Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

I By IN "HE PADDOCK MICHAEL SCOTT 'High Drama 'm often to be found banging on about the essential humanity of motorcycle racing. The independent Austrian manufacturer KTM is the liVing exemplar. What a mixture of emotions the orange bikes inspire. These can range from awe to contempt, via shock and hilarity. All in the course of a single weekend. KTM is, by and large, a formerly rather small company grown relatively large in off-road circles. Its racing bikes are virulently liveried. The color is right in your face. In modern GP racing, KTM stands out with an eqUivalent intensity. It may win its first World Championship this year, in the 12Scc class. Whether it does or not, it has brought racing comedy, and humanity with all the good and bad that implies. In among the corporate political correctness of the Japanese corporations and the secretive Ducatisti, this is highly refreshing. Perhaps it's possible because it is basically a one-man business, run by a great black-haired bear with a penchant for straight talking, one Stefan Pierer. KTM has made its mark in all three GP classes. Let's start with the top one. KTM came into MotoGP (or were coerced in, as Pierer now seems to suggest) this year, supplying its V-four engines to Proton Team KR. By a convoluted process, including influence from the BBC and Dorna, Shane Byrne was put on the saddle, and there was at first a lot of optimism. The engine had fair power and top speed, which seemed at least to be a good start. But it really wasn't competitive, with too much top end and too little riderfriendly midrange and throttle response not unlike the Aprilia in some ways, and likewise not really going anywhere. It certainly needed a lot more development. Instead, halfway through the year, to the dismay of all, KTM abruptly pulled the plug, announcing it was going to cease supplying engines. There were certainly mixed emotions about this, but one consequence has become increasingly clear. Right or wrong, racing has rallied in support of the dispossessed Proton team. It belongs, after all, to Kenny Roberts, and the contract details matter little against the affection and respect Kenny has in his back pocket, even from old enemies at Dorna. KTM's Pierer was inevitably forced into the role of pantomime villain, spattering insults at King (or should that be "Saint"?) Kenny, as he gathered his cloak and retreated to his Austrian lair, with a container full of museum-piece V-four engines. A very human melodrama. I The 2S0cc saga plumbs quite different aspects of the soul. Scheduled for a full first season this year, the bike was late in arriving, but made a brilliant debut at Donington Park. Ridden by the underrated Australian Anthony West, something of a genius in the wet, it scored second place first time out. It did also seize during practice and spit him off - a big-end problem that has caused several more seizures and tumbles since then, and remains unfixed. It seized again at Qatar, with West narrowly avoiding crashing. I spoke to him quite by chance, as he stomped back to the pits. Was he expecting new parts? "Not until the last race - if it doesn't kill me before then," was his gruff reply. On his return to the pits, it all kicked off. To put it mildly, West expressed some reluctance to continue riding what gave son, but it is the wonderfully poker-faced Finn Mika Kallio who has taken over. Ice man Mika is up against sprightly Swiss teenager Thomas Luthi on a Honda, and the battle is close. The scene for the most poignant drama was set two weeks before at Motegi. The Japanese 12Scc race was red-flagged because of a crash. Luthi, lying second to Kallio, had highsided. Another rider hit his bike, and mayhem was unleashed, luckily with the serious damage confined to the motorcycles. Results were taken from the lap before, and Luthi was thus credited with second place, retaining a three-point lead over winner Kallio. Now KTM's team boss and engine designer, the renowned Harald Bartol, took everyone by surprise, slapping in a technical protest against Luthi's engine. It was all quite spurious, but he had another agenda. almost alongside on the pit straight, as if to demonstrate that he was, following the obvious team orders - he could win the race, but here he was, dutifully supporting points leader Kallio. Right up until the last 10 yards. Where Talmacsi dived out of the slipstream and drafted into the lead, to win by less than two-hundredths of a second. The faces in the KTM pit were a picture. Delight at a one-two result, dismay at the order in which it had been accomplished. Laugh, or cry? It had to be both, or neither. Bartol was all but speechless. The play between the two riders was equally entertaining. Kallio was livid. Though just as stony-faced as he is when he's happy, this was one emotion he couldn't hide. His verbal responses were as icy as ever. "This was not very clever," he said, in robotic monotone. every indication of being a deathtrap. KTM thereupon withdrew its machine from the race. You might find this richly ironic: Now KTM was refusing to supply engines to itself. And you might imagine that West's future with the firm is now in some doubt. Possibly to his great relief - if anyone deserves to get a chance on a MotoGP bike, it is him, so let's hope someone picks him up. Again, it is the human aspects that are the most powerful - the soul-searching that both rider and team must have gone through to arrive at this pretty pass. At least it gives KTM the chance to concentrate on the 125 class, where in its third year it has two riders with three race wins each. Hungarian Gabor Talmacsi led on points before the midsea- He wanted to spark a debate: Does a rider whose accident causes a race stoppage have the right to be included in the results? Which is not a bad question. AMA racing in the United States, for example, has automatic exclusion, and the system works well enough. So what is the fairest way to do it? The answer was rather lost over the next two weekends of intensive racing, starting with Luthi first and Kallio second in Malaysia, and culminating in the drama in the desert at Qatar. Luthi was in trouble at Losail. Lacking speed, he ended up embroiled in a secondary battle for fourth. He lay sixth at the flag. All interest was up front, however, where the two KTMs were firmly in control. Kallio led; Talmacsi shadowed his every move. Sometimes Talmacsi pulled Talmacsi was the picture of mental confusion - excited by his third win of the year, terrified that it might not only cost his teammate the World Championship, but also himself his job. He explained with a slightly confused tale that he hadn't realized it was the last lap. "All of a sudden, there was the checkered flag - not so," he turned to Kallio. The latter just shrugged, without meeting his eye. I asked him whether, if he had known it was the last lap, he would have done the same. He stared back, like a rabbit caught in the headlights, and finally said: "I don't know... I don't know." This was real racing, real people. And really, really funny. Of course, it evoked memories of another great feud between teammates in the same class - Bill Ivy and Phil Read, both riding for Yamaha in 1968. They had team orders that Read was to be 2S0cc champion, and Ivy the 12Scc winner. Calculatingly, Read decided to ignore them, snatching both titles for himself. The feud made headlines, and a year later Ivy was dead. That was a rather more calculated affair. In end result, however, it didn't make much difference. Both Read's actions and Talmacsi's own were explained by another of the baffled but happy Hungarian's responses. "I am a racer." This situation could have happened in any team, on any make of motorcycle. It seems only natural, given the melodrama involved, that they are riding KTMs. eN CYCLE NEWS • oaOBER 19, 2005 91

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