Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

When Worlds Collide already knew days ago what I want- ed to call this column: \y'y'hen Worlds Collide. My plan was to write about Valentino Rossi, bike racing, and Formula One car racing. lt is a fertile field for comparison, rendered all the more relevant because of the golden boy's recent flirtation with Ferrari, and their recent rejection of one another. It was made more piquant still when Michael Schumacher turned up at the Italian Grand Prix at Mugello for a ride on the Ducati tlvo-seater GP bike. He did two laps with a fawning Randy l'4amola, several times asking him to slow down. Which is fair enough, real- ly: Why should one of history's great- est drivers ever enjoy being a pow- erless passenger? There are a number of themes to explore, ranging from the human side, including pad- dock atmosphere and press pres- sure, to the techni- cal. As we know nothing is techni- cally more person- al than a racing motorcycle- ln a Formula One car, as Rossi pointed out, the driver is more of a robot. The people doing the real racing are the engineers at their drawing boards and the strategists in the pits. The monkeys at the steering wheel do need to drive a bit, obviously, but mainly need to follow orders issued over their radios. And then there's the sheer racing of it. Have you ever found yourself desperately !yin8 to stay awake, while digesting your Sunday lunch, waiting to see if Ferrari or lYacLaren or Williams will manaSe to change places in the on-track parade by refuelling q'ricker than the others? Then you will know the truth of Rossi's words, after a breathtakingly exciring ltalian flotocP Asked if he felt he'd made the right choice by staying with motorcycles, he smiled and said: "The people who looked at this race on TV did not sleep." But in fact we're all gefting a bit tired of this - running down the spectacularly dull but hugely popular car racing to build up the bikes. Who cares? Worse than this. it starts to look like an inferiority complex - and jealousy, at the enormous audiences and consequent quantities of money gen- erated by Formula One. The Rosst- Ferrari affair is over now so why not iust let the F I maniacs get on with it, and we'll do the same in our own sweet way. But there was another collision of wgrlds at Mugello, which does have some it looks almost identical, if a little longer in the wheelbase. This might be, a Ducati man told me, an illusion, because in spite of having headlights fitted, the road bike's fairing is actually a little slimmer and smaller than that on the race bike. We don't know how much of an illu- sion the whole bike might be. lt is not scheduled for production for a year, and nobody actually saw it running at lYugello. A cynic might wonder if it is not just a superb piece of marketin8 - a "show bike" designed to get maximum dimensions, but much softer focussed, with - for example - a wet clutch, to make it suitable for a more general-pur- pose sportbike. And maybe even (don't laugh) a tourer version, with panniers. That was also discarded, in favor of the sharp-edged dry-clutch Superspons machine shown at Mugello. Whichever version they had settled on wor-ild have proved one important princi- ple very clearly, at the same time as redefining the biSSest difference between Fl-car racing and MotoGP The fact that the difference between pure rac- ing bikes and road bikes js really very small, With or without replicas. Who better to articulate this prin- cipal than Ducati, whose very exis- tence relies on this fact, and whose production lines and brochures are not diluted by shopping specials, utility runabouts or scooters- The next step should be even befter - if Ducati's machine goads Japan lnc, into a similar response. Honda already look a bit feeble for failinS to get a V-five in their showrooms by now - even more so Yamaha. Their l'4 I is several gen- erations away from the original. which had some common threads with their Rl road bike, but how easy would it be to produce an inline road-going four with a balance shaft that would be able to share important 14l developments, in particular the Bi8 Bang altered firing intervals that would give such a machine a really special sound and feeling. And where is Suzuki's V-four? Kawasaki's Big Banger? Or indeed Aprilia's inline triple? We can but wait, and in the meantime thank Ducati for showing the wa/, thank Rossi for remembering that truth and beauty lie on two wheels rather than four. And tell l4ichael Schumacher thanks for coming, and have a nice trip home. Cil meaning to us all. Actually, collision isnt the right word. lt's more of a confluence of worlds - racing, and real life- And the point of contact is the lirst road motorcycle based very closely indeed on one of the fine first-generation 990cc HotoGP bikes. Yol] must by now have seen pictures of Ducati's Desmosedici RR, lt's superb, combining beauty and purpose in an unsanitized racer for the road. This is not a new idea by any means, dating back to the dawn of motorcycling. But it is a type sel- dom seen from Japan, especially in recent years. Suzuki's RG500 of the 1980s is probably the closest they ever came to it. Parked next to the Desmosedici racer. publiciq/ for minimum investment. Even I am not quite that cynical, however, espe- cially when under the powerful spell of Ducati's passion. ln fact, I feel I should bite my tongue for even su8gesting it, Elecause a visit to Ducati the day before the race gave the chance to chat to several people who spoke about its development in a way that was clearly genuine. Apparently, they first tried to modify the race engine, until finally accepting that road levels of service intervals and gener- al longevity were simply not within the engine's design capacity. So they drew a new engine. using the same internal 94 JUNE t4,2oo6 . cycLE NEws ,N THE PADDOCK Bv Mrcxarl Scor I I 0 { ti ,. il "t [. I <) j 4 -t I tl ; \ I T ) f I

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