Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

c om pet itive isn't there righ t now. We wou ldn 't have the b udget or the budget struc tu re to do any fourstroke. Sa uber a nnounced that th e y had a moto r. We wo uldn't ha ve the bud get to run that motor. WOUld t he re be an increa s e in the budget to go fro m the two-st ro ke t o th e fou r-s troke? Th e re's going to be an increa se from Doma to the p rivate te a m s , but that inc re a s e is enough to run what we 're ru nn ing on now . We could do this show a little bit better. It's not a big increase. I don't have the money to ru n the four -strokes now . WiII th e four-stroke budget s be c o nsidera bly bigger t han th e two-strokes? To start out with , I th ink you 're going to see that. Where we end up with the fou r-strok e depends on where the rules take us. In Fo rmula One, you certainly can 't run that budget. It depends on whether you ca n actually ride the motorcycle and make it faster. If Honda is 10 mph faster than everybody e ls e , what is the R&D budget going to turn into? T hat's a big question mark. R&D is having the base to fix problems when you have them. Not necessarily the pr obl em of the c ra nk s haft s don 't last long enough , it m ay be a prob le m of horsepower. You've got to account for all of that stuff. If you re le a se the Sauber motor, for example , and you ' re 15 ks slower down the stra ightawa y , what do you do then? O ne thing you s a y, oh , fairi ng , you put another fa iring on it or something. What do you do? As a team you 've got to be able to have enough m o n e y to do th e _ th ing properly, wh ich we do n't. But to compete, you wou ld ha ve to , to win. Po t e nt ia llY it' d be more mon ey on a fourstroke. Th ere is more to s pend money on . If you bre a k something it's a lot more. We 've ha d qualifyi ng sessio ns whe re we've s tuck a cylind e r a nd 20 m inutes late r he 's o ut riding it a gain. You 're not going to be able to do things like that. It' s no t go ing to be outlandishly ex pensive unless we get into f1 y -by -wire, which is legal. If f1y -by -wire is th e best wa y to run the m oto rc ycle , then th e cost go e s up . If tractio n c ontro l and a ll these things tha t you have now a re m ore useable, I thi nk they will come in, the n we ' ll h a ve t o have mo re e ngi nee ri n g peop le aro u n d; ,. especially electronic s . It' s not going to be as easy as ev eryo ne th inks it' s goi ng to be. Th e Ya m a ha' s re a l eas y right now. Th e y rid e it a rou nd . It's like a big Superbike . What happens if it's 10 ks s low? Or tha t pa rti cul ar de s ign doe s n 't work we ll a round a racetra ck ? To retool it a nd m a ke a new o ne is going , to be expensive . But the nice th ing about a 1000cc is ev e ryo ne is go ing to have a n a bu nd a nc e of horsepower, so hopefully that's go ing to ke ep th e cost dow n . Beca use there is goi ng to be probably more horsepower available than you can actu a lly use around the ra c e tra c k . And , if that's the case , t hen it' s p ro ba bly going to be t he igniti on t ha t ' s goi ng to be the m ost expensive pa rt of the R&D beca use you're goi ng to have to make someth ing that has a lot of horse power rideable . The first one that does that is going to go down th e stra ights 10 mph faster. That's going to make e ve rybod y else ha ve to do the same thing . If you run the Superbike ig n it io n lik e th e y ru n, yo u just chan g e th e ch ip insi de and it run s fine . If that's th e ru le , that'd be ea sy . But when you 'v e go t f1y -b y -wire, and the flyby -wire is going to be th e th ing th at wins the races , what a re you go ing to do? So what, we don't ha ve fly -by -wire . We 're just going to ride around in fifth. O nc e there 's 20 Hondas out there , these a re the things that I'm a little skeptical about. If Honda is 10 mph fas ter tha n everything e lse and goes around the racetrack by f1y-by-wire bet te r than everythi ng Q Q Q else , and th ere are five of them , it's ho pe full y not going to happen . And I hope it doesn't. DO yo u see any problem with ke e ping tires on th e m ? No , I do n't see any problem with the tires. T he tire compan ies will bu ild another tire . Th e tires will get ma ybe a little harder. We buil t the three -c ylinder bec a us e of the tires, and the tires got better, a nd just put us right out of th e ballpark. The tires a re a lot better now than they we re . When we decided to build the three, we were stopped. Th e tires were holding us back . I believe that not many people are going to rely on tires ho lding us up. You'v e got a weight problem. You're going to have more we ight. In, I thi nk the first year or two, there may be some real tire q ues tions on some of the b igger stuff. But if Hon da had decided to build a five -cylind er and go for a heavier weight, there's got to be a reason for that, I would think . Or , they just grabbed the guys that m ade that ne ve r-run 500 and p ut them to wo rk . I don't really th ink Ho nd a would do th at aga in. I ca n te ll you that that four -stroke was bloody e xpensive , the oval piston one. I can tell you that the money on that R&D wou ld run th is te a m for about 10 years. It rea lly depends o n, if you want a big Superbike , the cost is going to be more than this, but it's not going to be o ut ra ge ous, provided the th ing runs like a Superbike , every time you start it it goes down the stra ight. If it is more comp lex than tha t , then the cost is go ing to go up , which is okay , provided the show costs a nd sponsorsh ip bud gets go up with the costs. I'm not a big believer in cutti ng the costs. I'm a b ig be liev e r in getting the sponsorship to p a y for it. Q Kenny Roberts is op inionated. That much we know. So here's his opinion on the 2001 SOOcc World Championship thus far. "It's like [Max] Biaggi doesn't have the style that I think [Valentino] Rossi has , but he has the ability to adjust his motorcycle once in a while that fits that style, because he's not going to change that style. It's too late for that. He'd be making a big mistake if he tried to change it, Where Rossi's already said, how to ride is like this and figured ali that out and he does it. He came into racing with a certain, not ability, but a certain mindset of what he needed to do to do it and did it. He started out doing it. He started out figuring out who needs to slide, or why this slides, or why that hooks up or why this doesn 't work and figured it out. Whereas Biaggi came in with a certain one-dimensional thing: 'I go into comers fast.' I don't think Rossi's made up his mind what style he wants to use yet. He's said to make the brke work good it needs to do this: And he slides it when he wants to, doesn't slide it when he doesn't have to. Right now, it's the best of all the situations. In my opinion, I don't think there 's any place out there that he could make up time or he's losing time becau se of it. Good bike or bad bike or bad tires or whatever. "When you get that combination on the best engineered motorcycle, I don't really think that , unless something happens , physically or mentaliy , I don 't think [Rossi can be beaten]. There are a few of the Hondas out there. It would be nice to see Alex [Criville] co me out of his slump , beca use he does have the motorcycle to do it. And I guess the next guy to do it is [Loris] Capirossi because he does have the right motorcycle, too. Honda has, with Rossi especia lly, made a bit of a jump. The Suzuki is struggling. And if the engineering gets figured out and improves on that, then I would say that Kenny's [Roberts J r.] going to be a consistent threat , but I think it's probably going to be too late - if everything goes right on the other camp, it's going to be a little late. You ca n't win with fifths and sixths if the other guy wins it. It's engineering and the motorcycle has to get better. Because he [Roberts Jr.] does not have what he needs, to do what he needs to do. It's an engineering problem. I think it's never been that evenly matc hed when three guys are very close all the time. It used to be you just had to go out and try harder. Now it's refined to a point where the bike makes a bigger difference now than it used to. The bikes were never close c Q That's your biggest problem right now. It is a problem right now. Are you noticing a ny improve me nt in attitude th at you'll be racin g a fou r- s t roke ? Is t he re mo re int erest? Any time yo u cha ng e a stale racing format , o ve r the past, that I've seen, over the past 30 yea rs , a ny time that you change it you get a little bit of a bu zz. There was a buz z when America went Superbike rae ing. And th ere's a buzz now that we 'r e going fou rstroke ra c ing . I wouldn't rely on tha t. I think that all the sponsorshi p p a c ka ge s , there is mo re interest in the four-stroke . I think with the four-stroke we can go directly to ahe street bike market, more than we can th e two -s troke. But I haven 't seen the sponsorship fix that. I'm like everybody else. I'm just waiting to see if companies actually want to go do th is and turn it into a marketing success. Be c a us e it' s something that we have not been a ble to do so far, is turn the 500 into a marketing s uc ce ss. Whether the four-stro ke does it or not remains to be seen. I he ar a lot of people ta lk about it, but I have not seen it tu rned into reality yet. I me an , I hear a lot of people say how wonderful it' s all going to be. But I think we a ll have to get there first. Has th e c rash of the technology market s hurt your sponsorsh ip? What re ally hurt us was the Ma laysian c ra s h , because it had bee n goi ng up and up and up , a nd it hurt us a lot. Onc e you' re able run a team for Xamount, to double it to where it ought to be isn't eas y. Companies don't react to 50-percent increa se s, so it's been a real struggle for us to get back up to where we need to be. Well, we 're not. Our particular ar e a , four stro ke, no o ne 's tal ki ng a bout how e xpe ns ive it's goi ng to be or whether they wa nt to do it. CN Q Q enough before to be down to sometimes the Suzuki was better because of the powerband or the power or this was better or that. But now, every little thing: It's got to brake prope rly, it's got to go in the comer and lay on its side properly, it's got to stay there, it's got to accelerate from the apex all the way out without a surge of power to the highside of the thing. All those things are getting really finely tuned. "You can see it on the racetrack . Now the differences of the riders are not as big. It's just a guy that's a little bit better of putting all that combination together is going to win the race. Because the little things right now make a big difference ; but not as big a difference in the times . You're looking at a 52.8, 52.7. You're not looking at a 52.8 versus a 52 .6. There were times at Grands Prixs that I'd be two seconds ahead of everybody, especially Silverstone, when England had a circuit you could ride, or a second ahead . There have been days when you could do that. Now it's harder to do that. It's never been as good as this, I don't think, in that respect. Rossi, you're going to get them years where you get the best guy on the best-engineered motorcycles, and it's going to be tough . Honda's not an easy company to beat if you look at it from an engineering point of view. The rest of the companies have to work harder and do more. It hasn't happened yet. "In my opinion, it hasn't happened in the last five or six years. As far as last year, no one will ever know how well Suzuki did and Kenny did to win that championship. The moon was just in the right place, because enqlneerinq-wise it doesn' t happen very often that you take something that's not quite there and do the job.' u e I e n e _ S • J UNE 27 , 2001 39

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