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Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128136
Valentino Rossi's Honda NSR500 ,#ont:la RacIng (Left) The New and the Old. Rossi will campaign Honda's V-five four-stroke in '02, though certain others wiUstiUbe aboard the NSA for at least one more season. (Right) The Doctor Is Always In. Roberts Jr.'s title-winning RGv500 Suzuki did a year ago, the NSR500 was really composed under hard braking - and I was throwing out the anchors from higher speed considerably later than on the V-twin Superbike, even though the two-stroke is obviously devoid of engine braking, and a slipper clutch to help you use it. There's also more feel from the carbon brakes than I remember from two years ago, the last time I rode a works Honda on a dry track, so that if you run a little too deep into a turn, or need to stroke the lever to stop it running wide, you get almost as much sensitivity as with a metal brake - but a lot sooner response, with less of a squeeze. Nice. A man could get used to this. It's interesting that Rossi doesn't use a thumb brake, as both Doohan and his apprentice Criville did/do, and that reflects the Italian's quite different riding style, which is more about keeping up corner speed like the good 250/125 graduate he obviously is (and Alex once was, till he got reprogrammed by Mick), less about sliding the rear wheel - which is probably why he took so quickly to the new NSR with its weight moved backward for extra traction, which obviously means you can't slide the bike so easily. That's why Criville never really came to terms with the bike all season, while the only other man to race one, Tohru Ukawa, is a 500cc GP newcomer still on the learning curve. Rossi's extra turn momentum demands even more grip from the front Michelin than a rear-wheelsteerer would require, and explains Valentino's dismay after Estoril testing back in February, when Michelin's new 17 -inch rubber induced serious chatter, probably through too stiff a structure, while he preferred not to use the 16.5-inch alternative, because it heavied up the steering too much. A season of development has resolved these problems well enough for someone riding at my slower pace to appreciate, because the NSR500 16 JANUARY 9,2002' cue • e flips from side to side in the Jerez turn two/three complex even better than the supposedly slimmer, more agile V-twin Superbike had earlier and far better than the Criville bike did last year in the Motegi chicanes. That felt bigger and bulkier than the latest slimline Rossi bike, and also harder to lift up to get an early drive out of a turn with the fat part of the tire. Yet the payoff on the Rossifumi rocketship isn't in any instability in turns, and even lifting the front wheel slightly accelerating hard while still leaned over through the fast right leading onto the back straight, in the same place where a year ago Carlos Checa's YZR500 Yamaha had scared me stiff with a monster wheelie, didn't faze the Honda. It's also completely planted once you've laid it into a turn, running on rails as the Showa forks eat up the several bumps littering the freshly resurfaced Jerez track, which while very grippy is much bumpier than before. The Honda's compliant suspension means you can use a gear higher than I'd have expected from past experience would be feasible on such a meaty motorcycle, and that's surely one secret of Rossi's success the new Honda is much better balanced in terms of handling and chassis geometry than previous NSR500s, and that's in spite of the accentuated riding position which helps counter the new package's rearward weight distribution, in search of improved traction. With the engine untouched since crossing the finish line to win in Brazil, track time on the Rossi bike was cut to the bare minimum - HRC boss Ikenoya may have revealed that an NSR500 crankshaft's service life is now 3000 km., but the piston rings need changing a lot more often than that, and Burgess and Co. were probably too busy celebrating the end of a long, hard season and getting ready to start testing the V-five four-stroke to have time to do this in the three weeks before our test. But even with just a handful of laps in the hot seat, I immediately appren e _ s ciated the smoother power delivery from low down of the 2001 NSR500, which has a less abrupt transition into the strong power zone just above 10,000 rpm, but an even stronger hit of top-end power than before, all of which makes it a lot easier for 500cc dilettantes to master - as well as even more of a thrill to twist that throttle grip and stand on the footpegs to try to force your body weight over the front wheel in any of the bottom four gears, while accelerating toward turn one. Phew! Fearsomely fast - but fun. As in the past couple of years, the Honda's 112-degree V-four engine has a 'Screamer' format which employs 180-degree crank throws and evenly-spaced 'Two-Up' 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. The five-percent power loss inflicted by unleaded fuel has taken the razor edge off the Screamer format's power delivery, and coupled with the vastly improved electronic engine management systems developed in the past decade, has allowed HRC engineers to tame the engine's character, while reaping the benefits of its smoother power delivery and more direct throttle response. So, for sure, the Rossi Honda has the usual NSR500 shopping-trolley power delivery low down, pulling cleanly from around 7000 rpm out of a tight hairpin if you really insist, before coming on strong around 10,000 rpm, when the shrill-sounding note of the slimmer exhausts compared to last season hardens, and there's a strong surge of midrange power which catapults you out of the turn and down the next straight, in a way that is so totally addictive, especially if you short-shift around 12,000 rpm in the lower gears, which 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 turn. It's fearsomely fast, but fun - until you come to ride it at the pace of the last five percent needed to win world titles with. Then it becomes very, very serious - and very, very hard. Peak power is delivered at 12,500 rpm, and it pays to change gear soon after to put yourself right back in the meaty midrange zone and ride the Vfour engine's meaty torque curve, as you hit the higher gear. But - what's this? A powershifter on an NSR500? First time I've ever used one on a 500 Honda, because neither Doohan nor his apprentice Criville ever adopted them - and to be strictly honest, after now trying one, I can understand why. The bottom two changes were very harsh if made wide-open, and while the top three shifts were a fair bit smoother, it felt pretty mechanically unsympathetic to use the oneup race-pattern speedshifter. Burgess reckoned it was because they hadn't reset the cutout times for each gear selected after dropping the overall gearing on the bike for Jerez compared to Rio. Sounds plausible - but a pity, all the same. Bet they fixed it for Valentino to ride the day after me, to set a benchmark time to aim for on his first Euro-test aboard the V-five RC211 V four-stroke. As I wrote two years ago after testing Criville's '99 500cc World Champion, 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 second time around than it had been winning it in the first place. Well, Alex found out the hard way just how true that is, and now Kenny Roberts Jr. has, too. Somehow, if Dr. Valentino were racing this NSR500 again in 2002, I'd probably bet on him retaining his crown - but now, with a combination of the unknown quantity that the V-five four-stroke represents, and the fact that Loris Capirossi will have this motorcycle to go head-tohead against him on next season, I don't think that's such a foregone conclusion. Even though HRC has ceased development of the NSR500 two-stroke, that's not to say its world title-winning days are over. eN