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Cycle News 2000 02 16

Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles

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30 YEARS AGO... FEBRUARY 24, 1970 Mark Brelsford (87) and Dick Mann (2) slugged it out on the cover a hat hope for Jeremy McWilliams, a factory rider at dently changed their method of frame at the end of last season - Kevin construction. Suzuki ditched built-up Schwantz's best-ever lap of Assen. last, at the age of 36? What hope for fabrications to use complex-section the perennial Ulster Underdog, mounted on the technical runt of the rectangular tubes. Yamaha did the What has changed for the worse? The fuel, for one thing. Secondly, lap times aren't everything. A more W of Issue 116. The action took place at the Sacramento Mile, where a firstyear Expert by the name of David Aldana (BSA) wound up dicing back and forth with the veteran Mann (BSA) for the entire distance, and won the race by inches... They were racing motocross in Perris, California, and Huntington Beach, California ... We ran a small feature on World 500cc MX Champion -Dave Bickers, proclaiming him to be a natural talent. Ossa took out an ad to brag up the fact that U.S. National Speedway Champion Mike Bast had won an ACA motocross event aboard an Ossa Stiletto. Further technical improvements have been wrought since the end of the 20 YEARS AGO..• FEBRUARY 20, 19S0 seemed to have run dry. GP racing's first 50 years have "Heard the one about DeCoster going to Honda?" asked the cover line of our 1980 edition of Issue #6. And of course, we brought a full-color photo of The Man, Roger ~Coster in his new red, white and blue garb. Inside was the complete story on DeCoster's decision to leave Suzuki and join Big Red... In semi-related news, our Lastest Poop section carried word that former AMA 125cc MX National Champion Marty Smith had left Honda to contest the AMA 500cc MX Nationals for Suzuki... We also took the time to make odds on who would win the Daytona 200. Kenny Roberts was the heavy favorite at 3-2 ... Speaking of Kenny Roberts (Yam), "the king" made a return to dirt track at the Winston Pro opener in the I-J.ouston Astrodome and won the TT event. He was leading the short track race, too, before Ronnie Jones (Yam) caught and passed him for the win. seen fascinating technical changes. 500 class, the V-twin Aprilia? Well, quite a lot, actually. The lightweight 500 was twice on the rostrum among the V4s in 1999, and once on pole position - in the hands of former 250cc champion Harada. opposite. telling measurement is the way race average speeds have risen - today's There was really only one point of difference - whether the V4 should suspension and tires are capable of delivering more performance over a have one crankshaft, like the Honda (and the SwissAuto/MuZ), or two, like Yamaha and Suzuki. And technical longer period of time than before. Dutch racing engineer Witteveen has his own opinion. It is the fact that thinking in this rather abstruse area has now apparently gone full circle. engine development has caught up and overtaken the restriction in rear season. There is - at least in the mind of its designer Jan Witteveen - still every hope that the littlest 500 has even more to offer. If this is true, then it will be an unexpected twist in the tale of a technical-development path that had It may be even more true now than it was when the V-twin was originally conceived that the route to better lap times lies through less power and less weight. tire width. "It is as though performance has reached a physical limit. As long as rear tire width is restricted, then it will not be possible to use the extra power or the smoother power now available," he explained. "This restriction," he continued, "would be particularly costly to the new generation of four-strokes, heav- Different engine types as well as configurations have reflected the cutting ier than the two-strokes, and therefore requiring even more power if edge of engine development, as It is easy to understand how one reflected by the one constant - 500cc capacity (a constant soon to be abandoned with the introduction of four-strokes in 2002). single crank can impose very pronounced torque reaction to sudden changes in rpm - seen when a bike Just consider the rich tapestry from the to-the-bone simplicity of the free-breathing Norton singles to the eight interlocking DeWOrto carburetors of Guzzi's fabled V5. Then came rules restricting the maximum number of cylinders to four (also to be abandoned in 2002), ushering in a new generation of in-line overheadcam multi-valve fours that gave rise to a generation of road bikes that has still not run its course. And then they are to compete on equal terms. The tires are already at their limits so it may be even more true now than it was when the V-twin was originally nods its head when blipping the conceived that the route to better lap throttle at rest; and how twin contrarotating cranks are free from this effect, since each cancels the other out. Ten years ago, it was thought that this inert response was a posi- times lies through less power and less weight." It is an interesting challenge to beat the V4s, with a four-stroke or tive advantage, while Honda riders complained of the bad effect of the four-stroke. Now Witteveen is an important torque reaction on their handling. man, since he is head of Aprilia's rac- Now the opposite is thought to be true, at least in certain circles. Some year-2000 heretics believe that this ing department. He is the architect of with the twin. It will be difficult, but it can be done - and it might not be by the 500 V-twin, which he always conceived as a super-250, and he has stuck with the concept through six long years of rather slow development. had learned how to make them sing instead of merely splutter and seize. Give or take the occasional eccen- torque reaction - which is entirely predictable - actually gives the rider another useful element of control over his bike. And that is why it was not surpris- tric, including four-stroke flat fours from MV and two-stroke dittos from Konig and ADM, the successful archi- ing when news leaked from Japan that Biaggi was testing a top-secret Yamaha ... with a single crankshaft. which was far from every race. Enter McWilliams, raging hard tecture for a two-stroke 500 settled In short, Yamaha has built a graced our cover again after winning his second straight AMA Supercross. This time, Bradshaw dominated the Houston Astrodome, leaving runner-up Larry Ward (Suz) and former quite quickly. Suzuki square fours and Yamaha's in-line four evolved Honda. Set that against persistent rumors that Honda has built at least one twin-crank 500cc motor, and the in the past, since they still employ Marcellino Lucchi, race-developing circle of stagnation is complete. makes 36-year-old Jeremy look a They're just all copying each other. There has been stagnation - but also steady improvement. Or, more mere stripling. Jeremy will certainly series champion For 15 years since, V4s have dominated racing, and the way of development has been to make all the dif- 10 YEARS AGO•.. FEBRUARY 14, 1990 Damon Bradshaw (Yam) was on a tear, as he Johnny O'Mara (Kaw) in his wake. The 125cc support class top four read like an honor roll of future champions, as Jeff Emig (Yam), Ty Davis (Hon), Buddy Antunez (Suz) and Steve Lamson (Suz) flJ1ished in the top four slots... Steve lamson was also the subject of a feature interview in this issue... Elswhere, Dan Smith (KTM) continued in the winning ways that made him a four-time AMA National Hare [, Hound Champion, coming home nrst at the Lucerne Valley, California, National Hare [, Hound. In Arizona, the team of Dan Ashcraft and Ted Hunnicutt (Kaw) proved to be the most formidable at the SCORE Parker 400. CN came the two-strokes, once engineers into twin-crankshaft V4s by the midEighties, by when Honda had longsince abandoned their own fourstroke struggle with the oval-piston NR500, and arrived by way of a V3 at a single-crankshaft V4 of its own. ferent machines increasingly similar, both in appearance and in many details, which became almost interchangeable. Four seasons back, Suzuki and Yamaha each indepen- And his faith was rewarded during last season, on those occasions when Harada put his heart and soul into it - charger, in the twilight of his years not that age has ever bothered Aprilia their 250 at the age of 43, which keep Harada honest - no more slacking, chum. It is far-fetched to hope that either . accurately, refinement. Each new generation of V4 has performed better than the last, most especially in terms of making the performance of the pair will suddenly take Aprilia's V -twin to dominate over the established V4s. Then again, I reckon both riders will give some if not all of the more consistent and more easily accessible. Lap times, however, have V4 riders a harder time than they not improved hugely over the past five years or so, and there was even one 1991 lap record left still standing side. eN • Indianapolis Supercross • Rrst Ride: Kawasaki ZX-6R • Adelanto Grand Prix In next week's Cycle News cue might expect. After all, they might just have the force of history on their I .. n e _ S • FEBRUARY 16. 2000 67

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