Rc45

RC45

SLIGHT'S SUPERBIKE

WHILE WINNING A 500cc GP World Championship is of unquestionable importance, Honda's strong history in four-stroke racing suggests that a World Superbike title would be of equal value in the corporate eye.

That’s why the RC45, Honda’s all-new V-Four Superbike, was created. At times, the RC45 showed promise in its maiden season, but finished the year without a solitary win in either World Superbike or our own AMA Superbike championships. Teammates Aaron Slight and Doug Polen could only manage third and forth, respectively, in final WSB points, although much face was saved when the duo won the all-important Suzuka 8-Hour endurance race aboard the new bike.

Of the works Honda racers I sampled at Suzuka, Slight’s RC'45 provided the hairiest ride of the trio. Maybe this was due, in part, to the Castrol-sponsored four-stroke being first in line as 1 learned the circuit at an accelerated pace.

Chassis setup, untouched since the final WSB round at Phillip Island, Australia, provided a very taut, twitchy ride around Suzuka. The RC45 was prone to wiggle, easily set off by bumps

in the track, or when landing wheelies with the bars slightly turned.

And wheelie the RC45 did. Thanks to tons of grunt exiting low-gear corners, the front either wanted to push toward the track’s edge or leave the ground altogether. Because the Honda was fitted with an electric quick-shifter, allowing on-power clutchless upshifts, carrying a low-trajectory wheelie through a couple of gears was the norm.

Accelerating hard out of Spoon Curve set the machine into a wobble that persisted half way down the back stretch, acting as if it as had a sticking steering damper. Who knows? It could very well have been as simple as that, but, then, 1 wasn’t at Suzuka to demand chassis changes.

It’s clear, though, that Honda has some work to do with the RC45. Slight appeared to be pushing his bike to the ragged edge all year in a futile effort to stay on pace with Carl Fogarty’s Ducati and Scott Russell’s Kawasaki. As evidenced by Doohan’s NSR500 and Okada’s 250, this is not a position Honda is accustomed to. It will be interesting to see what progress postseason testing brings in ’95.

Don Canet