Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

I Briefly... The RC-21 I V Is Staying I nco ming H onda Racing C orporation man- aging director Satoru Hor iike said duringa wide ranging interview in Brno that the RC21 IV five-cylinder Moto GP machine would be raced again in 2005, and possibly in 2006. Hor iike, who's held a numbe r of [obs in HRC, was introduced to the world's press during a series of inte rviews at the C zech Republic Grand Prix last week end. He held a ge neral briefing and a more deta iled technical briefing, and spoke again ove r breakfast at his hotel the morning of the race. He was the project leade r of Honda's F-3 600cc and was in Daytona in 1999 when Miguel Duhamel beat Kurtis Roberts by .066 of a second with jamie Hacking third and Nicky Hayden fourth. Horiike was pe ppered w ith quest ions about Honda's lack of have been e nlarged, the opposite of what you' d expect for help in short er, tighte r corner s, which w as the aim according to HRC. "We tried many kind of combinations, for instance many diamete rs, the lengths, and also th e m ain com binations of exhaust system s in order to increase the perfo rm- ance of partial throttle," Hor iike said. Electronics have also increased dr ivabili- ty. They've also cont ribute d to a form of traction co ntrol. Every ride r can dial in how much wheel spin is to his liking and in each gear. So far, they haven't mapped the circuit w ith GPS to the point that it knows w hich cor ner it's in . D ucati tried using gyrosco pes this year to measure lean angle, but it hasn't worked for Honda and is unreliable. "We used it for test ing, but not for the success this year and the loss of Valentino races," Horiike said. Rossi to Y amaha. His ascendance to the job is part of a minor shake-up in the uppe r reaches of the company which, despite fielding six RC-21 IV's, doe sn't have the The challenge for 2005 is getting the same perfo rmance out of 22 liters of fuel instead of this year 's limit of 24. Horiike said that pro blem has already been solved on the HRC test bench. succes s it ex pected. "O ne of the reaso ns I'm not satisfied is I wanted the Repsol Honda to do better resu lts," he said, re ferring to the facto ry team of Nicky Hayden and Alex Barro s. Some have put the blame on the more senior Barro s for not providing direction in development. Hor iike disagree d . "We think all of our six riders are very good , and also we have good test ride rs like [Tohru] Ukawa and also our own test riders in japan," he said. What HRC misses abo ut Rossi is his per formance, but his ta lent masked some problems on the bike, Horiike said. "O f course we miss his develop me nt skill, but st ill we see a lot more things now which Rossi covered with his skills," he said. "We can see those sort of things which we couldn't see last year." Horiike was asked ifwe tho ught it was a mistake to lose Rossi. "No mistake," he answered. almost fixed the proble m," he said. "Not 100 perc ent , honestly speaking." The machine is set for next year, but not the ride rs, nor the teams, though Horiike believed it wou ld be the same three teams - Repsol Ho nda, Came l Ho nda and Telefonica MoviStar Honda. The maximum w ill be six riders , though few are under contract. Both Repsol Honda riders are free agents at the e nd of this season, as is Co lin Edwards . Max Biaggi has a cont ract with Pramac, w hich should land him back on the Camel Honda team. Sete Gibern au has another year and Camel Honda's Makoto Tamada is free. The structure and ride rs cou ld be announced by the final race of the year, Hor iike said. Bridgest one is in the final year of a th ree -year contract with Hond a, and Horiike said they would not supply them on the machines directly. But ifa team chooses Bridgesto ne tire, that's up to the team. Though they have no official presence in World Superbike, a result of their decision as part of the MSMA not to take part , "One of the reasons I'm not satisfied is I wanted the Repsol Honda to do better results." - Saturo Horiike The displacement limit goes to 990cc fro m 900cc in 2007. HRC doesn't think this goes far enough. They believe that the m oto rcycles are becoming m ore difficult to rid e . "That's w hy we proposed the reduc ed capacity from 700cc to 800cc, which was rejected in the MSMA," Horiike said. Thou gh they'll kee p the 990cc five- There w as also no regret in losing crew cylinder engine for one chief jeremy Burgess, the Australian rightfully cred ited with making the Y amaha M-I Hor iike said they didn't know what they wer e doing. "As you know, we 're not doing World Supe rbike racing this year, but we' re now discussing abou t t he future, including Supe rbike racing in the States." He n ny Ra y Ab r am s year and possibly more , Hor iike didn't rule out changing the bore and stroke. Telefonica MoviStar Hon da's Colin Edwards has had a probl em w ith front - a w inning machine for Ross i. Wh at was missing, Horiike said, was develop ing a be tte r moto rcycle. Barro s is the priority and that has much to do with Repso l's cont ract with HRC. The factory bikes get the new parts first, regardless of their champions hip position. Ho rike said the RCV is now running at 90 perc ent and that at 9S per cent "there' s a high wall, a five pe rcent wall. If we can pass th is five perc ent w all, w e can contin ue to use this RCV for another tw o years . Then we can think about which machine direct ion we should go." On e of the ar eas th at becomes compro- mised in the final five percent is dr ivability. "We think that the prese nt power is e nough, but if we say that the riders say that it's not enough," Hor ike said. "We think that it's quite enough . What we're thinking is how to utilize this powe r." New exhaust pipes and engine upgrades end chatt er ever since Michelin int roduced the new, wider rear tire. Ironically, it was developed after input from all riders , including the Honda crew, who specifically asked for more edge grip. The edge grip came, but wi th it came a disturbing fro nt-en d chatter. 'fi t the beginning of the seaso n, we didn't see this kind of prob- tha t show ed up on Barros's machine were Eleven-year-old motocrosser Brett Downey, from Canyon Lake, California, died on August 19 from injuries he sustained in a crash while practicingat Glen Helen Raceway in San Bernardino, California. According to w itnesses, his motorcycle washed out after exiting a turn and he was the n struck by another motorcycle . Downey was rushed to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead. Downey competed in the 85cc class and recently finished eighth overall at Loretta Lynn's and fourth at the Mammoth Mountain Motocros s. He is survived by his parents, Jim and Kathy Downey, and his sisters , Brittanyand Brooke. If you've been around dirt track and road racing circles for long enough, then the name Sparky Edm o nston should be a familiar one. Twenty years ago , Edmonston tuned the Honda dirt t racke r that carried t he late Ricky Graham to the 19B4 AMA Gran d National C hampionship, Now, 20 years later, an Edmonstonowned -and -built sp rint car has won a VRA Sprint Car Ser ies race at Ventura Raceway in Ventura , California. "We were sitting around talking about it and it's pretty neat that 20 years late r, almost to the day that Ricky won the Indy Mile, my sprint car won a race ," Edmonston said today. Edmonston has been dabblingwith sprint cars for a while now, but recently handed over the controls to driver Rich McCormick, with McCormick driving to victory in the race at Ventura. "Uke with the bikes, I finally figured out that I needed someone else to do the driving," Edmonston said. Edmonston , or simply "Sparky" to those who know him, still works in the movie business and is currently work ing on building "little bugs" for a "Herbie The Love Bug" remake, in which Herbie will do battle in NASCAR. The movie will be titled , "Herbie - Fully Loaded ." .... On Sunday, September 12, dur ing intermission, Glen Helen Raceway will cele brate 30 ye a rs of 125cc National Motocross in Ame ric a . The celebration, sponsored by the Primm MX Collection, will be cond ucted by Tom White and Hal Sanguinetti. White is try ing to locate Ray Co ntinued on page 9 lem so much, but now directed at reliability. The exhaust pipes Austra lian roa d racer Craig Con ne ll was serious ly injured in a practice crash on Friday, August 20 at Le Circuit Mont-Treblant for round seven of the Parts Canada Superbike Championship. Connell crashed in a fast right-hander at Mont-Treblant, slammed into the Air Fe nce befo re being struck by his motorcycle. Connell suffered a bro ken right femur, right tibia and right fibula, as well as a broken pelvis and five brok en ribs. Accord ing to his manager Bill Syfan, Connell undervvent surgery, doctors put a rod in both his femur and tibia. '" just left the hospital," Syfan said on Monday, August 23. "They were taking him for a second scan of his pelvis. We're keen to get him moved [to the U.S.] when it' s sale to do so." we saw ; but now we www.cyclenews.com CYCL E NEWS • SEPTEMBER 1,2004 7

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