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/1337686
VOLUME 58 ISSUE 6 FEBRUARY 9, 2021 P115 ago thanks to the manufactur- ers ceasing production of 750cc fours. It's time for the Supersport class to change. The best news in the change is that the manufacturers have not given up on selling sport- bikes. Yamaha has enjoyed a roaring sales success with the diminutive YZF-R3, likewise Ka- wasaki with the Ninja 400, while KTM has sadly dropped right off the boil with the excellent little RC390. If we check the next level on the capacity ladder, the Aprilia RS 660 looks set to rewrite the rule book for the Twins Cup. This is the first purpose-built sportbike for the Twins class, not a naked bike requiring vast amounts of fabrication work to make race legal. Again, Yamaha and Suzuki are the stalwarts here, but racing an SV650 that was designed two decades ago and costs upwards of $25,000 to build and run at national level makes absolutely zero financial sense unless you're trying to be the next Rocco Landers. Aprilia looks like it's forcing the hands of at least Yamaha, who are rumored to be working on a proper sportbike version of the MT-07 that so many have used to take up Twins racing across the country—a good sign indeed from one of the top four Japanese brands and show of confidence in the class's future. With life at least appearing to be in okay shape in the smaller classes, that just leaves the gap- ing hole of the Supersport class to fill. At club level, some organi- zations have already got rules in place that allow for triples up to 800cc and twins up to 900cc to race against the fours, but this is not the case at national level. In an incredible twist of irony, the much-maligned AMA Daytona Sportbike category of a decade ago was actually on the right path with their rule set when they allowed the Ducati 848 to go against the 600s of the day. Had these rules been kept in place, they would have indeed further separated American rac- ing from what was happening in the rest of the world (some- thing the MotoAmerica owners desperately wanted to avoid), but they would have put us way ahead of the curve in regard to the supersport class and its rather international future. The thing about production racing is there need to be manu- facturers producing the bikes for people to buy. If these bikes are not being produced (no Honda CBR600RR, no Yamaha YZF-R6, with just the 12-year-old Suzuki GSX-R600 and nine- year-old Kawasaki ZX-636R be- ing sold in America), something clearly needs to be done. Heck, the Kawasaki is already 36cc bigger than the GSX-R600 or the R6, so MotoAmerica already has its toe in the water with regards to bigger 600s. MotoAmerica follows the FIM's rulebook—that's why we have insanely expensive super- bikes for the good of getting the next American onto the world stage—but Britain produces way more international riders than America does, and they could care less what the FIM says in its rulebook for what machines race in what class. We don't even have a WorldSBK round here anymore to do wildcards in (and when we did, there was no Supersport class present), so why bother adhering to what the FIM says should and shouldn't be allowed to race? MotoAmerica has the chance to become a leader in the new Supersport segment. People still want to race, but they need man- ufacturers building the bikes and pushing the segment along. The best riders will shine—the cream always rises to the top—and if they have the talent, financial backing and most importantly, desire, they will back themselves and go to Europe just like Joe Roberts and Garrett Gerloff did. The superbike class looks like it'll stay the way it is for now. That's fine, but let's tweak the Supersport class to reflect what's happening in the industry right now, not what happened a decade or more ago. Or we could all just go and race baggers. CN