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/128197
The Plight of World Superbike By AI t's sport became the battlefield for a range of exotica from literally dozens of different manufacturers. But what makes the target date of 2004 so attractive for those bike racing junkies who despise the backstabbing politics of the sport's - sorry, the business's - higher echelons, is that unlike the 1960s, this time around we're about to have not one, ALAN CATHCART going to take another 15 months 1/ before the process is complete, but all signs point to motorcycle road racing at the highest level being about to enter a golden era not seen since the 1960s, when the forces of Japan, Inc., invaded Europe for the first time and two-wheeled tarmac Although KTM still is not yet saying to what extent it will be involved in World Superbike, chances are good that it will come to the part)' with either an Lea-based V-twin Superbike (concept shown here) or possibly a version of its four-cylinder MotoGP engine currently in development. 22 JANUARY 22,2003' cue I e n e _ s but two separate branches of motorcycle racing set to regale us with an array of machinery and close-coupled competition on an epic scale. Once the two-year transition period we're currently in the middle of is over, both MotoGP and World Superbike will present a spectacle unparalleled in intensity and variety any time in the past four decades. And the win- (Top) The future: In 2004, World Superbike will boast a plethora of 1000cc-based inline fours, not unlike those found in Formula Xtreme. Suzuki Yamaha and Honda are believed to be gearing up with new equipment and will field full factory-backed efforts. ners in this will be the fans - those tired of reading about how Series A is taking a one-way trip up a dead-end technical street, or that Series B is condemned to struggle for survival because it's been deserted by all the manufacturers. All tracks ide spectators and TV race junkies care about is the racing - and they're about to be delighted by two mega-competitive forms of competition, not just one. They're going to be the winners. This may come as a surprise to some enthusiasts, who, from what they've been hearing, might have reached the conclusion that World Superbike is dead in the water, lucky to survive even as a privateer category for second-level riders. Grand Prix racing's dramatic reinvention in fourstroke MotoGP guise has been presented as hastening Superbike's demise and with Ducati's Desmosedici and Proton's V5 joining Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, Aprilia and Kawasaki in the skirmish of the super-diesels next season, and KTM's V4 on the horizon for 2005, it's supposed to be game, set