Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

, , By MICHAEL IN "HE PADDOCK SCOTT Fast Is Good! t is (I am glad to say) as I have been pr ed icting. This year, t he Mo toGP bikes have moved fo rw ard . For t he first two years, they were relatively soft an d cu dd ly - more like supe r Supe rbikes than hairy-asse d race rs. Now the te chnology has bee n ramped up. The 990s are turning nasty. T he pr oof? Top speed . At th e Cata lunya MotoGP te sts, jaw s were dro pping like fli es as the be nch mark ke pt getting pushed further. Eve n on the first day, Lo ris Capirossl's new GP4 Ducati went almos t seven mph faste r than at tests last year. Engineers made frantic calculations and deci ded that the new engine had 20 more horsepower t han befo re . As it trans pired, that speed was nothing, and membership of the 200-mph club was no longe r a special distinction. When they all really got going, trying to w in the BMW Z4 in a special 40 -m inute te levised session, the numbers just ke pt on getting bigger. By the end of it, Capirossi had climbed back on top w ith a resounding 347.4 kmph (2 15.86 mph) . Sete Gibernau's Honda was just three mph slower, with two more Ho ndas (Tamada and Barros) also faster than 340 kmph . Phew. I Do yo u find these speeds exciting? I do . They ' re just numbers, rea lly: It is lap times and re lative speeds that matter in racing, and the fastest lapper, Valent ino Rossi, was six mph slower at t he e nd of the st raight. But rea lly - two hund red and w hat! More t han 15 mph fast er t han a F I car at t he same circuit! That' s so mething. Yet th ere is a dark side . Th e numbe rs are heavy ammunition fo r those who want to slow the MotoGP class do w n. It was common cause t hat restrictions are bou nd to come sooner rather t han later perhaps a d rop in capacity to 800 cc. This w ill be a travesty, fo r all sorts of reasons. Mainly because it will completely fail to achieve t he desired o bjec t. Making the engines smalle r w ill not make the bikes any slower, for the simple reason that even now the eng ines fall a long way short of what is possib le fo r a racing four-str oke . Tuning the eng ine to F I specs , upping the revs , fitting pneumatic valves and so on would add another 50 horsepower. A 750 or 800cc racing motor could clearly match the current power, now app roaching 250 bhp, and reach the same top speeds. Wha t it wouldn't manage is t he same torque and the same levels of ridability. In short, they would become evil bitches, more akin to the old two-strokes of the highside era. Safer ? I don't th ink so. Slowing down racing has always been a self-defeating aim. It's certainly that way in F I, and it will be just the same on two wheels. W hy not? But ift hey really wan t to do it, here are so me ideas. Don't shrink the eng ines. Rather make th em diese ls. Bett e r still, ado pt the new hybrid tec hnology, where a gasoline e ngine o perates as a constant-speed ge ne rat or w hen required, kee ping the batt er ies to pped up to po we r the electric motors. Imagine t he wonde rful ozo ne sme ll o n the grid almost as good as the old days of Cast ro l R. And imagine the frisso n as the battery power drops away toward the end of the Mugello straig ht or as they approach the top of the hill at Do nington . The gas engines will start up wit h a mighty hum to boost the final levels of performance . Okay, that's silly. But there is another pitfall in slowing the new MotoG P bikes . Do it more than slight ly, and the Superbikes will be faster. Even the 250s might pose something of a threat at technical tracks like Do ningto n, w here t heir lighter weight pays dividends. Worse still, if they slow them down enough, the old 500cc two-strokes will www.cyclenews.com de finite ly be fast e r than the new dum beddown four-st ro kes. T hey'r e st ill eligible in Mot oG P, at least in theory. It co uld be t he salvation of t he WC M tea m, currently battling to get eve n unco mpetitive fourstroke mac hinery togethe r. Pull some of thei r old Yamahas out of the museum, like t hey did midseason last year, and t hey 'll be th rashing the factories no problem. All t his goes to prove just w hat a ma re 's nes t th e w ho le slow -'em-down faction are making. So let's tu rn to the ride rs for some rea l-world o pinio ns. O n Sund ay morn ing, I spo ke to Se te Gibernau , w ho happ ily said: "These bikes are getting harde r to ride now, wit h mo re po we r. More like the old two-strokes. And that's good . It makes the riders work harder." But it was another Hon da rider who, perhaps inadvertently, hit the nail on t he head - 200 3 rookie N icky Hayden . "I'm doing 12 mph more here t his year t han last year. They' re going to have to put a lid on these th ings. Or move the walls back ." That last sentence, if you want to make MotoG P racing safer, describes t he only workable way to do it. eN CYC LE NE WS • APRIL 7, 2004 10 7

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