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/128332
path to HRC's. This is no works bike - at the end of January we received one of the first production Fireblades, sent it to him, and he started from there, which is why for the first race at Valenciajust one month later, it was so close to standard! It's a true modified road bike - look at the swingarm and the rea r link, all completely stock, and the engine still has the electric starter. "This type of racing helps establish the validity of Honda's products in the mind of the streetbike customer - which is the most important objective of going Supersport, and now Superbike, racing. I'm really convinced this is the proper approach for this kind of production -based competition . The customer can see his bike racing, he knows that it's not so different from the one he has, and if he wants to tune it for track days or to go racing at local level, with a little bit more money he can buy the parts he needs to do so, perhaps from the team he sees racingwith it. It's the ideal sales promotion vehicle for a bike of this type ." This rational approach to the business of going Superbike racing is likely to be echoed next season by several of Honda's Japanese rivals, which were franklywrong-footed by the company's circumvention, via the Honda EuropelTen Kate strategy, of the MSMA boycott that their HRC satellite operation actuallyinspired! Yamaha is particularly upset - especially given the dominance of the new YZF-R I in Superstock racing worldwide, and because it had already developed a factory Superbike race kit for the RI that was displayed at the model's February press launch in Australia, and which was then put into cold storage for this season. Yamaha Europe is set to get even in 2005, once it has received assurances from the FIM and FGSport that the present regulations will have a long lifespan without being tinkered with - especially not to help Ducati, if as seems increasingly probable the presen t twin-cylinder domination of the starting grids is overtu rned in the next couple of years. Yamaha will likelyget that - in which case expect to see two work s-supported teams next season on the new RI, one of them run by The Team Formerly Known As Belgarda,Yamaha ltalia. Noriyuki Haga is being actively courted to return to Yamahaas one of the riders (he was observed having a very long meeting with Yamaha's Klein Koerkamp at Monza!), and he seems likely to do so, with ex-Soocc GP contender Jurgen van den Goorbergh stepping up from Supersport to be histeammate . This will leave Fabien Foret to focus on regaining the World Supersport crown , most likely joined byAmerican pocket rocket Jason DiSalvo, who as a prologue will guest for the team in the penultimate World Supersport round at Imola in September. Alongside the Italian 5uperb ike squad will be a Yamaha France team run by ex500 GP technical whiz Martial Garcia, with the experienced but youthful Sebastian Gimbert - currently leading the World Endurance series on a Yamaha RI with the GMT94 team - as one rider. He'll make his debut on the race-kitted RI Superbike at Brands Hatch on August I st, as a preparatory step to a full season in 2005 with a second rider most likely to be YoannTiberio, currently leading the French Superstock championship - on an RI! Also on Yamahas will be two more Italian-based teams , the Lorenzini by Leoni squad presently dominating European Superstock (who'll bring Gianluca Vizziello and Lorenzo A1fonsi up with them as riders and are already doing valuable R&D on a pair of RIs in the Italian Superbike series), and current Ducati customers Team Pedercini. Still tire series has met with positive acclaim from malt - though not all - in the SBK poddock. Factory ride or no factory ride, Frankie Chili remains the most popular rider in SBK today. The 2004 season could see the Italian rid himself of his stormy relationship with Ducati in favor of Hondas, or possibly Kawasakis. Cost is a key elem ent in this choice for team owner Lucio Pedercini, who after a busy Sunday spent earning World Championship points, as he consistent ly does aboard his privateer Desmo V-twins, then hops into the driving cab of his 10-ton Volvo race transporter and starts the long haul home - he's the autisla , or truc k driver, for his team, as well as the lead rider and team owner! The warm human element that characters like Pedercini represent in the World Superbike rider lineup has been missing of late - time was that if a Hollywood producer wanted to make a bike racing movie, for his cast list he needed only to look at the SBK rider roster to find the British Bulldog will to win as expressed via the Fogarty eyes, a laid-back blond American with a Southern drawl, a tobacco-chewing Texan, a hard-nosed Italian pocket rocket who cries floods of tears on the rostrum, a redhaired Japanese whose on-track antics are as extreme as his off-track manner, an elegant French Belgian with an aristocratic air, any number of different Australasian characters as diverse from one another as Slight is from Corser is from Gobert is from Bayliss. a veteran Italian with a Mastroanni manner and Latin looks, etc. etc. That said, FGSport's rather lackluster PR operation badly needs to rebuild the human angle of World Supersport, which it has allowed to become dormant with the recent exodus of so many of its stars of the past. It's not as if they 're not already there in the paddock - besides Frankie and Troy and Nori-chan and Gazza and Stalker, all among them well worth the price of a DVD as personalities as much as racers, you've got Pedercini, FUjiWara, Muggas, Chambon, Foret (the ayes have it, again!) and many more. But the public can't know what good value these guys are if it is not told about them. That's down to the series promotors, who must present better the personal element this more human class of World Championship racing than Grand Prix has always excelled in - and still does. Back to 2005's likely lineup, and such has been the proven success of Honda Europe 's strategy this season that Chris Vermeulen is certain to be joined by a second rider on the Ten Kate Superb ike, as the Japanese marque goes all-out for the championship . This is odds-on likely to be Karl Muggeridge, leaving Broc Parkes to focus on Ten Kate Honda's Supersport supremacy, most probably with Phillip Island wild card race-winner Josh Brookes coming aboard to complete the Dutch team 's preferred all-Australian rider roster. www.cyclenews.com "I'm very confident with what I see happening in th is paddock at the moment," says hard-headed realist Gerrit ten Kate. 'T he new technical rules and the control tire meant we had a big, big change - but I think it's fair for everybody, and next year for sure there'll be a lot of Hondas here in World Superblke .' The identity of Honda's second SBK team for next season is now decided , with Frankie Chili's PSG-I operation 99 percent certain to run a pair of CBR IOOORR Fireblades, with emerging star Gianluca Nannelli, consistently impressive this year on an old 998RS Ducati, as the second rider required under Hammini's insistence on two-man teams for 2005. All that could derail this is a late approach Chili has had from Kawasaki Europe to run a pair of ZXIORs next season - but whatever happens , the grand old man of SBK and his young protege will be on Japanese fours in 2005. Kawasaki's move to link with Chili is a mark of the Japanese firm's sudden realization that in the ZX-I OR it has a bike capable of regaining the World Supe rb ike crown, last worn in 1993 aboard a green bike by Scott Russell. The time and person nel consumed by Kawasaki's MotoGP effort are the reason there's no factory race kit for the new model - yet - leaving Team Bertocchi to race this season with a near-stock motorcycle in SBK, and also accounts for Kawasaki USAcontesting only the AMASuperstock category with it. A summit meeting in Britain of all Kawasaki Europe's top executives the day after the Silverstone SBK round, also attended by race boss Christian Bourgeois, is believed to have reached the same conclusion as Honda's Manicardi already did - racing sells product , and Kawasaki can't afford not to be there, hence the approach to Chili. Bertocchi will be back for 2005 with a greater level of factory support, but don't rule out a high-profile KHI-backed factory team, too, perhaps even with former SBK star Akira Yanagawa as one of the riders. The prototype works ZX-IOR Superbike he's been testing in Japan is reported to be a missile - "It's got speed to outrun a CYCLE NEWS • JULY 14, 2004 31