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YZF-R7! YAMAHA RIPS COVERS OFF NEW SUPERSPORT TWIN! FULL FACTORY!

Thrashing Aprilia’s new 2021 V4 Tuono ar An be

EXCLUSIV INTERVIE

OUR OMEGROW HEROES TAKING TH GP WORLD

BY STORM

“PEOPLE THINK I HERE OF

How Sir Al helped launch the TRX850

Back to back on the old and new ’Busa

PLUS COLUMN: JACK MILLER // HOW TO: CHUCK A U-EY! // TECH: TURBOS MAKE COMEBACK

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OVES ADIES

’Busafest

tents

27 MAY – 9 JUNE 2021/ VOL 70/ №23

The only Gen III Hayabusa in the land and we fang it at PI pg 34

THIS IS WHERE YOU START

Ridden/Tested

34 BIRD OF PLAY 40 YOU BEAUTY!

We chucked a leg over Suzuki’s new Hayabusa Aprilia’s Tuono V4 Factory; Supernaked superstar

Features

50 GIVE US A BOOST

After a false start in the 1980s manufacturers are embracing forced induction again. Here’s why

60 OVER ACHIEVER

Our man Cathcart joined forces with Yamaha and Over Racing 25 years ago to break some V-twin hearts

70 CHASING THE GOLDEN TICKET

EXCLUSIVE: Remy Gardner speaks out about being the son of a World Champ and his MotoGP future

Sport

96 MOTOGP RD 5 100 WORLDSBK RD 1

Jumpin’ Jack Flash – and a GasGas gas Rea gets his ton, Redding gets his tyres right

Cover story

AUSSIE RULES!

Jack Miller and Remy Gardner are lighting up MotoGP and Moto2 with wins and titlecontending performances

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amcn.com.au Regulars 10 News/14 Briefs/18 Headcheck/21 Access/ 26 Readers Ride/28 Quiz/ 30 Living With/80 Secondhand/ 82 How To/ 84 AMCN Rides/86 Top Gear/ 91 Old School/92 Rev Racer/95 In Pit Lane/113 Where Are They Now?/114 Gassit

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“IT HAS A VOICE WHICH WOULD PUT PAVAROTTI TO SHAME!”

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ed’s desk DEAN MELLOR

Super exciting stuff

WATCHING THE FIRST round of the Superbike World Championship on Saturday night, I was soon thinking that Murray Hayes had hit the nail on the head in his letter Stumped by Supers (Access, Vol 70 No 22) in which he lamented WSBK “lacks so much of what I love about MotoGP”.

There was six-time world champion Jonathan Rea out in front again, giving the field a masterclass on racing a Superbike. After earlier blitzing the Superpole session, Rea made Race 1 look easy, with the only real threat seemingly his teammate Alex Lowes in the early stages.

Sure, Murray reckons Rea’s domination isn’t the only factor in WSBK lacking the ‘sparkle’ of MotoGP, but it sure is a part of it.

Then Sunday night changed everything, thanks to Scott Redding’s ballsy gamble to run slicks on a still damp Aragon track. Of course, Garrett Gerloff almost taking Rea out added to the drama, but there’s no doubt Redding would’ve still won the race even without Gerloff’s ‘help’.

By Lap 5 things were getting exciting, with Redding ready to pounce on Rea, Michael van der Mark, Lowes and Toprak Razgatlioglu; yep, that’s four different manufacturers in the top five positions, all jostling for the advantage.

Once Redding was through though, the race for first was done and dusted, but there was still plenty of fighting for the other two podium spots. Typically, Rea picked up the pieces to finish in second ahead of teammate Lowes, and he leaves Aragon with a 12-point lead in the championship, but it turned out to be a far more exciting weekend than anyone could’ve thought after Saturday night’s more predictable result.

But when it comes to excitement the Superbikes were still not a patch on MotoGP in Le Mans! I could go into the details here but I reckon you’d be better off flicking to pages 92-93 to read about it in Jack’s own words.

And how about Remy Gardner?! Still on top of the Moto2 Championship after five rounds! It’s been a bloody long journey to get where he is right now, and you can check out his story starting page 70.

It’s been a bloody long journey to get where he is right now

EDITORIAL Editor: Dean Mellor Deputy Editor: Kel Buckley Sub Editor: Phil Branagan News Editor: Hamish Cooper Staff Journalist: Pete Vorst Founding Editor: George Lynn DESIGN Art Director: Paul Andrews Designer: Joe Ferrara CONTRIBUTORS Sir Alan Cathcart, Michael Scott, Ben Purvis, Mat Oxley, Neil Morrison, Gold & Goose, Gordon Ritchie, Paul Young, Peter Whitaker, Don Cox AND NOT FORGETTING Darryl Flack, Neil Spalding, Simon O’Leary, Peter Baker, Josh Evans & Phillip Tooth PRODUCTION Production Manager: Ian Scott Advertising Co-ordinator: Yang Zhou ADVERTISING National Sales Manager: Dale Johnson dale.johnson@amcn.com.au 0403 743 587 Qld Sales Manager: Todd Anderson todd@motormedia.com.au 0409 630 733 MANAGEMENT Citrus Media Publisher: Jim Flynn 0449 801 899 jim@citrusmedia.com.au Accounts: accounts@citrusmedia.com.au CONTACT AMCN Australian Motorcycle News A: PO Box 222, Earlwood, NSW, 2206 P: (02) 9186 9186 E: amcn@amcn.com.au ISSN: 1320-2103 SUBSCRIPTIONS* Six months/13 issues: $79.95 (inc GST) One year/25 issues: $145 (inc GST) subscribe.amcn.com.au Australian Motorcycle News PO Box 161, Hornsby, NSW, 1630 (02) 8227 6486

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the know IT HAPPENED SINCE LAST ISSUE

Yamaha’s YZF-R7 signals new era

YAMAHA HAS BROUGHT back one of its most famous model names to create the 2022 YZF-R7. Based on the MT-07 nakedbike, Yamaha says it bridges the gap between the entry-level R3 and its R1 Superbike.

There will be controversy over whether the new R7 is worthy of the legendary name it bears but seen in isolation there’s no question that it’s an impressive-looking new model.

Although comparisons will inevitably be drawn with Aprilia’s RS660 – another similarly sized parallel twin that also aims to revive the f lagging supersports market – the Yamaha is a much cheaper machine to buy.

Heavily based on the existing MT-07 nakedbike, and so closely aligned to the likes of Kawasaki’s Ninja 650, it has a trackready appearance that uses

elements of World Superbike and MotoGP tech and styling.

The chassis and ‘CP2’ 689cc parallel twin engine, with its 270-degree crankshaft to replicate the firing interval of a 90-degree V-twin, are carried across from the MT-07. That means the power output of 54kW (72hp) at 8750rpm and torque of 67Nm at 6000rpm is identical, but the two bikes will feel distinctly different to ride thanks to a host of other changes.

Yamaha says the engine has a new ECU specification, changes to the intake ducts and exhaust and new injection settings, but more notably the R7 uses lower gearing for better acceleration. It’s not at the expense of top speed, either, since the faired bike’s aerodynamics give it a 15-20km/h advantage over

Yamaha has assigned the famed R7 moniker to its new twin sportsbike

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T H I S

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THE WHEELS ON THE ’BUSA GO…

First local ride on Suzuki’s latest missile

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E XCLU S I V E :

RE M Y

S PE AKS

LIVING THE LIFE OF A RISING SON

Gardner 2.0 on what really happened at…

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COMMENT A LAMS VERSION, TOO!

YAMAHA AUSTRALIA WILL also off er a restricted version to fall within the requirements of the Australian Learner Approved Motorcycle Scheme (LAMS).

Using a 655cc parallel-twin rather than the high-output 689cc engine, it makes 38kW (52hp) at 8000rpm and 58Nm of torque at 4000rpm.

Priced at $13,999 (ride away) and is due to land in Aussie dealers in December this year.

the naked model.

Other changes include a new assist-and-slipper clutch and an optional up-only quickshifter.

The frame is the sa e

upside-down fork, as well as a revised rear shock linkage and settings. Tweaked setup means a steeper 23.7° fork angle (the MT-07’s is 24.5°) , while the wheelbase is 5mm shorter at 1395mm. Weight is 188kg, 4kg more than the nakedbike.

That fairing is notable for its aggressive, MotoGPinspired style. Ergonomics are genuinely sporty, with low clip-ons and rear-set pegs.

The compact nature of the CP2 engine also means the R7 is particularly slim – narrower than the R3 and even the R125 – to get a small frontal area that assists top speed.

The 10-spoke wheels come from the MT-07 but gain a wider 180-section rear tyre to further boost the R7’s r iv n

while on-board there’s a new LCD dash including a gear indicator and shift light.

Up front, the single LED headlight is tucked inside the M1-style air intake.

A 13-litre tank, fractionally smaller than the MT-07’s, helps with the sporty riding position, as does the tapered seat, and there’s an optional pillion cover for the singleseat look. Other options include a titanium Akrapovic pipe, LED turn signals and various billet alloy parts.

The 689cc sportsbike will be priced at $14,999 ride away and Australia won’t get any until December.

BEN PURVIS

arallel-twin 689cc motor is good for 4kW (72hp) at 8750rpm and torque of 7Nm at 6000rpm new fully adjustable 41mm upsideown fork set at a steeper steering ngle than the MT-07 weighs 4kg more than the nakedbike t 188kg fully fuelled but has a 5mm horter wheelbase at 1395mm hile US dealers will get their stock June and Europe will get theirs four onths later in October, Australia has o wait until December

Hamish Cooper

Why it had to be called an R7 THE MORE YOU think about it the more it makes sense. Yamaha had to do something radical to get back into the new Supersport market, which is now embracing twins and triples.

Yamaha says it is offering “a mid-level option for both new riders looking to grow into a more powerful motorcycle, as well as experienced riders seeking a fully-faired motorcycle with Supersport performance that fits within their budget”.

To make an impact Yamaha needed a name linked to an earlier hero model. Reviving the TRX850 seemed an obvious choice but that model was always a budget eff ort and never set hearts racing like the original R7.

Just 500 of these super-exotic, four-cylinder, 750cc Superbike contenders were made in 1999.

Yamaha quickly pulled the pin on the project after a controversial drug conviction derailed factory rider Noriyuki Haga’s run to almost certain championship victory in 2000.

The Japanese giant is in for the long haul this time with the R7. I could even see a larger version emerge using the triple engine of the MT-09.

With Aprilia setting the standard, and highest price, Yamaha has cleverly come in with a budget-priced model that bristles with the aggressive looks of its MotoGP racers.

And that image is just what the emerging middle-classes of the booming Asia-Pacifi c markets are demanding. It will also appeal to Australian riders who are tired of the impracticality of a full-blown Superbike that sits on the speed limit in third gear with the engine barely off idle.

Squint, blur… yep, that’s the basis of an SSP racer

HA M I SH ’ S

LI BR A RY

OF MICE AND MEN [AND MOTORBIKES]

Grandpa Cooper remembers a passed author

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S PO RT

S TA RT S

PAG E

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ASBK REJIGS CALENDAR

Series finale set for return to Phillip Island

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Mystery Multistrada V4 Single-sided swingarm version a road weapon?

Ducati’s Pikes Peak looks like one we want to test…

DUCATI IS HARD at work track testing a new derivative of the Multistrada V4 sporting a single-sided swingarm that will be a range-topping version of its super-adventure model.

It’s possible this will become the long-expected Multistrada V4 Pikes Peak model, already typeapproved in American EPA emissions listings alongside the normal Multistrada V4 and V4 S models.

Like the Multistrada 1260 Pikes Peak, the new single-sided swingarm V4 uses alloy wheels and roadoriented rubber. The fact it was caught testing on a race track is also notable, as for all its ‘adventure’ styling, it’s designed to go fast on asphalt above all.

There is a 17-inch front wheel instead of the normal V4’s 19-incher and the entire front end appears to be

straight off the Panigale V4 S. Notice the Brembo Stylema brake calipers, 330mm discs and Öhlins NIX-30 fork, as well as the forged alloy Marchesini wheels.

If this is the planned Multistrada V4 Pikes Peak, then its engine spec is expected to be the same 1158cc four as the normal Multistrada V4 – that’s what’s listed on the American emissions documents. But it could also be a different, higher-performance model altogether.

The ‘Pikes Peak’ name isn’t as suited to the V4 as to the previous Multistrada super-twin. And motorcycles have been banned from competing at the famous Colorado hillclimb following the death of four-time winner Carlin Dunne in 2019 riding a prototype Ducati Streetfighter V4.

BEN PURVIS

S P I E D!

WTF?! SEATBELTS FOR BIKES?

ITALIAN ENGINEERING AND design firm Italdesign has patented an intelligent motorcycle seatbelt system intended to operate in certain types of accident. It reckons it will work best in the sort of crash where a car pulls out in front of a rider. Instead of being catapulted over the car’s roof or straight into its side, remaining on the bike would allow it to absorb the impact and protect the rider.

Italdesign’s idea is to add a rigid, shell-like backrest to a motorcycle or scooter, with shoulder straps and a waist belt holding it into

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amcn.com.au

Seatbelts on motorcycles?

Yeah, nah or nah, yeah?

PRODUCT SAFETY

BMW PLANS A CARBON FRAME

AS WELL AS dabbling with structural carbon-fibre components on its HP4 Race track-only superbike, BMW is looking to apply the tech to some of its road models. It has filed a patent application that shows a new method to use carbon on motorcycle frames without the cost and production problems associated with a full carbon-fibre chassis.

Using the latest S 1000 RR’s aluminium frame for the basis of the patent illustrations, BMW’s latest idea is to use bolt-on carbon fibre panels to increase and tune chassis rigidity.

Carbon panels are already used in MotoGP, bonded strategically onto aluminium frames, positioning them strategically to tune the flex. BMW differs by using bolt-on carbon parts that allow for easier production and can be changed to alter a bike’s behaviour.

It also means the alloy components can be thinner and lighter, while avoiding the need to weld strengthening bracing into a chassis.

This project has legs because BMW already mass-produces structural carbon parts for its cars, including complete chassis for the i3 and i8 models. BP

HARLEY GOES LIVE

RECALLROSTER

Check if your motorcycle is affected by this recent recall MODEL 2018 Suzuki GSX250F IMPORTER Suzuki Australia Pty Ltd NUMBER OF AFFECTED MOTORCYCLES 359 ISSUE The headlamp bulb thread may vibrate during certain engine speeds and may cause a headlamp to blow POTENTIAL HAZARD Reduced visibility, creating a risk of accident ACTION REQUIRED Contact your nearest Suzuki dealer for remedial action

LiveWire has been spun off to its own brand by H-D

ACTING QUICKLY AFTER hiring Ford’s Jim Farley, who spent $US22b electrifying the automaker’s lineup, Harley-Davidson has turned the LiveWire into its own standalone brand.

With virtual headquarters based in Silicon Valley, California, and Milkwaukee, Wisconsin, the new entity will reveal its first model at July’s International Motor Show in California.

H-D sees its electric-only brand as an opportunity to lead a new emerging market. With many capital cities around the world planning to ban combustion engines by 2030 momentum is building.

Ford is another American giant committed to EVs, with its recently announced F150 Lightning pickup truck just the start of a program to bring electric vehicles into the mainstream by 2025.

H-D’s chairman, president and CEO Jochen Zeitz is on a similar mission.

“LiveWire will pioneer the future of motorcycling, for the pursuit of urban adventure and beyond,” he said last week. “LiveWire also plans to innovate and develop technology that will be applicable to HarleyDavidson electric motorcycles in the future.”

An obvious precedent for a mainstream manufacturer hiving off a brand into its own entity is Ducati’s Scrambler sub-brand, which quickly became a corporate success story after its launch in 2015.

HAMISH COOPER

MODEL 2021 Honda CRF450R IMPORTER Honda MPE Pty Ltd NUMBER OF AFFECTED MOTORCYCLES 550 ISSUE Due to a manufacturing fault, the motorcycle’s drive chain joining link may dislodge, which can cause the chain to detach from the rear sprocket POTENTIAL HAZARD Possible loss of vehicle control, creating a risk of accident ACTION REQUIRED Contact your nearest Honda dealer for remedial action

place on the rider. The backrest is mounted on a ball joint, so it moves slightly with the rider.

A quick-release mechanism, operated by an on-board computer and sensors, would release the backrest instantly in the event of an accident where it would be safer to get away from the bike, such as a slide down the road.

Italdesign’s illustrations show the system on a scooterstyle bike, which makes more sense than a sportsbike as scooter riders aren’t likely to move around in their seats as much and many of them come to two wheels from cars. They might even be reassured by the presence of belts. BP

amcn.com.au

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the Briefs

Did you know?

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In 2012, when Casey Stoner won two MotoGPs on the trot, he went on to win another three, including Phillip Island for the sixth time in a row, to finish third overall for Honda

YOUR QUICK FIX

DOVI’S DRAGSTER

It might date back to 1995 but the Italjet Dragster is still the sexiest scooter out there. And now MotoGP’s crowd favourite Andrea Dovizioso has jumped on board, becoming a brand ambassador for an upcoming version. It’s the latest project he’s undertaken in his ‘gap year’ from MotoGP and, like his efforts with Aprilia, he will be testing it on the track and road.

eM weekend across all three classes

“IT’S BEEN AN INTENSE WEEKEND FOR ME AND MY FAMILY, BUT LUCKILY I’M OKAY AND I WILL RECOVER” Three-time world Superbike champion Troy Bayliss after suffering a C4 vertebrae fracture in a road accident on his bicycle.

Life lesson After two MotoGP victories in succession Jack Miller says his winning streak is due to his confidence building up momentum. Read his column on page 93

Fans are back BSB testing at Oulton Park and Donington see fans allowed back in to watch for the first time in over a year

AMCN’S THERMOMETER

Seven months for R7 The US will get their hands on Yamaha’s new middleweight sportsbike as early as next month while we’re forced to wait until December

Family tragedy A grieving mother in Colorado, US, has died after crashing her motorcycle during a memorial ride for her son, who died in a motorcycle accident last month

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FUND AND FIND BOOKS

Long-time AMCN photographic contributor Phil Aynsley is seeking crowdfunding for his latest publishing project. He is embarking on 500cc Grand Prix Motorcycles: The 2-Stroke Era, A Photographic Tribute and details of how to support this project are at kickstarter.com.

Meanwhile, Dave Plunkett is distributing a book written by f lamboyant Kiwi speedway rider Bruce Cribb called Cribby Story Book – the world’s fastest Maori . All proceeds go to the Speedway Riders Benevolent Fund. It is available in Australia for $28.75 (including postage) from Dave Plunkett at davejplunkett@hotmail.com

UP AND AT ’EM

Motorcycle training school Stay Upright has partnered with motorcycle dealership group TeamMoto and MCAS to give novice riders a ‘one stop shop’ dedicated to improving motorcycle safety on Queensland roads. It involves a purpose-built motorcycle training centre at Coopers Plains and rider discounts on a range of products and services at TeamMoto and MCAS stores.

BE A WINNER

To celebrate the launch of MotoGP™21, AMCN is giving five e-newsletter subscribers the chance to win a copy of the game. All you have to do is subscribe to the AMCN E-Newsletter to be in the draw – it’s that simple.

SIGN-UP TO WIN! To ce ebrate the aunch of MotoGP™21 AMCN is reward ng five e newsletter subscribers with a copy of th s game!

A l you have to do is subscribe to the AMCN E News etter to be in the draw

it s that s mple

Winners Drawn

Thursday 1 July 2021

amcn.com.au/amcn-com-au-subscribe/

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The bike that created a legend

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the passing of Ken Blake THE 40TH ANNIVERSARY of Australian racing legend Ken Blake’s death at the Isle of Man TT will be honoured in Melbourne on 9 June, with the Triumph on which he started racing taking centre stage. Blake’s 1964 Triumph Bonneville will be on display for the first time since 2014 at the Laurel Hotel in Ascot Vale.

At the age of 20, Blake took the skills he acquired through fast road rides in the Adelaide Hills to Mallala racetrack in 1966. Riding his lightly modified 1964 Triumph Bonneville 650 he was soon running at the front of the field.

His talent was quickly recognised by local tuners Les and Dean Jesser. The team, including frame engineer Ivan Ardill, who braced the chassis and sharpened the steering head angle, and John Lord, who made up the fibreglass bodywork, soon achieved Australia-wide fame through a series of big race wins.

An indication of the thousands of kilometres travelled to meetings is the paint scheme, inspired by the colours of the Golden Fleece service stations the team refuelled at on their long interstate journeys.

Eventually taken out to 730cc and running on a nitro/ methanol fuel mix, what was now referred to as the Jesser

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Jim Scaysbrook fires up the Jesser Triumph in 2014

Ken Blake with his Triumph in the first few months of his racing career

Triumph won Australia’s biggest road race of the 1969 season, the Australian Unlimited TT at Surfers Paradise. Blake’s last major victory on the Jesser Triumph was the 1970 Australian TT at Phillip Island, where he beat several TR3s.

Soon after, his life changed when Melbourne motorcycle identity Ron Angel signed him to the first official Australian Kawasaki race team. Blake created another legend when he won the Castrol Six Hour, Australia’s premiere production race, riding solo in 1973 on a newly-released Z1 Kawasaki.

He then beat Giacomo Agostini on a factory MV Agusta at the Laverton TT in 1976, riding the first squarefour RG500 Suzuki brought into Australia. That victory,

KENBLAKE 40THANNIVERSARY MEMORIAL LUNCHEON Wednesday 9 June 2021, from 12.30pm Laurel Hotel, 289 Mt Alexander Rd, Ascot Vale Free entry Drinks and food at bar prices

followed by his third Castrol Six Hour win the next year, set him on a path to Europe and the Isle of Man, aged 32, in 1978.

He had several modestly successful years as a privateer and in 1981 was offered a contract with Honda

France. He’d openly expressed thoughts of retiring but that contract inspired him to give it another go.

As a lead-up he went to the Isle of Man TT again. Racing his four-year-old Yamaha TZ350 in the Senior TT he was forced to start from the rear of the grid after a carburettor float valve stuck open. In typical Blake style, and in changeable weather conditions, he carved his way through more than 100 competitors to reach eighth place going into the final lap.

A few kilometres down the road he aquaplaned on a wet patch of road at Ballagery and was killed instantly. Blake’s body was cremated on the island and his ashes flown back to Australia for a huge memorial service.

HAMISH COOPER

44hp and 37nm of torque

Recommended ride away price on MY21 Husqvarna Vitpilen 401 available at participating Husqvarna Motorcycles dealerships while stocks last.

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320mm BYBRE brakes

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easy shift gearbox

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Ride your own way.

Learner Approved (LAMS) WP ApEX suspension

There are many things about riding that are dictated by habit.

How you twist the throttle, how far you lean and where you go is up to you. The only thing that matters, is that you ride to get there.

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Headcheck

The year was...

3 The events of 9-11 just a week before the Milan Motorcycle show opened cast a shadow over the event, and understandably meant a neartotal absence of American visitors and Japanese manufacturer bigwigs. Despite that, there was still plenty of now-classic metal on display…

SPORT

In just his second year on the international road racing circuit, Andrew Pitt clinched the Supersport World Championship at the fi nal round in Italy. Pitt, the 1999 Aussie Supersport champion, became the fi rst Aussie to win a Supersport World Championship, despite not winning any of the 11 races. He pipped Paolo Casoli for the title by just two points, after the Italian – who led the Championship going into the fi nal round – chucked his Yamaha down the road.

PIC OF THE ISSUE This is Ruben Xaus relieving himself in front of an audience at the final round of the WorldSBK championship in Italy. Talk about stage fright!

AMCN Vol 51 No 07 148 pages, $5.50 On sale 12 – 25 Oct 2001 Editor Ken Wootton

After the fracas that ensued at the Catalan GP on 17 June 2001 between Valentino Rossi and Max Biaggi, after which Max appeared at the post-race presser with claret coming from his nose, we thought we better give the frumpy looking Italian a chance to put his slant on his battle with his arch-rival.

“IT’S NOT LIKE A PRODUCTION BIKE, WHERE EVERYONE CAN RIDE IT AT THE LIMIT. WHEN THE TYRES GO OFF AFTER 10 LAPS, IT’S GOING TO NEED FINESSE, AND ONLY A FEW PEOPLE WILL BE ABLE TO RIDE IT PROPERLY. THAT’S THE WAY IT’S ALWAYS BEEN WITH GP BIKES, AND THAT’S THE WAY IT SHOULD BE”

He said that?

Mick Doohan commenting after taking Honda’s new RC211V for a bunch of demo laps at the Pacific GP in Motegi.

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amcn.com.au

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FIND YOUR NEAREST DEALER www.indianmotorcycle.com.au *0.00% P.A. comparison rate is available to approved applicants of Pepper Money on the MY19 FTR 1200 Thunder Black, S, Race Replica and MY20 FTR Carbon modes from 1st April 2021 and is subject to change. Comparison rate is based on a secured Consumer Loan amount of $30,000 for a 60 month term. WARNING: This comparison rate applies only to the examples given and may not include all fees and charges. Different amounts or terms will result in different comparison rates. Available to private buyers only with a maximum term of 36 months with a 20% deposit required and no balloon. Terms, conditions, fees and charges apply. A dealer origination fee may apply. Finance provided by Pepper Asset Finance Pty Ltd ABN 56 165 183 317 & Australian Credit Licence 458899. Applications must be approved by 30th June 2021 and settled by 30th June 2021. Excludes special edition models and is not available with any other offer. Offers end 30/6/21 or while stocks last.

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access

OGIO Excelsior Win OGIO’s ultra-padded air-mesh backpack valued at $79.95!

Include your full name and address in your letter, via post or email. Long letters will be cut to fit, so don’t ramble. The views expressed by readers are not necessarily those of the editor.

AIR YOUR THOUGHTS OR VENT YOUR SPLEEN Access, AMCN, PO Box 6, Bittern, Vic, 3918 access@amcn.com.au

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Letter of the issue

Fair dink’em

Over the last several issues of AMCN I noticed that many of the bikes featured have no pillion seat at all and the few that do are often rated “immediately hopped off and walked away laughing,” as per Pete’s better half referring to the HarleyDavidson Street Bob (AMCN Vol 70 No 19).

I can’t be the only rider out there who regularly enjoys carrying a passenger, so how about a feature on

the best bikes for pillions in the various categories and capacities? Do such bikes still exist or have they, too, become victims of the industry’s misogyny?

Ange much preferred the Kato’s perch to the H-D’s

Mark White Bull Creek, WA

Remember when sportsbikes even had decent pillion seats? If my old ’96 Blade didn’t have a comfy rear pew I probably wouldn’t be a family man today! Deano

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“I found his thoughts on being at Ducati extra interesting – fingers crossed our Jack doesn’t suffer the same fate” Racer fate

Cracking story on Peter Williams (AMCN Vol 70 No 14)! I saw Mr Williams race at Ontario Motor Speedway in California back in the early 1970s.

Please keep publishing these stories on racers – I look forward to each one.

Elam Blacktree via email

Bologna bullets

Just wanted to say a quick thanks for the article on Casey Stoner (AMCN Vol 70 No 21) in the last issue; it’s always great to get a bit of inside info on people that have achieved so much! I found his thoughts on being at Ducati extra interesting – fingers crossed our Jack doesn’t suffer the same fate.

Viva Miller!

Peter Williams was often acclaimed as the finest GP racer/engineer of modern times

the Casey Stoner interview (AMCN Vol 70 No 21).

Regarding the Jerez incident in 2011, you reported that Stoner went into Valentino Rossi’s garage to tell him his ambition outweighed his talent, where it was Rossi who went into Stoner’s garage to ‘apologise’. It tells the story a very different way in my opinion.

Mitchell Radford via email

Thanks for pointing that out Mitchell, and apologies for the error. It sure does tell the story in a different way. Deano

Scott Hills Croydon NSW

Arse about

I just wanted to point out you got a fact wrong in your recent edition with

amcn.com.au

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access

NOW EVEN MORE PLACES TO READ AMCN

Your say

Great story on Stoner who was a mind-blowing racing force and who amazingly still gets trolled for having the audacity to arrive in MotoGP and slay like he did.

Just like in AMCN’s inside story, he ‘kicked Rossi’s arse’. And if Valentino is the GOAT like everyone says, then that was some feat.

His 23 wins on that Ducati were awe inspiring but Rossi and his fans decided it was all because of the Ducati’s power and the Bridgestone tyres. VR didn’t seem to like a young Australian upstart stealing his limelight and thought he’d show everyone how easy it was.

But instead, he found it almost impossible to even get a podium in his two years onboard the Ducati, even with that huge budget increase.

It just shows that you can’t argue with popularity. Well, you can but you’d be wrong.

Johno Clarson via email

Miller Magic

It may have been the big week which preceded it or it may have been the beers, but I cried when Jack Miller crossed the line in Le Mans to become the first Aussie since Casey Stoner to win back-to-back MotoGP races. I cried like Jack cried in Jerez two weeks earlier when he finally got the factory-win monkey off his back.

It was such a stressful race to watch – I can’t imagine what it was like for Jack to actually ride in, let alone go and win! It was an emotional rollercoaster – from seeing Marquez leading a race and crashing – twice! – to seeing Jack out in the gravel and thinking the victory was out of reach.

I had to close my eyes when he took those long lap penalties with his knee on the deck and when he wobbled his leg to signal to his team he was thinking about switching to a wet bike, I yelled at the TV wishing he wouldn’t, and I reckon he must have heard me.

MotoGP is so awesome right now, I know exactly what Murray Hayes was talking about last issue ( Stumped by Supers AMCN Vol 70 No 22), MotoGP literally gives me butterflies in the stomach – heck, it makes me bloody cry!

I’ll watch the World Supers this weekend, and I’ll enjoy it, but I sure as hell know I won’t be reaching for the tissues.

Jordy Bodle via email

You weren’t the only one yelling at the telly, Jordy!

That race at Le Mans had absolutely everything, and Jack’s performance was simply brilliant Jack Miller’s Le Mans win had Jordy Bodle in tears

Gary Bentleigh via email

Great news! AMCN Vol 70 No 19 (1-14 April) has just arrived on the shelf in NZ today. It’s 14 May, so we get it six weeks after it’s published across the ditch.

This is now the typical delivery delay in New Zealand.

Is this really the best your publisher and the NZ distributors Gordon & Gotch can do? It disrespects the great effort you and your team make to provide timely news articles to us on a fortnightly basis. By the time we get it, the magazine is already three issues behind and now half of it is old ‘news’. Can I suggest the T-Clamps in these PC times?

We contacted Harley, Gary. This is the reply: “The situation companies around the world are

Sorry Alan, there’s not a lot we can do to speed up NZ

Jack Miller has won two MotoGP races and you guys have not mentioned him in your write-ups. Very disappointing.

Elie Tarazi via email

Lost and waiting

I have a Harley-Davidson Dyna Wide Glide. I have ordered and paid for a new set of keys for the bike as I lost the other one – I asked for ways around waiting as bike would be off road, but it’s not possible.

I have been given a few

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dates for supply – initially three to four weeks, which I thought was bad enough, but was told after four weeks would be 14 May. And now that date has arrived, I am told 27 May! Waiting three months (assuming they get here this time) for a set of keys with no other option from H-D, I think, is very poor. I was told that now they are having

facing with global shipping and supplychain disruption due to Covid-19 is unlike anything we’ve ever experienced. As we navigate through the challenges, we are adeptly managing the effects of disruption, ensuring that we are able to continue delivering quality parts and accessories. Thank you for your continued patience as we worked through this situation to get back to regular fulfillment of parts and accessories.”

Shipping news

Forest for the trees

Hey Elie, what magazine are you reading? Jack even made an appearance on last issue’s cover.

Deano

“I cried like Jack cried in Jerez two weeks earlier” →

Arse kicker

difficulties with suppliers, which is why there is a delay.

The keys, I am told, have to come from America and I am told other parts are difficult to get.

Alan Lewis via email

Kate Peck, centre, is the host of The AusMoto Show

AusMoto woah

Well done to Motorcycling Australia, the first episode of The AusMoto Show was brilliant. The interviews and video highlights showcased a wide variety of motorcycle sport and riders.

Kate Peck is an enthusiastic and knowledgeable host and I hope ratings are high enough to create more than the first five-part series.

Readers should watch/ record all episodes. SBS did not have the show in its newspaper TV guide, but I found it on Fox Sports 506.

Maybe a free ad in AMCN?

Peter Longobardi via email

Too right, Peter. It’s fantastic to see Aussie motorcycling take centre stage on the box. Deano

Stop Beemer time

John Simms upgraded the brakes on his R69S

Just read John Rooth’s column regarding his 1962 BMW R60 (AMCN Vol 70 No 22). I have attached a few photos of my 1961 BMW R69S, because he was saying that he should be upgrading the brakes.

I did this upgrade about eight years ago. If John is interested, I can supply all the info of the parts used and what I had to do.

John Simms via email

I’ve spent 47 years making my old girl go faster so maybe it’s time to get some real brakes.

Thanks John, that’d short

cut the job for me. I’ll be in touch. Much appreciated, and what a beautiful bike you have there! Roothy

→

distribution. We’ll get the T-Clamps out. Deano

“Well done to MA, the first episode of The AusMoto Show was brilliant” amcn.com.au

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Post of the issue The notion of belting oneself to your favourite ride caused a tsunami of comments from readers

#gen3 #hayabu Yes please Santa. orcycles #daine @peterstevensmot #amcn_mag

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Comment of the Issue

Georgina Skene makes a point about the notion of seatbelts on a motorbike

It’s a bit like going fishing and instead of putting a life jacket on, you tie the anchor to your ankle, just in case

Reaching out

Want to see your pride and joy featured in AMCN? The only thing we love more than writing about bikes is looking at your bikes. Tag your social pics with @ aumotorcyclenews on Facebook or @ amcn_mag on Instagram, or fire them o in an email to amcn@amcn.com.au And don’t forget to tell us why you love it.

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mething funny, new, old or wise to say or share? Do it! www.facebook.com/aumotorcyclenews

AMCN’S WEBSITE IS THE PLACE TO BE! Get all the latest motorcycle news and reviews of your favourite bikes at amcn.com.au

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Introducing the all-new Meteor 350 A modern cruiser that represents the eternal essence of riding, making the rider one with the machine and the terrain, primed to soak in the surroundings. With classic contours and timeless design cues, the Meteor is a thoroughbred cruiser, ready for both the open highway and urban commute.

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reader rides YOUR BIKES

If it’s a paddock basher, a for-lifer or a brand-spankin’ shiny new one, we wanna see your bike!

I turned 70 in the December just gone so decided to buy myself a present!

And here it is with my best mate keeping watch.

I have always had fully faired Japanese bikes and this is my first nakedbike – I am absolutely in love with it and it goes like stink! I will buy another bike when I turn 80. Loving life to the max!

Martin Creek

Some of my girls.

Covid times were tough. There have been some changes now, not all good ones.

Geoffrey Walter

Send Fred a photo of your bike, cos if he can’t ride as much as he’d like to, he at least wants to be able to look at more bikes. Email your picture to amcn@amcn.com.au and get it published in the mag!

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Andrew Mobbs

COLLECTION

2021

Race-R Pro Carbon Helmet

$999.95

SCAN ME! FOR MORE I N F O R M AT I O N

mental twisties SPOT THE DIFFERENCE

Who better to feature in this issue’s quiz than Townsville’s fi nest? Pick the four changes we made to Jack Miller’s Ducati GP21, email ’em in and score yerself an AMCN neck sock for winter!

ORIGIN

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AL

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ANSWERS WILL BE REVEALED IN THE NEXT ISSUE

EMAIL YOUR NUMBERED ANSWERS TO AMCN@AMCN.COM.AU FOR YOUR CHANCE TO WIN!

livingwith

Retail price

Distance covered

Fuel Economy

$24,995 ride away

5285km

6.06L/100km

Servicing

First: 800km Minor: 4000km Major: 16,000km

Options added

Mid-sized screen Verex de-cat pipe High Licence Plate mount

1

Take me home country road It’s time to go, but the Indian FTR is leaving us with a wornout fuel card, a depleted deck of demerit points and most of all fond memories of our shenanigans over the past eight months WORDS PETE VORST PHOTOGRAPHY PV & AMCN ARCHIVES

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W

e knew it was coming, just not this soon. Our time with the Indian was up and it was due back to its Sydney warehouse.

Small problem though; I swapped the FTR for a V-Strom in Mallacoota (MCN Vol 70 No 18) and Kel then rode the FTR to the Mornington Peninsula. From there it was picked up by Phil, who took it deep into the untamed (but leafy) streets in Melbourne’s east.

There was a solution. Perhaps not the most practical of solutions, but surely a fitting farewell to what’s proved to be a largely practical big-bore nakebike during our eight-month Living With period. I was flying to Phillip Island to ride the new Hayabusa, surely I could strap three days’ worth of luggage, a large Alpinestars one-piece race suit and other assorted junk on the small pillion perch and ride it 1000km back to Sydney.

With a flea in my ear about the dangers of kangaroos and fatigue from Kel, I rolled off Phillip Island in the afternoon with about 30kg of luggage strapped to the back and in the pouring rain.

Despite the small pillion perch, the generous pillion grab handles, foot pegs and flat seat allow you to strap a relatively large load on quite easily, but it does impinge on the rider’s seating area, so I had to jam myself between the tank and the bag – much to the amusement of the gents from Suzuki.

RIDER PROFILE Name Pete Vorst Height 186cm Weight 104kg

Pete’s Tr ip

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I appeased my range anxiety with a stash of petrol in a one-litre bottle I made my way the 275km to Bairnsdale, stopping twice for fuel and spending the night before I found out for myself what all this talk of the Bonang is about.

The Bonang Highway is 100-odd kays of twisty goodness strewn with logging trucks with drivers that don’t care too much for which side of the road they should be on and make no attempt to save you from spearing off a cliff by pulling onto the appropriate side of the road. And for good measure, there’s a solid section of dirt. The tarmac section is god’s gift to motorcycles – it’s a bit bumpy in places, but amazing. You ride differently when you’re on your own and in a remote area, because getting it wrong means you’ll die alone down a fern-lined ditch – you avoid high corner speeds and use a brake, point, shoot approach and it’s one that plays to the

3

5

FTR’s strengths and weaknesses. The sporty Sachs suspension combined with the 19-inch front and 18-inch rear wheels fitted with Dunlop DT3-R flattrack-style tyres means the FTR never feels particularly stable cornering at a decent clip. And its punchy 1203cc V-twin favours a point-and-shoot method of cornering.

It’s 175km between fuel stops on the Bonang, and with Phil running out at 164km (AMCN Vol 70 No 20) having not thrashed the FTR in my head, combined with my inability not to thrash the FTR up the Bonang, I appeased my range anxiety with a stash of petrol in a bottle that just that morning had contained one litre of Paul’s full-cream goodness. It proved to be a smart move, because I needed it and also rolled into the servo at Bombala with the fuel light on. If you’re doing distance on a big V-twin like the FTR with a 13-litre tank, range anxiety is just something you’re going to deal with.

Once you reach Cooma, the fun is over and it’s highway most of the way back to Sydney. I reached Canberra right on peak hour, which let me break up the monotony of the trip with some lane-splitting antics.

The Hume Highway is a truly horrid road, it’s boring and littered with coppers. In this scenario, the FTR’s cruise control is a blessing and, actually, so is the fact that you need to

1. Yep; you can tour on an Indian FTR. Just tie down your stuff carefully 2. The screen is the right height for Stormtroopers and Ewoks; a bit less so for Wookies 3. Chunky rubber handles most conditions but is not quite the ultimate in stickiness 4. Yep; she gets a bit grubby if you go off-road 5. A one-litre bottle can be your new best friend.

(That is petrol PV, right?)

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livingwith Indian FTR 1200 Race Replica

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1

stop for fuel regularly – especially when night is falling and it’s getting bloody cold. Night’s arrival also reminded me just how great the FTR’s headlight is; low beam gives a nice broad spread and high beam is impressive.

Apart from a huge bag pushing my bits into the tank and having to deal with the fuel issue, I had a ball on my 1000-kilometre trip back from the Island. It’s true what they say, the Bonang is stunning, and the FTR ate it up almost as fast as it sucked down the fuel.

Between us, we covered almost 5300km on the FTR since September last year; it’s done everything from commuting to Sunday backroad scratching and Saturday night hooning. We’ve toured on it, holidayed on it, gone camping with it, ridden logging roads, dirt roads, through mud bogs, creek crossing and in torrential rain all without a hitch.

We executed plans to fit a bunch of accessories (AMCN Vol 70 No 15) – some good and some not-so good. The genuine Indian screen (Vol 70 No 16) wasn’t a winner for either Phil or I, channelling a blast of air at our noggins creating lots of buffeting and wind noise. For Kel, on the other hand, who is substantially shorter than Phil and I (to be fair, most people are) found it quite effective. We all agreed that it diminishes the FTR’s unique and

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4

There’s nothing else like it and you’ll get a lot of attention when you pull up handsome looks. Unfortunately the plan to fit a pannier rack and bag fell over when the rack went on back order.

We brief ly fitted an Australian-made Verex muff ler and then a Verex decat link pipe (AMCN Vol 70 No 19) that does away with the large and heav y catalytic converter. The build quality of both Verex products is stunning and fit up was painless. The muff ler gave the FTR a ferocious sound that is a bit too loud even with the removable dB-killer end-cap installed. The decat cleans up the look of the FTR and saves a significant amount of weight, and we were so happy with it we left it on for the remainder of our time with the FTR. Verex recommends that owners chuck it on a dyno for a tune, but our FTR actually ran smoother with it on.

1. Already at AMCN we are reminiscing about the FTR; Vorst gets the tyre spinning and dirty...

2. ... the screen, which installed like a beaut...

3. ... Bucko reaching for the ground (almost made it, Kel)...

4. ... Branners re-crunching the fuel numbers in his head (get up and start pushing, old man) We threw plenty at it, and it (and we) came back smiling

Finally, we installed a numberplate relocation kit (AMCN Vol 70 No 22) to move the numberplate from down by the back wheel to the undertail of the FTR. Installation can be fiddly and time consuming and if you’re not handy on the tools it might be worth getting your dealer to do it, but we reckon the end result is worth both the time and the cash.

It’s not all rainbows and cinnamon-scented candles though. Getting fuel in the 13-litre tank is painfully slow and it’s something you need to do fairly often.

Kel, being vertically challenged, found it so difficult to reach the sidestand due to the 840mm seat height that, if she wasn’t wearing stretchy jeans, she needed to ask for assistance when she pulled up.

The touch screen TFT dash is on one hand easy to see, and even easier to use, but on the other takes forever to load, and if you connect your phone via Bluetooth the system hijacks your phone so you can no longer hear your music or navigation through your intercom.

At $24,995 you shouldn’t have to deal with rusty bits on your motorcycle, but the rotor bolts and lever perch pinch bolts started rusting a month or so into our time with the brand-new FTR, even to the point that water dripping from the rusty rotor bolts stained the wheels.

And last but not least: the fuelling. The FTR runs rough and often stalls if it’s completely warmed up. And even when THE DETAIL is up to temperature, the fuelling is so S unrefined that it will even surge on C o s t, k a the highway with the cruise control c on s u y s a nd m p t ion Total co activated. s t o f a cces Indian says it has addressed all of $ 2057.9sories fitted these issues with the soon-to-arrive 5 Total ki 2021 FTR, so we’re really looking lometre sc forward to seeing if it has made a 5285 overed Average really good bike really great. It also fu sports 17-inch wheels at both ends over the el consumptio n eight-m so not only will your steering be o n t h p er i od more direct when you’re on the pipe, 6 .

5 L / 10 0 k your choice of rubber will be much m improved, too.

The FTR has won many a friend amo AMCN staffers. Its engine is roaring fu t the lazy American V-twin you might imagine. It loves to rev and encourages you to do naughty things. One of the big attractions of the FTR though is it’s looks, there’s nothing else like it and you’ll get a lot of attention wherever you pull up. It’s a real hoon bike; powerful, nimble and sexy, but with enough comfort that you can enjoy the fruits of far-f lung places like the Bonang Highway. Any wonder it claimed AMCN Motorcycle of the Year honours in 2019.

amcn.com.au

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quickspin

TEST PETE VORST PHOTOGRAPHY FOTO FIRST

2022 SUZUKI HAYABUSA GSX1300R

Bird of Play

With less power and less torque, can the new Hayabusa live up to its modern legend status? Phillip Island can answer that

I

t hasn’t rained in weeks, so the rain has made the track slippery as hell,” one of Suzuki Australia’s techs said as I rolled out of pit garage number 49. I don’t know if hell is a slippery place or not, but I didn’t want to find out on my first trip to Phillip Island for a ride around the famous circuit by throwing a bike down the tarmac. And that bike was the fresh Gen III Hayabusa, a modern icon

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1

2

FINISH LINE

The paint and quality of the fit and fi nish is as good if not better than any Japanese bike at the price point – it looks amazing in the fl esh

BRAKE THE RULES

New Brembo Stylema calipers and a 10mm increase in front rotor diameter have made a vast improvement in braking over the outgoing bike

FAMILIAR FACE

It looks completely diff erent but there’s no mistaking it’s a Hayabusa. The screen looks small but combines with the fairing to off er decent protection

A wet track, one Hayabusa and a Phillip Island firsttimer – no pressure of motorcycles. So fresh that the new ’Busa had arrived in the country only days before my soggy spin around the Island and it was the only one on the continent. After I’d finished with it, it was to go on show at various dealerships across the country. A wet track, one Hayabusa and a Phillip Island first-timer – no pressure.

So because Adam Child gave you the tech-laden lowdown on the Gen III ’Busa a couple of issues ago (AMCN Vol 70 No 20) and Suzuki was good enough to bring a second-generation Hayabusa to the Island, instead of finding different ways to tell you about the same technical upgrades, I’m going to try and explain the stark and subtle differences when jumping between the two.

My first session was on the outgoing ’Busa and I took it very easy on the first couple of laps as I tried desperately to remember the track layout from years of watching racing here, while also

3

1. Vorst puts on his best brave face on his Phillip Island debut 2. Design maintains the ’Busa’s traditional look but with all-new bodywork 3. PV got to compare back-to-back the new model with a red Gen II

coming to terms with 145kW and 155Nm from a 266kg bike with bugger all in the way of electronic aids while it hammered down with rain.

When you’re sitting in the pit garage staring at the large and bulbous Hayabusa you could be excused for thinking that you’ll be doing a lot of muscle work to get the big bus around the track. But those acres of aerodynamically shaped plastics are deceptive. Once you’re seated on the Hayabusa it feels much smaller than it looks and the new generation version even more so.

Even by modern standards, the outgoing bike is still maniacally fast, and handles far better than its physically large size suggests it should.

When you chuck it into a corner you can tell you’re on a heavy bike, but in the wet and challenging conditions, being on a stable and well-mannered brute like the Hayabusa is actually not a bad place to be perched.

Thanks to the Gen II’s lack of electronic gizmos, getting the power to the ground can be challenge.

And knocking it into rain mode takes the zap out of the big girl, which is comforting, sure, but not as much fun – especially when you’re getting smoked down the straight by a gaggle of superbikes.

The Brembo front brakes are showing their age – they still do the business okay, and are certainly better than the Nissin-equipped early versions,

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quickspin 2022 SUZUKI HAYABUSA GSX1300R

1. New electronics made the big ’Busa much less of a handful on a wet track 2. Fit and finish of the Gen III is the best we have seen from Suzuki 3. That’s a big butt, and we cannot lie 4. ’Bars are mounted 12mm closer to the rider 5. State of the art Brembos are necessary, and far better than on older version 6. Dash combines traditional clocks with digital display in the centre

1

but they lack power compared to the current crop of top-shelf calipers from Brembo and Nissin.

I didn’t get a dry session on the outgoing Hayabusa, and it would have been beaut to dial in more of the Busa’s legendary power, but the conditions highlighted how easy the Hayabusa is to get around a track if you can rustle up a bit of finesse.

As I entered the pit garage to await my next session in an hour’s time the rain stopped, and a dry line started to form. I took in the new Hayabusa – it looks so much more refined than the superseded bike, the finish is excellent – it’s the level of fit and finish you expect from a $27,690 motorcycle – and I assure you the pictures do not do the new bike justice.

As I rolled out for my first session on the latest Hayabusa, the clouds did what they do best at the Island and by the end of my first lap, the rain started to fall again, erasing the dry line.

The new Hayabusa’s power and torque figures are lower than the older bike’s (140kw at 9700rpm versus 145kW at 9500pm, and 150Nm at 7000rpm v 155Nm at 7200rpm) and there has been a lot of

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2

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negative talk around that point. I ll admit that I was a little disappointed to read that when AMCN broke the news – I mean the Hayabusa is supposed to be about obscene amounts of power and a new Busa shouldn’t have less, should it?

And while peak power might be lower, Suzuki claims that the latest bike makes more in the midrange and, as I ripped out of pitlane and accelerated out of Southern Loop, I could definitely notice the difference. It’s an increase just where you need it on a roadbike.

If you can notice the peak power reduction, then I look forward to following your racing career because in these conditions I couldn’t feel any difference. Still, from a would-be owner’s ego

It’s an increase in power just where you need it on a roadbike

point of view, higher power and torque figures over the old model is kind of a must.

It’s braking heavily for the first time heading into the turn-four hairpin where you notice how much the new Brembo Stylema brakes and bigger 320mm discs have improved the braking performance. There’s far more power and loads more feel, and you’re backed-up by lean-anglesensitive ABS – and in these sketchy conditions and on the only example in the country, that’s worth every dollar over the outgoing model alone.

I also took a short road ride where every wallaby and cantankerous goose on the Island seemed to dart in front of the big ’Busa, and it cemented just how responsive and powerful the new anchors are and how the Bosch IMU’s computing power can keep you from being that guy who dropped the only generation III Hayabusa in town.

The ’Busa now features a full suite of electronic wizardry, with multiple ride modes, launch control, engine braking control, cruise control and hill hold control. The cornering traction control keeps the rear tyre in check as you accelerate hard out of Siberia allowing the rear

amcn.com.au

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quickspin

1. PV found the ’Busa to be quite adept at avoiding endangered Victorian wildlife 2. ’Busa nirvana; a lefthand switchblock that controls its advanced electronics

2022 SUZUKI HAYABUSA GSX1300R

SPECS ENGINE

Capacity 1340cc Type In-line four, DOHC, 16 valves Bore & stroke 81 x 65mm Compression ratio 12.6:1 Cooling Liquid Fueling EFI Transmission Six-speed Clutch Wet, multi-plate Final drive Chain

PERFORMANCE

Power 140kW @ 9700rpm Torque 150Nm @ 7000rpm (claimed) Top speed 299km/h (limited) Fuel consumption 6.7L/100km (claimed)

ELECTRONICS

1

The engine retains that trademark Hayabusa/GSX-R rawness 2

to slide without getting out of control and it’s especially reassuring as you fire over Lukey Heights. It’s a proper modern system and I felt way more confident pushing on the latest generation than I did on the Gen II. It keeps you in control in a smooth and predictable way, which is exactly what it should do.

And the confidence is not only inspired by the electronics. Although the frame remains essentially the same, geometry changes and updates to the fully adjustable KYB suspension have conspired to create a more stable, yet lighter feeling and more flickable Hayabusa. This was

especially noticeable as you head down from Lukey Heights and pitch the bike on its side to gingerly negotiate the turn 10 hairpin.

The new bike isn’t just better in the slowspeed stuff, though, it’s even better in fast turns where the outgoing bike – and especially the first-generation version – required a great deal of muscle to turn in or change direction mid corner.

Its increased nimbleness and stability are very apparent as you round turns 11 and 12. A stab at the left-hand ’bar gets the ’Busa turned, and it’s absolutely rock solid as you power onto the straight and let the 1340cc four-cylinder engine have its way, rear tyre squirming until you’re back upright and on the middle of the tyre.

The engine has been extensively updated, but it retains that trademark Hayabusa/GSX-R rawness.

There’s no lack of power and you make ground on the litre bikes until they build revs, then they move ahead until the Busa’s aero package comes into effect and you start to reel them in. By then it’s time to tip into turn one and it all starts again.

I’ll confess that I’m a total fanboy of both the first- and second-generation Hayabusas. Am I biased? No; if anything my expectations of the new model were higher because of that. I was disappointed when I saw the latest offering makes less power and I really, really wanted it to have a turbo lashed to it, but the truth is it’s got more than enough power anyway and makes better use of what it does have due to its fancy new electronics.

On top of that, handling and braking have improved and it’s a well sorted, modern and stylish Hayabusa fit for a new decade.

2022 SUZUKI HAYABUSA GSX1300R It’s now got the tech to save your bacon and get all that power to the ground.

Improved brakes, handling and midrange

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PROS CONS

Down on power and torque over the old model and that impacts your bragging rights. The price is up significantly

Type Bosch Rider aids: Cornering ABS, cornering traction control, wheelie control, launch control, engine brake assist, hill assist, quick shift, cruise control Ride modes: Active, Basic and Comfort

CHASSIS

Frame material Cast aluminium Frame type Twin spar Rake 23˚ Trail 90mm Wheelbase 1480mm

SUSPENSION

Type KYB Front: 43mm USD fork, fully adjustable, 120mm travel Rear: Monoshock, fully adjustable, 140mm travel

WHEELS & BRAKES

Wheels 7-spoke aluminium Front: 17 x 3.5 Rear: 17 x 6 Tyres Bridgestone Battlax S22 Front: 120/70ZR17 Rear: 190/50ZR17 Brakes Brembo/Nissin, ABS Front: Dual 320mm discs, Stylema four piston calipers Rear: Single 260mm disc, single-piston caliper

DIMENSIONS

Weight 264kg (kerb, claimed) Seat height 800mm Width 735mm Height 1165mm Length 2180mm Ground clearance 125mm Fuel capacity 20L

SERVICING & WARRANTY Servicing First: 1000km Minor: 12,000km Major: 24,000km Warranty Two years, unlimited km

BUSINESS END

Price $27,690 (ride away) Colour options Glass Sparkle Black/Candy Burnt Gold or Metallic Matte Sword Silver/ Candy Daring Red Contact suzukimotorcycles.com.au

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FIRST RIDE

2021 APRILIA TUONO V4 FACTORY

U O Y !

Y E B CHILD

w of t n i ca e t a t s a d i t n S h rm a ost sop a g n i sw the m

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2021 APRILIA TUONO V4 FACTORY

t does sound amazing, even at idle. I know from experience that Aprilia’s V4 has always had a distinctive chorus but now, with more rpm to play with this has magnified the experience to overindulgent levels.

Leaving the famous pitlane at Misano, and the new Factory sounds magnificent, the V4 blasting pulsating vibrations off the pit wall. Does it get any better than this? Out on to the track on preheated Pirelli slicks the bike is straight into it, accelerating hard to join the swarm of Italian racers already up to race speed.

The noise is gorgeous, it has a voice which would put Pavarotti to shame! This is accompanied by the smoothest of quickshifters I’ve experienced on a roadbike. The changes are quick, perfectly matched in rpm.

The fuelling and throttle response, like the clutchless gear changes, are f lawless. Aprilia has updated the electronics with a new Magneti Marelli ECU, which is essentially the brain that controls the fuelling and rider aids. This is four times faster than the previous ECU, which results in possibly one of the most, perfectly fuelled bikes I’ve ever ridden – even in the aggressive Race mode (one of six modes to choose from). I always praised the old bike’s fuelling and electronic rider aids, especially the quickshifter, which I didn’t think could be improved. But it has.

From leaving pitlane, the new Tuono felt like my bike and one I’d owned for years.

The fuelling and shifts instantly boost rider faith in that all-important connection between rider, bike and road. I’m pushing hard from lap two on an unfamiliar racetrack.

The new Tuono may ‘only’ have 129kW (175hp) which, on paper is considerably less than the Italian competition from Ducati and MV Agusta, but every kilowatt is functioning. Nothing goes to waste, meaning you can use every last bit.

Make no mistake; it’s fast, accelerates hard, but it’s not crushing, and the rider aids are outstanding.

Aprilia’s anti-wheelie is as good as it gets, balancing the front wheel lift while still accelerating. I congratulate the fact that the traction control can be changed on the move, even at 100 per cent throttle. Unlike other nakedbikes in this hotly contested category, that small aerodynamic top fairing, now with builtin winglets, offers some wind protection. But does raise the question, is it a true naked?

The combination of the fuelling, rider aids, gearbox, power delivery and the aero-package

THE NOISE IS GORGEOUS, IT HAS A VOICE WHICH WOULD PUT PAVAROTTI TO SHAME!

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1. STAYING PUT Aprilia has been forced to conform to tight Euro-5 emissions regulations but, unlike the RSV4, hasn’t increased engine capacity for 2021 – staying instead at 1077cc.

2. EURO VISION The Italians have managed to clean up the V4 with a completely new and lighter exhaust and revised fuelling.

Peak power and torque remain the same at 129Kw at 11,350rpm and 121Nm @ 9000rpm, respectively.

3. GIVE ME FIVE

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The familiarly narrow 65-degree V4 has been tickled, which has increased the maximum rpm by 300, from 12,500rpm to 12,800rpm, and according to Aprilia this gains an extra 5km/h in top speed.

4. RACE MODE

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Race mode automatically sets the Öhlins semi-active suspension to A1 (active 1), a setting purposely optimised for track use with slicks, as used on this test.

5. ON THE STOPS

Simply fi tting the best brakes and pads doesn’t automatically equate to excellent braking.

You must also have grip and feel supplied via the tyre, fork, chassis, electronics and rider aids. Tick!

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6. BOX FOR BRAINS

A Magneti Marelli ECU is key to the advanced rider aids, now able to operate four times faster than the previous ECU and has four times as much memory, too. This is linked to the six-axis IMU.

7. CLICKETY CLICK

There are six riding modes – three for the track and three for the road –which link to the rider aids and act accordingly to set the semi-active Öhlins suspension.

1. Our man Child ‘cheated’ a bit by riding the Tuono on slicks at Misano 2. The wings-ona-naked concept might be cheating a bit too – but they add to stability 3. Top of the range Öhlins suspension is highly adjustable thanks to new ECU and six-axis IMU

make the Factory ultra-usable on track and, relative to the competition, easy to ride, too.

Certainly less physical than the competition, like the Ducati Streetfighter V4.

Aprilia arguably bent the rules for a roadbike launch by fitting Pirelli SC1 slick (Pirelli Diablo Supercorsa are the standard fitment) tyres and it dialled in the perfect setting for the very grippy Misano racetrack, but it illustrated what the Tuono is capable of – and it is mighty.

You can change the electronic Öhlins suspension, compensate for the rider’s weight and conditions, or even revert to the manual modes without semi-active assistance. But I stayed with the recommend A1 settings, which for my style and weight were impeccable.

Nothing seems to unsettle or worry the new

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1. Brembo monoblocs are becoming de rigeur for ultraperformance bikes, for good reason 2. Revised swingarm is the most visible update over the previous model 3. Choose your Tuono; L, the Tuono V4 Factory and the ‘standard’ Tuono V4

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Tuono; it makes life easy. Brake late and you still hit the apex with perfect precision. Accelerate early and it continues to hold its line. Everything is controlled. You’re not panicking, it doesn’t feel like you are rushing or in a fight, you have more time to choose your lines and braking points.

The slicks combined with the track’s MotoGPspec surface meant grip was never a concern.

The newly formed fuel tank allows you to move around freely while still offering support. And ground clearance isn’t an issue, which is handy, because the Tuono likes to lay on its side like an obedient dog.

The new fairing – yes, a fairing on a naked bike – with built-in winglets is designed to enhance high-speed stability by boosting downforce. In the A1 setup (automatic suspension), I had very slight ’bar movement at the very top of fifth gear, but it was virtually nothing. On some models, electronic semi-active suspension can feel a little vague. But this wasn’t the case with the new Tuono. The translation from the suspension and tyres was spot on.

Brakes continue as the same M50 Brembo calipers found on the previous model.

Three-level cornering ABS (co-designed with Bosch) allows ABS to be removed from the rear should you wish.

The system works in partnership with the Rear Lift Mitigation (RLM), which prevents the rear wheel from rising during braking.

Aprilia Engine Brake (AEB), which adjusts the engine brake control, is brand new for 2021 and is now independent of the selected engine maps. You can now personalise and trim the engine braking ‘strategy’; AEB also takes lean angle and acceleration into consideration as you brake and roll into a turn, for example. Although the mechanical components of the brakes have remained unchanged, the algorithms and calculations activating the system are quicker – the ABS is more alert.

Away from the racetrack and living with the Tuono, the Aprilia has always scored highly against the competition. A lot of this is because it’s not fully naked and the small top fairing def lects some of the windblast. It’s the most bearable at speed. The reshaped tank’s capacity is 18.5L and Aprilia quotes consumption at 7.2L/100km. This was a track-only test, so I didn’t get a measured consumption figure, but if Aprilia is to be believed, on the road you should be looking for fuel around the 220-kay mark.

IT S NOT FULLY NAKED AND THE SMALL TOP FAIRING DEFLECTS SOME OF THE WIND BLAST

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From a single platform, Aprilia has built two remarkably different motorcycles FOR 2021 APRILIA has produced two quite different versions of its hypernaked: the standard Tuono V4 and the Tuono V4 Factory. The standard version is very much a break with habit; with a larger top fairing, higher ’bars, a comfier seat, grab handles even, lower pillion ’pegs and a taller top gear, you could almost describe it as reasonable.

It is focused on practicality and high mileages, which is not what we’d expect from a Tuono. Engine performance is the same across both models, but the standard version comes suspended on manual fully adjustable suspension, rather than the Öhlins Smart EC 2.0 semi-active suspension on the Factory.

The Factory’s bodywork reduces in size and for 2021 gets built-in winglets, while the ergonomics are more directed to sporty track riding. It’s a big step for Aprilia to produce two very different models, using the same platform.

Practically speaking, cruise control comes as standard and the all-new five-inch colour TFT dash is informative and easy to navigate. The three road-orientated riding modes – Tour, Sport and User (a personalised mode) – change the power characteristics, rider aids and the support and actuation of the semi-active suspension. And should you want something more ‘sensible’, don’t forget the standard model (see sidebar), which has conventional suspension and more roadfocused ergonomics for both rider and pillion, all still with the same performance and new technology.

In the accessories list there are also practical products available, such as a comfort seat, side panniers, a larger top fairing, USB

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2021 APRILIA TUONO V4 FACTORY

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port and the MIA kit for Bluetooth connectivity.

A new Marelli ECU allows for more innovative rider aids than ever and they all come as standard fitment on the Factory. The ECU is now able to operate four times faster than the previous model’s and is linked to the six-axis IMU which also takes information from various sensors around the bike, like brake pressure and wheel speed, to name just a couple.

ATC (Aprilia Traction Control) has eight levels and can be changed on the f ly – this is important and often overlooked. In one particular session I had to leave pitlane on a brand-new slick, so I increased the TC to six. Then, after one lap, while tucked in and accelerating down the main straight, I f licked it back to level three. On lap two I performed the same action and finally f licked down to one. I didn’t have to move off line, slow down, come into the pits, or look at the dash for more than a second. This is simple and easy to do, via the finger-and-thumb toggle on the left-hand handlebar.

AWC (Aprilia Wheelie Control) has five levels and, like the traction control, can be changed while on the pipe, an added bonus that not only shaves lap times but makes the bike easier and more fun to ride. Again if you feel intimidated at a track which undulates violently, you can add more wheelie control while still lapping at a reasonable rate.

There are three different engine maps (AEM), those three engine braking levels (AEB) and, as before, three settings for Aprilia Launch Control (ALC) and Aprilia Pit Lane Limiter

THE ECU IS NOW ABLE TO OPERATE FOUR TIMES FASTER

1. Wing theme is carried over to the pillion, er, ‘seat’ 2. Child found the adjustable-on-the-fly rider settings to be a boon on-track 3. ’Tis a handsome beast, to be sure

Despite a $4600 price hike, it actually stacks up pretty well against its rivals APRILIA HAS EDGED the price up to $31,790 (ride away) from $27 190

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Ducati’s V4 Streetfi ghter S uses the similar Öhlins smart suspension, comparable rider aids, and is arguably just as desirable, maybe even more. But the Ducati is $34,200 (ride away) $2400 more than the Aprilia.

But the extra dollar buys 30hp more engine performance compared to the Aprilia, to be fair.

MV Agusta has the stunning Brutale 1000 RR, which also uses similar suspension, but this time prices start at $52,190 (ride away). Like the Ducati, the MV is also a member of the 200hp-plus club.

KTM has announced a 1290 Super Duke RR with a 1:1 power-to-weight ratio (18 hp 180k ry). It gets manually adjustable suspension, a rts and is expected to be around 25 percent

NEW TOP CASES TR48

TR37

1.2mm Forged Aluminium body

SIDE CASES TR47

Integrated carry handle

TR36

ACCESSORIES

Flush mounted locking system Stainless steel fittings

ALUMINIUM PLATE SOLD SEPARATELY

TR IB 47 INNER BAG

TR 47

DISTRIBUTED BY:

Ph: 1300 885 355

www.shadaustralia.com.au

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THE RIDER AIDS ARE SOME OF THE BEST I VE EVER EXPERIENCED

(APL). Let’s not forget the previously mentioned Aprilia Cruise Control (ACC) and the commendable (AQS) Aprilia Quick Shift, which has a new operating strategy for 2021 that even allows downshift with the throttle still open.

Add the cornering ABS trickery and that sums up a lengthy list of features and safety aids, and all damn easy to use. The dash alone is a substantial move over the previous bike, whose clocks were starting to appear a little dated next to the competition.

I’ve ridden the now ‘old’ Tuono V4 Factory extensively in the past, both on the road and the track, I’ve always praised its accessibility, electronics and handling. It was so complete

I couldn’t really see how the model could be significantly improved – but it has been. The rider aids, including the fuelling and quickshift, are some of the best I’ve ever experienced on a roadbike. The new dash and switchgear make the rider aids more accessible.

The V4 may not have comparable figures of other Italian supernakeds, but all the power is usable, nothing is wasted, even for less experienced riders and the improved over-rev is a nice touch. The handling is excellent, and the semi-active suspension takes none of the raw feeling away like some systems. Oh, and did I mention the sound and the looks – she is a true beauty.

SPECS ENGINE

Capacity 1077cc Type 65º V4 triple, DOHC, 16-valves Bore & stroke 81 x 52.3mm Compression ratio 13.6:1 Cooling Liquid Fueling EFI, 4 x 48mm Marelli throttle bodies with 8 injectors Transmission Six-speed Clutch Wet, multi-plate, slipper Final drive Chain

PERFORMANCE

Power 129kW @ 11,350rpm (claimed) Torque 121Nm @ 9000rpm (claimed) Top speed 260km/h (est) Fuel consumption 7.2L/100km (claimed)

ELECTRONICS

Type Aprilia Rider aids Engine maps, Engine brake, Traction control, Wheelie control, Launch control, Cruise Control, Pit limiter Rider modes Road: Tour, Sport and User. Track: Race, Track 1, Track 2.

CHASSIS

Frame material Aluminium Frame type Twin spar Rake 24.8º Trail 99.9mm Wheelbase 1452.4mm

1. Even with less grunt than some supernakeds, the Tuono V4 Factory was a weapon at Misano 2. You can have your Tuono with max hardcore or less so...

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SUSPENSION

Type Öhlins Front: Smart EC 2.0, 43mm USD fork, fully-adjustable, 129mm travel Rear: TTX36 Smart EC 2.0, fullyadjustable, 130mm travel

WHEELS & BRAKES

Wheels Cast aluminium Front: 17 x 3.5 Rear: 17 x 6.0 Tyres Pirelli Supercorsa SP (standard) Front: 120/70ZR17 Rear: 200/55ZR17 Brakes Brembo, Bosch cornering ABS Front: Twin 320 disc, four-piston M50 calipers Rear: Single 220mm disc, twin-piston caliper

DIMENSIONS

Weight 209kg (wet, claimed) Seat height 837mm Width 810mm Height 1085mm Length 2070mm Ground clearance 129mm Fuel capacity 18.5L

SERVICING & WARRANTY Servicing First: 1000km Minor: 10,000km Major: 20,000km Warranty Two years, unlimited km

2021 APRILIA TUONO V4 FACTORY Electronics and rider aids are second to none, the performance is peerless in terms of usability and the handling is excellent

PROS CONS

It’s a lot of money, but still better than its rivals and an Akrapovic pipe should be standard on the Factory

BUSINESS END

Price $31,790 (ride away) Colour options Factory Contact www.aprilia.com/au_EN

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050

NEW TECH

TURBO TECHNOLOGY

WORDS & PHOTOGRAPHY BEN PURVIS

Hang on, before we all go electric, the internal combustion engine still has a few surprises to spring fter more than a century of development, the internal combustion engine that forms the centrepiece of virtually every motorcycle is reaching its swansong. But before the technology bows out for good, we’re likely to see a generation of petrolpowered bikes that are more advanced than any before as companies strive to simultaneously reduce emissions and increase performance.

After years focussing on the development of Euro 5 compliant engines that meet the latest European emissions rules, which are widely mirrored by local regulations all over the globe, bike firms have a brief breathing space for the foreseeable future. The next set of emissions limits have yet to be set, or even widely discussed, so it will be years before they come into force. That means a period of stability is on the way, but manufacturers know that any new engines under development at the moment need to be prepared to be even cleaner than the current generation if they’re to live beyond the inevitable tightening of emissions limits that will come in a few years time.

While electric models are under development, the idea of battery-powered bikes that can match or beat the current combustion engine models in terms of out-andout performance and range is still nearer fiction than fact.

Hybrids – the stepping stone that car makers have opted for – are also in the works (AMCN Vol 70 No 21), but not the main focus of many mainstream bike companies. But another route that’s proved successful on four wheels as car makers try to balance the need for better emissions and economy with consumers’ demands for more performance, is forced induction. Largely taboo in motorcycle circles since the disastrous attempts at jumping on the turbo bandwagon in the 1980s, the idea of forced-induction motorcycles is starting to gain more traction.

TURBO TECHNOLOGY

40 YEARS OF PROGRES

In the 1980s, turbos were all the rage in cars.

Driven by development in Formula 1 racing where they exploited a loophole in the rules, which allowed 1.5-litre turbo engines to compete against 3-litre normally aspirated designs, turbo technology was improving at breakneck pace and proving that tiny engine could make mammoth power figures.

Turbocharged rally cars, sedans and sportscars followed, with performance spiralling out of control towards the mid-80s when 1500cc F1 motors were hitting highs of as much as 1400hp in qualifying ‘grenade’ spec. Any bike firm was sure to be interested in getting some of that action, and soon all four Japanese brands were beavering away o boosted bikes with the hope of getting big po from a small package. Honda even tried to mimic the turbo’s F1 success by making an o pistoned V-twin – the NR250 – by bolting tw tiny blowers to a motor that was basically half the ill-fated NR500’s V4 in the mid-80s. It never saw the track.

The problem with those 80s turbo bikes was inevitably the same: turbo lag. Turbos of the era were designed with cars in mind, with insensitive foot-operated throttles and heavy flywheels, and even then, turbo lag was often a problem on four wheels. Apply a turbo to a bike, with a quick-revving engine, a sensitive hand-operated throttle and a skinny sliver of 1980s-spec rubber to put the power to the ground and it was a recipe for disaster – and that was before we even get into the issue of the era’s flexible steel frames and spindly suspension parts. Worse still, to cope with the extra mixture that would be introduced to the cylinders under boost, turbo engines needed low-compression ratios, making them limp and lethargic when the turbo wasn’t blowing and serving to emphasise the difference between on- and off-boost performance.

Such was the backlash, for decades it’s been widely accepted bikes and turbos simply d ’t i w t t at t e e ril

Above. Kawasaki has committed to forced induction with its supercharged H2 and H2R

turbochargers that are easier to spin-up than their forebears, and allied to modern electronic engine management, the development of low-pressure turbocharging on engines with relatively high compression ratios, and ride-bywire throttles, the old problem of lag simply isn’t the issue that it was in the 1980s.

ON

ecent Yamaha Recursion emissions and out-and-out iming 100hp from rged, intercooled parallel twin. The ed into the XE7 engine prototype two , looking much closer to productionss. The XE7 grew to around 700cc ined a DOHC head instead of the al SOHC design, suggesting higherrmance targets, but after being wn in 2015, the project disappeared sight. nce then, a steady stream of patent cations from Suzuki has shown that a is still developing, growing into a quite a diff erent layout and design c mp re to the original Recursion concept.

HONDA SUPERCH AFRICA TWIN

HONDA MIGHT HAVE led the way in the original turbo motorcycle era with the CX500 Turbo and aborted plans for a smaller VT250 Turbo, but its attentions have fi rmly turned to s the next-generation of forced-induct While the company hasn’t shown on the record about its plans, severa machines have appeared in patents couple of years, most notably a deta around the Africa Twin’s 1084cc para Unlike Kawasaki’s supercharged H use centrifugal superchargers that in engine revs rise, Honda’s designs ha displacement blowers that maintain levels of boost all the way from idle t The diff erence is that centrifugal s work a bit like fans, blowing harder th spin, while positive-displacement de akin to pumps, moving a fi xed volume of air with each revolution. For a bike like an Africa Twin, the low-end torque that a positive-displacement supercharger can provide would be more useful than the higher peak power that a centrifugal supercharger or a turbocharger might off er.

SMALLER SUPERCHARGED KAWASAKI

Kawasaki has been hard at work developing its supercharged H2 range over the last few years, however the company has always been open that it has wider plans for the technology.

Back in 2015, Kawasaki’s ‘Soul Charger’ and ‘Spirit Charger’ design sketches – a supercharged nakedbike and a half-faired, smaller-looking design respectively – hinted at the fi rm’s future plans. The Soul Charger has arguably evolved into the Z H2, albeit with a modern style instead of the retro look of the original sketch. Could the Spirit Charger yet turn into a smaller boosted bike? Kawasaki is also working hard on hybrid technology at the moment, so an emissions-busting, boosted-and-hybrid machine might yet be its solution to future emissions limits.

YAMAHA’S PROVES THE POTENTIAL

The Japanese manufacturers are split over forced induction. All are working on the idea but there’s no clear consensus when it comes to the choice of exhaust-driven turbochargers or engine-driven superchargers.

Kawasaki is clearly ahead of the game, already selling a range of supercharged H2 models using its own in-house-designed, enginedriven centrifugal superchargers. Honda has yet to officially show any boosted bikes but has been developing its own supercharged machines, focussing on designs with positivedisplacement superchargers, quite different to Kawasaki’s thinking.

On the other side of the fence we have Suzuki, which has been a vocal proponent of exhaustdriven turbos, and Yamaha. Despite the fact Suzuki has been working on a turbocharged

Is another supercharged nakedbike on the way?

TURBO TECHNOLOGY

ASTON MARTIN AMB 001

Other boosted projects

Even small-scale companies are looking to forced-induction and the Aston Martin AMB 001 looks to provide a handful of well-heeled customers the chance to get a boosted bike to sit alongside their supercars.

Limited to a production run of 100, the AMB 001 is a joint project with the latest iteration of Brough Superior – a brand that’s now part of French designer Thierry Henriette’s stable, alongside his long-running Boxer Design concern, which itself has spawned desirable machines including the Voxan-powered Boxer VB1 from 20 years ago.

The fi rm claims 134kW from a turbocharged version of Brough’s 997cc V-twin, with a variable-geometry turbo that uses a low inertia turbine to reduce lag.

Other boosted projects

DA -300 O

A lot has changed since Yamaha’s 650 turbo of 1981

e more g turbo nderway at nt is new and Benda a ‘VTR-300 tsbike. eady V-twin atercooled, DOHC design used in its BD300 bobber, and has recently expanded to start international sales, initially with a dealer network in Italy. Confirmed future models also include the BD700 – a 680cc inline-four cylinder with crazy concept bike styling.

Whether the VTR300 Turbo uses a boosted version of the BD300’s twin or has an all-new unit of its own, it promises to be the first sub500cc turbocharged production bike the world has ever seen.

HONDA SUPERCHAR V-TWIN

Another supercharged Honda project, seen in 2016 patents, is this blown V-twin. Like the Africa Twin designs, it uses a positivedisplacement blower, but this time bolted between the cylinders of a 90-degree V-twin. While the patent documents don’t reveal details of the bike’s performance or size, it looks like a smaller displacement m with the engine acting as a structural part of chassis to keep weight to a minimum. The re small, SOHC design suggests that out-and-o performance isn’t the idea, instead the boos allow a small-capacity, low revving engine t tailored for minimal emissions to simply ma the power and torque demands from custom without vast increases in manufacturing co

Yamaha’s 847.5cc turbocharged triple test mule

In 1982 Honda showed off its CX 500 Turbo

CLEAN AS A WHISTLE

TURBO TECHNOLOGY

performance, how about BMW’s S 1000 R? That puts out 144g/km.

Compared to the existing Euro 5 emissions limits, the Yamaha prototype’s other emissions were also remarkably low, with less than 20 per cent of the permitted levels of carbon monoxide and 50 per cent of the allowed NOx. Hydrocarbon limits, and particularly restrictions on non-methane hydrocarbons, have been among the toughest element of Euro 5 for bike firms to comply with, yet the Yamaha prototype only emits around 40 percent of the permitted levels.

All in all, it’s a solution that appears to offer vast environmental and performance benefits over current motorcycle technology, all by using proven ideas that have already reached mass-production in cars.

SUZUKI HAYABUSA TURBO PROTOTYPE

It might not have reached production, but Suzuki has confi rmed that it developed and tested a turbocharged Hayabusa in the development of the revamped 2021 model. The bike missed the cut because Suzuki found it could update the old Busa engine to meet Euro-5 emissions limits without losing performance, but as and when another new generation of pollution restrictions come into force, Suzuki will be well-placed to reuse that turbo Busa research.

Other boosted projects

WHAT ABOUT THE LAG? As suspected, the vast development of turbo and electronics technology since the 1980s means it’s nothing like the issue it used to be. Yamaha found that with some careful mapping of the ride-by-wire throttles, ignition, and the direct injection t make the engine respond alm Snapping the throttle open at 3 it took less than 0.1 of a second significant increase in torque, 1.03 seconds the bike was putti more than 90 percent of its max torque. Given that max torque is that means it only took around a go from zero to 157.5Nm (in comp Yamaha MT-10 manages a peak o 9000rpm, a figure the turbo proto hit well under a second after open throttle at a third of that engine s Of course, the Yamaha machine i not a prototype that’s heading for p but the results it has achieved must way to encourage Yamaha in the dir turbos as it looks to the future. Nota firm has also patented designs for a parallel-twin turbo bike with a simila likely to be around the 700cc mark.

esi n are nomic Commission for l legislation elsewhere. p n nd India have effectively aligned their own limits ones, and even China is largely following suit. Euro 5 came into full orce in Europe on 1 January this year, which means all eyes are now on what he regulations will evolve into when they’re next reviewed. Although the Euro motorcycle rules haven’t even been discussed yet, they’re likely to fall into line ith planned Euro 7 car limits (confusingly, motorcycle emission limits are one umber behind their four-wheeled equivalents; cars sold in Europe already have o meet their own Euro 6 emissions standards that are basically the same as the wo-wheeled Euro 5 ones).

The Euro 7 car rules, under development at the moment and expected to be ntroduced in 2025, are likely to be the last before internal-combustion powered ars are banned from sale altogether in Europe. The Euro 6 rules for bikes are ikely to come into force in the late 2020s, and it’s at this stage that technology like urbos, superchargers, variable valve timing and direct fuel injection will become astly more important for any company still hoping to squeeze more from petrol ower units.

What a month it has been for Jack Miller.

After a rough start to the MotoGP season the Aussie said he would work hard to climb out of the hole he was in. Two races and 50 points later, he has done just that

060

THROW BACK

YAMAHA EUROPE TRX850R

ACHIEVER It’s every racer’s dream; a one-off, hand-built, factory-backed bike to take on your favourite class of racing. That is just what happened to Alan Cathcart 25 years ago WORDS ALAN CATHCART PHOTOGRAPHY KYOICHI NAKAMURA & AC ARCHIVE

I

n a 25-year International road racing career, I rode several out-of-the ordinary racebikes, but there was one above all others which acquired a cult following of admirers around the world. So much so that in the early days of the internet, I’d get fan letters for my gal Trixie!

So exactly 25 years since I scored the most satisfying of race victories with her at Daytona’s Cycle Week 1996, here’s a look back at the three years I spent racing the unique Over Racing-prepared parallel-twin Yamaha TRX850R for Yamaha Motor Europe.

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YAMAHA EUROPE TRX850R LATE IN 1994 word got out that Yamaha was developing a twin-cylinder sportbike based on its TDM850 Adventure Sports street trailie, to create a competitor to the Ducati 900SS then selling especially strongly in Japan. It did so by re-engineering the DOHC parallel-twin motor internally, to mimic a Ducati’s tractable temperament by rephasing the crank throw from the TDM’s two-up 360° format to a then-unique 270° guise, delivering the same character as a 90° V-twin. In this it copied Stéphane Peterhansel’s YZE850 desert racer which in 1991-93 he’d taken to a trio of Paris-Dakar victories, an engine format which gave him the same off-road traction on loose surfaces as offered by the Ducati motor in the Cagiva Elefant his rival Edi Orioli won the Dakar on in 1990. The YZE850’s rally-winning rideability was now translated to the street.

Launched as a Japan-market only model in March 1995 – followed two years later by Honda’s VTR1000 Firestorm and Suzuki’s TL1000S – the TRX850 was that long-awaited product from Japan Inc. – a twin-cylinder sportsbike with heaps of personality, which was practical enough for everyday use, but sufficiently exciting. Known internally by its Project 005 tag, the TRX850 created by the Yamaha R&D team headed by Hirosuke Negishi was a baseline sports model, delivering performance and handling the common rider could appreciate without feeling intimidated by the bike’s hyper-potential.

Yamaha Motor Europe’s Amsterdam HQ couldn’t decide if there was a place for ‘Trixie’ in western Europe, but YME Marketing Manager Lin Jarvis (yep, the Lin Jarvis who today is CEO of Yamaha Racing’s MotoGP effort) came up with a bright idea. It was to get Over Racing, the satellite tuning company accessed via the back door of the Japanese factory’s race shop – just like Moriwaki/Honda, or Yoshimura/Suzuki – to build a reasonably trick TRX850R racer, then give it to a journalist to race that year in Europe’s leading ProTwin events.

So before he recruited Valentino Rossi, Jorge Lorenzo and Fabio Quartararo, he first recruited me! What made this feasible was that year’s widespread adoption of new EuroTwin rules for twin-cylinder racing. These were aimed at eliminating neo-Superbikes like the latest Ducati 888 SPO/916SPS customer spinoffs of the Polen/Fogarty World Superbike title-winners, by allowing liquid-cooling, fuel injection and more than two valves per cylinder, but only two out of those three elements, not all three.

The premier 1995 Euro-series run to these rules was the Dutch Open, an eight-round Benelux championship (seven best scores to count) attracting riders from all over Northern Europe mounted on a variety of machines ranging from fuel-injected Moto Guzzi and BMW eight-valvers mounted in special race frames, through every possible type of 900SS/907ie Ducati-based racer, via assorted Harleys, Triumphs and TDM Yamahas, up to the inevitable Ducati 888/926 fitted with carbs. Jarvis reckoned the new 10-valve twin wouldn’t be disgraced in such company. And it was up to me to prove them right.

So the Over Racing workshop in Suzuka was

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commissioned to build a racebike in six weeks, before air-freighting it to Europe in time for the first round of the Dutch Open series at Assen on Easter Monday, 16 April. I’d never even sat on the bike until the first qualifying session, much less tested it or set it up. But Over boss Kensei Sato flew over with his chief race mechanic Ume Umemoto, to look after it for the first two races in company with my race engineer Alistair Wager, who’d take over after that. I’d been racing Kensei’s bikes in Japan for the previous five years, so we had some base settings to work with.

In my Japanese outings, I had beat factory entries from Suzuki and Honda – as well as Kensei-san’s own Over-Yamaha – to win the 1994 Japanese Sound of Singles title on my Ducati Supermono, all of which strengthened the relationship I’d built up with Bridgestone since becoming the Japanese tyre company’s first fully sponsored rider in Europe, back in 1991. That meant Bridgestone was on board, ELF gave me a fuel contract, Italy’s Braking took care of stopping the bike and with various other mostly magazine sponsors, I was ready.

In the first session I made sixth on the grid out

1. Over Racing boss Kensei Sato, R, welcomes Cathcart home after a winning debut at Assen in 1995 2. Cathcart won the opening Dutch round at Hengelo a week later 3. Over was synonymous with attention to detail; stock frame was braced in some places and drilled for lightness in others 4. Sir Al leads the field in the 1995 Tolbert Dutch Open 5. Cathcart, #99, won the wet 1995 Assen Dutch Open by 25 seconds!

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SO BEFORE HE RECRUITED VALENTINO ROSSI, JORGE LORENZO AND QUARTARARO, HE FIRST RECRUITED ME! amcn.com.au

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1. Cathcart takes the flag in the TRX’s debut race by 25 seconds 2. Our favourite Pom shows off his wetweather prowess 3. Simple is best; beneath the vestigal bodywork, the TRX was nowhere near exotic

of the 36 qualifiers, before the heavens opened, and it rained for the next two days! That at least gave me some wet-weather practice on the TRX in the second session, which revealed the TRX was an incredibly easy bike to ride in the rain.

Yamaha developed that then-unique motor to give Peterhansel traction in sand, but if it works in the dirt, it’ll work in the rain, too.

This allowed me to win the TRX850R’s debut race by the embarrassingly large margin of 25 seconds, from Dutchman Marcel Lamers’ 900 Ducati two-valver, and Germany’s Rolf von der Weiden on his BMW Boxer.

Okay, in the rain is one thing. How about the dry? We got the answer six days later in front of a 20,000-strong crowd at the historic Hengelo public roads circuit, by which time more victory contenders had joined the party. The first Ducati 888 Superbike fitted with carbs by Rico Racing Research owner Rico Mertens appeared there with Dutch-Indonesian rider Lee Saman, and proved to have performance almost identical to the Yamaha’s – so much so that, although I led all the way to the chequered flag after qualifying on pole, I was locked in combat with Lee throughout.

The Yamaha’s beautifully linear clutch action made the difference, allowing me to get the jump on him off the line into the first turn on the fast but narrow track, while the clean power delivery from low down out of the three first-gear turns helped offset the 23kg weight penalty that the Yamaha carried versus the stripped-down 148kg Ducati. Remember, the TRX was a roadbike turned into a racer, with little attempt at serious weight reduction; the half-fairing was fibreglass, even the fuel tank was the original steel one,

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contributing to a dry weight of 171kg compared to just 188kg for the street TRX850 with lights and a horn. But despite the weight differential, Saman’s Duke couldn’t outbrake me, especially with no slipper clutch back then, so he risked getting terminal rear wheel chatter if he tried too hard.

Some ruthless work in traffic allowed me to open up a seven-second gap by the finish of the Hengelo race, and some extra satisfaction came from our race times, which would have put me sixth in the Dutch Open Superbike round run the same day – not bad for a carburetted twin!

The tight Hengelo hairpins illustrated the TRX’s seamless power delivery and good tractability, where to exit the near-walking pace turns I could simply twist the throttle wide open while hardly touching the clutch lever. Trixie would pull like a tractor from as low as 3000rpm, running up to the 9500rpm rev-limiter without a hiccup, and no falloff in power over the 8500rpm power peak.

This allowed me not only to get good drive out of the slow turn, but also to save gear-changes by holding a gear on the six-speed close-ratio gearbox Sato had concocted from the Yamaha parts bin. The shift action was really precise – I never missed a gear on the bike – and the ratios ideal, so I could keep the engine running above 7000 rpm, where you could feel the power curve steepen slightly.

Sadly, though, despite further race wins at Mettet, Eemshaven and a truly dominant victory at my favourite circuit, Spa-Francorchamps, I wasn‘t able to clinch the title – partly because of a date clash. It was agreed from the start with YME that I’d have to miss one round of the eight-race Dutch Open to race the Saxon-Triumph in the BEARS World Series support race at the Brands Hatch World Superbike round, meaning I’d have no spare Dutch Open points-scoring round to discard. At Assen in August I’d been out-powered

by Saman’s ever-improving RRR Ducati, finishing a well-beaten best of the rest that was Trixie’s first defeat in her four-month race career. But in

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BUT WHAT HAPPENED NEXT? 3

THIS LOVE STORY, HAD A FAIRYTALE ENDING

DUE TO OTHER commitments and a change in the BEARS regulations in 1997, I clinched a deal with Yamaha Europe to contest the inaugural Sound of Thunder World Series on their Over-developed TRX850R racer, as well as for another sortie to Daytona – apparently, beating the Ducatis there the previous year had gone down well in Japan. The only condition was I had to repaint Trixie in the same red-and-black livery as their World Superbike/Supersport race teams.

In preparation for the World Series, Yamaha Europe sent the engines back to Japan. They arrived just in time for Daytona, and as soon as I rode out onto the Speedway for the first practice session, I knew there was a significant improvement in performance. Over had not only delivered an extra 6hp at the top end, they’d also fattened midrange and improved engine acceleration and pickup, thanks to the reduced inertia of lighter engine components. That allowed us to pull one tooth higher gearing than in 1996 and we touched 272km/h, some going for a modified budget-priced half-faired twin.

This gave me some hope as we fronted on the grid headed

by Andrew Stroud’s Britten and containing no less than 14 Ducati Superbikes, three of which would go on to qualify for Daytona 200 later in the week. With her half-naked looks and slant-twin motor in full view, Trixie had a second-row grid position, and took full advantage of it to grab second place behind Stroud’s Britten going into the first turn. On the banking the Britten just motored away from me, but after I got a good drive out of the infield, just one Ducati came past me; Jeff Jennings on his factory-built 955 Corsa Foggy Replica.

One vital first-lap Daytona must-do is give yourself lots of braking room at the Chicane. With a full fuel load and big draft from a field of bikes in front of you, it’s easy to go in too deep.

That’s what Jennings didn’t do. He missed the entry, hit the dirt on the outside, crossed the track in front of me – and somehow saved it! I looked behind me exiting the Chicane and saw he’d held everyone else up – now I had a gap back to third.

I put my head down and rode the next three laps as hard as possible, using every last rpm on the banking and drifting the rear Bridgestone in the infield and finished second. To be beaten by an exotic racebike like the Britten was no disgrace – but for a modified street bike to beat the world’s top twincylinder customer Superbikes said a lot.

The 50-mile Sound of Thunder World Series 15-lap main event was the next day. Stroud was joined by Mike Barnes on a new customer Britten. Trixie and I beat Stroud to the first turn after he pulled a wheelie but he and Barnes soon breezed past us, so I rode to third place, 15 seconds ahead of fourth place, a good start in the 1997 Sound of Thunder title.

And that’s indeed what happened, with a series of race wins in Europe interrupted only by a fourth place in the Assen round in June, after being slowed while in second place by an ignition fault which mysteriously imposed a 6000rpm rev limit on the engine! But I won the other four rounds in the six-race series to give Yamaha Europe and Trixie a title at last.

YME had a nice way of saying thanks – which is why the Over Yamaha TRX850 has been locked up safe and sound in my garage for the past 25 years. We still enjoy a date together from time to time at a nearby racetrack, though; got to stay tuned up for Vintage ProTwins when it happens!

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TRIXIE S WETWEATHER POISE ALLOWED ME TO OPEN UP A 2sec LEAD 1. AC and the Vee Two Australia team in Florida in 1996 after two Daytona race wins on Ducati Supermono and Yamaha TRX, and one at Roebling with Bimota DB2R-01 2. On the way to a dry win at Hengelo in 1995 3. The 1996 Assen ProTwins rostrum; L to R, Pater Jansen (Guzzi), winner Stephen Briggs (Britten) and AC in third 4. Over’s Kensei Sato

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the next race at Tolbert a week later on the tight 2.5km public roads circuit with three first-gear turns, where we geared Trixie to use only the bottom four ratios, it conveniently rained half an hour before the start. Trixie’s wet-weather poise allowed me to open up a two-second lead after just two laps, seemingly set for another win – until it started jumping out of bottom gear!

Being forced to use second gear to exit those slippery bends meant Ducati-mounted Lamers and Saman both overtook me, as I had to be careful slipping the clutch to coax the engine out of turns. Lamers DNF’d on the final lap, but it still meant Saman was now leading the points table.

But it was his turn to DNF at Spa with a blown motor, meaning we went to the final round at Assen with me back in the lead, 136 to 115. I only needed 11th place to win the title.

After qualifying on pole 0.61sec ahead of Lee, I

tracked him in the early laps, before stepping up the pace and grabbing the lead. But on lap six of 10 – I tried to change gear down the back straight and couldn’t find the lever. A 10-cent split pin had broken in the gear linkage, leaving the lever dangling, and Trixie stuck in third. It was the cruellest disappointment of my racing career.

Yamaha Europe was very understanding, despite several staff making the trip to Assen to watch me hopefully clinch the title. But I wasn’t prepared for what happened next. Their PR soundings had been so positive that they decided to import the TRX850 into Europe for 1996 – and they decided to reward me for my efforts by paying for me to take Trixie to Daytona for Cycle Week 1996.

My focus shifted to teaming up with Brook Henry of Vee Two Australia to contest World Superbike’s FIM Supermono Cup support championship, and the BEARS World Series, this time with a factory-supplied Bimota DB2R with Vee Two Australia motor. But Brook was up for looking after Trixie at Daytona for me, figuring it’d entail little more than topping up the fuel tank and pumping up the tyres…

The two-day Cycle Week opener saw the Formula 1 ProTwins race held on Monday, essentially for Modified Production motorcycles,

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YAMAHA EUROPE TRX850R with the Open Twins race on Tuesday, for anything with a twin-cylinder four-stroke motor. That meant no Brittens in the F1 race – but conversely there were platoons of Ducati homologation specials, including several of the new 916SPS Foggy street replicas. Still, with Trixie trapped at 258km/h at Mettet the year before, maybe I wouldn’t be totally smoked.

But because of time constraints there’s no qualifying, grid positions for the afternoon race were decided on the previous year’s points, I was starting from the back of the grid.

But halfway through practice, the TRX motor blew. Disaster! Our five-strong team descended on the bike to swap motors against the clock – one of them fortuitously being Norm Williams, the manager of Yamaha’s top dealership in Perth who’d come over with Brook to wrench the Bimota. We’d left the spare engine in our Daytona Beach workshop, but my mate Jeff Craig ran every red light to get it, returning in time to see the blown engine leaving the frame. The race was called, but Trixie wasn’t ready. Kitted up, I stood by the pit entrance. The 40-strong field set off on their warmup lap just as Brook Henry arrived on Trixie, blipping the throttle to clear a path. Game on!

“HOW ON EARTH DID YOU MAKE A DIRT BIKE GO SO FAST?” With no tyre warmers back then I forced myself to take it easy in the infield turns before dialling up the heat on the banking. The engine was running strongly and I’d done enough laps in practice to know we had the gearing right. I used every last rev in every gear to claw my way up the race order, until two laps from the end I hit the front, nailing the leading 916 Ducati on the brakes off the Tri-Oval banking into Turn One. When I looked behind four turns later exiting the infield I saw he was already too far back to be able to draft past me, though from there to the flag were the most anxious – and satisfying – two laps of my entire racing career.

I still have this memory of the Ducati riders I shared Victory Lane with looking at Trixie with this ‘How the hell?’ expression on their faces. They weren’t alone, commentator Richard Chambers said it the best: “Alan Cathcart, how on earth did you guys make a dirt bike go so damn fast?”

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1 1. Cathcart gets to grips with ‘Trixie’ during practice for the ’95 race at Assen 2. AC and the Over team celebrate winning the 1995 Hengelo Dutch Open round 3. A year later Sir Al and Over’s TRX won the ProTwins Formula 1 race at Daytona – from the back of thje grid!

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FAST TALK

REMY GARDNER

G N I S A H C T INTERVIE ON RRIS NEIL MO RAPHY PHOTOG OOSE GOLD&G

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e Undaun ride in 2022, R 2 o t P o G M o t 1 o 202 aM e h t ut s B p . o n t i r s e e rac e Gardn v fi p i ong nsh l o i a p n e m e a b Ch ’s t i , s n i a pl as he ex top he t o t d a ro

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REMY GARDNER

n the whole, things are going pretty well for Remy Gardner right now. The Australian sits at the top of the Moto2 World Championship after five races.

His adaption to Aki Ajo’s allconquering set-up that has dominated both of grand prix racing’s junior categories in the season’s opening stage has been seamless. And although he insists nothing is confirmed, a MotoGP seat with Tech 3 KTM in 2022 is all but his.

“I can’t complain, can I? Everything is going well,” Remy told us on the eve of the Spanish Grand Prix.

“A good start to the season. Consistency is key here.

Even if there is no podium, I still have to finish races and get points. It’s a long year ahead. We’ve only just started. At the moment it’s just about finishing races and racking up as many points as I can.”

So far, he’s done exactly that. A first win of the year has proved elusive. But the 23-year old from Sydney has ground out results when necessary (a third in Portugal, fourth in Jerez). And on the occasions he has had pace to win, Gardner has given it a go without risking it all. Crucially, he hasn’t once looked flustered since becoming the first Australian to lead grand prix’s intermediate category since Gregg Hansford in 1978. His second place in France was his 11th consecutive top-seven result.

It hasn’t always been like this. Remy has come a long way since he first rocked up in the paddock as a baby-faced 16-year old in 2014 with father Wayne in tow. Then he was shy, a little moody, and unafraid of calling out his below-par equipment (normally with an f-bomb or two). It’s all a far cry from the laidback figure who is now as comfortable in his own skin as he is in front of the media glare, and is careful to talk up the experience and expertise of his technicians around him.

But there were some tough years along the way.

Gardner freely admits there were times when he doubted whether he would make it this far.

But 2019 was his breakthrough year. A switch to the SAG team, and more importantly to a Kalex chassis – the brand that has won each of the past eight Moto2 rider’s titles – saw Remy start the year well, scoring his first podium in Argentina. He even turned down the chance to replace Johann Zarco in KTM’s MotoGP squad midway through the season, opting instead to become a winner in Moto2 first.

But the season was far from consistent. He suffered seven DNFs. In the autumn of that year, his team ran into financial difficulties. Alfred Willeke, the crew chief Remy charged with his improvement, was poached by a rival team. It all looked a little bleak come season’s end. And many questioned if it was wise to turn that MotoGP offer down.

But for 2020 he came back refreshed. Ajo – Jack Miller’s personal manager – became a personal adviser. His results soon kicked on. Asked what the secret was to his recent run after his second-place at Le Mans, Remy didn’t need to think about it.

“Experience,” he stated. “Crashing. Hurting myself. Flying through the air at 260km/h doesn’t help!”

And in our conversation in Spain, he believed the recent run of results was over a year in the making.

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“The change probably came at the start of last year. In Qatar we finished fifth. We got back to Jerez and we finished seventh. Then in the second race in Jerez and in Brno I struggled, mainly because of the extra heat. But we were still getting points.

“Then in Austria we were back on the podium.

But I did have one crash in Austria, in the first race. I was quite annoyed with myself. It was a stupid crash on my part and it shouldn’t have happened. Going from there, I was kind of angry with myself and said I couldn’t let that happen again. Unfortunately, in Misano I had that crash in warm-up, which was a bit unexpected. I missed those races.

“But when I got back from there it was back to business. I just built on my confidence. You learn from your mistakes, don’t you? You’ve got to keep moving forward.”

1. In 2015 Gardner was already growing big enough to struggle on his Moto3 Mahindra 2. Remy was just a pup when he started racing in Spain at 14 3. Gardner, R, with Jack Miller and dad Wayne

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“CRASHING. HURTING MYSELF.

FLYING THROUGH THE AIR AT 260KM/H DOESN’T HELP!”

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Gardner’s recent success has come in spite of one glaring disadvantage: weight. In a class designed for parity, in which all 30 riders compete aboard the same spec Triumph 765 engines, the same Dunlop tyres, the same gearbox and the same electronic aids, stature can play a big role. Remy weighs in at 72 kilograms, two more than the next heaviest rider and seven above the class average.

Compare that to chief rivals Raul Fernandez (63kg), Marco Bezzecchi (61kg) and Sam Lowes (65kg).

“One hundred percent, that factor is always there,” he said. “Before I focussed on that a lot and thought, ‘Poor me.’ I always complained about it.

But what am I going to do? I’m a big boy and that’s it.

“I’ve tried losing weight, but first of all, I wouldn’t be really happy. And second of all, I wouldn’t have the strength and the energy to finish races. There are other good things about being a bit heavier and a bit

4. WG has been a great supporter of his son but chooses to stay very much in the background 5. Hands and knees; Remy’s 2015 French GP ended with a fall 6. By 2017 Gardner had moved on, to Moto2 and Tech3

bigger. I can finish the races at the end with a bit more stamina. It’s easier for me to move the bike around sometimes. In the end, I focussed on the positives and try to make the most of the weight and try to manage the disadvantages to my best capabilities.

“For sure, there are weekends when it penalises me more. Even in the race in Portugal, I struggled more with that extra heat. I was scorching up the tyres a bit more. You’ve got to learn, move forward and focus on what we can do and not worry about something that is not really changeable.”

His surname may give the impression he’s had it easy with a career in motorcycle racing laid out for him on a plate. And, yes, when he sought a move to Europe as a teenager, he found a seat in the Spanish Moto3 championship, where rides can cost up to 250,000 euros ($400,000) for just one year. But the move from Australia at 14 years of age

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1. Gardner started his run of solid results with the SAG team last year 2. The 2021 season started with two second places under lights in Qatar 3. Gardner fights off Joe Roberts (#16)

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was far from straightforward. Having set up base in the seaside town of Sitges, 30 minutes outside Barcelona on Spain’s east coast, Remy soon found this wasn’t going to be a walk in the park. A lack of friends, language skills and home comforts all contributed to some pretty lonely years.

“First of all, it’s extremely tough for Aussies to come to Europe and make the move,” he says.

“First, it’s financially. Second, it’s on the other side of the world, with different languages. We did it anyway. Many people probably think I’m here because of Wayne and that’s it. But it isn’t like that.

I think sometimes doors have been closed rather than opened. It was tough. There were a lot of years when it was looking really bleak. Also, the difference of level that I had to make up for was incredible.

But I hung in there, kept working and stuck out the tough years. I guess, it’s all working now. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right? “(I’ve been) 10 years in Spain. The first two were really quite difficult. I think that’s the same for anyone that does something like that. There was a point when we were thinking about going back home. It’s such a different lifestyle. I didn’t speak the language. I didn’t know anybody. And I was only 14 years old at that point. I had all my friends in Australia. I had all my things there and I’d go surfing all the time. All of a sudden, I didn’t have those things anymore. It was really tough.

“Then in the school that I went to I didn’t really have any friends – they were just weird tennis players. But I started to get to know people and I had

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a few mates. When I was about 16 or 17 everything was good. I was just being a normal teenager, riding my skateboard with my mates down the streets and getting into all kinds of mischief in the town.

“From about 18 or 19 everything was a bit smoother. I started to learn the language a bit better. Honestly, I’d say the last three years I started to settle in and feel like it was home. I have a Spanish girlfriend now as well, which helps with the language!”

Those early years of settling in were reflected with similar struggles on the track. After three wildcard appearances at the end of 2014, Gardner made his full-time debut in Moto3 the following year. But riding Mahindra’s underpowered racer for CIP, one of the class’s less resourced teams, was more than challenging. He was regularly one of the slowest through the speed traps, and managed just one point-scoring finish – a fine 10th in front of

“THERE WAS A POINT WHEN WE WERE THINKING ABOUT GOING BACK HOME. IT’S SUCH A DIFFERENT LIFESTYLE.

I DIDN’T SPEAK THE LANGUAGE. I DIDN’T KNOW ANYBODY. AND I WAS ONLY 14 YEARS OLD”

home fans at Phillip Island – all year.

“For sure, that year on the Mahindra was quite depressing,” he said. “It was a tough year. But I think I learned more about how to ring everything out of a bike in that year than in any other. It gave me that self-confidence to think, ‘Man, I’m faster than about 80 percent of the guys here.’ They were just whipping me down the straight. That gave me the confidence but it was also very frustrating. It taught me how to ride the absolute ring out of the bike. And sometimes you need to do that.

“I went back to the Spanish Championship on Moto2 the following year, because I didn’t have a team. That was also tough. But I seemed to adapt quickly to the Moto2 bike. I was starting to get big and with the Moto2 bike that wasn’t really a problem.

Then in the CEV straight away, even with a dodgy team, I was on it and winning races. It just came to me quite easily, the big bikes. And it took off from

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REMY GARDNER

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there. Luckily, I got that Tasca ride (in the World Championship) halfway through the season.”

But the toughest moment was still to come.

Gardner secured a seat in Hervé Poncharal’s Tech3 Moto2 team for 2017. Viewed in terms of his results alone, it was far from disastrous. Seven pointscoring finishes dotted the year, including a battling ninth place in the rain at Brno. But his 21st overall paled compared to the efforts of then teammate Xavi Vierge, who was 10 places ahead in the championship standings. What’s more, the Catalan took the Mistral 610 chassis to a wet-weather podium finish in Japan. That contrived to put Remy’s future in doubt.

“I’ve got to say: I did have two tough years in Tech3. The first year with Hervé was extremely difficult. There was a point when he was about to not give me a second chance. That was probably the hardest moment for me in my GP career at the end of the first Tech3 year. Xavi was having good results and I was in the shit.

“Then Bo (Bendsneyder) came (to the team at the end of 2017) and in the first test he was quicker than me. I didn’t know what was going on. There was a point when I thought, ‘Maybe this isn’t for me.’

“But at the end of that test at the end of that year I tried Bo’s bike. We tried everything on my bike and nothing worked. We thought, just get on it and do three laps for 15 minutes at the end of the day. I went out and did the fastest ever lap on the Tech3 bike around Valencia with old tyres. I was like, ‘Guys, this is a completely different f***ing bike. What is this?’

They said, ‘It’s the same.’ I was like, ‘It’s not. I can tell you that. Look at the f***ing lap time!’

“So that got the inspiration going again. That got me fired up. I thought, okay, it’s been this frame I’ve been riding all year. That next year they brought three bikes. They said, you’re going to try all of them. You’re going to take the best frame with the best swingarm and put it all together. We did that and I think I crashed it on the second lap and destroyed it in the first test! But we took what we had left and that was the bike. We had some decent results. There were some tough races, and some races when the bike worked better than others. I

‘GUYS, THIS IS A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT F***ING BIKE. WHAT IS THIS?’ THEY SAID, ‘IT’S THE SAME.’

I WAS LIKE, ‘IT’S NOT. I CAN TELL YOU THAT. LOOK AT THE F***ING LAP TIME!’ started getting my mojo together.

“I’ve had a few ups and downs, that’s for sure.

The first year on the Tech 3 bike I broke my ankle.

Then the next year I was doing motocross and I just blew my leg apart. That was a tough time. I was sitting in hospital thinking, ‘this is over now.’ Right when I needed results to renew contracts, I was sitting there in hospital with a million screws in my leg. I thought to myself, ‘are you going to cry here?

Or are you going to get up and try and get back as soon as possible?’ I was working hard every day on the legs and managed to get back on the bike in five weeks – and in the points.”

Gardner has always made riding through the pain sound nonchalant. Away from the track, he relaxes by getting his hands dirty in his rapidly expanding workshop in Sitges. There are no selfies in sight.

As well as sculpting, skating and surfing, Remy is a keen mechanic and counts restoring old cars among his interests. In a world of Instagram posing and training selfies with designer branding, Remy stands out as something of a throwback. As he told us, that curiosity to build and design has been there since he was young.

“I’ve always been a hands-on guy if I’m honest with you,” he said. “When I was about 10 years old I was on the internet and saw these plans for big

1. Gardner has slotted into the Red Bull Ajo team this year as well as he possibly could have hoped for 2. He missed three races in 2018 while recovering from a broken ankle

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REMY GARDNER

IT’S JUST LIKE THE GOLDEN TICKET IN FRONT OF ME, ISN’T IT? NOTHING IS CONFIRMED. RIGHT NOW, WE JUST HAVE TO FOCUS ON OURSELVES AND OUR JOB IN MOTO2. I’M

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garden chairs. I downloaded the plans one day, printed them out and was like, ‘dad, I want to build this.’ So he went out, bought me the wood and the tools – I was only 10. I built this massive garden chair, a beautiful thing that I’ve still got in Australia. I’ve always had an interest, I always worked on my pocket bikes. Usually, I was just breaking stuff in the beginning. But it’s always been there.

“When I left school when I was 16 to go with the bikes and train, I was taking care of my own training bikes.

I was doing my own bikes and thought I needed the tools to weld and create parts. I got a welder for my 16th birthday. Then I started making skateboard ramps out of steel and wood. I also did some computerised design for my ramps. One thing led to another. I was doing some sculptures just for fun. And I built a machine that coils up ropes for wakeboarding – like a winch.

I bought a go-kart engine and put in this torque converter. I had all these things machined up. I’d then park the thing on the beach, swim out, get towed out of the water and then do wakeboarding on the beach – that was pretty cool.

“Then the engineering side was interesting me more. I built a fast 250 two-stroke. Then I bought my car. And with the engine swap, the (car design) started from there. Bit by bit I’ve been learning how to do more of the engineering. I use a lot of solid works, 3D printing and machining. Now I’ve got a big workshop with mills, lathes and car-lifts. I’m looking at a CNC mill next – it’s a big workshop.

“For sure it helps (to unwind). Everyone’s got to have their little hobby. I’m still training and on the bike a lot. I don’t put it up on social media so much. I

SURE IF WE DO OUR JOB WELL, GOOD THINGS WILL COME”

2

1. Some have commented that if there was a World Championship for which you had to build your own bikes, Gardner would win it, easily 2. If you are keen of eye you would spot that Remy is sitting on a 1960s Volvo Amazon, into which he has fitted a turbocharged Mitsubishi Evo motor...

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don’t really care that much about Instagram and that stuff. For sure it helps me disconnect. Sometimes I just get in there, lock the door and put the phone on silent. I don’t want to hear from anyone. Just leave me alone for eight hours. I can focus on something else and be on my own. It’s quite nice. It helps me disconnect from the bike world.”

That may come in useful when so much talk surrounds his future. Gardner rides in Aki Ajo’s team, but his contract is with KTM. And the Austrian factory was clear that a seat in MotoGP would be waiting for him if his early results this year were up to scratch.

So, does the Australian see a possible ride in the premier class as added pressure or extra motivation? His response is immediate.

“It’s not pressure. It’s just like the golden ticket in front of me, isn’t it? Nothing is confirmed. Step by step. Right now, we just have to focus on ourselves and our job in Moto2. I’m sure if we do our job well, good things will come.”

With the results in place, you have to believe Gardner will be in MotoGP next year. And no one can say he hasn’t earned it.

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STORY & PHOTOGRAPHY AMCN ARCHIVES

SUZUKI GSX-R1000K1 2001

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Game changer

The 2001 Suzuki GSX-R1000 represented a major milestone in the modern superbike category – and was just as important to the marque as the 1985 GSX-R750 THIS WAS THE most important motorcycle in the world 20 years ago. When Suzuki released the mighty GSX-R1000 in 2001, the marque added another chapter to the evolution of the superbike category. The machine joined such evolutionary greats as the 1985 Suzuki GSX-R750, the 1992 Honda CBR900RR and the 1998 Yamaha YZF-R1 as truly important machines, ones that people remember many years down the track.

The year prior to the 1000’s release in 2000 saw the rebirth of the GSX-R750, rewriting the 750 rule book with the stunning GSX-R750Y, the gem that became the template for the 1000 in 2001.

Much of the 750’s design was carried over to the new king of the Suzuki sportsbike range.

The chassis geometry of the 1000 was exactly the same as the 750 with the same rake (24°), trail (96mm) and wheelbase (1410mm), although changes were made to the 1000’s frame rigidity with a six percent increase to cope with the extra punishment dished out by the 33-percent larger engine.

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The increased strength of the 1000’s chassis was achieved by the aluminium frame spars having 0.5mm-thicker outside walls, although the bracing on the 750 chassis was eliminated on the 1000. The 1000’s swingarm was the same length as the 750’s, although the main arm section construction was changed from a single-square type to a double square for a little more internal bracing and rigidity.

The forks and rear shock were carried over from the 750 to the 1000 however the forks received heavier springs as well as increased compression damping. The shock also came in for some attention with a 2mm-thicker piston rod (16mm), while the spring and damping rate were reviewed, with less compression damping but with increased rebound.

The 1000cc powerplant was pretty much an enlarged 750 donk, to the point where it was the same width and just 14mm higher and 6mm longer front to rear – with an increase of just 4kg in overall weight. The same cylinderhead was used, with intake and exhaust

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The GSX-R1000 had a different swingarm and damper to the 750, but the bikes’ dimensions were identical

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The four-cylinder motor was just 14mm taller than the 750 but with beefed-up internals to cope with the extra power In 2001 the GSXR was king of the kids for power, with 160 horses giving a top speed (claimed) of 278km/h One of the few weak points of the K1 model was the brakes, which would benefit from upgrades to pads and steel brake lines

PRICE GUIDE

New price $18,990 Secondhand $4450-$6000

WHAT TO LOOK FOR

These are now 20 years old so you have to be pretty diligent with your inspections.

The usual bearing checks (swingarm pivot, steering head) should be carried out, plus check the chain/ sprocket, brakes, lights and switches. After this much time the titanium-nitrate coating on the forks might start to go as well.

Check for body panels that don’t line up and scratches on the frame, fork legs and swingarm. Let the bike idle from cold off the sidestand for a few minutes and watch what comes out of the exhaust when you give the throttle a blip. If there are copious amounts of blue smoke emitting, the rings are worn and the engine will need rebuilding.

SERVICE INTERVALS

The 2001 Suzuki GSXR1000 had its first service at 1000km with the engine oil and filter replaced, plus a general checkover of all bolts, chain and sprocket, idle speed, fuel lines, carried out.

The second service came at 6000km and was essentially a repeat of the 1000km operation. At 12,000km the coolant and brake fluid was replaced (plus a repeat of the 6000km service). At 18,000km, along with the repeat of the 6000km service, the air filter was replaced, while at 24,000km the spark plugs, brake lines/brake fluid, coolant and fuel lines were replaced, the throttle bodies balanced and valve clearances checked and adjusted.

Suzuki didn’t reinvent the wheel, it just made it a hell of a lot faster valves sitting at 12° and 13°, respectively.

Where the difference between this and the 750 sat was in the double-overhead camshafts, which had a longer duration and lift – 9.00mm to 8.7mm on the inlet and 8.0mm to 7.3mm on the exhaust and, even though the crankshaft width was the same on the 1000 to the 750, the 1000’s crank had larger diameter journals and crank pins and a larger stroke for the shot-peened conrods.

An air-cooled oil cooler rather than a watercooled one was employed on the 1000, and Suzuki also used the Pulsed secondary Air Injection (PAIR) system to reduce emissions by injecting fresh air from the airbox through the PAIR valve into the exhaust to ignite any unburnt fuel.

Fuel injection on the ram air-assisted monster was now pretty much the norm (the Yamaha YZF-R1 and Kawasaki ZX-9R still used carbies), with Suzuki using their Secondary Dual Throttle Valve (SDTV) controlled by the ECU to provide more linear throttle response.

Suzuki didn’t reinvent the wheel with the GSX-R1000, it just made it a hell of a lot faster. The bike won pretty much everything it contested from magazine shootouts to the racetrack, with a certain Mr Giles decimating the competition to win his second straight Aussie Superbike title (he did it again in 2002).

During AMCN’s annual superbike shootout in 2001 (AMCN Vol 50 No 17), the new GSX-R was put head-to-head with the Honda CBR929, the Kawasaki ZX-9R and the Yamaha YZF-R1. The Suzuki scored the highest top speed, fastest quarter-mile time and top speed, fastest 0-160km/h time, top gear rollon and lap time. The only test it didn’t come out on top was the 0-100km/h time.

True to form however, Suzuki didn’t rest on its laurels and began work almost immediately on a new 1000 ready for 2003.

But that shouldn’t take away from what is a truly outstanding motorcycle. Two decades on it’s still a true road weapon, and more than capable of slicing up a trackday with ease.

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howto U-turns

SAFETY FIRST T PPING IN

WORDS & PHOTOGRAPHY AMCN ARCHIVES

Chuck a U-

A reliable feet-up u-turn is crucial for man a big bike without damage. Here’s h w Most riders learn this skill at learner level because you have to, to pass your training – then promptly forget it. U-turns are

actually an important part of your riding skill arsenal, something you may realise as you tiptoe your way across a busy road on the

point of capsizing. And dropping a bike even at this low speed can be very expensive. Not to mention embarrassing… Here’s a

refresher course on how to u-turn a big bike, even something the size of a BMW K 1300 R. Like everything, it’s easy once you know how.

Start here

▲ STEP 1 U-turn skills are similar to those used when riding slowly.

You need to set the throttle just above idle and forget it. It stays put after that. Some bikes need more, some less, but you don’t need to be valve bouncing for a u-turn, you just need enough to keep the bike moving forward, because if it is, it shouldn’t fall over. U-turns are slow however, so you need your clutch, too.

▲ STEP 3 The rear brake will give you all the speed control you need for this manoeuvre. If you’re going too fast, leave clutch and throttle set, but add rear brake, and vice versa. By using the rear brake, the bike’s balance is retained. If you use front brake, however, it can upset the balance of the bike and cause stability problems. You don’t want stability problems. Advanced riders will be able to drag a bit of front brake if needed, but the rear brake should work well enough.

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▲ STEP 2 Once the throttle is set, ease out the clutch until the bike is wanting to drive forward. Like the throttle, once the appropriate clutch position is set, you can forget it – it doesn’t need to move again. You need enough forward drive from the throttle and clutch combo to keep the bike moving. It’s when it stops mid-u-turn that things become all funky. And expensive. But if the throttle and clutch are set, how do you control the speed?

▲ STEP 4 Once the speed is set, via the combination of rear brake, clutch and throttle, the bike is ready to u-turn. Just be sure to have a good, long headcheck before you do, indicate and check your mirror, because u-turns can be the most dangerous thing you do on a bike.

RELAX!

T h is w a s sho t on a p ri v a te ro a d, s o d o n ’t w o rr y, w e d id n’t re a ll y u-t u rn o v e r d o u ble u n b rok e n w h it e li n e s

▲ STEP 5 Time to start turning. With the throttle and clutch unmoving, and the rear brake trimming the speed, start turning your head and leaning the bike into the u-turn. Instead of tipping with the bike, though, let the bike move underneath you, dirtbike-style.

▲ STEP 6 The bike is close to full lock now, and you can let it do that at a low speed by counterbalancing the weight with your bodyweight. Keep your head up for balance, and you should be looking at your exit by now to help keep the bike turning tight. It’s just like going through a corner – where you look is where you go.

▲ STEP 7 As the bike is beginning to stand up, you can see how I’ve not only completed the u-turn well within the narrow road, but also am beginning to bring my body back in line with the bike. I am still looking up and where I want to go. If I shut the throttle or pulled in the clutch in at this point, I’d be in trouble – the key is to keep the bike driving forward with throttle, clutch and rear brake.

▲ STEP 8 Almost upright and straight again, the boots haven’t left the footpegs, I have plenty of room left over, and I can now drive the bike back to the cool twisty section of road I just came through, and do it all again! This is a quick, safe and effi cient way of turning the bike around, very, very handy and a smidge cooler than paddling your way across a road in your best leathers.

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amcnr Outback SA

ESSENTIALS Fuel up at Wilpena Pound Resort as you head north as no petrol is available at Blinman. If you are riding through the gorge to Parachilna on the unsealed road you will find petrol available there.

Wilpena Pound Resort offers a range of accommodation from camping to well-appointed cabins. They also have a general store for supplies and good dining options for meals if you are staying at the resort. For more information and booking ring (08) 8648 0048.

Other options include Arkaba Homestead and Willow Springs.

Both feature plenty of hospitality and an authentic outback feel.

The self-guided bushwalks from the resort into Wilpena Pound itself are a must-do while you are in the area. There are a number of different walks that range in difficulty from easy to more strenuous hikes if you want to work on your fitness. Most offer incredible views that make the effort worthwhile.

If walking is not your thing, try the short scenic flights that depart from the dirt airstrip just up the road. There are options for a short loop of the immediate ranges, or a longer flight out to some more distant regions.

These can all be booked at the resort reception.

HELPING HAND Carry a good range of parts and tools if you are touring this part of the country. The locals are always happy to help out, but the distances between towns and homesteads can be considerable.

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The Flinders Ranges

If you like a bit of awesome scenery with your riding, Australia’s remote central landscapes take a lot of beating STORY & PHOTOGRAPHY AMCN ARCHIVES

NORTHERN SOUTH AUSTRALIA features some of the most spectacular views, particularly around the Flinders Ranges National Park and, while many of the bitumen roads through the region are too straight and flat to qualify as exciting rides, there is one little gem that has recently been tarred to the benefit of motorcycle riders.

Heading north from Hawker the road starts as an open fast straight ride which burns up most of the 50km to Wilpena, with only a few good sweeping corners appearing as you get closer to the Ranges. The turn off to the Wilpena Pound Resort on your left takes you a short distance to the resort, where you’ll find fuel and accommodation available.

The road from the resort up to Blinman has only recently been sealed and features some good sections of corners with well-finished bitumen.

The biggest problem is trying to tear your eyes off the unfolding scenery long enough to concentrate on the road ahead.

You do need to stay aware as there are is not only a large kangaroo population, but also a number of crazy-eyed emus that have a habit of bolting onto the road with very little warning.

The stretch from Wilpena to Blinman is about 60km and passes a number of worthwhile tourist attractions, including Sacred Canyon and Willow Springs. It’s worth stopping for a look while you are in the area as there are many interesting places just off the main tourist route.

Blinman dates back to 1859 when copper was discovered in the area. It only has a small permanent population now but is a good spot to stop for lunch, and to check out the interesting local history.

The Flinders Ranges National Park is a place most of us will only visit once or twice in a lifetime due to its remote location. It does tend to leave a big impression though which stays with visitors for a long time. Our tip is to take plenty of photographs while you are there.

DETOUR

If you are riding a bike with some unsealed road capability then several options are available to you from Blinman.

The road west through Parachilna Gorge is an easy ride to make a loop run, as well as the road north-east to Arkaroola, which is a brilliant place to visit. Adventure bike riders with a bit of confidence should consider dropping in to Willow Springs Homestead to traverse the Skytrek loop track around the property. For $40 per bike you will get an information pack and instructions to complete the 70km route around the property.

Allow several hours to get around, as a few sections are first/second gear only, and there are many stunning lookout points to stop and do some photography.

The northern part of So uth Australia offers some stu nning and unique views

ge In the local indigenous langua t Wilpena means a “place of ben s) fingers” (so watch your finger

The biggest problem is trying to tear your eyes off the unfolding scenery

Arkaba Station, a forme r sheep proper ty, has operated as a tourist resort for a deca de

There are a number of accommodation options available at Willow Springs

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Old School HAMISH COOPER

Young at heart “EVEN IF YOU don’t like motorcycles much, Beverly Cleary will soon convince you of their joys, and if you already do like them this is even more the book for you.”

Sounds like the introduction to the latest glossy, limitededition, photo-essay book on custom motorcycles, doesn’t it? But this is the inside jacket blurb on the Puffin Books edition of a timeless American classic.

Titled The Mouse and the Motorcycle, it was written by children’s author Beverly Cleary, one of America’s most successful writers, with over 90 million of her books selling worldwide since 1950.

The Mouse and the Motorcycle was first published in the US in 1965, then in the UK in 1974 with Puffin Books reprinting it four times between 1977 and 1980. I bought my copy during a road trip at a secondhand shop in Nhill called Lola’s Garage. It had previously been in the library at St Peter’s Lutheran School in Dimboola.

I never read it as a child, but reading it now to my grandchildren has sparked my memories of motorcycles as a youngster. Yes, I was one of those kids who hid a motorcycle magazine inside a text book during early 1970s secondary school classes that offered subjects I had no interest in learning.

But even before that I had a fascination with motorcycles.

So much so that my mother, whose brother was a lifelong motorcycle enthusiast, bought me a plastic pencil case for primary school that had a motorcycle decal on its cover.

Cleary’s book clearly states the attraction of motorcycling as Ralph the mouse sees the toy motorcycle for the first time from his hole in the skirting board of a rundown hotel in the California mountains. The boy playing with it is making motorcycle noises.

“That sound seemed to satisfy something within Ralph, as if he had been waiting all his life to hear it,” the book explains. “The sound spoke of highways and speed, of distance and danger, and whiskers blown back by the wind.”

Later he manages to view the motorcycle up close: “Ralph stared at it and then walked over and kicked a tyre. Close up the motorcycle looked even better than he expected.

Ralph walked all the way around it, examining the pair of chromium mufflers and the engine and the hand clutch. It even had a little licence plate so it would be legal to ride it.”

Eventually Ralph got a chance to ride the motorcycle: “Feeling that this was an important moment in his life, he took hold of the handgrips. They felt good and solid.

Yes, this motorcycle was a good machine all right. He could tell by the feel. Ralph threw a leg over and sat jauntily on the seat. He even bounced up and down. The seat was curved just right. But how to start the motorcycle? ” Cleary was 47 years old when she wrote this book. She died this March past aged 104 years. It is not recorded if she had any practical experience of motorcycling but when children used to ask her where she found her ideas, she would reply: “From my own experience and from the world around me.”

Her books have been published in 29 languages, so her timeless descriptions of the attraction of motorcycling have been spread around the world.

Major motorcycle manufacturers have started a worldwide campaign to get pre-teens interested in motorcycling by offering electric balance bikes. A range of competing brands entered the Australian market this year.

Youngsters can watch any number of videos to get an impression of what it might be like to ride one. But only Cleary actually describes the feeling youngsters will get.

It’s a feeling that has remained with me throughout my life. It doesn’t matter what the motorcycle is, or where I ride it, just the experience is a tonic that lifts me every time I do it.

And the feeling probably started by staring at that pencil case back in primary school.

It spoke of speed, distance and danger

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1. Jack Miller celebrates MotoGP win #3 2. Miller describes his GP21 as the best Ducati he has raced 3. No post-GP test… do you reckon that fizzy lasted until Monday?

4. The GP21 seems to wheelie better than other Ducatis as well 5. On to Mugello… and an extended contract?

3 5

Revolving Racer JACK MILLER

Two on the trot

WHERE DO I start after that race at Le Mans? Let’s see. It was dry, I led. It rained, I fell back. I went off in the gravel and just about kept it upright. I sped coming into pit lane. I did two long-lap penalties. I got back to the front. It dried, the wind picked up like a hurricane and I was on the wrong tyre.

And then I win. I’m on the podium with two French riders, there’s nobody in the Le Mans stands (because of Covid restrictions) and I’ve won two races in two weeks.

If your head is spinning after reading that, how do you reckon mine is? There’s some other stuff I’ve probably forgotten too. It’s probably not the best word, but ‘hectic’ is one way to describe it. Back-to-back wins, just fantastic.

Somebody pinch me, because I must be dreaming…

I had good pace all weekend no matter what the weather was doing (and it did a lot), so I just wanted to get out in front from the start, and then manage things even if someone went back past – just tag onto them and see where the pace went.

I did that. It was all going to plan and then the rain came four laps in! When it really bucketed down, both me and (Fabio) Quartararo buttoned off and it was then that I nearly lost it, so I just aimed for the gravel at Turn 11, as I figured there’d be some grip in there. That was pretty hairy.

Once I got back out after the bike swap and did my long-lap penalties for speeding coming into the pit lane, I knew there was a long race ahead and I had time to get back up there. I didn’t have to do it all at once, just keep my head. I knew I had the pace in the first sector and Turn One compared to Fabio. So, no need to panic, I just had to keep my composure.

Eventually I got back to the front with more than half the race left. Fourteen laps and she was a long old 14 laps from there, let me tell you. I was able to ride my own race from there though, and here we are again.

I’ve now won a completely wet race in Assen in 2016, a completely dry one at Jerez last time, and now a flag-to-flag

one here. Any win in MotoGP feels fantastic but flag-to-flag…

I don’t want to say it’s the most stressful because Jerez was pretty stressful, being at the front and being chased down, but this feels different.

You don’t feel physically exhausted, but I think I speak for all the riders in that you feel a little bit mentally exhausted because of the focus it takes, and the feeling of trying to predict what conditions you’ll find at the next corner, corner after corner, lap after lap. It’s a more mentally draining way to win. Flag-to-flag is a cool element of our sport. It’s not that enjoyable at the time because of the stress, but it’s better than red-flagging a race every time it rains and sitting around waiting to get started again.

Now you’ll all be asking what’s changed since it was all going so bad in the first few races? My confidence now is up for sure, and it’s just momentum, keeping the ball rolling. Generally in my career I get stronger the longer the season goes on, so that’s what happening here. I’m not worrying about my arm, and one thing I did after Jerez was keep up my training like I’m losing rather than winning… so let’s not change a formula that’s working.

I’d be stoked just to be on the podium in the next race at Mugello for Ducati – this is the best Ducati I’ve ridden, for sure. For me they’re the hardest-working manufacturer there is, so I’m proud to bring these results back to them.

Le Mans is definitely a place with mixed emotions for me, I described it as a bit of a love-hate thing even before this weekend started, and you can see why. I won a Moto3 race here in 2014 in a big old brawl at the front, had a couple of crashes the first MotoGP races I did, had that huge crash at the chicane that nearly killed me in 2017, and then looked on for a podium last year before the bike cut out.

So, some super big highs and pretty deep lows. Let’s say I wasn’t the best company after the race here last year! After this one – let’s just say it’s good we’re not testing here tomorrow like we were after Jerez!

I’d be stoked just to be on the podium at Mugello

In Pit Lane MICHAEL SCOTT

Crash-fest complacency IT OUGHT TO be compulsory. Bad weather, that is. It would take serious meteorological magic to rival the weatherstricken French GP. The racing was wonderfully unpredictable in all classes, MotoGP particularly mental, and the reward of a second win in a row going to Jack Miller, the most marvellously mental of riders.

But there is a weakness. Racing should break records, and Le Mans did. Not in lap times, however; nor crowd attendance (unless you’re counting “lowest-ever”). It recorded its highestever number of crashes.

There were 117, up on the mere 100 there last year, and more also than the 109 recorded in the bumper year of 2018. Still a long way short of Misano’s all-time record in 2017. Teeming rain combined with dodgy resurfacing racked an astonishing 140.

That was a one-off. A high crash toll is normal at Le Mans. As numbers on a list, dubbed “a crash fest” you can smile at the antics. Especially at some sterling efforts. At opposite ends of the scale Marc Marquez and Indonesian Moto3 rookie Andi Farid Izdihar each had four crashes, Marquez twice in the race alone. Alex Rins also twice in the race; Maverick Viñales ridiculously at some 20km/h while leaving the pits. There were other more than faintly ridiculous episodes.

Most falls, more than 50, were in Moto3, giving racing’s learners valuable – er, grounding in the art of slide-don’t-roll.

It’s less amusing for the victims, and rather miraculous that only two riders were injured badly enough to be ruled out for the weekend... Moto2 rookie Yari Montella, with a fractured wrist, and Moto3’s Yuki Kunii (collarbone).

The cost should be considered, and questions asked. Is the Bugatti circuit really fit for purpose? The answer needs to be a resounding “yes”, although possibly the camber of the notorious Turn 3 could be improved.

Are the riders good enough? Again, it must be “yes”. The road

to GP entry is well-controlled, the ability to qualify generally serves the purpose.

How about the equipment? Here it is not so clear. What is certain is a high level of standardisation, all aimed at cutting costs. Fresh regs announced last week mean that next year frames and swingarms join engines and electronics on the growing list of items with development frozen.

Most significant is the frozen development of control tyres, Michelin for MotoGP, Dunlop for Motos 2 and 3. The range they can offer is severely limited – a choice of three (soft-mediumhard) slicks front and rear; just two (soft and hard) rain tyres. More restrictive still: these tyres have to be homologated before the start of the season.

This is a sharp contrast to what went before, in the years of the tyres wars – played out in the premier class between Bridgestone, Michelin and Dunlop.

Back then, a variety of rubber was available to suit particular tracks, temperatures and weather conditions. Michelin, based in France, had an advantage in being able to make bespoke track-specific tyres on Saturday and drive them to the circuit on Sunday – which played a big part in Valentino Rossi’s domination, as their most-favoured rider.

Bridgestone, based in Japan, had to ramp up the science to develop constructions and compounds with a wider range of performance. There were tyres in between wet and dry – so-called intermediates, and also hand-cut slicks.

All three tyre manufacturers were patently willing to bear the cost of R&D, for the ultimate benefit of their production tyres. But Dorna felt the need to reduce costs and level the playing field by introducing control tyres in 2009.

The Le Mans crash list is living proof that in this respect, one size most definitely does not fit all. Especially if the money saved on tyre development is spent instead on crash repairs and medical bills.

Is the Bugatti circuit really fit for purpose?

Yes

race report YOUR FORTNIGHTLY FIX

Round 5 Bugatti Circuit, Le Mans, France, 14-16 May 2021 MotoGP World Championship

Rain supreme!

Aussie Jack Miller outsmarted the rain, the drama and the world’s best to celebrate his secondconsecutive premier-class win REPORT NEIL MORRISON

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PHOTOGRAPHY GOLD&GOOSE

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3

“The old French speed traps get me all the time”

–Miller after his long-lap penalties

VALENTINO ROSSI MAY be undergoing the worst run of his 26-year career. But he has been around long enough to know how the French Grand Prix works.

On Friday the Petronas SRT Yamaha star explained, “At Le Mans everything changes in five minutes. So everything is open.”

It was fitting the main race in a chaotic weekend, which saw 117 crashes across all three classes, should be decided by the weather, with MotoGP enjoying its first flag-to-flag encounter since August, 2017.

Cracker Jack ANOTHER EXEMPLARY weekend from Miller. Le Mans is one of his favoured tracks. But his Jerez success saw him come to France without pressure on his shoulders. “I struggle sometimes with self-

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In the end, Rossi was out by only a few minutes and this contest turned on what happened within two laps.

It began when the field rode into “a wall of rain,” to borrow Jack Miller’s words, necessitating a bike swap in pitlane. Winners and losers were made in the blink of an eye and it was Miller (Lenovo Ducati) who held his nerve to emerge with a second premierclass win in as many weeks.

This time there was no sense of benefiting from the good fortune that accompanied his previous win in Spain.

Here, Miller shrugged off an

off-track excursion, and made light of receiving a double Long Lap Penalty for speeding in pitlane.

“The old French speed traps get me all the time,” he joked.

He also put in a devastating run of laps that not only carried him past leader Fabio Quartararo (Monster Energy Yamaha), but allowed him to control the gap comfortably to the late-charging Johann Zarco (Pramac Ducati) in the final exchanges.

“Someone needs to pinch me,” he said after becoming the first Australian to win back-to-back premier class races since Casey Stoner in 2012. “I think I’m dreaming.”

All weekend he was a threat, a considerable achievement considering the field encountered everything the French weather gods could throw at them: wet, dry, wet but drying and dry with showers. That he avoided

falling prey to the conditions in the race was another feather in his cap considering that Ecstar Suzuki’s title challengers Joan Mir and Alex Rins came apart at the seams as the rain arrived. And it wasn’t just Suzuki’s heads that were bowed come the race’s end.

For three laps at least, this was poised to be remembered as Marc Marquez’s rapid, glorious return to the top.

From 2014 to 2017, the Repsol Honda ace was untouchable in these conditions, triumphing in six out of seven contests that required at least one bike swap. His fast reactions and ability to bring Michelin’s super stiff tyres quickly up to temperatures on cold, damp asphalt have long been the magic formula – and were in evidence again here, as he emerged from the bike swap at the head of a race for the first time in 302 days.

But there would be no dream

“Definitely I think I was able to get that back (in Jerez), and just trying to be freer. The biggest thing is that I need to remember I’m just a guy who loves racing motorcycles. I’m fortunate enough to do it as my job and to not take

any moment for granted. Enjoy it because the happiest place I am in the world is on my motorcycle.”

Miller waited 1773 days – or 82 races – between his first MotoGP triumph and his second. His third followed two weeks after…

MotoGP 1st belief,” he admitted on Friday.

“In the past I think I was sometimes too self-confident.

Trying to mature and be more of a complete rider, maybe I’ve lost a bit of this self-belief and knowing ‘I’ve got this.’

4

6

1. Jack Miller made it two GP wins in two weeks 2. Another trophy for the Miller pool room 3. While Franco Morbidelli played catch-up, Pecco Bagnaia stormed through the field to P4 4. Miller’s Ducati was the class of the field 5. Marc Marquez crashed twice! 6. Fellow Frenchmen Fabio Quartararo and Johann Zarco battle it out for home race honours 7. ‘Come to France,’ they said. ‘The weather is always great,’ they said...

MotoGP Track attack – Round 5 finishing positions 8

6 5 10 7 9

3 4

11 2

MOTOGP 27 LAPS

12 1

13 14

Bugatti Circuit, Le Mans, France Circuit length 4.185km 2020 winners MotoGP D Petrucci 45m54.736s Moto2 S Lowes 41m27.648s Moto3 C Vietti 37m37.384s

→

Did you know?

Spaniards and Italians have dominated the MotoGP era so heavily that the Le Mans podium was the first not to feature either nationality since the San Marino Grand Prix at Misano in 2007. It has only happened three other times – and all those previous races were also in 2007.

All four of those GPs were won

by Australians; Casey Stoner, Chris Vermeulen and Jack Miller

5

POS

RIDER

NAT

BIKE

TIME

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

J MILLER J ZARCO F QUARTARARO F BAGNAIA D PETRUCCI A MARQUEZ T NAKAGAMI P ESPARGARO I LECUONA M VIÑALES V ROSSI L MARINI B BINDER E BASTIANNINI T RABAT F MORBIDELLI

AUS FRA FRA ITA ITA SPA JPN SPA SPA SPA ITA ITA RSA ITA SPA ITA

DUC DUC YAM DUC KTM HON HON HON KTM YAM YAM DUC KTM DUC DUC YAM

47m25.473s +3.970s +14.468s +16.172s +21.430s +23.509s +30.164s +35.221s +40.432s +40.577s +42.198s +52.408s +59.377s +1m02.224s +1m09.651s +4 LAPS

DNF M MARQUEZ (SPA, HON), A ESPARGARO (SPA, APR), M OLIVEIRA (POR, KTM), A RINS (SPA, SUZ), L SAVADORI (ITA, APR), J MIR (SPA, SUZ).

POLE POSITION

F QUARTARARO 1m32.600s FASTEST LAP

F QUARTARARO 1m33.038s STANDINGS AFTER 5 OF 19 ROUNDS

1 QUARTARARO 80, 2 BAGNAIA 79, 3 ZARCO 68, 4 MILLER 64, 5 VIÑALES 56, 6 MIR 49, 7 A ESPARGARO 35, 8 MORBIDELLI 33, 9 NAKAGAMI 28, 10 P ESPARGARO 25, 11 BINDER 24, 12 A RINS 23, 13 BASTIANNINI 20, 14 A MARQUEZ 18, 15 MARTIN 17.

MOTO2 25 LAPS POS

7

ending. Marquez was thrown from his machine at the final corner on lap eight as his rear tyre came around. He fell a second time for good measure, as he charged through from 18th to 11th after remounting.

Marquez’s speed in these conditions was still unparalleled yet there was a ring-rustiness to his in-race management. His subsequent anger spoke of this being an opportunity lost, especially as Miller, Johann Zarco (Pramac Ducati), Quartararo, and Francesco Bagnaia (Lenovo Ducati) – the season’s quickest men so far – made up the final top four.

It was clear this would be a chaotic contest from the

very start as the dark closed in. Miller led the pack away on a dry track with Maverick Viñales (Monster Energy Yamaha) and Quartararo close behind. Takaaki Nakagami (LCR Honda), Marquez and the fast-starting Rins – 15th in qualifying – made up a feisty fight for fourth.

A first lap moment for Pol Espargaro (Repsol Honda) at turn 10 caused Franco Morbidelli (Petronas SRT Yamaha) to misjudge a move on the Spaniard at the following turn, taking himself down and running Rossi wide in the process.

And that was only the start.

Rain began peppering the circuit on lap three. By lap

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 DQ* 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

MOTO3 22 LAPS

NAT

BIKE

TIME

P

R FERNÁNDEZ R GARDNER M BEZZECCHI T ARBOLINO B BENDSNEYDER M SCHROTTER A OGURA

SPA AUS ITA ITA NED GER JPN

KAL KAL KAL KAL KAL KAL KAL

F DiGIANNANTONIO S CORSI J NAVARRO L DALLA PORTA J BULEGA S CHANTRA M RAMIREZ A ARENAS H SYAHRIN B BALTUS L BALDASSARRI J DIXON C VIETTI T MARCON

ITA ITA SPA ITA ITA THA SPA SPA MAL BEL ITA GBR ITA ITA

KAL MVA BOS KAL KAL KAL KAL BOS NTS NTS MVA KAL KAL MVA

+40m46.101s +1.490s +4.599s +7.503s +11.887s +27.829s +27.975s +28.112s +28.804s +28.432s +28.989s +29.316s +28.749s +31.605s +32.080s +32.571s +33.309s +39.036s +41.069s +45.599s +1m19.160s

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

RIDER

DNF C BEAUBIER (USA, KAL), T LUTHI (SWI, KAL), H GARZO (SPA, KAL), J ROBERTS (USA, KAL), X VIERGE (SPA, KAL), S LOWES (GBR, KAL), S MANZI (ITA, KAL), A LOPEZ (SPA, BOS), A FERNANDEZ (SPA, KAL). *DALLA PORTA’S KALEX WAS 1KG UNDERWEIGHT POST-RACE

S GARCIA F SALAC R ROSSI J McPHEE A SASAKI A FERNANDEZ X ARTIGAS P ACOSTA D ÖNCÜ R FENATI A MIGNO R YAMANAKA J DUPASQUIER I GUEVARA A IZDIHAR M KOFLER S NEPA D FOGGIA L FELLON D BINDER K TOBA J ALCOBA

SPA CZE ITA GBR JPN SPA SPA SPA TUR ITA ITA JPN SWI SPA INA AUT ITA ITA FRA RSA JPN SPA

BIKE

TIME

GAS HON HON HON HON HUS HON KTM KTM HUS HON KTM KTM GAS HON KTM KTM HON HON HON KTM HON

+42m21.172s +2.349s +5.589s +7.158s +14.882s +27.279s +27.408s +29.880s +35.098s +36.616s +42.347s +42.739s +42.756s +50.891s +52.753s +53.054s +53.568s +1m18.995s +1m19.103s +1m54.124s +1 LAP +4 LAPS

DNF C TATAY (SPA, KTM), T MATSUYAMA (JPN, HON), G RODRIGO (ARG, HON), J MASIA (SPA, KTM), T SUZUKI (JPN, HON), N ANTONELLI (ITA, KTM).

POLE POSITION

A MIGNO 1m47.707s

POLE POSITION

R FERNANDEZ 1m50.135s

FASTEST LAP

FASTEST LAP

R ROSSI 1m50.822s

R GARDNER 1m36.893s

STANDINGS AFTER 5 OF 19 ROUNDS

STANDINGS AFTER 5 OF 19 ROUNDS

1 ACOSTA 103, 2 GARCIA 49, 3 MIGNO 47, 4 FENATI 46, 5 ANTONELLI 44, 6 SASAKI 44, 7 MASIA 39, 8 BINDER 36, 9 SALAC 30, 10 DUPASQUIER 27, 11 GUEVARA 24, 12 YAMANAKA 26, 13 RODRIGO 25, 14 FOGGIA 20, 15 ALCOBA 18.

1 GARDNER 89, 2 R FERNANDEZ 88, 3 BEZZECCHI 72, 4 LOWES 66, 5 DI GIANNANTONIO 60, 6 ROBERTS 31, 7 CANET 30, 8 SCHROTTER 30, 9 OGURA 29, 10 VIERGE 26, 11 BENDSNEYDER 24, 12 A FERNANDEZ 23, 13 NAVARRO 19, 14 ARBOLINO 18, 15 VIETTI 13.

*One place penalty for exceeding track limits POS RIDER

NAT

BIKE

1 2 3

BRA ITA ITA

ONE SIC58 OCTO

E GRANADO M CASADEI A ZACCONE*

TIME

12m23.012s +0.306s +0.253s

RIDER STANDINGS AFTER 1 OF 8 ROUNDS

1 A ZACCONE 41, 2 M CASADEI 33, 3 D AEGERTER 33, 4 E GRANADO 28, 5 J TORRES 27, 6 M FERRARI 18, 7 Y HERNANDEZ 16, 8 M HERRERA 13, 9 M PONS 11, 10 H OKUBO 9.

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race report

1. Alex Rins did this on the out lap from his bike swap 2. Fabio and Jack looked comfortable while others did not 3. Johann Zarco is making a habit of charging in the second half of races 4. Our man Miller is girt by Frenchmen…

Round 5 Bugatti Circuit, Le Mans, France, 14-16 May 2021 MotoGP World Championship

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four it was a downpour.

From leading, Viñales “was nowhere” after a mistake at turn nine. Miller ran off track at turn 11, dropping him back to fourth. Mir crashed out at turn 12 just as the field pitted for wet rubber at the close of that lap. And Rins soon followed, falling at turn four as he exited from pit lane on wets just behind the leaders.

By then, Marquez had gained the initiative, taking advantage of Quartararo’s napping on the entrance of pitlane to lead once the bike swap was complete. By the end of the seventh lap he was 1.5s clear, with Miller a further 3.9s back in third. Nakagami, Zarco and Alex Marquez (LCR Honda) were in another race, 13s in arrears in a revised top six.

With past form in mind, this contest was only going one way. But Marquez was soon out of the way, his spectacular dismount on lap eight opening the door for Quartararo.

“Already in the warm-up it was quite difficult to get the temperature in the rear tyre, especially on entry and off gas and brakes,” Marquez

“I stopped at the wrong bike” – Quartararo

reflected. “I wasn’t pushing a lot, but I just crashed.”

From there, Quartararo found himself in front, and in control, a fine achievement considering Yamaha’s profligacy in such encounters in previous years. It wasn’t just that: the 22-year old struggled at this very race in similar conditions last October, and he had gone under the knife just 12 days before to address the arm-pump issues that slowed him in Jerez. Yet he was soon notified he had violated the rules by parking his bike at the entrance of Viñales’s garage during the bike swap.

“I arrived into the pit lane,” he recalled. “I was looking at the numbers on the ground.

I was first going to (Enea) Bastianini’s box. Then I turned into the correct one, but I stopped at the wrong bike.”

He was handed a Long Lap

STEP OFF OF THE WEEKEND

Pedro Acosta finished a lowly (by his standards) eighth in Moto3 after this happened. Even his crashes are world-class

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Penalty, which he served on lap 12. Miller had taken his own penalty on laps nine and 10. Yet it caused him the minimum of fuss. Soon he was on the tail of the leader, and eased by his young adversary at La Chapelle on lap 12. From there he never looked back.

Even as Zarco later charged to close down his lead, which peaked at 7.1s, Miller was always in control.

“In the last corner I could see Johann coming. I was able to manage the gap and just brought it home.”

His final advantage was 3.9s, some turnaround for a man being written off just one month ago.

Despite sitting 11s behind Quartararo on lap 16, Zarco’s wet tyre selection of medium front, medium rear (Miller was medium, soft, Quartararo soft, medium) was the right one for the closing laps, when most of the track had dried out. He caught his countryman on lap 21 and eased by on the front straight a lap later on his way to a third second place in five races.

“My medium rear took four

3

laps to get ready. If I think about the victory, I lost it there. But I’m pretty happy with the 20 points.”

Quartararo was delighted with third, 14s back.

Like Zarco, Bagnaia was another later charger with medium-medium tyres fitted. His fourth place was impressive considering he was as low as 19th in the early stages and completed two Long Lap penalties for pitlane speeding during his comeback.

After starting last wetweather specialist Danilo Petrucci (Tech 3 KTM) was fifth, while Alex Marquez led an all-Honda trio of Nakagami and Espargaro for his best result of the year.

Iker Lecuona (Tech 3 KTM) enjoyed a second-best result in ninth, ahead of Viñales.

PLUMMET OF THE WEEKEND

When the rain came on lap four, Maverick Viñales led but in 23 laps he dropped nine positions and 41 seconds to Miller

4

Fernandez led a Red Bull 1-2 in France

Garcia’s Mama reckons That’s All Right

Fernandez’s star rises

Granado wins a thriller LE MANS HOSTED the best MotoE race yet. Eight riders fought out a seven-lap thriller that was decided on the last corner. In heavy winds first Alessandro Zaccone (Octo Pramac) took control but pole sitter Eric Granado (One Energy) quickly recovered from a slow start. He passed Lukas Tulovic (Tech3 Racing), Jordi Torres (Pons Racing) and Dominique Aegerter (IntactGP) in quick succession to sit second with a lap to play.

A move at La Chapelle didn’t pay off but Granado went again at T13, and had the presence of mind to dive inside when Zaccone responded at the final turn. Zaccone’s touching of the green on the corner exit led to him receiving a one-place penalty, demoting him from second to third. Mattia Casadei (SIC58) was promoted to second, and seven riders were covered by a second at the flag.

THE STAR OF Raul Fernandez (Ajo Kalex) continues to rise, after he won in France. The track had dried out after torrential morning rain and riders had to navigate a dry but patchy track on slick tyres in the early laps. Fernandez somehow maintained his cool in a frenzied opening, which claimed a number of podium contenders, including Aron Canet (Aspar Boscoscuro), Augusto Fernandez (Marc VDS Kalex) and Joe Roberts (Italtrans Kalex) through laps one to four.

Title challenger Sam Lowes then skittled himself and Xavi Vierge (Petronas Kalex) in a turn-eight collision on lap four. From lap five, Fernandez moved past early leader Marco Bezzecchi (Sky VR46

Landscape Gardner “THIS ALL CAME from our qualifying. What are you going to do?” That was Gardner’s assessment of a race he had the speed to win. A mistake on his fastest lap on Saturday afternoon in patchy conditions left him seventh on the grid. And a near moment at the first chicane ultimately left him too far in arrears of teammate Fernandez.

“I don’t think the quali helped,” said the 23-year old. “And it seemed I was taking the sensible

Kalex) to take the initiative.

Only teammate Remy Gardner (Ajo Kalex) could run his pace, but he was mired in ninth after a feisty first chicane. After Lowes crashed, the Australian made short work of Tony Arbolino (IntactGP Kalex) and Bo Bendsnyder (SAG Kalex) before passing Bezzecchi for second on lap 19.

It left Fernandez to win by 1.4s and become the first rider in Moto2 history to win twice in his first five races in the class. Behind Gardner, Bezzecchi collected a second straight podium and there were personal best results in the class for Arbolino (fourth) and Bendsneyder (fifth).

Marcel Schrotter (IntactGP Kalex) was sixth.

Moto2 2nd approach in the first few laps. I got buried going into the first chicane. Vierge came around the outside, (Hector) Garzo up the inside and they both lost the front. Everyone was slapping into each other. I nearly went down.

But then I started understanding the track, changing my lines.

There were a few crashes in front that freed up some space.

Unfortunately, I ran out of tyre in the end, coming from so far back.”

Garcia keeps his cool AFTER FOUR EPIC last-lap fights, Moto3 offered up a rare subdued contest to start the day. Heavy morning rain left the track soaking ahead of the start. An unusual top three of Filip Salac (Snipers Honda), Riccardo Rossi (BOE KTM) and Sergio Garcia (Aspar GasGas) led the way on lap one after early leader Niccolo Antonelli (Avintia KTM) crashed out at turn 12.

Eyes were on championship leader Pedro Acosta (Ajo KTM), making his debut at this track and in these conditions. The Spaniard lit up the contest early on, rising from 21st to sixth by lap two. But even the sport’s new star was susceptible to turn three’s treachery. He slid off on lap three, remounted in 27th and fought back to eighth.

Not that it mattered a great deal for his title hopes. Main challengers Jaume Masia (Ajo KTM) and Darryn Binder (Petronas) joined Antonelli in the gravel with crashes on laps two and nine.

Up front, Garcia and Salac broke clear to play out a cat-and-mouse chase. The Spaniard’s mistake on lap 13 allowed the Czech by.

But Salac’s time at the front was fleeting. Garcia retook the lead a lap later and gradually increased his margin to 2.3s by the flag.

Rossi was third, holding off a late John McPhee (Petronas Sprinta Honda) charge for a maiden podium. Ayumu Sasaki was fifth, with rookie Adrian Fernandez (Max Racing Husqvarna) sixth.

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race report YOUR FORTNIGHTLY FIX

Round 1 MotorLand Aragón, Spain, 21-23 May 2021 WorldSBK Championship

Ton up club History was made at the opening round of the 2021 WorldSBK championship when Jonathan Rea cracked the 100 REPORT GORDON RITCHIE

WORLDSBK RACING HAS never started so late in the year as it has in 2021, but it has very much started with history made even on day one when Jonathan Rea scored his 100th career win, and his 85th since joining Kawasaki for the 2015 season. Not a surprise given that he has been champion for six years running.

In race one, the only rider who could stay even close to his orbit was a certain Alex Lowes, his own KRT teammate, on a new bike which is new enough for a fresh homologation but not thought by the FIM to be a whole new engine. So as you were for the peak power, same as 2020.

At a track like Aragon it should have made a real difference with faster top speeds all around the green bikes, but Rea was in a class of his own again on Saturday for a full-distance 18-lap race one.

He had been more steady away on Friday but come Superpole before race one on Saturday he set a new record of 1m48.458s, to record his 28th career pole position.

PHOTOGRAPHY GOLD&GOOSE

The main event for Rea, made sweeter by the fact he did not get the same higher spec engine to race with he had been testing through the winter, was taking his 100th career win in the opener, by four seconds, from his battling teammate Alex Lowes.

“We’ve been away from home so long this off-season, sometimes for no laps. But we’re in a good position now,” Rea said on Saturday.

“To win the first race starts our championship off 25 points better than last year, because last year was a disaster in race one.”

The KRT duo both escaped their many pursuers in a field of 23 riders, from lap one on. Lowes came from fourth to second very quickly then shadowed his teammate until his front-end started to slip and slide and he had to back off to take what he hoped would be second.

It would be but not until he had taken part in a fight with Pata Yamaha’s Toprak Razgatlioglu, bursting with talent and speed that is missing from his usual qualifying ordinariness. The

ROOKIE RIDER OF THE WEEKEND With nine rookies in the WorldSBK class for 2021 there were many potential winners but clearly Andrea Locatelli (Pata Yamaha) is deserving of this award with ninth place overall on his first round scorecard

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original ‘Sunday morning’ racer is Razgatlioglu, but this being WorldSBK the first real race is Saturday.

Lowes was losing a second a lap to his pursuers at one stage but he rallied to keep enough left-side rear tyre grip to pass his sparing partner Razgatlioglu on the exit of the final corner. He was ahead of the third place Toprak but just 0.043 seconds after 18 tense laps. If Lowes has any hangover from

“We’re in a good position now. Last year was a disaster in race one” –Rea

DEJA-OUCH OF THE WEEKEND A painful deja-vu moment for GMT94 rider Jules Cluzel in the opening Motorland Supersport race saw him rudely taken out by an errant MV Agusta rider – for the second time in two seasons. Last year Raffaele De Rosa, this year Niki Tuuli

WorldSBK Round 1 Finishing Positions 2020 Winners

1. Jonathan Rea made it a century of wins in Race 1 2. Scott Redding risked slicks and dominated the final race 3. Toprak Razgatlioglu, Alex Lowes and Chaz Davies fight it out 4. Tom Sykes fights off Leon Haslam 5. Lowes and Razgatlioglu pay homage to the century man

WSBK R1 S Redding 33m23.739s WSBK R2 J Rea 33m18.756s WSS R1 A Locatelli 28m49.314s WSS R2 A Locatelli 28m42.501s

10 9 5

8

4

6

11

7 1

3 12

2

13 14 15

WSBK Race 1 POS

RIDER

NAT

17

BIKE TIME

1 J REA GBR KAW 33m24.225s 2 A LOWES GBR KAW +3.965s 3 T RAZGATLIOGLU TUR YAM +4.008s 4 S REDDING GBR DUC +4.242s 5 C DAVIES GBR DUC +4.615s 6 T SYKES GBR BMW +6.784s 7 M RINALDI ITA DUC +8.345s 8 L HASLAM GBR HON +10.817s 9 G GERLOFF USA YAM +10.326s 10 A LOCATELLI ITA YAM +17.692s 11 M VAN DER MARK NED BMW +21.154s 12 A BASSANI ITA DUC +27.253s 13 I VIÑALES SPA KAW +30.963s 14 K NOZANE JPN YAM +36.769s 15 L MAHIAS FRA KAW +39.334s 16 J FOLGER GER BMW +41.544s 17 C PONSSON BEL KAW +43.179s 18 L CRESSON BEL KAW +1m21.460s DNF A BAUTISTA (SPA, HON), E LAVERTY (IRL, BMW), S CALALIERI (ITA, KAW), L MERCADO (ARG, HON), T RABAT (SPA, DUC).

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16

MotorLand Aragón, Alcañiz, Spain 5.345km WSS Race 1

POLE POSITION (NEW RECORD)

J REA 1m48.458s (REA 1m48.620s, 2020) FASTEST LAP

4

J REA 1 50 040

WSBK Superpole race

5

POS

RIDER

NAT

BIKE TIME

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

J REA A LOWES G GERLOFF C DAVIES M VAN DER MARK T RAZGATLIOGLU A BAUTISTA S REDDING K NOZANE

GBR GBR USA GBR NED TUR SPA GBR JPN

KAW KAW YAM DUC YAM YAM HON DUC YAM

19m47.979s +3.506s +5.051s +8.908s +10.175s +29.342s +29.565s +33.361s +33.675s

POS RIDER

NAT

BIKE

TIME

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

RSA SWI GER RSM ESP ITA EST SWE ITA TUR SUI ESP ITA ITA INA SUI POL JPN ITA

YAM TAM KAW YAM KAW YAM YAM YAM KAW KAW GER YAM YAM KAW YAM YAM YAM KAW KAW

28m53.622s +0.099s +2.536s +3.956s +4.738s +4.817s +6.121s +7.212s +8.352s +16.135s +16.279s +22.257s +22.296s +34.274s +37.978s +39.308s +59.882s +1m04.435s +4 LAPS

S ODENDAAL D AEGERTER P OETTL L BERNARDI M GONZALEZ F CARICASULO H SOOMER C BERGMAN R DE ROSA C ÖNCÜ R KRUMMENACHER M HERRERA K MANFREDI M FABRIZIO G HENDRA PRATAMA S FROSSARD P SZKOPEK S KAWASAKI L TACCHINI

DNF J CLUZEL (FRA, YAM), N TUULI (FIN, MVA), F FULIGNI (ITA, YAM), M ALCOBA (ESP, YAM), D PIZZOLI (ITA, YAM), T GRADINGER (AUT, YAM), L MONTELLA (ITA, YAM), V TAKALA (FIN, YAM).

POLE POSITION (NEW RECORD)

J CLUZEL 1m52.937s (A LOCATELLI 1m53.205s, 2020) FASTEST LAP (NEW RECORD)

N TUULI 1m54.187s (A LOCATELLI 1m54.191s, 2020)

FASTEST LAP

WSS Race 2

VAN DER MARK 1m56.261s

WSBK Race 2

his winter training crash shoulder injury and then recovery, it was not apparent in race one.

Just off podium was Scott Redding, (Aruba Racing Ducati), and his weekend would get worse and then drastically better. Chaz Davies (Team Go Eleven Ducati) was one of those few riders going for the SCX ultra-soft – usually 10-lap – rear. He was fifth, a great start to his ‘privateer’ status in WorldSBK. Second top Ducati rider, beating Michael Ruben Rinaldi (Aruba Ducati) who was seventh, behind the top new BMW M 1000 RR rider, Tom Sykes.

A promising weekend for HRC went relatively nowhere in the races, with Alvaro

Bautista crashing in race one and Leon Haslam finishing eighth, over 10 seconds back at a circuit with a long back straight.

After the heat of Friday, the cool of Saturday, the rains came on Sunday. This made the 10-lap Superpole race so tricky for tyre choice that some people even broke the fourth wall of WorldSBK racing and used Pirelli’s intermediates. Few tyre manufacturers even bother now, but most riders were more than happy with that choice, including first-time intermediate man and Sprint race winner, Rea. It was two from two.

In a few senses, as Lowes battled his way to second again this time well ahead

POS

RIDER

NAT

BIKE TIME

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 19

S REDDING J REA A LOWES T SYKES M VAN DER MARK T RAZGATLIOGLU G GERLOFF J FOLGER A LOCATELLI L MAHIAS A BAUTISTA K NOZANE I VIÑALES A BASSANI C PONSSON M RINALDI E LAVERTY L MERCADO C DAVIES L CRESSON S CAVALIERI

GBR GBR GBR GBR NED TUR USA GER ITA FRA SPA JPN SPA ITA FRA ITA IRL ARG GBR BEL ITA

DUC KAW KAW BMW BMW YAM YAM BMW YAM KAW HON YAM KAW DUC APR DUC BMW HON DUC KAW KAW

34m19.394s +9.856s +10.434s +12.094s +16.234s +20.191s +20.427s +20.587s +25.026s +28.855s +25.644s +38.275s +41.585s +44.922s +46.022s +1m08.072s +1m13.998s +1m14.859s +1 LAP +2 LAPS +3 LAPS

POS RIDER

NAT

BIKE

TIME

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

RSA ITA FRA EST SWI SWE SPA FIN GER INA ESP ITA ESP TUR POL SWI ITA ITA ITA JPN ITA

YAM KAW YAM YAM YAM YAM YAM YAM YAM YAM KAW YAM YAM KAW YAM YAM YAM YAM KAW KAW KAW

31m32.392s +0.100s +0.334s +0.389s +17.785s +19.976s +31.984s +35.144s +36.403s +37.524s +37.821s +50.606s +56.884s +1m04.895s +1m12.634s +1m17.314s +1m17.560s +1m33.617s +1m33.621s +1m53.310s +1 LAP

S ODENDAAL R DE ROSA J CLUZEL H SOOMER D AEGERTER C BERGMAN M ALCOBA V TAKALA R KRUMMENACHER G HENDRA PRATAMA M GONZALEZ K MANFREDI M HERRERA C ÖNCÜ P SZKOPEK S FROSSARD F FULIGNI F CARICASULO L TACCINI S KAWASAKI M FABRIZIO

DNF L MONTELLA (ITA, YAM), D PIZZOLI (ITA, YAM), L BERNARDI (RSM, YAM), P OETTL (GER, KAW)

DNF T RABAT (SPA, DUC), L HASLAM (GBR, HON).

FASTEST LAP (RECORD)

FASTEST LAP

DE ROSA 2m08.310s

C DAVIES 1m52.717s

RIDER STANDINGS AFTER 1 OF 12 ROUNDS

RIDER STANDINGS AFTER 1 OF 13 ROUNDS

1 ODENDAAL 50, 2 AEGERTER 31, 3 DE ROSA 27, 4 SOOMER 22, 5 BERGMAN 18, 6 CLUZEL 16, 7 OETTL 16, 8 GONZALEZ 16, 9 BERNARDI 13, 10 KRUMMENACHER 12, 11 CARICASULO 10, 12 ALCOBA 9, 13 TAKALA 8, 14 C ONCU 8, 15 F PRATAMA 7.

1 REA 57, 2 LOWES 45, 3 REDDING 40, 4 RAZGATLIOGLU 30, 5 SYKES 23, 6 GERLOFF 23, 7 VAN DER MARK 21, 8 DAVIES 17, 9 LOCATELLI 13, 10 RINALDI 9, 11 FOLGER 8, 12 HASLAM 8, 13 BAUTISTA 8, 14 MAHIAS 7, 15 NOZANE 7.

WorldSSP 300 Championship, Races 1 & 2 POS RIDER

NAT

BIKE

1 2 3

SPA GBR JPN

KAW KAW KAW

A HUERTAS T BOOTH-AMOS Y OKAYA

TIME

19m48.460s +0.004s +0.094s

POS RIDER

NAT

BIKE

1 2 3

GBR SPA SPA

KAW YAM KAW

T BOOTH-AMOS U ORRADRE A HUERTAS

TIME

25m38.455s +0.127s +0.140s

RIDER STANDINGS AFTER 1 OF 8 ROUNDS

1 BOOTH-AMOS 45, 2 HUERTAS 41, 3 ORRADRE 33, 4 OKAYA 29, 5 DI SORA 19, 12 H KHOURI 7.

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race report

1. Garrett Gerloff crashed while trying to take the R2 lead 2. The American ran Rea off the track, and later apologised 3. Michael van der Mark’s BMW debut was a promising one 4. Redding ran away in R2 5. That new Kawasaki is going to take a power of beating…

Round 1 MotorLand Aragón, Spain, 21-23 May 2021 WorldSBK Championship of third-place rider Garrett Gerloff (GRT Yamaha) on his factory-backed bike in an independent team.

Davies was off podium again in fourth, but a recovering Michael van der Mark was a strong fifth after a tough first race on Friday, taking a confidenceboosting fifth on the new M 1000 RR BMW. On full wets, Redding was only eighth, a near disaster for his championship even at this stage. He chose wets when intermediates would have worked better, as they did for a few others.

For the so-called race two, the last race of the weekend, and the second full points one, Redding’s tyre-choosing approach from the first two races meant he opted for slicks. It seemed mad to some but there he went, out in front after a steady few laps, to record a clear win by almost 10 seconds.

From Rea, naturally, as Redding hinted in his postrace comments, Rea always finishes second even if he can’t actually win.

On his intermediate tyre choice, he was not going to celebrate his 102nd, as Redding was using his slicks well on a drying track to disappear. He needed a big win and took it bravely.

“It was not plain sailing,” said Reddding. “It was an up-and-down weekend for us. I hope going on to Estoril that we can smooth that out a little bit, find our footing and make good progress.”

The most amazing thing in the Rea-Redding final race dynamic was that Rea was actually off track for a time, as Gerloff looked up the inside and said he got caught out, but in any case he went into the downhill chicane, and took Rea off track. Off track, not off bike, as Rea got going again and moved back

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2

3

1 4

5

“An up-anddown weekend for us” – Redding

up to second place, for 20 points to Redding’s 25.

The battle for third place was epic at times, but Alex Lowes was to take three podiums in three starts, a great turnaround after hurting his shoulder in a winter training accident. His confidence was clear, but still he and all find it almost impossible to overcome Rea in a like-for-like fight.

Scoring over 100 race wins, the vast bulk on Kawasakis,

promotes Rea to legend status even more. And his legend is alive, well and clearly hungry for more.

Behind the podium places BMW’s day was getting better. Sykes came through to fourth from 10th on the grid, a remarkable recovery and he even beat his resurgent new teammate, van der Mark into fifth place. The BMW project, complete with big wings and the ‘M’ designation usually reserved for their fastest road cars, was not looking that positive in the winter, but for races the bike clearly has potential yet to come from its faster engine.

The combative Razgatlioglu had to settle for sixth, overcoming the upstart Yamaha Independent

Gerloff. Eighth for Jonas Folger (Bonovo MGM BMW) was a good ride for a rookie, even if he did do some races last year on a Yamaha.

In the championship, that final race win for Redding keeps him close enough for a strong Estoril round next weekend to not let Rea get too far away, as he can do given his metronomic approach to going f lat out

Evan Bros Yamaha has screwed in a new lightbulb and kept winning

The SSP300 points leader is, er, TBA

New Scamps For Old IT WAS A DRAMA and overdrama in the first WorldSSP race of the weekend, as Steven Odendaal’s first race win in this class was his first podium in WorldSSP ever. He took the seemingly all-conquering Evan Bros Yamaha R6 to a race win just like many others have done before him recently. He only won by 0.099sec, from old Dutch WorldSSP masters Ten Kate and their Swiss rider Dominique Aergeter, again on a Yamaha YZF-R6.

Third was now lead Kawasaki Puccetti rider Philipp Öttl, earning his team their 100th podium finish since they moved to all classes of racing inside the global paddock. In race two held in the wet, tyres were again all, as those on full wets eventually had to give way to those on drier choices.

Khouri Mail

to the podiums almost all of the time.

The top points scorers are Rea on 57, Lowes on 45, Redding on 40, Razgatlioglu 30 and Sykes 23. Four manufacturers share the top five places, with only Honda trailing the pack with Haslam in overall 12th place.

That’s surprising given their winter testing pace.

Odendaal won again, by just 0.1sec from the seemingly unlikely Orelac racing VerdNatura Kawasaki rider for the first time, Rafaelle De Rosa. His wet front and intermediate rear may have been the best compromise, because his closing speed on the top riders was awesome to watch. He led until the marginally faster Yamaha of Odendaal passed him into the final curve.

Behind the top two Jules Cluzel, who had to start from the back row of the grid because his rear tyre was down on pressure, came through for third – another amazing feat of arms. Hannes Soomer (Kallio racing Yamaha) was fourth, and just 0.389 seconds from the win.

In the points it’s Odendaal 50, Aegerter 31 and De Rosa 27.

WorldSSP 9th/28th

HAVING QUALIFIED 15TH in Superpole in the morning Harry Khouri (Fusport-RT Motorsports by SKM Kawasaki) spent some of the opening race behind 2018 World Champion Ana Carrasco. Harry had a strong first foray into the global scene, finishing in ninth place after the red-flag incident that ended the race six laps early. Khouri was only 1.395sec from race winner Adrian Huertas. In race two an early crash and restart saw him down in 28th place, and 12th in the championship overall.

“It was a positive start to the

day coming away with 15th position in qualifying,” said the rookie Khouri.

“I got off to a pretty good start and didn’t lose any positions in the first few corners. I was getting a little too excited and started to make some mistakes and then lost a couple of positions.

“After a few more laps I started to find my rhythm and managed to tag on to the back of the leading group. After a tough race it was great to come away with P9 in my first race.”

Little goes large

THE FIRST RACE of the 2021 season in WorldSBK… was in WorldSSP300 at 12.45 on Saturday. The crazy gang of rebellious youths that constitutes the WorldSSP300 class did not disappoint again, with Adrian Huertas (MTM Motoport Kawasaki) winning the first race, from Tom Booth-Amos (Fusport-RT Motorsports by SKM Kawasaki) and Yuta Okaya (MTM Motoport Kawasaki). Three Kawasakis on top but the fight was open between the Ninjas and the R3 Yamahas, with two blue bikes in the top seven, which was separated by just 0.624 seconds. The race went to nine laps only, as a red-f lag incident in the second group halted the race with six full laps to go. Full points were awarded.

In race two the new usual suspects went at it with gusto and the final top 10 were covered by 0.795 seconds only. Unai Orradre (MS Racing Yamaha) crossed the line first but was penalised for venturing onto the green track limits strip, and dropped to second behind new race winner, Booth-Amos.

Third was Huertas, riding on home ground, and fourth Okaya. Ana Carrasco was fifth.

In the points, Booth-Amos leads on 45, Huertas has 41, and Orradre 33. No Estoril for the 300s, next round Misano.

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103

sport MotoGP

Miller has climbed out of a hole and impressed Dall’Igna

Dall’Igna feared for Jack’s future

Ducati boss admits Miller’s future in the factory squad looked shaky

DUCATI CORSE BOSS Gigi Dall’Igna admits he feared for the future of Jack Miller before he stared down physical and performance issues to secure his immediate future at Ducati.

The turning point was Miller’s consummate Spanish GP win at Jerez, which turned the tide after confidence-denting results in both the races in Qatar and a crash in Portugal.

No one was happier than an emotional Dall’Igna with Miller’s resurgence, with a back-to-back win in Le Mans easily activating Ducati’s option on Miller for 2022.

“In those weeks I thought a lot about Jack,” Dall’Igna told AMCN. “He had collected less points than he could have and when that happens to a rider, it is an easy moment to enter a negative spiral that brings him down. I was afraid, but he reacted well.

“I have never had any doubts about his talent.

Victory or podium made little

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difference, but Jack needed a race like Jerez.”

While Miller’s early-season results were overshadowed by fast and smooth Italian teammate Pecco Bagnaia, importantly it did not unbalance the competitive but friendly team dynamic.

“It is important that the riders get along, but up to a certain point,” Dall’Igna said. “We have already made mistakes in the past to make choices based on friendship.

“The important thing is that they are professionals

and collaborate. And that they respect each other. But friendship is of little interest to us.”

The Ducati youth policy is entrenched with Miller and Bagnaia for the factory squad with emerging aces Jorge Martin and Enea Bastianini in the pipeline reinforcing Dall’Igna’s talent spotting.

“Pecco is here because he has done beautiful things in his career, some even a little hidden. Beyond the Moto2 World Championship his years in Mahindra (Moto3)

were almost more important to me, where with a difficult bike he was the only rider to find a way to make it go fast.”

While backing Miller and Bagnaia as title contenders, Dall’Igna says the field is wider than the favouritism bestowed on Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo. And even the impact the return of eight-time world champion and Honda’s main man Marc Marquez can have as his fitness and race mentality builds after long injury lay-off.

“It is still early, many riders can demonstrate more than they have done so far,” he said.

“From what I have seen and without having spoken to him, it seems to me that having been out for a year and getting hurt in an important way has left its mark.

“But it’s Marquez, talent is not in question and with that head he will come back strong.”

COLIN YOUNG

MotoGP

VR46 TO GO WITH DUCATI IN 2022?

IN FRANCE, FERVENT speculation surrounded the future of Valentino Rossi’s VR46 team, which has a place on the 2022 MotoGP grid.

It was believed Yamaha made a late play to secure the outfi t as its satellite team, with Italian media reporting the Japanese factory off ered to lease its bikes for half the price that it quoted to Petronas SRT. Rossi, whose team secured controversial backing from Aramco, the offi cial oil company of Saudi Arabia, confi rmed talks were ongoing through the weekend.

“We are talking to both Ducati and Yamaha, and the chances of going with either at 50/50,” he said.

“There are positive and negatives to both options.”

But it appears the team will ultimately go with Ducati machinery next year, leaving

MotoGP

The Doctor is keeping a close eye on Ducati

Petronas to stick with Yamaha for a further season. Franco Morbidelli has an agreement to remain in that structure, and said his future depended on the team’s path forward.

“I like Yamaha,” said the Italian, who is currently racing two-year old machinery. “I would like to keep my relationship with them.

“If I will be supported with an updated machine, my love for Yamaha will be even bigger. Nothing is clear yet because we have to wait a little bit, some more time for some confi rmations.”

It is believed Morbidelli will receive full-factory backing from next season.

Suzuki has indicated that it will not supply machinery to any satellite squad in 2022, meaning the Gresini team will choose between Ducati and Aprilia machinery for next season.

NEIL MORRISON

DOVI’S LATEST TEST RAINED OUT AFTER AN INAUSPICIOUS testing debut aboard Aprilia’s RS-GP at Jerez in April, much was riding on Andrea Dovizioso’s second outing for the Italian factory at Mugello. But the weather dampened any hopes for both

SHOOTS OF RECOVERY FOR ROSSI

ELEVENTH PLACE MAY not seem like much to shout about but Le Mans was comfortably Valentino Rossi’s best weekend of 2021 and showed some shoots of recovery to the 42-year old, who is undergoing the worst spell of his career. The official one-day test that followed the Spanish Grand Prix offered Rossi the chance to try a host of new items.

“We modified the setting of the suspension, we have different forks, we changed the weight balance of bike,” he said on Friday in France.

“We tried also a different carbon swingarm which is good. All these things helped us, especially in braking and in entry. It can bring more speed in the corner without running wide and I feel better on the bike.”

Rossi was strong in wet conditions (he placed seventh in a wet warm-up) and had respectable pace in the dry, a big improvement from his desperate Jerez race, where he lagged behind in 16th.

the 35-year old and Aprilia as rain afflicted the two-day test held over 11-12 May. Full-time rider Aleix Espargaro appeared mildly frustrated this recent outing failed to lead to Dovizioso getting any more comfortable aboard the machine, which hasn’t fi nished more than eight seconds behind a race winner in 2021.

“The two tests he did for us were both useless,” he said.

“In the wet it’s difficult to understand something. In Jerez test he was not very fast due to conditions of the wind. And it was just his first test. At the

moment there are no advantage from his tests.”

Dovizioso was once again grilled on his future. But the 15-time MotoGP race winner was unwilling to give much away.

“I don’t think it’s important to speak about racing this year because it wasn’t in the plan.

And I couldn’t still push with this bike. So in my opinion there is no reason, in this moment, to think about racing. And we will see, maybe I will have a chance to do some other tests but we have to speak about that. I’m living my life in this moment, day by day, because I don’t have any stress.”

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105

sport MotoGP

Marquez still recovering Eight-time world champ reveals there’s a long way to go

MARC MARQUEZ WAS able to showcase his blinding speed in Sunday’s wet-weather race.

But the eight-time champion is still suffering from a lack of upper-body strength, and felt particularly disadvantaged at Le Mans as he recovers strength from the career threatening arm break he suffered last July.

“When I speak about muscles, I mean all the arm is close to 80 per cent. But some

are 50 per cent. It depends on the movement,” he said.

“I’m struggling more, especially the back of the shoulder. If you remember, two winters ago I had an operation on the right shoulder. That injury still is not 100 per cent recovered because there was some damage to a nerve in the shoulder.”

That means Marquez is still struggling in long right

corners, “like corner one, corner five, corner eight…

But then in the left corners I’m feeling really good, normal.”

Yet that creates its own problems: “It’s where I want to gain time and I push too much. If you check, two times in Jerez, one time here, I crashed in a left corner, because it’s where I feel the most confident and I try to take all the lap time there.”

Marquez had a check-up after Jerez and was cleared to increase his weight training.

“There I feel like still it’s a big difference between the left and right arm and we are far from a good level.”

An anti-clockwise track would ease Marquez’s physical burden. The Sachsenring is just that, and the German MotoGP is the set for 20 June. NM

Le Mans was a mixed bag for Marquez

MotoGP

LE MANS SCHEDULE UNDER FIRE MUCH LIKE AT Phillip Island after mother nature plays havoc with the Australian GP weather, speculation is mounting that riders will request a calendar change for the French Grand Prix after almost 120 crashes were recorded over the three days of the event.

The cold mornings, regular rain showers and tyre allocations that aren’t designed for temperatures this low all contribute to this being one of the less popular rounds on the calendar. For the second year

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in succession the number of crashes at the French venue soared, with 117 coming across the three days – the third highest in recent history.

Coming off 2020, when 100 crashes occurred (36 more than the circuit with the second highest number), some riders were questioning why the series continues to visit northern France in the middle of Spring.

Aleix Espargaro was one of them.

Aleix was an unhappy man at Le Mans

“We can’t come to Le Mans with 8ºC on the tarmac, because the tyres that Michelin and Dunlop are bringing are not working,” the Spaniard, inset, said.

“I don’t know if someone sees it as funny that we crash, why don’t we change the race to a normal

situation? It’s very diffi cult to predict what is going to happen.

And the MotoGP allocation of the front, we have one tyre, which normally I don’t even put on the wheels, it’s super soft and we are even like this crashing. And Michelin have no other option which is softer.” NM

WorldSBK

WorldSBK

GREEN WITH RPM ENVY AN INTERPRETATION OF the WorldSBK rules has left Kawasaki on the back foot after the FIM said the fi rm’s new engine isn’t new enough to warrant a rise in allowable rpm, while the similarly updated BMW is.

AMCN understands the main cause for concern inside the Kawasaki camp is that the factory KRT team have been testing with an engine that revs 500rpm or so more than the previous one.

The BMW M 1000 RR also has internal changes and, crucially, is allowed to have a new higher rev limit partly because it has

a higher peak power fi gure as stock. Because of this BMW has made use of its permitted concession parts to complete a signifi cant tuning package.

However, the FIM technical stewards deemed what more or less amounts to a new piston design for the 2021 Ninja is simply not enough to call it a new engine, and therefore has not allowed a rev rise limit for 2021. It’s worth noting the engine was deemed new enough, however, to have to undergo a new homologation.

The complex way of balancing WorldSBK

performance includes not just maximum revs, which can be varied by calculation of performance via Dorna/FIM technical analysis, but also relies on if you are allowed a concession upgrade or not.

Given the factory KRT riders went 1-2 in the championship the first time out suggests the stewards made the right call.

But the main issue may possibly lie with the privateers, who were looking forward to more revs to keep them in the hunt against bikes which are almost always faster in the speed traps.

GORDON RITCHIE

Kawasaki had to homologate a ‘new’ motor for 2021

WorldSBK

REA HITS 100 WINS THE INEVITABILITY OF Jonathan Rea taking 100 career wins this season was possibly the reason why his celebrations, though heartfelt, felt slightly muted.

Maybe it was the dragging weirdness of having no crowd on board to make an atmosphere? But Dorna pulled out some pretty big guns from afar, with Lewis Hamilton, Giacomo Agostini, Carl Fogarty, Wayne Rainey, Marc Marquez, plus many other sports fi gures, creating a video extolling Rea’s 100 win virtues in a distanced virtual manner. GR

Rea knocked up his ton from 305 starts

DAVIES UPBEAT

CHAZ DAVIES (GOELEVEN Ducati) has said the relaxed atmosphere and improved communication of an independent squad is the key to his strong results in Aragon. Davies has had a change of pitbox scene in 2021, but is riding the same bike as last year, despite the team’s ‘independent team’ status.

The Brit has attributed much of his early success to his new crew chief Pete Jennings.

“I feel like I have a very tight group around me, and our bike is our bike,” said Davies.

“I feel like these people are all kind of listening and working really well together to get the most out of this package.

Obviously that’s the goal all the time, but sometimes it seems like there’s other influences.

“When you’re in a bigger situation there’s other influences, there’s diff erent pressures as well, but it’s more the attitude of the group for me. My working relationship with my crew chief seems very, very good. I think it’s probably helped that it’s the English (native speaking) connection. For me, I never placed a value on this before because I never worked really with an English [speaking] crew chief. Those details matter.” GR

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sport Cross country

KATE RAYMOND HAS completed a solo doublecrossing of the Simpson Desert. On 16 May Raymond, 34, rode her stock Suzuki DR-Z400 back to Kulgera on the Stuart Highway in the Northern Territory to mark the feat, completing all but a short distance of the ride completely solo.

It was not her first Simpson Desert crossing, but she rode from west to east this time, and entirely by herself. A luggage rack failure and rear shock problems slowed her progress on day one, however Kate remained undeterred.

After all, this was not a record attempt, but the fulfilment of her dream to conquer the

Kate Raymond prepares her stock DR-Z400 in Darwin before the 1750km trip to her starting point

Australian desert on her own.

Spending a night alone in the desert was all part of the plan, however fireside repairs kept

Max Sullivan

Raymond’s solo feat

the serenity to a minimum.

With no set schedule and adequate fuel and water supplies strapped to her bike,

Kate set out the second day to tackle more sand dunes. A second night was spent under the stars just about 30km short of Poepell corner, before completing the first half of her ride into Birdsville in Queensland.

Kate then met up with a group of friends, and the allwoman crew rode 170km back to Poepell corner where they parted ways. While the group headed north, Kate headed back west toward Dalhousie, Finke and then onto Kulgera.

One more solitary night in the desert, then the final leg to complete what was a 1500km round trip that included over 2000 sand dunes.

MAX SULLIVAN

Speedway

AUSSIE SPEEDWAY IS GO

AUSTRALIAN SPEEDWAY FANS will still get to see 2021 Australian Solo Championship meetings that were not staged when originally scheduled for earlier this year.

While the Australian Sidecar Championship did go ahead as planned in April, all of the two-

The Solos are coming back in spring and summer!

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wheel title meetings were called off in January due to restrictions and on-going uncertainty surrounding Covid-19.

The Senior Solo Championship will not be decided over the five-round series, but instead a one-off meeting at Oakburn Park, Tamworth, on 4 December after a

Qualifying Meeting the previous night at the same venue.

The other championships will be staged at their originally allocated venues – the Under 21 and the Under 16 250cc Championship will be held at the Gillman Speedway on 27 November and the Under 16

125cc Individual and Teams Championship will be held at Sidewinders track, also in Adelaide on 23-25 September.

Dates and venues for 2022 championships, including what will be a fi ve-round senior solo title chase, will be released in coming weeks. PETER BAKER

MILESTONES!

Matthew Davis collected the Kamfari trophy

There’s a full feature on Kamfari’s 50th Anniversary coming up in our 70th Anniversary issue!

Max Sullivan

Enduro

Briefs

ASBK rounds added

KAMFARI TURNS 50!

THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY C&R Constructions Kamfari enduro will go down as one of the toughest. Higher-than-average rainfall during the wet season, combined with an already tough course set out by the Darwin Motorcycle Club, claimed more riders and machines than any race in recent years.

The four-hour race started well for Nathan Evans, who grabbed the holeshot from the dead-engine start and into the

first corner. Showing great form, Evans pulled away from Daniel McInnes and Darren Clement and completed the 12km lap in just over 16 minutes.

From there, things only got tougher; 2019’s winner Ayden Bridgeford drowned his new Husky and was out of contention while Daniel McInnes also succumbed to the water on his second lap.

Chris Warwick was looking for his third Kamfari victory, but bike

Aussie OS

troubles slowed his progress.

By the two-hour mark, Evans was pulling away with a 30-minute lead over Matthew Davis on his YZ and was looking like taking a comfortable win until his KTM suffered a mechanical issue. Davis went on to complete seven laps and take home the $5000 winner’s prize purse over Jed Goold, who finished second with five laps, just in front of Phil Peterson in third. MS

After the cancellation of the Australian Superbike Championship’s opening round at Phillip Island, two rounds have been added to the back-end of the calendar, with the new fi nal round at the expense of the planned Tasmanian round at Symmons Plains. Goulburn’s Wakefield Park will now be the series’ Round 7 held over 15-17 October before the championship culminates at Phillip Island’s Grand Prix Circuit over 5-7 November for the eighth and fi nal round. KEL BUCKLEY

SGP set for 11

Another scheduled Speedway Grand Prix round has been cancelled but organisers are still committed to staging 11 rounds in the 2021 championship. The round scheduled for the PGE Narodowy Stadium in Warsaw will not take place. The SGP series is set to open with a double-header at the Anlas Czech Republic FIM Speedway Grand Prix, in Prague, on 16 and 17 July. PB

The Wolves’ Masters (third from L) and Morris (fifth from L)

AUSSIES WIN IN RAINED-OUT EVENTS SPEEDWAY IN THE UK has welcomed back crowds as their 2021 season finally got underway on 17 May, when Government guidelines allowed limited crowd access, provided codes of conduct laid down by the local council for each track were followed.

You have to feel for fans at Wolverhampton, though. After more than 500 days since they last witnessed a meeting, their opening night was washed out

after just two races – the only good news that Aussie riders Sam Masters and Nick Morris won those two events.

Bad weather has caused a number of meetings to be rescheduled in the first week, but already in that week Jake Allen, Troy Batchelor, Jason Crump, Jye Etheridge, Cameron Heeps, Jack Holder, Brady Kurtz and Justin Sedgmen have completed at least one meeting. PB

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sport

INTERVIEW MATT O’CONNELL

PHOTOGRAPHY ROB MOTT, MO AND AMCN ARCHIVES

Grid talk

Carl Walters

We sit down with father and team manager to leading ASBK privateer Matt Walters, who owns and runs Kawasaki Connection in NSW’s Hunter region Matt was one of the first to progress to the superbike class after graduating from a dedicated junior road race series in Australia – the MRRDA. What do you think of the junior road racing scene in Australia at the moment?

We loved that series, the MRRDA. It was relatively inexpensive racing the Moriwaki bikes and it has produced a few of the current top riders – Daniel Falzon and Mike Jones as well. When Matt moved on to race RS125s, the first thing we noticed was the expense.

It wasn’t until we got to race Superstock 600s that we felt the playing field was level again.

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The big advantage is that all the young guys are racing together regularly, so you foster that racecraft at a high level early on. Just being on track with one another, it is such an important aspect and I think you see that in junior road racing today. I really like what the Cudlins have going with Motostars, but I think the main thing with any junior road race series is that you have to make it as affordable as possible. There is no easier way to dent your enthusiasm than having big dollars to spend!

What prompted Matt to get into road racing?

It was a trip to Phillip Island, we are great friends with the Parkes’ and we were down there watching Broc. I remember we were standing with Les watching the racing and Matt said to me ‘I’m going to do that, dad.’ And that’s how it went!

Matt was really good in the dirt, he was fast and he won a lot – but he also crashed a lot when he was younger. We believed in that old adage of ‘you can teach someone not to crash, but you can’t teach fast.’

Cessnock is dominated by dirt-track and off-road riding.

How is the motorcycle industry travelling from your

perspective as dealer principle?

Since Covid hit, sales have been incredible. We don’t just stock bikes, we also do a whole range of outdoor power sports as well as zero-turn mowers, that kind of thing. It’s surprised me just how well things are going at the moment, but I guess people just want to get outside and enjoy themselves more.

Could the store survive without ASBK commentator and Kawasaki tragic Phil Harlum buying more bikes?

No! [laughs] He’s got a fair green garage these days!

You’re the top privateer team in

Main. Like father like son; Carl and Matt Walters at Kawasaki Connection in Cessnock 1. Matt Walters got a WorldSBK call-up in 2015 with Team Pedercini Racing. 2. Walters chases Yamaha’s Cru Halliday in 2011 3. Walters was crowned 2010 Aussie Superstock 600 champ 4. Team manager and brolly bloke

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“I don’t want the bikes made slower, I’d just like to see the gap to the top not as wide”

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ASBK, that’s a family run effort as well?

It’s pretty much family, we’ve had to learn everything as we go. Matt is a fully qualified motorcycle mechanic, which is very helpful, but putting together a competitive race package at this level is very complex and it takes a lot of hours, a lot of trial and error to get things right.

At the moment we have been working with Paul Free and we think that is going to help bring Matt to the next level. Paul will be concentrating on suspension and the guy is just a legend, we’re really lucky that he has the time in his schedule to work with Matt.

It makes things a lot tougher, let’s say. In a Superbike team you really need a suspension guy, somebody working on chassis and geometry, somebody doing the general mechanical work like servicing, changing tyres, crash repairs, etc. And now, you also need someone on electronics. That level of support doesn’t come for free, everyone has to be paid. Also, the people that know how to do the job have to be available. That’s why we delayed the move to the latest ZX-10RR, there just isn’t the expertise available to take advantage of the electronics at the moment, and I think that is stretching a lot of teams.

Matt has been knocking on the door of a podium finish for a few years. With this new generation of Superbikes, especially the electronics, will it still be viable for privateers to compete?

As far as the formula goes, does MA have it right?

I think they have done an excellent job these last few years, to see the series rebound the way it has. This new

4

generation of bikes shows there is always work to be done – I don’t think anybody wants to keep watching a show where the top three are 45 seconds up the road. We would be supportive of something like a stock ECU, I think that could work.

I’ve got no doubt the best riders are on the best bikes in this paddock, but the series also needs privateers to survive… part of that is to make sure the playing field is somewhat level.

It’s a tough call, I definitely don’t want to see bikes made to be slower, I’d just like to see the gap to the top three not as wide.

COVID has been a challenge.

Did MA handle the revised calendar well enough?

Overall, I think MA have done a great job just to keep us on track as much as we have. As far as the circuits go this year, I absolutely love going to Darwin. Our other

son Mitch is in the army and is based in Darwin, he has told us the whole city is buzzing about the race weekend with Supercars, so we can’t wait to get up there.

It’s a great opportunity for the ASBK guys. As far as returning to Wakefield goes, I’m OK with it because it’s much easier logistics-wise than travelling to Tasmania. But, especially for anyone that has been there racing at night, I think we have to get ASBK back to Sydney Motorsport Park (SMSP).

For any road racing series to work in Australia, we are always going to have to visit tracks like Morgan Park, Winton and Wakefield. For Superbikes though, we need to get them racing at tracks they were designed to be operated on, and to me that means sorting whatever needs to be sorted out behind the scenes and getting back to SMSP.

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sport Where are they now?

Martin Hone Former nasho, racer, tax officer, road tester, AMCN ad man and aviator

“Bathurst was as dangerous as hell, but awesome to ride” “MY DAD WAS an aircraft mechanic at Essendon airport. He raced scrambles and had a square-four Ariel, so my three brothers and I grew up in this great aircraft/motorbike environment. That led to an interest in mechanics with Dad as a mentor, but I was pretty much self-taught.

My first ride on a bike was [brother] Mick’s Jawa 250 that we rode at the local park. Dad then bought this basket case Triumph Tiger 100 that we tried to sort out, then a junked BSA 650 Road Rocket. I then I got a Yamaha AS-1 125 roadbike and John Maher, a top racer at the time, helped me when I started racing it after I finished National Service in 1971.

“The early 70s were great, you could race every month and the fields were huge.

This was before proddy racing so I raced the bogstock Yamaha against all the other C-graders on old racebikes, etc – basically run-what-you-brung. I stepped up to a T250 Suzuki then the T350, and a ’73 Yamaha RD350. I was racing with guys like Barry Smith, Ron Burke and Graeme Laing, it was cheap and fun.

“I bought a brand-new TZ250D and shipped it over to New Zealand for the ’7778 Marlboro Series. I was travelling around in an old Thames van with Andrew Johnson and Graeme Muir.

Ajay was on his 350, ‘Goose’ (Muir) had his Egli 750.

“I was the slowest of the three, but I got the best results. I was equal fourth in the 250 series at one

Above: Marty (Yamaha AS-1) in front of Ron Burke and Barry Smith at Calder in ’73 Right: Hone and wife Chris in Toowoomba

point with Mike Vinsen, behind Gregg Hansford, Murray Sayle and Rick Perry from TK A. “My friend and mechanic Jim Cook was also with us, on his honeymoon with his new bride! Jim’s wife was taking photos for AMCN, and I met [then AMCN editor] Mike Hanlon at the airport to hand over the film. We got chatting about me doing stuff for the mag. My first big road test was the Suzuki GSX-1100, which was photographed

by Colleen Dooley, then AMCN’s typesetter.

“I road tested with AMCN through the 80s while working at the tax office as an inspector. In 1988, I was working at the CES when the ad manager’s job at AMCN came up. Although I’m not a salesman, I was a bit creative, and along with testing racebikes and all the high-performance

models, I said yes.

“In the 1977 Castrol Six-Hour Mick and I were entered on a Moto Guzzi Le Mans Mk I. In practice I threw it away big-time, then the bike was knocked off its stand just before the start of the race. The throttle/front brake assembly was busted so Paul Sattler generously raced off and took the assembly off his Le Mans and we hastily fitted it. Mick had to hot-wire it to start, and 10 or so laps into the race he was nerfed off by Joe Eastmure, game over.

“I did have a bit more luck in proddy racing

on Colleen’s road-going GSX750. I finished third in the 750 class at the 1980 Calder two-hour, and third at Bathurst. Bathurst, it was dangerous as hell but just awesome to ride.

“In 1982, I raced a BMW R100CS built by Lindsay Urquhart, and I beat Bob Brown’s Pantah ridden by Kevin Magee to win the Thunderbike series. Then BMW pulled the pin with the upcoming release of the K-series, which was a big blow.

“In ’83 Frank Hodder gave me a Laverda 1000RGS to race, in ’84 he put me on the TTF1, an exotic endurance racer and in 1988, I started racing the late John Trease’s Harley, a relationship that lasted 17 years. John machined or fabricated just about everything on that bike, it was all his. We came very close to winning the inaugural Australian Historic Championships at Phillip Island in 1992, but we won it the following year.

“I retired when I was 55. I’d been flying ultralights since my late 30s and I eventually built an aluminium kit plane in ’94 and flew it around Australia in ’96. We moved to an air park in Toowoomba in 2005 and have been here ever since. In ’05 I raced the Harley for the last time, flew down to the Island and won the race – it was a perfect way to go out.

“I have great memories from AMCN, and am proud to have worked with guys like Mike Hanlon, Chris Beattie and Guy Allen among others!”

DARRYL FLACK

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Australian Motorcycle News road test photographs are posed for by skilled, professional riders under controlled circumstances. Attempting to imitate their actions may be dangerous. Australian Motorcycle News supports and endorses rider training and wearing protective riding gear. Especially as you get older.

Hellfire, if Phil Mickelson can win the US PGA golf tourney at nearly 51 years of age, suiting up for a ride is the least we can do, lest we take a tumble. Speaking of which, even after a lifetime spent making motorcycles operate at mind-boggling speeds, a bicycle can hold some peril. Just ask Troy Bayliss. Tough as nails is that bloke, though, and we have no doubt he will be back in action soon. Get well TB21!

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