FEATURE I PROTON KR3
P88
At the end of 2001, Valentino
Rossi had won the final all-two-
stroke 500cc championship,
his first of seven titles, and he
expressed the views of many
when he deplored the new
generation of what were dubbed
"the diesels." Four-strokes were
inevitably heavier and clumsier
than the feisty, highly developed
500cc two-strokes, and thus
considered less pure-bred race
bikes.
Valentino tested Honda's clev-
er new V5 RC211V and said at
first that he'd prefer to stick with
the NSR500. He was persuad-
ed to change only after back-to-
back tests with a revised RCV
yielded a faster lap time.
The battle through the
year had been interesting but
skewed. Throughout. Rossi won
11 of 16 races, and four-strokes
took all of them, although Alex
Barros ran him close at rhythmic
The heart of the
matter: Crankshaft
and casings of Team
KR's first triple.
to overcome.
It was the worst possible tim-
ing for the Proton. If only they'd
had one more two-stroke-only
year, the final iteration of Kenny
Roberts's dream of challenging
the Japanese factories had every
chance of success.
It had begun seven years
earlier, with a typically maverick
decision by Roberts, the former
triple champion now a dominant
team manager for Yamaha.
Kenny was still a king, but some-
thing chafed. He would describe
his factory Marlboro Yamahas as
"sticker bikes," bemoaning how, at
year's end, the factory took them
back. This not only undervalued
Assen, a track of complicated fast
corners and no real straights.
This well illustrated the prob-
lems facing the many riders—in
factory B-teams or satellite
squads—stuck on last year's
NSRs and Yamaha YZRs. The
lighter two-strokes could easily
achieve higher corner speeds
but were overwhelmed in ac-
celeration and maximum speed.
The diesels would get in front off
the start line, then get in the way
through the twisties.
In this way, having a faster lap
time didn't help. Two-strokes
were doomed, deliberately so,
by rules that gave four-strokes a
double-size advantage impossible
