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Mata Guzzi MG5-01 Carsa Racer box now fitted for the first time to the BV motor is slick-shifting and smooth, so much so you can almost think about not using the" clutch for upward shifts, previously a Guzzi nono. But this still takes practice, so after a handful of laps I gave up and used the clutch, which made gear changing faultless. However, I don't think the stock VII Sport ratios presently used are suitable for the Corsa's power characteristics, especially with the Monza overall gearing/final drive unit fitted for our Adria test on a much slower circuit, which meant I could only get a sort-of fourth down the front straight and needed to use bottom gear five times per lap! Guzzi will offer alternative overall gearing as part of the customer race kit it will be marketing alongside the bike, but even so, bottom gear needs to be much higher (especially with all that torque on offer from the big-bore motor to get you off the line). There's too big a gap to second, which stops you keeping up turn speed without falling off the cam, and the top four ratios need to be closed up. In other words, it needs a proper close-ratio racing gearbox. This is extra noticeable because after really muscular acceleration from low revs on the Digitek dashmounted Italian copy of a MoTeC digital infocenter, there's a noticeable dip in the power curve between 3500 rpm and 4800 rpm, when acceleration levels off and you lose momentum. It's not so bad you need to clutch it back into the powerband, nor is it a fault of the engine mapping on the Marelli EFI, as I suspected it was at first. Giuseppe Ghezzi says they've spent a lot of time chasing down the problem and are convinced that rather than the mapping, it's an inherent fault of the 8V engine design, which they're going to engineer out via a mixture of camshaft/valve timing and exhaust mods. Power peaks at 8500 revs, after which it starts to drop off quite quickly before the third of the three green lights across the top of the Digitek tacho has lit up at 8700 revs to remind you to shift up before your nine grand appointment with the engine cutout switch. You haven't got a lot of revs to play with, even on a relatively slow-acceleratin~ V-twin, which the Guzzi still is when compared to a Testastretta Ducati or Aprilia RSV-R, though it has a more eager appetite for revs than any other Guzzi I've ridden to date. Needs fixing, though for sur~ the inexorable build of power thanks to that meaty torque is very impressive, even now. You can't help but pop a powerwheelie out of any of those slow corners if you crack the throttle hard open around the 6400 rpm peak torque mark, and doing so will have 50 AUGUST 27,2003' cue I the front wheel hovering above the ground while Ghezzi's gutsy Guzzi thunders off down to the next turn at impressive speed and purposeful intent. The fact that this wheel-lifting acceleration doesn't unsettle the Corsa's handling beyond just a lazy waggle of the handlebars as the rear Pirelli bites into the grippy Adria tarmac and you motor straight and true down to the next hairpin says a lot about the good manners of the Ghezzi-designed chassis, which doesn't get out of shape, even when powering out of turns on the angle. It hooks up the rear tire really well, though suspension at both ends was set too soft on compression, which meant a good bit of weight transfer under hard acceleration - hence the wheelies, especially with the shorter wheelbase, and especially braking hard into a turn. That's in spite of the fact that the radial Brembo brake package fitted to the bike was frankly a disappointment, rather dead and wooden-feeling with not nearly as much bite as on the Aprilia Tuono Racing it was lifted from. Well, apart from a change of pads and the likely culprit, a different master cylinder but whatever the cause, I had to squeeze very hard to get the Guzzi to stop properly for a turn, whereas I, of all people (Valencia, February, 2001 - it's written on my shoulder!), know that you must normally treat Brembo's radial brakes with care and attention not to lock the front wheel. Quite the opposite here - and I know .- better than to use the rear brake hard on a shaftie, else you'll get the rear wheel chattering terminally. But using - the hefty engi'ne braking from those big pistons helped a lot, especially as e neVIl's the beautifully balanced engine didn't transmit any undue torque reaction from the lengthways crank, even using a lot of reverse loads at high rpm. I was sure there had to be an aluminum flywheel to reduce centrifugal forces, but Ghezzi insisted it was a steel stocker. Nice work, Giuseppe, HoweveJ, braking as hard as I could into a turn on the angle left me fighting the Guzzi's definite desire to fold the front wheel on me as I reached the apex, which was both distracting and tiring and, in the humid 35-degree (1 OOF) temperatures of the test day, soon had me sweating profusely inside my Kushitanis. Here the cause was easier to define, thanks to the rubber band marker on the Ohlins forks that showed they were set up much too soft for track use on such a grippy, tight circuit. Nothing some proper work on sorting the settings on such sophisticated suspension couldn't fix, I'm sure, but even so, it was noticeable how stable the Corsa was under hard braking up until turn-in, even when you had to lean away from the apex then flick back into it while still braking, as you must a couple of times a lap at Adria. In spite of the soft rear shock setting, it didn't understeer, accelerating around the sweeper on to the pit straight, and flicking it from side to side in a chicane was acceptably easy by Guzzi standards - which is to say these have never been the most nimble of bikes because of the high center of gravity of those big cylinders. But the MGS-Ol feels like a short bike, which with its RSV-R Mille wheelbase it is, with reasonable agility even if you still need a bit of muscle to move it around. Needs work on the engine Exposed: The Ghezzi-designed chassis is extremely stable at speed, thanks to an almost perfect 50/50 weight distribution. Claimed doy weight is 422 pounds. mapping, though - opening the throttle again while still leaned over produced a sharp initial response worthy of a Yamaha R7 that threatened to unhook the rear tire. That meaty power delivery needs to be tamed a little low down. On Adria's billiard-table surface, there wasn't really any chance to properly assess the Corsa's suspension package, though the fact I could actually feel the rear Ohlins shock working under me was some sort of a first for any Moto Guzzi V-twin. And that's just another of the many plus points of this impressive motorcycle, which though it began development only in February, 2002, when Roberto Brovazzo commissioned Ghezzi & Brian to create the bike as a showpiece for Intermot in September, has only been the subject of serious R&D for the past seven months. There's lots of work still to do on this working prototype, but Moto Guzzi's confidence in letting a bunch of journalists loose on its work-in-progress proved to be justified: This is a bike that was born well and will be a satisfying, stimulating sportbike for Guzzi's customers to ride on road or track next year, when the 50 to 100 Corsa versions expected to be built will go on sale in February at around Euro 19,000 ($21,648), with the first of the 1000 projected versions of the lower-performance Serie street version, coming on line in October at aroun'd Euro 12,000 ($13,672').