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RACE WATCH
Different strokes for GP folks?
The press crackles with radical rumor: Grand Prix racing's premier class will switch from 500cc two-strokes to 1000cc four-strokes. Dennis Noyes, press officer for Dorna, the Spanish organization that manages GP racing, reports that Mr. Iio, competition director for Yamaha, is backing the idea 100 percent. Four-time 500cc World Champion Mick Doohan seems to agree. Paul Butler, always an "emi nence grise" behind the scenes, and currently with the International Race Teams Association (IRTA), which rep resents GP teams in the triumvirate of Dorna, IRTA and series sanctioning body FIM, was at Daytona this spring in an unofficial capacity. He, too, ap pears ready to contemplate the end of the 500cc two-stroke era.
It's tempting to be swept along. Two-stroke streetbikes are history. The hoped-for, high-tech clean-up of two-strokes by direct injection turned
out to be too big a gamble to be worth the development investment. Time for change.
But wait. Past Doohan/Honda dom inance was boring, but this season, the racing is the best in years. At the recent Spanish GP at Jarama, 1.15 seconds covered the top-i 0 qualifiers, and Yamaha and Suzuki riders were once again in the top group. Doohan is complaining that the Yamaha is the quickest machine out there, and that Honda is "resting on its laurels." This hardly suggests that 500cc GP racing desperately needs four-stroke power to restore competitiveness. Some sources suggest that the 1000cc four stroke proposal may be more of a business maneuver than serious fu ture planning.
Dorna holds the lease on GPs until the year 2006, and has been actively seeking a buyer. That is CVC Capital Partners, an investment firm special izing in buying undervalued but risky properties, inflating their value and then re-selling at a profit. One insider view is that Dorna might have pre ferred to sell to Flammini/Octagon, the people who have been so success ful in building up World Superbike to its present status, if only they could be motivated to make an offer.
A new owner determined to retain and develop GP racing would be prefer able to one whose only motivation was to sell as soon as it was profitable. One way to persuade Flammini/Octagon to buy Dorna is to threaten to go into direct competition with them. The way to do that is to propose a 1000cc four stroke GP formula-a kind of Grand Prix Superbike.
Flammini, however, has the back ing of Octagon's parent company, IPG, the world's second-largest ad vertising company. This puts WSB in a strong position for more rapid growth. WSB is mostly an all-factory show now, but IPG can broaden its base. This forces Dorna to reply. Since Dorna's buyer CVC lacks IPG's advertising clout, what better reply than to steal WSB thunder with Grand Prix four-strokes?
The Japanese makers fit into this equation, too. With Japan's economy teetering, they must sell product, which means they must boost racing in a cost-effective way. Will the Grand Prix Manufacturer's Associa tion (GPMA) accept GP four-strokes? The vote must be unanimous, and Aprilia, looking to extend its 250cc success into 500s, might balk. As for the others, the cost of four-stroke de velopment is no light matter, despite ho's jocular assurances. Honda is car rying GP racing now, but how long can it continue? Where are the spon sors going to come from?
`[[here are also technical objections. With a 500cc two-stroke top class, one basic cylinder serves 125, 250 and 500cc classes. A switch to 1000cc four-strokes would break this modu larity and add four-stroke develop ment on top. What manufacturer seriously wants to face Honda in an unlimited four-stroke class?
How would it look? The basic specs would be a 1000cc displacement limit, no more than four cylinders, six-speed gearboxes and gasoline fuel. Chassis options would be free. Formula One car-racing engines offer insight; all have pneumatic valves-instead of metal springs to close the valves, air pressure is used. Bore/stroke ratios are in the 1.8-2.25:1 range. Compare this to production-based Superbikes at their emissions-limited, bore-stroke ra tios of 1.5-1.6:1. For a possible exam ple of the proposed new format, let's begin with a 250cc cylinder of 89.2 x 40mm and a bore/stroke ratio of 2.23:1. Picking the attainable piston speed of 4500 feet per minute and a moderately good stroke-averaged net combustion pressure of 180 psi, we get 235 horsepower at 17,000 rpm for a 1000cc Four. In a chassis not defined and limited by production economicslighter and more specialized than a WSB chassis-this would result in spir ited performance. Bear in mind, this is with conventional round cylinders.
I asked WSB tech inspector Steve Whitelock for his opinion. He com mented that one-liter GP fourstrokes would require "monumental technology, and that would need big rule changes. Can you imagine 230 bhp on today's tires?" Four-stroke GP bikes would provoke changes as violent as in 1972, when Suzuki and Kawasaki sent 100-bhp machines to Daytona to race on the existing 60 bhp tires. That year, the phrase "tire-shredding performance" was not hyperbole.
Limits could be proposed, but the class would have to be different from WSB to maintain distinctive appeal. Adding complication is the European and Japanese emphasis on racing production-based, Openclass machines. In one often-ex pressed view, the future of 750cc Superbikes is under threat. If the race-what-you-sell ideal has any truth (who among us commutes on an NSR500?), then we should be racing production bikes.
The gap between the lap times of 500cc two-strokes and those of Su perbikes has narrowed. A Superbike's greatest strength is its smooth, controllable bottom-end ac celeration, which cuts lap times by speeding corner exits. As such, a Superbike engine needs only 20-25 percent more rpm and 50 percent more displacement to achieve nearparity. If relieved of the need to use homologated parts such as produc tion-based cylinder heads and chas sis, GP four-strokes could achieve even more, and the technology-if not the tire problems-would be fas cinating to see.
Is a change to four-stroke power mandatory in GP racing? No, not with the 500cc class revitalized as it now is by new riders and improved performance from Yamaha and Suzu ki. Must the current co-existence of WSB and Grand Prix be shattered by the Darwinism of the free market? In the months to come, the real racing may occur in the boardrooms, and we will hear only the echoes of it.
Kevin Cameron
GP-star supernova at Assen TT
A famous Roman once wrote that to understand the nature of a thing you must ask just one question: What does it do? When it comes to motor cycle racers, the answer is obvious: They race. Maybe they get a little slower with age or struggle to fit into their leathers, but nearly all the great riders who entered the Centen nial TT at Assen, Holland, were there to lap as quickly as they dared. And 40,000 fans got to see them aboard some of the rarest motorcy cles ever made.
Four years of planning and detec tive work went into organizing the event and tracing exotic machinery. The weekend was the brainchild of Arai `s Ferry Brouwer, a former Yama ha mechanic and one-time wrench for Phil Read. Classes for engines dis placing from 50 to 500cc were split into three decades (1950s, `60s and `70s), with riders matched with their former machines-or replicaswherever possible.
Honda and Yamaha got into the spirit of things by not only bringing out their old bikes, riders and me chanics, but by outfitting pit crews in authentic period coveralls. The fa mous battles of the mid-'60s were recreated with Phil Read on the Yamaha 250cc V-Four and Jim Red man and Luigi Taveri on the Honda RC162 250cc Fours.
The MV Agusta pits were equally breathtaking, thanks to a stunning collection of the famous Italian "fire engines." These included 350cc Triples, 500cc Fours and a rare 250cc Six. In addition to Read, 15-time champ Giacomo Agostini and a few select others, American Randy Mamola managed a go on one of the 500cc Fours. The perennial GP run ner-up observed, "As usual, Ago's bike was faster than anyone else'stypical Italians!"
Agostini arrived on Friday like the Pope on world tour, with everyone in the paddock yelling, "Dino! Dino!"
Middle-aged men stood about as if nailed to the ground as the Italian breezed by, still every inch the coolest, most-famous motorcycle racer of all time.
The atmosphere during the threeday meet was incredible, a true recre ation of the GP circus of yesteryear, with excellent paddock access. Fans were buzzing over the Gilera Fours, liquid-cooled Benelli Twins, British built Phillips Four and Sammy Miller's supercharged AJS 500cc V Four. What a treat it was to see so many machines actually racing, not stuffed in air-conditioned museums.
One of the most poignant sights was John Surtees, still the only man to have won a world championship on both two wheels and four. Wearing his trademark open-face helmet and goggles, Surtees was as smooth and fast as ever. "Pleased to be here," he told attendees. "Just giving a demon stration. Not really racing."
Following Saturday's 1970s-era 500cc race, officially a time-trial to judge consistency (few riders took notice, they just nailed it), Barry Sheene was asked what made the meet so memorable. "It's great to see so many old friends again," he said. "Plus, it gives the public a chance to see what a sad bunch of wankers we were!"
Of all the close racing, few classes were more competitive than the 196 170 250cc event. Sammy Miller won Sunday's race on his NSU Sportmax, but another Irishman was charging hard further down the field. "I went out in the 250cc race and thought I would just parade around for a while, maybe wave to the crowd, that type of thing," said former factory Bultaco rider Tommy Robb, who lost a kneecap at Assen in the early `60s. Back then, the track was still 15 miles of high-speed, tree-lined public roads. "Anyway, I spent five laps following Rod Gould around the track. On the last lap, I reckoned I could get past him, and I must admit that all sense disappeared. The old red mist came down again. I just couldn't help hav ing a go at him into the final chicane, but my foot slipped off the footrest and I ended up in a false neutral skit tling across the grass. I cut the corner and carried on as if I'd meant to do it all along."
That best sums up the old-time GP spirit, harking back to a time when racers were big enough to admit they'd lost a race purely on a mistake, rather than blaming tires. "I don't think you'll see that sort of turnout again, and in one way, that's a good thing," said Miller. "I think these things are like the Olympics: They ought to take place once every few years to keep them special." -Alastair Walker
MX update: Henry leads, McGrath out
After round four of the AMA 250cc National Motocross Championship, Yamaha four-stroke ace Doug Henry heads the points chase. And reigning AMA Supercross champ and outdoor MX front-runner Jeremy McGrath is out with a broken wrist.
McGrath fractured the navicular bone in his left wrist midway through the SX series. Nonetheless, he took the number-one plate, and held onto the points lead in the outdoor series until the injury worsened. McGrath hopes to compete in the final six rounds, but with a third of the season already in the books, another champi onship seems unlikely.
In the 125cc class, John Dowd holds a slim lead, following a pair of moto wins at his home track in Southwick, Massachusetts. The Yamaha rider has won five of the last six events at Southwick.
Ricky Carmichael, meanwhile, runs second, and has extended his Kawasa ki contract through the year 2001. The 18-year-old from Havana, Flori da, is the defending AMA 125cc out door champ, and this year captured the Eastern Region 125cc SX title. "I've ridden Kawasaki motorcycles since I was 6," he said, "so my priori ty was to stay with Kawasaki. It's nice \to know my future is secure."
