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/128336
"Make it the centerfold and my pool room will never be the same." letters to theeditor should be sent to Voices, CycleNews, POBox 508A, Costa !\-\esc, CA92628-5084; faxed to 714·75 1-6685 Of emailedtoedilar@cyclenews.cam. Published ----------------------------------------,..-- lo. MX TV Frustrations Well, tod ay I sat in front of my television with my 2 1/2-year-old son, w ho was all exited to see Bubba Stewart and Chad Reed. Twelve o'clock came arou nd and no motocro ss. My so n flipped - where was the race? I told him to let me check and see if I got the time wr ong. I checked Racer X's we bsite, and it said noon for the 125s and 3 fo r the 250s. While I was online, I checked E5PN 's we bsite and got different times. Well, he re we are 5 p.m., and we watche d a great 125cc race , but we couldn't wait to see my son's hero Chad Reed . Afte r mee ting him in Unadilla, he can't sto p talking about him and can't get e nough of watching moto cros s on 1Y. Here we go again... motocr oss ge ts yanked again for golf. I'm a golfe r, but watching it on TV really sucks. Maybe the AMA and Clear Channel should look into their contract and next year get a real motorsport channel to take ove r. Why does n't our sport get any respect? Would NASCAR ever get take n off the air? Kevin Ruby via the Internet We went through the some frustralion at our house this weekend. Our TiVol picked up the 125s but recorded golf instead of 250s. As for the AMA and Clear Channel, Clear Channel has nothing to do with the outdoor series - just Supercross... Editor MX TV Frustrations have one word that describ es ESPN: Neand erthals . Mike Palmer Pocola. OK Two vs. Four Again Perhaps you and you r trail-riding Iriends pre fer four-stroke-powered "trail bikes ," but that doesn 't mean everyone does, Mr. Vetter. As for off-road competition bikes, the two-stroke is still the choice of most , even with the displacement disadvantage that the fours have been given . If the displacement "pe nalty" were taken away, no one would be buying four-strokes. Ask any pro motocross rider. As for "the curr ent crop of four-st rok e engines in production and under curre nt development," since the two-stroke has been determined to be politically incorrect and the four-stroke politically correct, there has been no research and development do ne with the two-stroke engine. At the same time, the facto ries have bee n trying despe rately to get more power out of the four-stro ke e ngine, make it lighter, and at the same time they are making it more ex pensive and less depend able . The two-stroke technology on the racet rack tod ay goes back to the late I990s at best. Y ur sta tement , "th e fo ur-st ro ke, o which only ignites a charge every ot he r stroke," is inco rrect. T he four-stroke engine has a power str oke every fourth stroke . Th e tw o-str oke en gine has a powe r stro ke every other stro ke - he nce the ' te rms "two -str o ke " and "fo urstro ke." In basic theory, this is why the tw o-stroke makes twice the powe r of the four-stro ke. This is the basis for someone having co me up wit h the idea that the four-stro kes should be allowed tw ice the displacement. It is also the reason the two-stroke has a more insta ntaneous throttle response than the four-stroke. Your fuel-bu rning theo ry only proves that the four-stro ke has a greater combustion efficiency. This isn't a factor in com petition unless you are talking abo ut endu rance-type com pe tition . "The two -st ro ke , howeve r, while making less horsepower than the com parable amount of fuel being ignited in a four-stroke, create s over I000 times more pollution!" Come on , Mr. Vetter, you sound like an "e nviro nme ntal wacko." Think about you r statement. You are saying one two-stroke bike makes mo re pollution than I000 four-stroke bikes . Would that be for the samedisplacement bikes or with the fourstroke being tw ice the displacement? Give me a break. I find you r statement, "T he selfproclaimed protectors of the environ ment are going to try to kill the twostro ke by statute whether we like it o r not - let's just get used to that fact," particularly troublesome. If we all had this attitude, the re wo uld be no trail riding, no off-road racing, no motorcycles , no guns, etc., etc . You get my point . We would all be riding bicycles. Keep in mind that o nce political correctness has prevailed and the two -strokes are gone , the environmental police won't stop there . How about noise pollution? You four-stroke people don't like that subject. The environmental nitwits will go afte r the four-st ro kes and require things like catalytic converters, smog pumps, and heaven on ly knows what else they will come up w ith, like letters do no nec s t es arily reflec the position ofCycle News, Inc. L t el1ers should nol exceed 200 words, and all ore subjec to editing _Anonymous letters will not be considered forpublication. t All letters should contain thewriter's nome, address and daytime phone number... Editor. unleaded fuel, em ission te sting... I see electr ic motocross bikes o n the horizon. How exciting! Acr id smo ke? A pro perly tuned twost roke , in good re pair, doesn't make smoke, with the exce ption of maybe a little o n a cold sta rt from the oil that has accumu lated in the cases . Howeve r, I have a Kawasaki H-2, three-cylinder, tw o stro ke drag bike in my garage of about 850cc displaceme nt, that w ith nitrous oxide will make just over 200 horsepower. It makes a lot of smo ke and a lot of noise, and that sme ll to me is pe rfume. Along with the sme ll of burning rubber, it is the smell of racing. Have a nice trail ride on your trail bike. C.E. Rudolph Hughesville. MD Two vs. Four Finale I was n't planning on getting in on this de bate ove r tw o-str okes vs. four-strokes. Then I read what Mr. Vette r wr ote and I must comment . He said tw o-stro kes are 1000 times wor se with pollution and use tw ice as much fuel. I know both of those statements to be false . I do not, however, know how you would measu re the pollution on eve ry tw o-stroke, since so me are running synthetic oils at 50-to-1 rat ios , and most four-stro kes don't run ve ry we ll on unleaded fuels. I do know that my Yl426 ex perime nt used almost as much fuel, if not the same amount, as my new CR250R. Almost everyone I know who tried a switch to a four-stroke for the holeshot got burned with valves, pistons and cranks , and now are back to the old, reliable tw o -stroke. I think four-st rokes are okay, but let's not muddy the water by saying they 're efficient or good for the e nviro nme nt and two-strokes are bad. Off-ro ad veh icles in general are a very small fraction of pollution in the U.S. - we pay highway state and federal tax on the fuel we use. I think there are a fair amo unt of people who will neve r get o n the four-stro ke wagon. Uke me, they prefe r the zing of the R model. Can't we all just get along? David Mccu llough via the Internet to co nsider, which, hopefully, will finally eliminate the lapper prob le m. O ption # I: The Supe rbike class shall exist of full facto ry tea ms only. The four mo torcycles co mpeting in the class sho uld put o n quite a show. (Remember, Jake Ze mke and Eric Bostrom are not actua lly "facto ry" teams, and are therefore not eligible.) Op tion # 2: Only riders qualifying within 2.00 seconds of the po le qualifie r will be allowed to compete , the refore eliminating the pos sibility of anyone being lapped . And this option increases the starting field to a more rea listic six o r seven compet itors! Of course, if rain, mecha nical problems or a sudden desire to return to surfing or building little model cars should becom e a factor, some of the cham pionship co ntenders may not qualify to participate. Rules are rules. Option #3 : At the riders' meeting, all presumptive competitor s wou ld be given written instructions on how to stay out of the way of the faster riders throughout th e we e kend . Failure to yield way would result in that ride r being judged ineligible to com pete on that race weekend and w ou ld be admi nistered on a zerotol e rance basis. (That would mean Duhamel would not have bee n able to compete at Mid-Oh io after balking Mat Mladin in qualifying.) It certainly makes sense to tighten up the qualifying standards , especially in a class which is supposed to be as professional and elite as AMASuperb ike, but the presence of "factory" teams has never guaranteed a good race (i.e., Formula I, 500cc GP du ring the Mick Dooh an years, most years in World Superbike, etc .). If you are good enoughllucky enough to be riding a "factory" bike with 20 to 30 mo re horsepower, tires unavailable to anyone else, and infinite tech resources, you should have no trouble finding safe places to pass backmarkers. Eric Po Maurer Tucson. AZ Sounds like Eric needs to be riding pinion when one of the lOp Superbike riders comes up on a lopper running four to five seconds per lop slower Editor ... Lappers He's Captivated Ben Bostrom and , especially, Miguel Duhamel have been having huge prob lems with lappers this year, so I have devised some rules changes for the AMA Your pages called "Captured" are sweet. Make it the centerfold and my pool room will never be the same Edwin Bettencourt Jr. www.cyclenews.com CYCLE NEWS • AUGUST 11,2004 5