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Kork Ballingtons 1981 Kawasaki KR500 Grand Prix Racer 1981 of four different ratios for the bottom two gears and top, and three for each of the others, this was an important asset. For 1981 Ballington abandoned the 250cc class in favor of a full-time 500cc GP effort aboard the KR500, interspersed with taking part in the two leading national series in Britain, where the team was based - the Shell 500cc Championship and the MCN Superbike series, which was effectively a formula libre class. He was supposed to be joined full-time by Hansford in a two-bike effort - but the unlucky Aussie injured his knee aboard his KR750 in the Imola 200 before the GP season began, and though he returned at Assen, it was only for a single race, breaking the femur of the same leg in the next GP at Spa, when he took to the slip road at Les Combes after pitting to change a front tire after it started raining, and arriving at the first slow corner to find he had no brakes because the lever hadn't been pumped up by his pit crew. Though frightening, that would still have been okay - except a course marshal had unforgivably left his car parked slap in the middle of the slip road. Exit Hansford for the season... This incident left Ballington alone again as a one-man band, aboard a KR500 that had had its weight pared down to a now-reasonable 292 pounds dry, thanks partly to magnesium crankcases, and with a stiffer chassis, thanks to a revised rear section and altered sideplates. Midrange power had been improved in an effort to resolve the acceleration problem, with five-transfer cylinders, new exhaust pipes and altered rotaryvalve inlet timing. The fairing design was changed to duct more cool air to the rear shock, and another innovative idea was added to what was already a forward-thinking motorcycle, in the form of a mechanical anti-dive system based on that developed in the USA five years earlier by Udo Geitl and Todd Schuster on their BMW Superbike, as an alternative to the hydraulic anti-dive already featured on the rival Suzuki team's similar Kayaba forks. This featured a bracket bolted to each front-brake caliper mount, and connected via an adjustable rod to the lower triple clamp. Since the fork springs no longer had to cope with forward weight transfer, they could be made softer and so provide more compliant damping of road shock. Originally, this mechanism was hidden behind a broad, all-enveloping front mudguard, shaped so as to deflect cooling air at the radiator - but after paddock mutterings (in which Kenny Roberts played a vocal part) to the effect that this contravened FIM rules on streamlining introduced when full "dustbin" fairings were banned in 1958, the 22 NOVEMBER 6. 2002' cue I Kawasaki team cut holes in the front sides of the mudguard to expose a sufficient arc of the front wheel, so as to comply with the letter of the rules - as well as the spirit. Aboard the revised bike, Ballington enjoyed his best season ever on the KR500 in 1981, finishing runnerup to Crosby's works Suzuki in the UK Shell series, and second to Haslam's big four-stroke Honda in the Open-class championship. His GP campaign faltered at first, though in finishing sixth in the opening race in Austria he underlined the Kawasaki to now be clearly competitive in terms of performance with its rivals. But Ballington retired in the next race at Hockenheim after running off the course and resuming in last place, while at Monza the Kawasaki's ignition problems reappeared, sending it into retirement. But, at Paul Ricard, Ballington qualified the Kawasaki on the front row for the first time, after which seventh in the race was an anticlimax, while in the next round in Yugoslavia he was fortunate to survive a practice scare when the tread of his front tire delaminated in a fast turn, wrapped itself round the antidive mechanism, and locked the wheel solid! Though Ballington's physical injuries were confined to tom ligaments, he was in no condition to ride, and sat out the race. But then the South African's season turned around - in spite of complaining of the revised frame's unpredictable handling at the limit. Third place at Assen in a damp Dutch TT gave the KR500 its first visit to the • n • _ s rostrum, a result not repeated a week later with a 19th-place finish at a damp Spa, thanks to an ill-handling bike. But fifth at Imola presaged a thrilling race at Silverstone, where Ballington battled for the lead with Roberts, Mamola, and eventual surprise winner Jack Middleburg, before retiring with a broken disc valve 10 laps from the finish, when still with a chance of victory. It was to be the Kawasaki's closest-ever taste of a GP win. Ballington made up for the disappointment with another front-row start in Finland - and another thirdplace rostrum finish, too, ahead of all the Yamahas, before placing fourth the following week at a wet Anderstorp, after initially leading the final GP of 1981. Ballington had finished eighth in the World Championship in what was to prove the Kawasaki's best season. For 1982, the Japanese factory engineers tried to reduce weight still further with a semi-monocoque spine-frame design, which had a separate alloy fuel tank and now used Showa suspension, though still with the same mechanical anti-dive. But the new bike failed to live up to the promise of the old one, with Ballington - again the singleton Kawasaki rider - never finishing higher than sixth in a race, en route to ninth place in the '82 World Championship, though he did win the British Shell 500cc title very easily, albeit mainly against privateer opposition, after winning the last six races of the eightrace series. However by the time Ballington clinched the crown with (Above left) The gold-anodized silencers' end caps screw ott so that Ute, can be easily repacked. (Above! The KR500 features a mechanical anti-dlve unit on Ute forks that bolts onto Ute plate Just aft of Ute calipers, and attaches to Ute lower triple clamp. The calipers Utemselv. . are Kawasaki's own twln·plston design machined out of solid magnesium billet, and biting Into twin 290mm steel discs, victory in the final round at Oulton Park in October, Kawasaki had already announced its retirement from Grand Prix racing - "in order to concentrate our company's race activities on those classes of fourstroke racing directly related to our customer products," said the official press release - in other words, World Endurance in which Kawasaki was the reigning champion, AMA Superbike (ditto) and, in due course, the World Superb ike Championship, which Scott Russell won for them with the ZXR750 in 1993. However, two decades on, the Japanese company's management will be hoping for greater success with its new four-stroke KZ-RR MotoGP racer than that bike's squarefour 500cc two-stroke predecessor was able to obtain two decades ago. For after its three full seasons of competition on what, by the standards of a Japanese factory team, was a rather desultory basis, the KR500 Kawasaki has inevitably gone down as a technically interesting, but ultimately unsuccessful, early- '80s footnote to 500cc GP history. Pity - it deserved better. l:N