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/128389
By IN rHE PADDOCK MICHAEL SCOTT Reveling in the Revealing Rain I I n the country around Donington, as throughout most of Europe, rivers were dWindling to a trickle and reservoirs starting to dry up ... the consequence of months of unusually low rainfall. Trust England and its famous summer to oblige. When the motorcycle GP came to town, the heavens opened right on race morning, and they stayed wide open for the rest of the day. It was, said everybody, a typical British GP. Which shows not only how people tend to have fixed ideas and preconceptions, but also how often those ideas are wrong. One might expect a shower now and then over a British GP weekend, but actual wet races are very rare. Three in the last 20 years: 1986 at Silverstone, 2000, and now 2005 at Donington. It's just that when it does rain, it does so properly. And people remember it. There is another general preconception about wet races - common cause among riders, paddock people and spectators (this last group, who have to stand out in it, might have a better argument than the others). It is that rain races are bad, a punishment, and to be avoided. This is equally wrong, most of the time. Wet races are often very special indeed. It's because of the way rain evens it all out. The march of technology is very much toward making bikes easier to ride - not in the sense of being comfy or more docile, exactly, though that is part of it, but in being more amenable and predictable to the rider's every nuance of input. As engineers find better ways to do things, the engineering starts to make more difference. It makes more of the horsepower more easily usable. And it inevitably flatters those riders on the bikes with the most power and the most sophisticated electronics. Just ask anybody who has tried to race a Proton V5 against a Honda V5, for example; a Kawasaki or Suzuki against a factory Yamaha. Some things are simply not going to happen, no matter how much riding talent you have developed, or how far you stick your neck out. Unless it rains. Then even the bikes with too little horsepower have much too much. It takes the high ground out of the hands of the engineers, and hands everything back to the riders ... and what is revealed is fascinating. Take the recent British GP. More of the same, I suppose, from Rossi, who survived more than his erstwhile rivals. Even if it wasn't unexpected, it was still awe-inspiring. It was also interesting that those erstwhile rivals were a prominent pair among the old lags of the grid: Barros celebrating his 2SOth start and 20th year of GP racing; Roberts (on the eve of his 32nd birthday) reappearing as if from nowhere after four petulant years in the post-championship doldrums. There are a lot of strong arguments in favor of clearing the deadwood from the MotoGP grids. Both of these oldies would have been early nominees in any such discussion. But here they were, when riding skill was paramount, the only survivors (after a few brave tries by Edwards) who could take the race to Rossi - albeit ultimately only from a distance. There is another shade here, however, proving that even this counter-preconception doesn't tell the whole story. Because of course there are technical aids to wetweather riding, too - traction control, or anti-wheelspin, if you prefer, in particular. This is something of a secret topic, but standing trackside by a slow corner, even in the dry, will reveal that Honda and Yamaha each clearly have a system that operates very smoothly, modulating the power while still allowing the rider to spin the wheel as required. These systems have multilayered control, triggered by factors including comparative wheel speed as well as engine acceleration. Suzuki (like Kawasaki) has a system of the crudest kind, dropping sparks so the exhaust pops and bangs awkwardly on the way out of the turns. Kawasaki has made some progress recently, but Suzuki's system is clumsy in operation - to the extent that, as far as Roberts is concerned, it might as well not have one at all. This knowledge makes his British GP second place all the more impressive. All the same, what we saw at Donington was still raw riding ability, filtered by very little in the way of electronic or mechanical interference. It's interesting to speculate on the opposite of this equation. In terms of electronic double-think control systems, we are in a time of rapid development. And we ain't seen nothing yet. Even more advanced electronics and ancillaries will be reqUired by the new-generation 800cc MotoGP bikes of 2007. In other words, more and better rider aids. Which tend to flatter worse riders on better bikes, and vice versa. Accentuating the effect that has blighted Roberts' career over the past few years. It's impossible not to admire those who excelled at Donington, and at other notably wet races - like that last one at the same track in 2000. Perhaps it should not be so surprising that it starred two out the same three rostrum finishers as this year: Rossi won it, his first in the 500cc class; Roberts was a close second; and grizzled veteran Jeremy McWilliams was that year's third party. Back to this year, it was of course not only the MotoGP race that was wet. So too was the 250, and it was another blinding flash of revelation, as recently underemployed Australian Anthony West gave the brand-new KTM a first-race second place - although anybody paying attention already knew that he is one of the great wasted talents of our time. Just imagine what West would have done on one of those MotoGP bikes that 10 out of 21 riders failed to keep upright later on the same afternoon. Wet races aren't just interesting and enjoyable. They are invaluable - a microscope on the depth and quality of the talent on parade. Rain makes it rewarding to pay extra-special attention. But if you do want to find a good, rainy race, don't automatically assume you can count on Donington Park to provide it. That's just another racing myth. eN narrow escapes in a race than he has a right to in a season, and then pulled the pin with four dazzling laps at a pace averaging more than two seconds per lap faster CYCLE NEWS • AUGUST 3,2005 103