the first to receive the updated parts that new NSR500 project leader Kohsuke Yasutake and his men were hard at work developing, in order to counter the problems Honda had experienced at the start of the year. This may have been hardly surprising, given that it was Doohan's old team of mechanics which ran the Rossi bike, headed by the architect of his five world crowns, race engineer Jeremy Burgess, with Mick himself in attendance as Valentino's 'consigliere'. But the fact that the singleton machine ran in Nastro Azzurra colors rather than the Repsol livery of the works team, underlined the ad hoc arrangement of the whole operation - a fact that doubtless caused no little angst on the part of Honda's bigmoney Spanish sponsors. Just think of all those millions of pesetas being poured by a major oil company into a three-bike, full-on factory team, that manages just a single win and a couple of rostrum finishes all season - while this Italian kid with the winning smile and the flair for PR ends up second in the World Championship in his leaming year, on a similar bike, backed by an Italian beer company, that doesn't have a single one of your stickers on it. This was unquestionably the reasoning behind HRC's decision not to allow me and the handful of other Euro-journalists invited to a rainlashed Motegi circuit in November in order to test ride the 2000 HRC machines, to sample the Rossi NSR500 which was by some way the most successful Honda in 500cc GP racing last season. It was there, all right - but only on static display tucked up in a garage further down pit lane, keeping its tires dry while we were restricted to sampling the Criville bike that finished seven places lower in the points table. Now, don't get me wrong: the chance to test any factory 500 is a signal honor, which is never to be dismissed as unworthy of taking up. But, 16 JANUARV31, 2001 • had it been dry, the fact is that we wouldn't have been able to see for ourselves what direction Honda's R&D really did end up taking in the 2000 season, because we wouldn't have ridden the bike that uniquely encapsulated the totality of HRC's efforts. In the end, it didn't matter because the chance to test Criville's NSRSOO at Motegi took place in wet conditions that made it a matter of survival more than analysis. Especially as Honda restricted us each to a mere four laps on the damp track, which in my case, as the one charged with going out first and finding out just how bad conditions really were, took place in pouring rain, before it eventually stopped later on. So, to be quite honest, this micro-ride didn't explain very much about how and why Honda dropped the ball so badly in 2000 - a fact openly confirmed by HRC president Yasuo lkenoya. "We made a mistake in 500 GP R&D at the start of last season," he said at Motegi, "and only now have we begun to catch up in new model testing for next year. The problem has been for our riders to get traction coming out of a turn, and also aerodynamics - we must study very carefully the airflow into the engine, as well as the profile of the complete motorcycle. But now we found the correct direction, and will challenge again for success in 2001.' Well, once I'd gotten over my initial reluctance to do much more than splash around slowly aboard a 190 hp motorcycle weighing 290 Ibs. and concentrate on keeping it upright, the short wet session was actually quite educational, serving as a reminder of last year when I'd ridden a Honda NSR500 in the rain for the first time since back in 1991 at Suzuka, the last year of the old 'Screamer' engine format. Now adopted once again on all NSR500 Hondas, after the closedup firing order 'Big Bang' interlude, this employs 180-degree crank throws and evenly-spaced 'Two-Up' n e _ s cue J • firing strokes, thanks to a crankshaft layout which sees the two right-side pistons sparking together, followed 180 degrees later by the two left-side ones. By comparison with the old 180degree Screamer, which required a high degree of skill to be ridden to its rear-wheel-steering limits, the bornagain Two-Up motor which Mick Doohan was the first to switch back to in 1997 - initially much against the advice of HRC engineersl - makes more sense since the' advent of unleaded fuel in 1998. That's because the five-percent power loss inflicted by unleaded has taken the razor edge off the Screamer format's power delivery, and coupled with the vastly improved electronic-enginemanagement systems developed in the past decade, has allowed HRC engineers to tame the Screamer's power delivery, while reaping the benefits of its smoother power delivery and more direct throttle response. In 1999, for the first time since 1991, all Honda riders were equipped with Screamer engines, making what began as a Doohan dare the hot tip for flying faster on green gas. So back to my splash day in the Motegi murk, and while properly respectful of the bottled-up performance of this mega-motorcycle at all times, and especially in the rain, the Honda was far better behaved in the rain than I remember its '91-vintage predecessor as being. That's because of the smoothed-out power delivery and more controllable throttle response of the current model. Back then, it was a matter of survival for the likes of me to be planted aboard a hard-edged all-or-nothing rocketship without the benefit of a decade of electronic R&D, nor a lot of power in four-figure territory. This one was a different proposition, pulJjng cleanly from as low as 7000 rpm out of the tight top hairpin, before coming on strong around 10,000 rpm, when the exhaust note hardens and there's a strong rush of midrange power. Peak power was delivered at 12,500 rpm, and it pays to change gear at 13,000 rpm to put yourself right back in the meaty midrange zone as you hit the higher gear. HRC still hasn't fitted a powershifter to the Criville NSR500, though other Honda riders apparently do use one. The NSR500's drive out of turns is addictive, even on a wet track, especially if you short-shift around 12,000 rpm in the lower gears to ride the Vfour engine's meaty torque curve. For even in the wet this will lift the front wheel in second, third, and then - yes - fourth gear down the pit straight as you gas it wide open out of the last chicane. HRC engineers had jetted the bike very rich for the band of Euro-scribes, most of whom had mostly never ridden a 500cc GP bike in the dry before, let alone in the rain - so it was very flat at the top end. This meant that the NSR500 was actually slower in a straight line than the Colin Edwards RC51 - a bike weighing 66 pounds more and producing over 10 hp less than the twostroke - as I had the chance to find out for myself in a side-by-side comparison. Jetted properly, this would never be the case, and with overrev restricted to just 13,700 rpm compared to the 14,000-plus when I rode what is essentially the same bike a year ago, I'm afraid I can't truly tell you how good the NSR500's engine performance was last year. Compared to the Roberts Suzuki, which as I proved to myself at Phillip Island is much more agile in its handling, and turns and holds a tighter line better, the Honda not only feels bigger and bulkier, it's also harder to lift up to get an early drive out of the turn with the fat part of the wet weather tire, or to flick from side to side, like in the last Motegi chicane. However, while the Honda may be slightly heavy steering, it's completely planted once you've laid it into the turn, running on rails as the Showa forks eat up the few bumps on Motegi's surface. Stopping for the downhill righthander at the end of Motegi's main straight, when you need to start worrying about how much grip the front Michelin will give you under braking, and on turn-in in the rain, holds no worries: the cast stainless Brembo metal brakes fitted for the rain stop the Honda well enough - as good as a Superbike weighing 25 percent more, even without the engine braking of a four-stroke engine to help you do so on the overrun. As I wrote a year ago after testing Criville's '99 bike, I remember Alex's compatriot, fellow works Honda rider Sito Pons, telling me a decade ago after he'd won his second successive 250cc world title that it was harder retaining his crown the second time around than it had been winning it in the first place. Well, Criville found out the hard way just how true that is - but Honda has learned from their mistakes, and began their winter test program plenty early with an all-new NSR500 at Phillip Island in November, just two days after the last GP of the 2000 season. With a different cylinder layout - though still a single-crank Vfour - aimed at improving breathing via an all-new intake system, and a central letterbox airdu.ct in the nose of the bike, rather than the side ducts of the existing bike, Honda will be aiming to regain supremacy and win back the lost pair of world titles in the final year of two-stroke 500cc GP racing. CN