25 Years Ago October 1984
25 YEARS AGO OCTOBER 1984
ROUNDUP
The cover of this Ten Best issue, naming the editors' top picks For the year, lent a hint as to the winners with a photo collage, including plenty of red in the tightly
cropped teaser shots. Although Honda claimed half of the honors, not all that was red was a Honda, as Kawasaki’s fire-engine-hued Ninja 900 and GPz 550 sportbikes grabbed hardware, as well. The latter won by default, due to reliability concerns surrounding the new middleweight performance benchmark, the Honda 500 Interceptor. I can personally attest to the reported crankshaft and bearing issues that plagued the VFour’s early production run, as my own 500 snapped its crank during a race at Willow Springs.
• Elsewhere, in a fifth installment of our “How Motorcycles Work” series, Technical Editor Steve Anderson gave a complete analysis of shaft, chain and belt final-drive systems, discussing the pros and cons of each. In a rather prophetic conclusion, he suggested that “belts simply are too bulky for most motorcycles, although they might be used more often in the future on smaller bikes of all kinds, and even on large touring machines where size isn’t such a concern.” Anderson is currently employed by the beltdrive-proponent Buell Motorcycle Company.
• “Roberts wins his last at Laguna Seca,” stated Race Watch. Not so fast, guys. I’ll never forget King Kenny and Randy Mamola splitting wins in the wheelie-fest FormulaOne battle at Laguna the following summer. What a spectacle. Don Canet
