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/128383
By IN rHE PADDOCK MICHAEL SCOTT Downsizing he belated decision over the reduction in engine size the year after next heals a nagging itch in MotoGP: a lively but undignified argument behind closed doors between competing manufacturers within their racing association, the MSMA. This body, comprised of the four Japanese manufacturers plus Ducati and Aprilia (plus Husqvarna and KTM, for offroad matters), has the privilege, possibly unique in motorsport, of being invited to write and then rewrite their own technical rules. They did so at the start of 2004, proposing to cut engine size from 990 to 900cc beginning in 2007. Then they had another think. Now the date remains the same, but the size is much more radically reduced. And the whole landscape is different. The choice of 800cc, however, reveals other scratchy sores. There are deep concerns about the spirit and the details of the decision, about the motives behind it, and about the power politics of racing - and, ultimately, about the whole nature and structure of the sport. To start at the end, consider the nature of the new 800cc MotoGP prototypes of 2007. Nobody is going to want to give away horsepower. It will be regained in the only possible way: by increasing rpm. To do this, you need special techniques especially electronic, special materials and special technology. Think pneumatic valve springs, just for a start. The prospect is exciting. Rev ceilings will vault from the 13,500 to 14,000 of the blunderbuss 990s, up toward the 19,000 to 20,000 of Formula One. It'll be fun for the riders, too - a step back toward the knife-edge 500cc twostrokes. As a corollary, it will reduce the number of rostrum candidates. Sort the men from boys, in other words, and send a few over the highside in the process. Finally, and to some the overriding factor (far more important than the so-called safety initiative that gave rise to the whole business in the first place), it will be much T more expensive. Riders apart (and HRC's current continuing pain at the loss of Valentino Rossi shows they are still a factor in racing), everything else in the above makes it a charter entirely in favor of the most technologically advanced firm in motorcycle racing: Honda. By no coincidence, they also possess the deepest pockets. How has such a Honda Charter come about? The power and influence is quite simple. They are the dominant force in every way and were not happy with the cut to 900cc, openly saying they preferred a greater reduction. And they didn't let go, reopening the debate at the start of this year and keeping it going until they won. Some say HRC was able to do this because its own president, Suguru Kanazawa, recently took over as president of the MSMA, though he insists it was simply his turn for a ceremonial role. It probably wouldn't make any difference anyway. Honda's power is much bigger than just one man. Pessimists predict dire consequences. Aprilia has alreacly gone; rising costs will drive out small men like Blata and Proton KR. The pace of technology will also force Suzuki and Kawasaki to make some hard decisions about how much they really want to invest, because the costs have the potential to go exponential - as in Formula One. Ducati will find itself even more on the back foot. Whispers from the last crucial MSMA meeting at Mugello told of lively debate on the topic of the aforementioned pneumatic valve springs. Ducati, for one, wanted them banned, and with good reason. Steel valve springs are prone to bouncing, fatigue and breakages much beyond the current rev ceiling (and sometimes below it, as last year's Suzuki revealed). Ducati's desmodromics have no such problems. They were overruled. No such restriction was mentioned. Later that weekend, Ducati Corse chief Claudio Domenicali stopped short of fingering pneumatics but spoke of more general fears, of higher technology and inevitable spiralling costs. The message is clear: Smaller engines will be much more expensive. All this must all be music to the ears of World Superbike organizers the Flammini Group. The year before last, they ditched (or were ditched) by the MSMA because of their fiddle-faddling with the technical rules. At the same time, control Pirelli tires dumbed down lap times - and dumped off Michelin and Dunlop in the process. The consequence, so far, has been a more open series with good, if slower, racing. And all the manufacturers who stalked off a couple of years ago, noses in the air, have crept back, in the guise of dealer or importer teams. And since the presence of manufacturers is at the heart of high-level racing, this leads to the crux of the matter. Superbikes? That's production-bike racing at heart. As it should be, it's generally close, knockabout racing. Like NASCAR, the closer they can make it by the rulebook, the better it tends to be. World Superbike is hugely enjoyable - and extremely important. MotoGP might benefit commercially from going down the same route, but that's not where Honda wants to take it. And why should they? Grand Prix racing, prototype racing, is the ivory tower, the pleasure-dome of Kubla Khan, the earthly paradise of the technically possible. It is a total contradic- tion in terms that it should be made easier. If the consequence is one-make domination - well, there's a reason for that. They're the best at it. Let the others sell more motorcycles, make more money, invest more in racing and research, and join the club. If they can. And the same goes for riders. As we've seen, there tends to be only one man at a time, if you're lucky two or three, who can master the hard bikes to ride. Fair enough. Let the others try and learn. If they can. We are, after all, looking for the best of the best here. Well, that's one way of looking at it. The only disadvantage is, sadly, plain to see. The whole thing disappears up its own backside, so excellent that in the end, nobody will be good enough. What's been bypassed in the latest decision is the spirit of compromise, though, of course, it's never too late. This is one advantage in the MSMA:s habit of making the rules up as they go along: They are at least fleXible. The middle course will not please everybody, since this is clearly impossible, but it should displease everybody the least. The 990s have been pretty good, as it turns out: plenty fast enough to consign the two-strokes to dearly-departed land; heavy and powerful enough to make for good racing with lots of slides; difficult enough to ride to ensure that the cream still rises straight to the top. Why did nobody think it better to work at restricting what we already have, rather than obliging everybody to come up with something distinctly new? Well, fuel limits work up to a point, but they have safety implications: You don't want the leader of a four-bike battle to run out of gas in the middle of a fast sweeper on the final lap. Air restrictors and electronic limitations and the like are notoriously difficult to police and, again, generally hand the advantage to those with the most money, and the best lawyers. It was WCM/Blata team manager Peter Clifford who came up with the most elegant solution: Why not limit the number of gears? Engineers would then be obliged to tune engines for a broader spread of power, solving at a stroke problems of quirky, peaky engines and ever-rising top speeds. Needless to say, this was far too Simple for HRC - and their obeisant colleagues at the MSMA. eN CYCLE NEWS • JUNE 22, 2005 83