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/456427
VOL. 52 ISSUE 5 FEBRUARY 3, 2015 P121 You can standardize the bikes, but what about the riders? Surely it is unfair to the less gifted that those with more talent will have every chance of finishing ahead? It's not a new suggestion, though the prime mover for handicapping in the past has not been variations in tal- ent but other factors. In the smaller classes, light riders have always been reckoned to be at an unfair advantage. Hence minimum bike-plus- rider rules in 125 and nowa- days Moto3. Also introduced a couple of years back in Moto2 (the Scott Redding Sanction). Oddly, the same is not true in MotoGP, where the flimsy Dani Pedrosa, lightest by far (official weight just 112 pounds, compared with 143 for Rossi, and a whopping 172 for Scott Redding and 174 for new boy Loris Baz) is thought to be at a disad- vantage, lacking the heft to muscle a full-size racing bike round. As we have seen in Moto3, this can indeed lead to almost the dead-heat ideal. Last year, there were two races where the top three finished within .050 of a sec- ond; no less than 13 races when the top three were within half a second, and only three when they were spread by more than one second. Perhaps more impressive were those where the top six finished with in less than a second, on 10 out of 18 oc- casions—the closest being in Australia, within just .242 of a second. Why oh why is the opposite true in Moto2? Perhaps this downbeat class is the excep- tion that proves the rule. But back to the big boys. Having equalized the bikes, how to equalize the riders? You'd have to apply penalties based on qualifying times. Surgical intervention seems unfair. So too impairing their eyesight, or giving them food poisoning ... even if only a mild dose of diarrhea (all ail- ments, by the way, that have stricken ultra-fast riders in my memory from Kenny Roberts via Freddie Spencer to Marc Marquez among many oth- ers–so I guess we can leave it to nature). Deflating their tires by increasing amounts per tenth of a second would just be dangerous. Applying starting time pen- alties would not only confuse fans, but also be just a bit too Brooklands. Applying weight penalties to the bikes too crude. And there's a sneaking suspicion that the likes of Rossi and Marquez would find a way of positioning the ballast to turn it to their advantage. Then it came to me, the idea that I offer to Dorna without prejudice, and free of charge. The inspiration was a Brit- ish creation of the 1970s, designed to circumvent legal restrictions that limited a new motorcyclist's choice. While a licensed car driver was entitled to drive any machine with three wheels, a learner motorcyclist was restricted to a maximum of 250cc. Enter the "Sidewinder". This was a sidecar, at least in terms of the law, bolted alongside a full-size motor- cycle. The mounting was ar- ticulated on a parallelogram linkage. Lean the motorcycle one way or the other, and the sidecar leaned with it, the whole affair bouncing along while the rider tried to take no notice. Of course it was not able to carry a passen- ger. But it fulfilled the legal requirements, and you could bolt it to any size bike you liked. The perfect solution. Sidewinders can live again. And who said racing doesn't improve the breed? Mind you, Marquez would need a really heavy one. CN