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/128161
Colin Edwards and his Michelin-shod Honda have always struggled at Laguna Seca. Could 2002 be the year he struts his stuff In from of his home crowd? their three factory team riders Bayliss, Xaus and Edwards - Michelin has come back to a high level of competitiveness at every single track, not just the ones they have always been dominant at. Edwards even won race one at Sugo this season, when last year he didn't come close. Michelin-men Bayliss and Xaus never even qualified for the top 16 of Superpole at Sugo in 2001, despite riding like maniacs! Whether or not Michelin's latest tires will have any great significance at the peculiar Laguna circuit, even with the MotoGP spin-off technology, time will tell. One thing is for certain though, part of Bostrom's woes have been rubber-related, as the L&Msponsored rider differs from Bayliss most significantly in his tire supplier. In Bayliss and Edwards we have what appear to be all the aces in two pairs of hands. The best riders, best teams, best bikes, best tires, best preparation, most testing, highest levels of self confidence ... the list is seemingly endless. Simply put, we have the basic ingredients for a classic mano-amano knife fight from now to the end of the season, if lady luck allows it. The rest have so far been relegated to holding the coats. What about the four-cylinders? You may have noticed one recurring theme as you skip through the pages of Cycle News a couple of days after each World Superbike event: There have been no four-cylinder finishers on the podiums this year. Like not even one, in 14 goes. Pre-Misano, Chris Walker (Kawasaki Racing Team) led the beleaguered four-cylinder riders' desperate but shuffling challenge toward the top World Championship positions - in eighth overa II, behind all the main twins, including the 2001 rookie James Toseland (HM. Plant Ducati). Behind him came the equally frustrated Gregorio Lavilla, who jumped from the Kawasaki fire to the Alstare Suzuki four-cylinder frying pan, in a lone Suzuki effort. He's struggled to score double-digit points almost everywhere. The 750cc fours are unquestionably finished in World Superbike terms, although some still maintain that if Yamaha had stayed in after 2000, and either attracted a rider of Noriyuki Haga's caliber (who liked Michelins) or Haga himself, they would still be a force with an updated full-factory R7. I personally adhere to this train of thougqt. After all, the power of the fours and twins is the same, the weight is now less for the fours, and you can't help thinking that Haga's spinning style is better on a four than a twin. Bayliss, methinks, could win the championship on a topflight four, suitably fettled by a top factory. Or maybe not, but the thought is appealing, huh? Kawasaki has been performing minor miracles recently, keeping the venerable ZX-7RR above water, while the Suzuki GSX-R750 appears to be something of a flawed motorcycle, for all its apparent modernity. Another factor in the demise of the fours is that, because they were seen as uncompetitive, all the top riders have avoided them (with the exception of one Pier-Francesco Chili, to his early glory and eventual downfall) and thus we couldn't see what a Bayliss, an Edwards or a Bostrom B could do on one. After all, you have to compare like with like. The future? Well, we were moving onto the future after all. World Superbike racing is doomed say some. Some even insist ·it has to be, what with four-strokes in MotoGP. I doubt it's doomed or anything like it myself, even though a lack of lucid direction and faffing around with the rules just when the Japanese factories didn't need it, has driven some factories off. Just as it was getting bigger in scale and importance. The right changes are afoot, probably not too late to do permanent harm to the championship in general. Next year, we've got 1000cc fours, and they should help redress things in commercial terms at least, because all the four main Japanese manufacturers will have new volume-produced bikes to run in the championship in 2004, and at least some will have teams with R1s, GSX-R1000s and new CBRs ready to run in 2003. Win on Sunday, sell on Monday has been the main factor breathing life into World Superbike racing in previous years, and finally the powers that be have realized that this is what will ultimately resuscitate it. Forget the lap times, which will be little, if any, slower than they are now. Nobody wants to watch the lap timers during races, everybody wants to watch clashes of elbows, six riders covered by a second, different-looking bikes, different sounds and most importantly the same bikes that the viewers' have in their garages out there doing it at world level. More and more manufacturers, even the little ones with strange numbers of cylinders; like the impoverished Benelli or cash-rich Petronas (even Triumph), will be attracted to add extra sparkle to the big players' twins and fours. And let's face it, how can Benelli, Triumph or even some bigger factories even begin to think about MotoGP? BMW has already canned the idea. Even if it takes a while for the balance of World Superbike power to be equaled out again, and for an exact formula for the twins, triples and fours to fight each other on genuinely equal terms, the political/commercial will to make this the new World Superbike norm has been made plain by all interested parties. How they do it is another story. Restrictor plates? Treaded tires? Big differential weight limits? End-of-season handicapping? Lets not go there quite yet. The past? We were going there as well. Troy Bayliss ftnlshecljust off of the podium In fow1h place In both races last year, but It would be a foolish gamble to bet against the man who has won 13 of 18 races thus far In 2002. cue I e n • _ S • JULv3,2oo2 17