Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

made 111m great, but~1( him to his biggest dog, and it's not one of the RGY500 Suzukis for which he's best known . It was a one-off ride on a factory endurance racer at the prestigious Suzuka 8-Hour race in 1992. "In 1992, Doug Chandler was my teammate, and we were together in the 8-Hour race on the factory GSX-R750," Schwantz remembers. "It was just everything. The bike was absolutely slow, slow, slow. And it didn't handle good . There was nothing good about it. "It was a real sweat doing the 8-Hour anyway, always in the middle of the GP season and a real tiring race. It makes it harder ifyou know there's no chance of any sort of a result. We spent the first three hours trying to blow the bike up, but it wasn't pow erful enough. Even holding it wide open and backshifting, it still wouldn't blow. "We'd qualified about 20th, and we were trying to convince Suzukithat it was dangerous to race it and that if we crashed, then we wouldn't be able to ride the GP bikes. After three hours of abuse we finally got the u ts machine), with a unique aluminum monocaq ue incorporating the fuel tank . And it was overweight and overlong, as Kork explained. "My own H I Kawasaki I rode in South Africa was my worst bike ever," he said. "It tried to kill me regularly. I was using a triangular-profile tire, and at that stage I wasn't experienced enough to analyze the effects of profile and construction. I put some other racing tires on by accident, and that changed everything. "But for bikes that other people would know about it, the KRSOO GP bike was the biggest disappointment. It was a prototype and never a racer. Kawasakiwas trying a lot of new th ings, like the monocaque and also 16-inch wheels. It handled okay, and it had a fabulous motor - powerful and reliable. But fundamentally it wasn't ready for GP racing. Although it could have won GPs if the chassis weight and geometry hadn't been so far off. "It was very heavy, and it was long. The first version was at least 25 pounds heavier than the Yamahas, and that led to the main Wayne Gardner didn't like his 1988 Honda NSR500. Too bad it came in the prime of his Grand Prix racing career. - KENNY ROBER S T transmission so it wouldn't stay in gear. Down the straight it was backshifting by itself. So we finally got them to agree that it was not a project that made any sense ." KORK BALLINGTON 19BO KAWASAKI KRSOO South African rider Kork Ballington had scored consecutive double World Champ ionships on Kawasaki's tandem-tw in 250 and 250 GP racers in 1978 and 1979. In 1980 they moved up to the 500cc class, with a disc-valve square four. In its second season it managed a couple of podiums, but all of the bikes were a struggle, especially the first of 1980. The bike looked large (rather like th is year's MotoGP problem , that the tires would overheat. Because of the long wheelbase, it needed big lean angles, and tho ugh it used to dr ift very nice ly, that heated up the tires as well. I'd always wanted a shorter swingarm, and when that arrived, it made a lot of difference . But it was still much too heavy, and never really competitive. WAYNE RAINEY 1992 YAMAHA VZRSOO Triple champion of a golde n age, Wayne Rainey was also the last rider to vvin a pre mier-class title on a Yamaha. That was back in 1992, his third in a row, and he was leading on points again in 1993 when he had the accident that ended his racing care er. Always a Y amaha factory rider, he picks his last title winner as his worst. At that time, ultimate chassis stiffness was the Holy Grail. The lessons Rainey learned the hard way led to today 's generation of controlled chassis flex. "I don't know I've ever had a bad bike," Rainey said. "Just a bike that needed to be adjusted to be made better. I think we made a huge mistake in 1992, and we definitely had some huge problems that we never really got sorted out in 1993. It helped me when we went back to the production chassis. I remember in 1993 times when [Luca]Cadalora wou ld pullin and say the bike was untraceable. Once was at Suzuka. We won the race that day. "But the '92 bike was probably the worst of all the bikes I rode. It wasn't only bad for me, but also the engineers , with the small budget we had. We had less than half the engineers of Honda. We had a slower turnaround time . I remember waiting eight races for a new chassis. Now they almost change them between practice sessions! The problem with that bike was that the chassis was too stiff. And then we made it even stiffer. "With the bike leaned over, it wanted to bounce around a bunch; kind of chatterbounce. It was real hard to kee p on line WWW.cyclenews com and to change direction . It was a real handful. We also had suspension stiction proble ms, and we couldn't get the front forks to work when it was leaned over. A bike should give the rider instant feedback from the tires. This one just gave feedback from the chassis. But we found out a lot about how the chassis needed to be part of the suspension when the bike is leaned over. "That bike also wasn't real fast. I have the 1990 and the 1991 bikes at my home , but when Yamaha offered me the 1992 bike as well, I said they could keep it. I think it's in their museum ." WAYNE GARDNER 19BB HONDA NSRSOO In the late '80s, Honda was still pursuing a goal of low center of gravity. Wayne Gardner won the 1987 title in spite of it, but the 1988 bike was a step furt her along the same wrong road, and he not only lost the title because of it, but he suffered numerous painful highside crashes trying to impose his stubborn will on a bike that was fundamentally unable to cooperate. "The 1987 bike wasn't particularly good, but the worst was 1998," Gardner said. "Honda's theory at the time was incorrect - they kept pushing the engine lower in the chassis, and the result was, the bike just CYCLE NEWS . JANUA 37

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