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/128132
The four-cylinder race teams, SBK International, the FIM, and anyone else with a vested interest in keeping the championship viable, wanted to have an 825cc limit (11 O-percent of the current 750 limit for fours) to ensure that the championship would no longer favor those who run twins. This was not an unheard of move, because Ducati frequently punched the engines out before they had released similarly inflated streetbike versions of the 916 series. But right at the 11 th hour, the idea was canned, basically because the Japanese did not want to be seen arguing with each other in public, did not want to race with bikes of a different capacity to those in the showrooms - and of course why should Aprilia and Ducati (the two nonJapanese members of the sport's newest powerbrokers the MSMA, the manufacturers' association), give away anything they see as an advantage over those Japanese factories that do not build and race big-capacity sports twins through choice? Honda's viewpoint was not made public, but after having specially built a twin for the sole purpose of winning World Superbike, its logical response can safely be guessed at. Thus this idea was dropped, in favor of a less radical solution. But we'll get to that in the fullness of time. Some argue that the lack of competitiveness of the 750 fours is mostly a rider problem in any case, not just a machinery problem per se - and Noriyuki Haga certainly looked like a true championship challenger on the four-cylinder Yamaha R7 in 2000. Maybe it took someone like Haga, armed with an all-new expensive homologation special like the R7 to champion the cause of the fours against the twins, but by the letter of the existing law, many reckoned still reckon - that with the right rider and the right bike fours are perfectly competitive. All of which puts PierFrancesco Chili in the 'good rider/bad bike' class, while maybe - just maybe - the aging-but-rapid Kawasaki is a competitive bike on the lookout for a Haga, Edwards or Bayliss to ride it. [As a relevant aside, those major domestic Superbike championships that show the opposite results in the twins versus fours battle are not in the same boat as World Superbike. The AMA series features non-FIM spec machines for starters, with the higher-octane fuel one reason for the abilities of the fours to l;I1aintain at least parity with the twins. The other is a clear shift in balance of the absolute best riders from the Ducatis to the fours in AMA racing. Honda may have Nicky Hayden slugging out race wins on his big RC51 boomer, but Ducati's thrust in the 2001 AMA series has unquestionably been diluted in terms of fit riding talent. Imagine an AMA-bound Ben Bostrom or Troy Bayliss back on Ducatis - then compare that to the level of rider Ducati managed to field for the season. Even with the greatest respect to the interested parties, none were either 100-percent fit (the horribly injured Scott Russell) or fancied for race wins, nevermind the title. And remember that in the four-cylinder camp in 2001 there were riders like Mat Mladin, Anthony Gobert and Eric Bostrom. The All-Japan Championship, which does follow FIM technical rules for the most part, quirkily allows Formula Extreme machines into its ranks. But the racing is still for the most part dominated by the VTR Honda and the 750cc fours, and features absolutely no competitive Ducati or Aprilia teams anyway. It is, after all, a breeding ground for Japanese riders, machines and is something of an extended practice session for the Suzuka 8-Hour, not to mention a season-long competitive R&D exercise.] The World Championship rider situation is a simple one - the best riders are on twins, or would like to be. And don't ask ex-Suzuki rider PierFrancesco Chili what he thinks is more competitive, the Suzuki GSXR750 or his old Ducati. Somebody somewhere saw sense, because the proposed two-year standstill of World Superbike rules lasted two weeks. The SBK Commission felt that something had to be done short term to make fours a more attractive proposition for the top level riders, more viable for the factories to continue with, and simply sage to Kawasaki and Suzuki's continually vanquished corporate egos, but it appears to have been enough to keep Suzuki in the frame for 2002 at least, with a one-rider team, probably featuring the sponsor-friendly Spaniard Gregorio Lavilla (to keep World Superbike high in the minds of all in Spain, the adopted bastion of GP racing). Which brings us onto another reason for the change in rules for 2004. Money. The iniquity of the money spent by the factories and sponsors in GP racing and that spent to go World Superbike racing has always been a feature of racing's political dynamic. World Superbike racing has been the perennial poor relation in terms of the sponsorship money it can attract, and although the machines have generally less racing R&D spend and far less PR spend than the GP two-strokes, World Superbike machines are hugely expensive to produce in another way. Making an eligible bike for World Superbike racing involves, as Honda found out with the RC51, a huge commitment in terms of making damned sure it's competitive out of the box from the first race. A two-year testing program (and the rest) a new philosophy of engine development, the matching of streetbike production requirements to the HRC's demands for competiveness in racing all took a huge effort, even for a factory like Honda. You're not building a racebike or a streetbike, you're building both characteristics into one machine and hoping it can do both equally well. Unlike the RC45, which its previous World Superbike racer was based on, Honda priced the RC51 low enough to sell in half decent volume, and thus recoup some of the R&D spend, but two simple facts remained. One: Honda felt they had to build a twin, contrary to their previous multi-cylinder ethos and expertise. Second, they had to spend a lot of money doing it - then produce a new one that has several significant changes to keep it competitive for the 2000 season on. No wonder HRC was asking for a fortune (over a $1 million) from race teams for properly kitted machines to use in privateer or national factory racing (although they apparently are asking far less than last season for the 2002 version). Suzuki, despite waiting a year to bring out the World Superbike race version of their newest GSX-R, appear to have got at least one side of the execution of its GSX-R750 way wrong, and it has cost them severely - although their bike is a somehow a championship winner in America and a potential winner in Japan. In a nutshell, World Superbike racing is not cheap, not in a macro The man in the hot seat: World Superbike promoter Paolo Flammini. more likely to finish on the top step of the podium, for variety's sake if nothing else. So even after the joint declaration from the MSMA, FIM and SBK International was handed out at Imola, further action (of a kind) was taken by the Superbike Commission. The 2002 regulations altered the weight limits for each current engine configuration in a handicapping system. The 750 fours can now reduce their weight by three kilos to 159 kg (349.8 pounds), the 900cc Benelli (and the wistfully rumored Sauber/Triumph triple) will run at the existing limit of 162 kg (356.4 pounds), while the 1000cc twins will have to add two kilos to reach 164 kg (360.8 pounds). Will it make any difference out there on the tracks? Probably not that much, especially as the fours will have to work hard on the milling machine to get down to 159 and most twins are not yet on the 162 kg limit anyway. Only the VTR (they claim) and the factory Testastretta Ducati, which lost three kilos from the motor alone over the winter, are thought to tip the scales at around 162 kg (356.4 pounds). The final, final ratification of the 2002 rules will take place during a meeting of the Superbike Commission, (comprising representatives of the teams, factories, FIM and SBK) on December 10 and 11. On recent form, anything could be the outcome of that meeting. Psychologically, the weight-limit changes may be an 'executive' mascu cle n • _ so • NOVEMBER 28, 2001 17