Ryder Notes: Big Bang By The Numbers
by julian ryder, back home in the uk now
Monday, December 17, 2007 One thing every engineer in the paddock is agreed on is that big-bang engines work. They know this because the stopwatch says so. What they don't know is why they work. Conjecture has centred around the effect of torque pulses on the rear tire's contact patch, leading to a widely accepted theory that closely grouped firing pulses allow the tire to slip then recover and grip over the extended interval before the next power pulse. The origins of this theory come from US dirt-tracking where firing two big Harley pistons close together within a few degrees of crank revolution gave what was called 'the big sneeze'. Personally, I never found this argument convincing when applied to a MotoGP bike, the time frame for events to happen seems far too short. Can a construction like a tire carcass really react that rapidly? Still, it was the best model anyone could come up with. When MotoGP engines moved away from big-bang towards long-bang by rephrasing crankshafts to spread the power pulses out slightly there was no change in traction. You would have expected some significant changes if the 'big-sneeze' analysis were correct. Maybe it wasn't the tire at all. In the absence of hard data, it was all conjecture. Or it was until Saturday night at Valencia when Yamaha actually gave us some numbers to crunch for the first time. Given that the M1 didn't have the best of seasons, it was quite brave of Yamaha to open up like this. They started with a few comparisons between the performance of the new for '07 800s and the dear departed 990s. These figures from Mugello are probably in line with what you would have come up with after a few minutes' thought: the new bikes were over 6mph slower down straights but up to 5mph faster in corners. Throttles were fully open for 25% of a lap compared to just over 15% previously. Data from Jerez showed the 800s braking up to 30 metres later for corners and getting on the throttle up to 15 metres sooner, which helps to explain why lap times stayed static or came down. Incidentally, Yamaha say they improved the M1's power output by 4% over the season, raised the rev ceiling by 1000rpm, and improved fuel economy by 3%, going through three versions of the motor. The first only did the first two GPs with the final version appearing at Brno after the Summer break. Yamaha started the year with a top-speed deficit of 4% to the Ducatis and had more than halved the gap by the end of the year. The engine management electronics could switch between three different ignition maps. Previously, the bike could be set to use whichever map was required in each gear. In 2007, it selected the right map not just for each gear but for each corner. This means the bike 'knew' where it was, just as the Ducati must have done when they tried out their semi-automatic gearbox in 2004. Corner counting would be too simple and would need resetting after a visit to the pits or an off-track excursion. According to one eminent engineer (not a Yamaha man), GPS is perfectly accurate enough for this. Wouldn't want to trust it at, say, Brands Hatch to differentiate between Paddock and Bottom Bend, or Turns 1 and 3 at Laguna Seca. And Degner's and the 130R are almost on top of one another at Suzuka! Interesting as this performance data was, it was just an hors d'oeuvre. The main course was presented by Masao Furusawa under the title 'What is Big Bang?' Fursawa's area of expertise is harmonics, so perhaps it was no surprise that he chose to use the analogy of signal-to-noise ratio to explain his theory. You understand that best from tuning your radio every day. Accurately setting your radio to the desired station means the signal comes in strongly and overpowers any background noise. Noise is always present, what you want is a strong enough signal to render it irrelevant. So what is signal and what is noise in the context of a motorcycle engine? This is best explained by thinking about that word 'connection' you keep on hearing riders use in testing. This is shorthand for the connection between the throttle and the rear tire. In an ideal world, opening the throttle by 10% would deliver 10% of available power (actually torque, but never mind) to the rear tire. Life is rarely this convenient or simple, and racing engines certainly aren't. | Without doing the math, you can see how this variation of torque over each revolution might produce some small variations in the torque seen by the tire contact patch. On your 180-crank, four-cylinder road bike, you won't notice the effect because you don't use high enough revs, but as this inertia torque is proportional to rpm squared, you can see how a 17,000rpm MotoGP engine might have problems. | Modern electronics should be able to provide the linear throttle response riders crave; in Furusawa's model a high signal-to-noise ratio. And what his research suggests is that that is what you do get—up to a critical rev level where the signal is severely distorted by 'noise'. The question is, what is this interference? Furusawa says it is 'inertia torque', that is the torque due to the motion of the heavy moving parts in the engine—crankshaft, con rods and pistons. This is totally separate from the torque generated by the combustion process. At low revs, the level of interference from the rotating mass is insignificant, but around 12,000rpm it starts to become greater than combustion torque and by around 16,000 is double. This is counter-intuitive because you would assume, with a conventional 180-degree crank, that everything would balance out. Not so, as you discover when you look more deeply at the direction in which torque is exerted at different points of a crank's rotation.. Combustion torque is easy to understand: it's produced by ignition of the fuel/air mixture. Inertia torque is much trickier to define and understand. Let's try. Forget combustion and just consider the piston and con rod travelling up the bore. At BDC the piston, con rod and crank pin are in line and no torque can be applied to the crankshaft (in fact at top and bottom dead centres, the con rod is momentarily stationary and vertical). Now move through 90 degrees. The big end of the con rod together with the piston is moving quickly with lots of energy and is about to decelerate to a halt at TDC. That energy of motion (kinetic energy) has to go somewhere, and the only place it can go is into the crankshaft. So inertia torque is positive in that it is applied in the direction of rotation of the crank. On the down stroke, the converse is true. The lower part of the con rod together with the piston has to be rapidly accelerated from rest at TDC to a high velocity, which requires an input of energy. That removes energy from the crankshaft so here inertia torque acts against the direction of rotation. Without doing the math, you can see how this variation of torque over each revolution might produce some small variations in the torque seen by the tire contact patch. On your 180-crank, four-cylinder road bike, you won't notice the effect because you don't use high enough revs, but as this inertia torque is proportional to rpm squared, you can see how a 17,000rpm MotoGP engine might have problems. At those sort of engine speeds, the 'noise' of the inertia torque is 'louder' than the 'signal' of the combustion torque. The rider's connection with what's happening at the rear tire's contact patch is lost both with the throttle open and with it closed. The cure is equally counter-intuitive; an irregular firing pattern, 90-degree crankshaft. The conventional 180 crank has its two outer pistons at TDC while the centre pair are at BDC. Leave cylinders number one and three as they are then move two and four through 90 degrees in opposite directions and you have the 90-degree crank with one piston coming to TDC every 90 degrees of crank rotation. Yamaha tried firing all four cylinders in one revolution and compared the result to the more conventional firing order of two cylinder firing at a 270-degree interval in the first revolution of the crank and the other two firing just 90-degrees apart in the middle of the next revolution. The first surprise is that they sounded the same, the second is that there was no difference in traction. That effectively killed off the 'big sneeze' theory. The mathematics say that inertia torque is reduced to almost zero before 10,000rpm and—crucially—to only about 3% of the 180-crank's value at 15,000rpm. The experimental test to confirm the theory involved measuring rotational fluctuation of the rear wheel, a consequence of uneven torque delivery. With the 180 crank there are big torque spikes at all throttle openings, but with the highest peaks just as the rider gets on or off the throttle. The 90-degree crank shows no such behaviour, suggesting it would make getting into and out of corners a lot easier for the rider. Inertia torque (noise) is still there, it's just at such a low level it doesn't have a significant effect. Of course the first law of engineering says you never get something for nothing and an irregular firing order means vibration that may require a balance shaft or heavier components to tame, thus losing you part of what you've just gained. These findings are of course all for in-line four-cylinder motors, but it's easy to see how the 90-degree crankshaft can effectively mimic a V4—the back tire doesn't know what direction the cylinders are pointing in! Is this an inherent advantage of the 90-degree V4 engine? Yamaha think not, and will continue with the in-line engine which they regard as enabling them to build a shorter and therefore more nimble machine. But they will have to use an irregular firing order crank. Furusawa's work is significant in that it is the first coherent explanation of why big-bang engines actually work despite the fact that in design terms they look like horrible out-of-balance lash-ups. And there wasn't one mention of tire contact patches slipping and gripping. What the Yamaha team have done is define what that nebulous term 'connection' means when applied to motorcycle racing: it means the ratio of combustion torque to inertia torque, with a high ratio being the good connection of a contemporary four-stroke MotoGP engine and a low ratio being the distinctly dubious connection of a 500cc two-stroke being aimed out of a corner. It feels like our knowledge of how motorcycles behave has moved on another step |  | history | Jan 3, '08 7:13 AM
for everyone |
Ryder Notes: Pivotal Moments by julian ryder Wednesday, December 26, 2007 Today Soup's Julian Ryder takes a look at some pivotal moments in motorcyle and motorcycle race history: 1895: Invention of the motorcycle Gottlieb Daimler usually gets the credit for inventing the motorcycle, indeed the first proper motorcycle, the Daimler-Reitwagen, rolled out of his Canstatt workshop on 10 November 1885. It travelled the 3km to Unterturkheim and back with no problems, ridden by Wilhelm Maybach. The engine had the DNA of a modern bike - vertical cylinder, mechanically-operated exhaust valve, internal flywheels, belt drive to the rear wheel, etc, and was a quantum leap ahead of the steam-driven contraptions that had gone before. Maybach was Daimler's assistant and probably had more to do with the design than history knows. He later went on to invent the carburettor, honeycomb radiator and a host of other still recognisable features of the car as he designed the first truly modern motor, the Mercedes racer of 1901. Daimler and Maybach made some modifications to their bike but never designed another motorcycle, so the question is why they built one in the first place given they were really interested in motorising carriages usually drawn by horses? The answer is probably in the premises they used, a greenhouse on the side of an outbuilding. The master and pupil had moved to Canstatt after Benz was levered out of his job as MD of the Deutz Company where he'd once been assistant to none other than Nicholas Otto, the man who first identified and used the four-stroke cycle... The workshop was long and thin and there simply wasn't room to work on a carriage inside, so they built a single-rack vehicle. There are some Maybach sketches of 1886 showing two-wheelers but none even got as far as the drawing stage. So if Daimler and Maybach invented the motorcycle by accident--hell, it even had stabilizer wheels, who do we credit with building the first real bike? Visionary English engineer Edward Butler had patents on a petrol-engined tricycle about he same time as the Reitwagen was rolling across the cobbles in Germany but if you were looking for a bike to buy you had to wait until 1894 when the brothers Henry and Wilhelm Hildebrand along with Alois Wolfmuller put a horizontal four-stroke twin in a custom made chassis, not a modified bicycle frame, and sold the result to the general public. Crucially they called it a motorrad--motorcycle, the first time the term had been used. Previously no matter how many wheels something driven by petrol had it was simply a motor vehicle. Benz and Maybach were crucial to the development of all internal combustion-engined vehicles from bikes to planes but the Hildebrand & Wolfmuller was the first real motorcycle. 1934: The high-revving Four There is no doubt that the first recognisably modern multi was the Gilera four on which Nello Pagani and Arciso Artesiani finished second and third in the first ever World 500cc Championship in 1949, but the origins of the bike go back to the pre-War days of Supercharging. In fact the origins of the design can be traced right back to the two newly graduated engineering students, Carlo Gianni and Piero Remor who built a number of across-the-frame four motors in the 1920s under the patronage of various noblemen. As far as I can discover, these were the first across-the-frame-four bikes ever built. According to Raymond Ainscoe's History of Gilera's Racer (Osprey, 1987) they were getting the thing to rev to 7000rpm in 1928 but without the reliability to win races despite having the great Piero Taruffi (engineer, Italian 500 champion, international tennis player, Summer and Winter Olympian, Mille Miglia and Targa Floria winner, factory Ferrari and Mercedes driver, holder of 50 speed records on two, three and four wheels) riding. In '34, with Taruffi now a co-designer as well as team manager, the bike was reborn under the banner of the C.N.A. aeroplane company as the Rondine (swallow in Italian). The 52x58mm motor was water-cooled, had a semi-automatic gearbox and a Taruffi designed supercharger, and the cylinders were inclined forward at a very modern looking 45-degrees. C.NA. was sold to another plane maker, Caproni, which quickly sold the racers on to Gilera. Taruffi tested the first Gilera at 137mph - unfaired - and reckoned it made 70hp at 8800rpm. With added reliability, this is the bike that Dorino Serafini took to the 1939 European Championship. There was just time for Taruffi to set an absolute speed record of 170.37mph and a one-hour record of 127 miles before the Italian aerospace industry had things other than racing on its mind. After the War, Remor redesigned the old motor to take account of the new World Championship regulations, no forced induction was allowed so the motor could be air-cooled. Internal team politics managed to lose Gilera the first World Championship but Umberto Masetti got the pot in 1950, again in '52 and was follwed by a Geoff Duke hat-trick. MV took over the following year; Piero Remor, always a difficult specimen, had left Gilera at the end of '49 taking the company's plans with him. His new employer was Count Agusta. 1961: Degner Defects Honda and MZ were locked in a battle for the 125cc title as the season came to an end. Sweden was due to be the penultimate round with Argentina finishing season off but, then as now, there were doubts over the over the South American race. The East German factory's 125 had just become the first motor in history to have a specific power output of over 200hp/litre, lead rider Ernst Degner was heading the championship and was favorite for the title. | It is impossible to overstate the effect Kenny Roberts has had on motorcycle racing. He has been a champion as a rider and a team owner, a unique achievement in itself, and a constructor. Along the way he has been credited with everything from being the first racer to get his knee down, the first to adopt the hang-off riding style and the first to deliberately use rear wheel steering. | How had a tiny company locked away in the East with no means of buying top riders or modern alloys or state-of-the-art parts like carbs or ignitions do this? The answer was the genius of one man, Walter Kaaden. Single-handedly he deduced the modern two-stroke from first principles by treating it as a resonating device not as a pump - like a four-stroke, no matter that he had to use old saw blades to fabricate disc valves. All this against the Honda's highly paid works bikes and the Italian armada. Not long before the Swedish GP in September '61 the situation of the East German team was made even more precarious—their government built the Berlin Wall, plunging the Cold War well and truly into the deep freeze. Some people think that Degner's plans were already well-advanced before the wall went up, and on the way to Kristianstad he learnt that his family had been successfully smuggled to the West, drugged in the boot of a car. Instead of running a conservative race and taking the title, Degner shot into the lead, over-revving the MZ so hard it only lasted two laps. With the help of Suzuki, he immediately joined his family. Suzuki weren't helping for humanitarian reasons, their two-strokes were cringe-makingly slow next to both Honda's four-strokes and the MZs and they wanted Kaaden's secrets. Degner was the quick route. In 1962 Ernst Degner became the first rider to win a World Championship on a two-stroke—a 50cc Suzuki. Next year Hugh Anderson won the 125 title for Suzuki. What did Degner take with him? He always maintained he just took what was in his head. Kaaden thought otherwise, he was sure Degner took a good deal of hardware, too. Most of all, he resented the selling of years of his team's work, and when Suzuki painted their bikes blue and silver, the same as MZ, Kaaden had the MZs painted green. 1984: The Radial Tyre If you know about the two-stroke 750s of the late 1970s you'll know why radial tyres were necessary. Monsters like the TZ750 were simply destroying their tyres with an excess of both weight and power. Or to be precise, they were overheating them. The problem was the old cross-ply construction, so called because the fibres of the plies that are used to build up the carcase of a tyre were laid at an angle to each other. Once the tyre was put in the mould and cured you have a lump of rubber stiffened by fibres that form internal parallelograms. In use, the tyre is loaded and unloaded causing flex in the structure, which means those parallelograms articulate like the pantographs you see picking up current from overhead lines on electric trains. That movement causes internal friction which causes heat, and too much heat is the problem. Radial construction simply runs the plies straight from one side of the rim to the other and was already well known and understood in the car world. The trouble was you couldn't do this on motorcycle tyre designs of the time because you ended up with instability due to too much flex in the sidewalls. As usual, this sort of development does not take place in isolation. Michelin's research into 16-inch tyres gave them useful information on low-sidewall designs and once they'd put a ply running circumferentially under the tread rubber to keep it stable they had a practical race tyre. Much of the development input came from no-less a man than Freddie Spencer and he was the first to win a GP on a Michelin radial in '84. At the time, there was only a rear radial and of course the vast improvement in grip, feedback and endurance meant the old fronts were being pushed hard. Later that same season Randy Mamola became the first winner with Michelins front and back on his Honda. The light weight of the new tyres improved handling and steering at the front and, crucially, massively improved feel for what the back was doing when it stepped out. Without radials there would have been no rear-wheel steering. 1907: Brooklands opens The first organised competition I can find record of was the 1894 Paris to Rouen but that appears to have been some sort of reliability trial. The first race proper was the following year from Paris to Bordeaux and back, so we can safely say that the French started it. Bikes didn't figure strongly until the Paris-Madrid race of 1903, but public opinion was not universally in favour of racing on public roads, with its obvious attendant dangers. Purpose-built tracks were the obvious answer and the first of those was Brooklands, near Weybridge in Surrey. It cost an enormous $150,000 and was opened in 1907 but the first bike event was a private match race between McMinnies (Triumph) and Bickford (Vindec) in February 1908. The first bike meeting proper wasn't held until Easter Monday 1909 and attracted 24 entries. The track was a banked oval on which continuous three-figure speeds were sustainable. Cars first did the ton there before the World War I and LG Hornstead and KL Guinness set World Land Speed Records on the banking in 1914 and '22 at 124.1 and 133.75mph, respectively. Their cars were a 20-litre Merc and an 18-litre Sunbeam! A bike didn't do the ton until 1921 when DH Davidson reached 100mph over a measured kilometre. Appropriately enough, he was riding a Harley-Davidson. The following year Bert Le Vack riding a Zenith did the first 100mph lap—in the rain. There was racing on the banked 2.75-mile circuit but the emphasis and interest was really on and in record-breaking. But the railway straight soon became too short and the last World Record mark set there was Claude Temple's 99.68mph in 1923 set on a Temple Anzani. Don't forget that world records are set by averaging the speeds of runs in either direction, hence the disparity with the earlier efforts. Brooklands wasn't so much a race track as a development facility and proving ground for the top tuners of the day. Inter-War events were run by the British Motor Cycle Racing Club, the organisation which awarded their Gold Star to any rider who lapped at over 100mph—hence BSA's model designation. The ultimate lap record was 124.51mph set by Noel Pope, the first man to do over 120mph, on a Brough. JAP-powered Broughs dominated the last years of Brooklands, the top speed recorded was 143.39 by Eric Fernihough on a supercharged example. Both marks were set in 1939, and shortly afterwards the track closed for ever. Just in case anyone fancies an argument, the Milwaukee mile oval, originally a trotting track for the State Fair, was first used in 1903 but wasn't actually paved until 1954. The oldest event still run over its original course is the Shelsley Walsh hill climb which started in 1905. 1954: Mr Honda's Announcement Six years after the founding of the Honda Motor Company, Soichiro Honda announced that he would send a team to compete in the Isle of Man TT. He had already achieved an astounding amount at home and was mass-producing his first four-stroke, the Benly J-type. Racing, he reasoned, was the best way to spread the word about his motorcycles. So in March '54 he made the historic announcement that there would be a Honda team in the Island. Three months later he went to Europe to check out the competition. Britain didn't exactly welcome him with open arms—too many raw memories of the treatment meted out to POWs, but Soichiro went home with a lot of excess baggage in the shape of carburettors and electrical components of a quality not available in Japan. He now knew the scale of the task he had set himself. Five years later, Honda had unleashed their first high-tech machine, the C70, on Europe, set-up a North American subsidiary, and launched the Cub step-through which sold over 170,000 units in its first year of production. Honda was now ready to make good the founder's promise. A team of five 125s turned up, ran faultlessly but slowly yet still won the team prize. For 1960, Honda realised he had to employ professional foreign riders and signed Aussie Tom Phillis, and when he got hurt Jim Redman took over. Neither expected to be re-employed but were, with the immortal words: 'Jim-san and Tom-san rode the bikes when they were slow, now they will ride them when they are fast.' Phillis won Honda's first GP at the opening round of the season and went on the take the title. Mike Hailwood won Honda's first and second TTs (125 and 250) on a single day and went on to win the Senior (on a Norton) thus becoming the first man to do the Island triple. He also won the 250 world title. Redman did the 250/350 double the following two years then followed on with two more 350 titles. He was also Honda's first 500 winner, at Hockenheim in '66. From toe-in-the-water Manx expedition to world domination in four years: for a measure of the scale of the achievement, imagine that Proton had been winning everything since 2001. How did they do it? The clear vision of the founder is obviously vital, and I got an understanding of it the first time I visited the Honda museum at Twin Ring Motegi. The machinery flanking the entrance doors comprised a Bugatti racing car and a single-cylinder MV four-stroke. These were the machines that Soichiro Honda saw as the best of their day when he was starting out, this was the standard of engineering he must first understand, then equal and finally exceed. That's where that old chestnut about Japanese copying comes from; if you don't understand how the opposition does it then how can you hope to be better? In the best Japanese tradition, the museum is littered with plaques with a few of Mr Honda's quotes on them. The first one I saw? 'The product cannot lie.' What a pity the British industry didn't adopt that one. 1978: The arrival of The King It is impossible to overstate the effect Kenny Roberts has had on motorcycle racing. He has been a champion as a rider and a team owner, a unique achievement in itself, and a constructor. Along the way he has been credited with everything from being the first racer to get his knee down, the first to adopt the hang-off riding style and the first to deliberately use rear wheel steering. He didn't actually do any of these first but he did completely revolutionise the way motorcycle racers were treated and the way GPs were run. He was a central player in the World Series organisation that threatened to break away from FIM control. The plans never came to fruition but the shock waves generated hastened the end of races on deadly circuits and the exploitation of riders by greedy organisers. It was Kenny who handed the trophy for the 1979 Spanish GP back to then rostrum presentation party because they obviously needed the money. After all, hadn't they taken a chunk out of his mandatory start money? They must be short of cash. This was the attitude to riders that Kenny found in Europe, not that it was that different from what he had to contend with back in then States. But this was the World Championship. Shouldn't he be getting paid well for this, not risking his life at places like Imatra and the Nurburgring for a pittance? Kenny clearly saw the Catch 22 of racing: every racer wants to be the best and that means being World Champion. However, to be World Champion he had to subject himself to humiliation at the hands of organisers at tracks that where capital punishment was the reward for a mistake on a motorcycle. Kenny did not like this, so he did something about it. He also won three world titles on the bounce. There was no single new thing that Kenny brought with him, but he did bring a whole new attitude, a clear vision of how things should be, and a rare, analytical intelligence that pared racing down to its essential basics. For the record, Kenny says it was Jarno Saarinen who he watched at Ontario in 1973 and figured out that shifting his weight around would help him in corners. As for rear-wheel steering, Roberts says he learned from a Goodyear contact that Cal Rayborn set his bikes up to push the front in slow corners and slide the rear in fast ones. That's what he did in the States, and that's what he brought to Europe. 1983: The twin-beam frame Let's face it, motorcycle designers took a long time to get away from the basic concept of the motorised bicycle. Herren Hildebrand, Wolfmuller, Daimler and Maybach would all have recognized nearly all single-track vehicles that have been built as close relations of their creations. This is especially true in the chassis department. Squint at a photo of any motorcycle chassis up until the mid-1980s and you can see a bicycle. There have, of course been great leaps forward, but not many of them. Even the mighty Gilera fours' state-of the-art aviation-derived motors sat in weedy loops of tubular steel. The first milestone in chassis design was the Norton chassis developed by the Ulsterman Rex McCandless and his brother Cromie in the late '40s and early '50s: it gave such an improved ride it became known as the Featherbed. Twin tubes ran down from the top of the steering head to cradle and support the motor with the tubes looping back over the cylinder head to the bottom of the steering head, triangulating with the downtubes. The advances were many: improved stiffness, better weight distribution thanks to moving the rider forward; and better traction with the adoption of what we recognise as shock absorbers to control the swinging arm. Nothing changed for well over 30 years. Early attempt to use aluminium looked like copies of steel frames. As alloy is three times lighter than steel, this would seem to be a good idea. Unfortunately, it is also three times less stiff. The result was some very wobbly motorcycles. As Japanese factories edged towards understanding via interesting experiments like the monococque Kawasaki 500 and the composite frame Heron made for their Suzukis, one man saw the solution clearly: Antonio Cobas. Basically he invented what Yamaha christened the Deltabox. His chassis used in '83 by Sito Pons on the Kobas 250 (yes, with a K) was brilliant in its simplicity and made the tubular ally effort look pathetic. It reminded me of the sort of spar you find in the wing of a large aircraft: a box-section U-shape with the steering head at the closed end and two beams running almost directly from steering head to swinging arm pivot. Bracing was provided by three large, thin-walled aluminium tubes running internally across each arm. Cobas understood how to make aluminium strong, and all he had to do was take a glance at the aircraft industry. 1988: The carbon brake Wayne Rainey had a secret weapon when he won his first GP, at Donington in '88. He won it in the first half of the first lap thanks to a clever bit of British engineering, AP Lockheed's carbon brake. It wasn't the stopping power that let him open up an astonishing lead on the first lap, it was the fact that the discs were nearly 1.5kg lighter than the usual steel rotors and the consequent reduction in gyroscopic effect (actually moment of inertia) made his 500 Yam steer 'like a 250' down through Craner curves. Ron Haslam had tested carbon brakes on the hub-centre steered Elf but never raced with them. Rainey tested them for the first time in Donington qualifying and immediately went over a second quicker than with steel discs. His first words after coming in from his first experience of carbon brakes were: 'Can I race it? I've got to race it?' He then reported that the first time he'd flicked the bike into the lefthander at Craner like normal he nearly ran up the inside curb. Interestingly, Rainey didn't report a major improvement in stopping power but he was never a manic braker. His teammate Kevin Magee, definitely a demon on the stoppers, reported after he used them for the first time that it was like throwing out the proverbial anchor. Where did this technology come from? The aviation industry of course. Carbon had been used to stop jumbos for years because as well as being light carbon fibre has a high coefficient of friction but it needs to be hot. Generating heat is not a problem if you're stopping a 747 with 400 people on board, everything gets hot very quickly and they got over the cold brake problem by using massive clamping forces. Car racers were onto carbon brakes quickly, using complex ducting and shrouds to keep the rotors at 400 degrees, their minimum working temperature. As a happy by-product, the drastic reduction in unsprung weight also enabled tyre and suspension designers to push their ideas forward. AP Lockheed's breakthrough was to get consistent performance out of their material at much lower temperatures and cope with the vast amounts of extra heat generated. That they did it all was remarkable enough; that they won with it at the first attempt was nothing short of one of the finest engineering achievements of recent years. 2002: Enter MotoGP There is no escaping the fact that the 500cc two-strokes had run up a blind alley. The formula had found its optimum solution, a V4 in an aluminium twin-beam frame. Two-strokes were being legislated off the roads in most markets so racing departments found it difficult to extract funding from their bosses. MotoGP changed all that: purse strings were suddenly loosened and a whole new generation of motorcycles appeared. Some hard-of-thinking people muttered about needing an engine double the size to beat the strokers, ignoring the fact the new bikes were restricted to 24 litres of petrol while the two-strokes got 30% more. But look at the race times: in three years the MotoGP bikes took well over a minute of the race record. The last two-stroke winner at Welkom was Valentino Rossi in 2001 in 45min 03.414sec. In MotoGP, Rossi won in 43min 50.218sec, a difference of 1min 12.196sec in three years. Historically, we were impressed when the winner took a second or two off the existing record. Whatever, it's clear that by the real measure of racing, that's the stopwatch, we are in a period of great leaps forward in racing motorcycle design. ลอริส คาปิรอสซี่ มีคะแนนสะสมรวมทั่งหมด 2889 คะแนน เป็นนักแข่งคนที่ 3 ที่มีคะแนนสะสมรวมมากที่สุดของโลก ส่วนที่ 1 คือ วาเลนติโน่ รอสซี่ 3347 คะแนน และแม็กซ์ บิแอจจี 2892 คะแนน หากว่าสนามบาเลนเซีย คาปิรอสซี่ จบการแข่งขันในตำแหน่งที่ดีกว่าอันดับที่ 12 คะแนนสะสมของคาปิเร็กซ์ก็จะมากกว่า แม็กซ์ บิแอจจี รอสซี่ ทำคะแนนสะสมในฤดูกาล 2005 ได้มากถึง 367 แต้ม แต่ขณะนี้ เคซี่ สโตเนอร์ มีคะแนนสะสม 347 คะแนน หากได้แค่ตำแหน่งรองแชมป์บาเลนเซีย คะแนนสะสมมากที่สุดของฤดูกาลก็จะเท่ากับวาเลนติโน่ รอสซี่ ถ้าหากชนะก็มากกว่ารอสซี่ 5 แต้ม บาเลนเซีย เป็นสนามที่ 100 ของการแข่งขันด้วยรถแข่ง 4 จังหวะนับตั้งแต่ปี 2002 ตอนนี้นักแข่งที่เหลืออยู่ก็คือ คาร์ลอส เซก้า วาเลนติโน่ รอสซี่ ชินย่า นากาโน่ ที่ได้แข่งรถแข่ง 4 จังหวะมาตั้งแต่แรก เคซี่ สโตเนอร์ ชนะเลิศในมาเลเซียเป็นสนามที่ 10 หากชนะในบาเลนเซียอีกก็จะเป็น 11 สนามเท่ากับวาเลนติโน่ รอสซี่ ที่ทำได้มากที่สุดใน รุ่น 250 ซีซี. จอร์เก้ โลเรนโซ่ แม็กซ์ บิแอจจี และวาเลนติโน่ รอสซี่ ทำสถิติเท่ากันคือชนะเลิศ 9 สนาม หาก โลเรนโซ่ ชนะเลิศที่บาเลนเซียได้ก็จะมีสถิติชนะเลิศ10 สนามเท่ากับ ไมค์ เฮลวู๊ด และแอนตัน มอง แต่สถิติชนะเลิศมากที่สุดคือ ไดอิจิโร่ คาโต้ ลอริส คาปิรอสซี่ คู่กะ คริสเวอร์มูเลน ในนามทีมซูซูกิ วาเลนติโน่ รอสซี่ กะ จอร์เก้ ลอเรนโซ่ ทีมยามาฮ่าเฟียต เคซี่ สโตนเนอร์ กะ มาร์โก้ เมลันดรี้ ทีมดูคาตี้ เจมส์ ทอสแลนด์ กะ คอลลิน เอ็ดเวิร์ด ทีมยามาฮ่าเทค3 ซิลเวียน กินโทลี่ กะ โทนี่ อิลิอัส ทีมดูคาตี้ เดออองค์แตง ชินย่า นากาโน่ กะ อเล็กซ์ เดอ แองเจอลิส ทีมเกรสซินี่เรซซิ่ง จอห์น ฮอปกินส์ กะ แอนโทนี่ เวสต์ ทีมคาวาซากิ นิคกี้ เฮย์เดน กะ เดนี่ เปโดรซ่า ทีมเรพซอลฮอนด้า | As a toddler Casey Stoner displayed a passion and talent for motorbike riding that was extraordinary, even by the standards of his bike-mad family. By the age of three he'd already graduated from pushing his older sister's 50cc Peewee around the yard to taking his first ride on his own.
At four years of age Casey competed in his first race in the under 9s category at the Hatchers dirt racing track on the Gold Coast. By the age of six he had won his first Australia title. Many, many hours of riding, travelling and long nights working on bikes followed. Between the ages of 6 and 14 Casey raced all over Australia, travelling with his father, mother and sister.
In that time Casey won 41 Australian dirt and long track titles and over 70 State titles, riding up to 5 bikes at a meeting in different capacity categories.
When he was twelve Casey raced the Australian Long Track Titles on the NSW Central Coast in 5 different categories with seven rounds in each capacity; a total of 35 races over the one weekend! He won 32 out of those 35 races and took five out of five Australian titles in the one meet.
Just after his 14th birthday Casey and his parents decided to make the move overseas and packed up and headed to England to start his road racing career. Casey could not legally road race in Australia until he was 16, but had decided he was ready for the challenge. So the decision was made to move to England where Casey was already of legal age to race. A big risk to take, but it paid off.
Casey was lucky enough and talented enough to attract immediate sponsorship after just one race in England. He went on to take out the English 125cc Aprilia Championship in 2000, in his first year of road racing.
In that year he also raced two rounds of the Spanish 125cc Championship. It was there he was noticed by GP great Alberto Puig. Alberto was impressed by Casey's determination and skill and invited him to race for the Telefonica Movistar Team in the 125cc Spanish Championships the next year.
In 2001 Casey raced in both the English and Spanish championships in the same year. Despite missing some English races due to clashes with Spanish rounds, he still managed to come second in both championships. In that same year he was also granted wildcard entries into the MotoGP 125cc world series, in both England and Australia. He placed 18th and 12th respectively and as a result was offered a ride in the Grand Prix world series the next year for the Safilo Oxydo LCR team.
Straight onto a 250cc machine in his rookie year, and at only 16 years of age, Casey demonstrated his ability and speed with results. His best result for the year was a 5th at Brno as well as several 6th place finishes.
In 2003 he went on to ride for Lucio and Safilo Oxydo LCR in the 125cc GP series and took four podium finishes and his first race win, in Valencia, at the end of the season. His first win in a GP race was a huge turning point for Casey and his career.
In 2004, at 18 years of age, Casey moved to KTM for a season where he helped to develop the team's 125cc bike into a winning machine. That year he made it to the podium six times and took KTM's first ever win in a GP class.
2005 saw Casey once again come back under the welcoming umbrella of Lucio Cecchinello's team, this time riding an official 250cc Aprilia. He spent 2005 battling it out with Dani Pedrosa for the championship, visiting the podium ten times in the process and taking wins in Portugal, Shanghai, Qatar, Sepang, and Istanbul.
Finally in 2006, at twenty years of age, Casey accomplished his long held ambition of racing in MotoGP, the fastest and most prestigious of the classes. He set pole position in his second MotoGP race in Qatar and battled for the win until the final corner in the GP of Turkey, finishing runner-up just a fraction behind winner Melandri. Too many errors conditioned the second part of the year, but Casey, in finishing eighth overall in his rookie MotoGP season, demonstrated that he was in amongst the elite group, of which he is the youngest rider.
In 2007 Casey Stoner will be wearing the colours of the Ducati MotoGP Team alongside the considerably more experienced Loris Capirossi, with whom he has already struck up a good friendship. In winter testing he has often been amongst the pacesetters and has proved to have rapidly adapted to the Desmosedici GP7 and Bridgestone tyres.
Born: October 16 1985 in Kurri-Kurri, Australia
Lives: Monaco
Marital status: married to Adriana
Height: 170cm
Weight: 58kg
Off-track interests: cycling, snorkelling, videogames | | | Race Career |  | | GP victories: 7 (5x250, 2x125)
First GP victory: Valencia, 2003 (125)
First GP: Britain, 2001 (125)
Pole positions: 5 (1xMotoGP, 2x250, 2x125)
First pole: Italy, 2003 (125)
2007: Ducati Marlboro Team rider – MotoGP World Championship
2007: Machine: Ducati Marlboro Team Desmosedici GP7
2006: 8th MotoGP World Championship (Honda)
2005: 2nd 250 World Championship (Aprilia)
2004: 5th 125 World Championship (KTM)
2003: 8th 125 World Championship (Aprilia)
2002: 12th MotoGP World Championship (Honda)
2001: 2nd 125 British Championship (Honda)
2001: 2nd 125 Spanish Championship (Honda)
2000: 125 Aprilia Challenge UK Champion (Aprilia)
| | Following on from the most promising season of the Desmosedici MotoGP project, Ducati and Shell have been hard at work to design and optimise the new 800cc Desmosedici GP7 for the 2007 season.
For 2007, the MotoGP World Championship entered a new era, that of lower capacity 800cc bikes, designed to halt the ever rising speeds of these competition machines. Another significant change is the reduction of fuel tank capacity by one more litre, giving a total capacity of 21 litres to last the full race distance. Both these changes have required significant input by the engineers to ensure that the bikes comply with the rules while remaining competitive throughout the season.
For Shell's part the rule changes have meant looking at the design of the fuels and lubricants used in the Ducati's high-revving V4 engine – this was done in collaboration with the Ducati engineers who were busy designing the new lower weight and more compact 800cc engine. The change of engine capacity has also meant a redesign of the frame and aero package on the bike to optimise the performance.
Shell Advance has always played an integral part in powering and protecting the desmodronic Ducati engines. Over the last few seasons, the blend of oil has been optimised and Shell Advance L6442 has been the product of choice due to its unique Friction Modifier technology which has meant the liberation of more power while maintaining its protection properties throughout each session on the track.
Shell Racing V-Power also plays a key role in the Desmosedici’s performance, in fact Shell Racing V-Power RD0502 has been so successful in power production in MotoGP that it is now used in the production based Ducati 999 F07 World Superbikes. While new for 2007 is Shell Racing V-Power PR2772, a fuel economy blend of fuel aimed at helping Ducati combat the challenges of the smaller fuel tank required by the rules, while minimising power loses to ensure non of the legendary top speed is lost. | | | DUCATI DESMOSEDICI GP7 Technical Specifications | | Engine | | | Liquid-cooled, 90 degree V4 four-stroke, desmodromic DOHC, four valves per cylinder. | | | Capacity | | | 799cc | | | Maximum power: | | | More than 200hp | | | Maximum speed: | | | In excess of 310 kph/192 mph | | | Transmission | | | Six-speed cassette-type gearbox, with alternative gear ratios available. Dry multiplate slipper clutch. Chain final drive | | | Carburation: | | | Indirect Magneti Marelli electronic injection, four throttle bodies with injectors above butterfly valves. Throttles operated by EVO TCF (Throttle Control & Feedback) system | | | Fuel: | | | Shell V-Power Racing | | | Lubricant: | | | Shell Advance Ultra 4 | | | Ignition: | | | Magneti Marelli | | | Exhaust: | | | Termignoni | | | Frame: | | | Tubular steel trellis-style chassis, pressed aluminium swing-arm | | | Suspension: | | | Öhlins upside-down 42mm front forks and Öhlins rear shock absorber, adjustable for preload, compression and rebound damping | | | Tyres: | | | Bridgestone 16.5" front and rear | | | Brakes: | | | Brembo, two 320mm carbon front discs with four-piston callipers. Single stainless steel rear disc with two-piston callipers | | | Dry weight: | | | 148kg | Monday, 24th September 2007
Casey Stoner admits he didn't expect to win the 2007 MotoGP World Championship at Motegi on Sunday - and that it's all 'a bit overwhelming'. "This feels unreal at the moment. I'm struggling for words. I don't think there's any feeling that can compare to this. I guess it'll sink in a little more as the day goes on and then into tomorrow," said a smiling Stoner following a dramatic Japanese Grand Prix.
The 21-year-old Australian, competing in only his second season of MotoGP, needed to beat Valentino Rossi to wrap up his first world title three rounds early - but with the Italian superstar still leading with ten laps to go, that had looked unlikely. However, the drying track eventually forced even the frontrunners to pit for a change of bike, which proved to be Rossi's undoing.
Stoner, Marco Melandri and Rossi had spent most of the wet part of the race battling for victory - and all eventually pitted within the space of one lap, but when the trio rejoined Rossi was immediately struggling with the front of his M1. The former five times MotoGP champion then pulled into the pits to have his machine examined - all but handing Stoner the crown.
"The race started out quite well, but unfortunately my tyres started to destroy themselves. I didn't really know whether to come in or not, but then the team put 'box' on the pit board so I had a bit more confidence to come in," said Stoner, who rejoined in fifth. "After I changed bikes, I think there was a problem with the steering damper - the bike wasn't allowing me to top into corners - so I had to slow down to unwind the steering damper so it would work.
"Then Valentino had a problem... It's a little bit overwhelming; we didn't really expect to get [the title] at this race. It's all come on me quite quickly - I didn't expect to be world champion today," confessed Casey, who wheelied across the finish line in a safe sixth position.
"There's a lot of people I have to thank; my parents who have supported me through my whole career, my wife who has been with me the last few seasons and everyone that has helped me along the way - including my whole team and Bridgestone tyres. I just want to say a big thanks to everyone who has had anything to do with my career - we finally did it!" concluded a delighted Stoner.
Stoner's first world championship also marked the first MotoGP title for Ducati and tyre supplier Bridgestone.
Stoner's team-mate Loris Capirossi won the race, his first victory of the season, after a well-timed pit stop - taking Ducati's tally of 2007 MotoGP wins to nine tough apprenticeship has paid off for Casey Stoner. Robert Grant reports that he has youth on his side and could stay at the top for a long time. It was a remarkable feat and may even be unparalleled in sport. One weekend, Casey Stoner undertook to compete in five different motorcycle categories, each consisting of seven rounds, at the Australian long-track titles on the NSW Central Coast. Of the 35 races he started in, Stoner won 32. There were five Australian titles to be won that weekend. Stoner won all five. He was 12. But he was something of a contradiction in terms by that stage — a teenage veteran. Stoner first clambered onto a bike when he was three. He had his first race at four, competing in the under-nine class at Hatcher's dirt racing track on the Gold Coast. He won his first race at nine and over the next five years amassed 41 dirt and long-track titles and 70 various state championships. He may be only 21 but Stoner already has a long and glowing curriculum vitae. Tiger Woods, of course, also stuffed silverware into a bursting trophy cabinet at a precocious rate while a youngster. Now Stoner has become MotoGP's second-youngest world champion — only months older than Freddie Spencer, the American who blitzed the field in 1983 — and the first Australian winner since Mick Doohan won the last of his five straight titles in 1998. There were many who said he would never make it, pointing to his habit of falling off the bike while pushing the limits in the smaller categories. But the only people who mattered to Stoner — his father Colin and mother Bronwyn — knew differently. "My mother and father always knew I could do it, win in MotoGP," Stoner said. "They had a lot of belief in me and they made a lot of sacrifices. "All three of us were painting houses, even my Mum, along with my Dad and me helping out. We were working to raise as much money as possible to go to the UK and Europe. And we had a lot of people saying, 'You won't make it'." As great as five-times world champion Valentino Rossi and Doohan are, neither held a world crown at 21. It is tantalising to ponder how many titles Stoner could amass in the years ahead. He might become the greatest of them all. AAP CASEY STONER AGE: 21 BORN: Southport, Queensland LIVES: Monaco BIKE: Ducati GRAND PRIX STARTS: 92 (31-MotoGP, 31-250cc, 30-125cc) GRAND PRIX WINS: 15 (8 MotoGP, 5-250cc, 2-125cc) WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: 1 (MotoGP) FIRST GRAND PRIX: Britain 2001 (125cc) FIRST GRAND PRIX WIN: Valencia 2003 (125cc) POLE POSITIONS: 10 (6-MotoGP, 2-250cc, 2-125cc) Casey Stoner was always earmarked out for greatness when he made his debut as a wildcard at Donington Park in 2001. Having been drafted into the same academy system which has seen the likes of Dani Pedrosa and Toni Elias rise through the MotoGP ranks, Stoner took full advantage of his family’s bold move to Europe to build on a promising national dirt-track career.
Beginning a permanent Grand Prix career in the 250cc class under the guidance of Lucio Cecchinello, it was when he dropped down to the 125s the following season that the motorcycling world began to take notice, as he took four podiums and a win at the final round. In 2004 he battled for the 125 championship with KTM, taking their first ever Grand Prix victory and finishing fifth overall A return to the LCR team and the 250 class in 2005 saw him battle his old stablemate Pedrosa for the 250cc title, winning five races on the Aprilia, before he continued with LCR for his and the team’s rookie season in MotoGP on board a Honda.
His rookie year in 2006 saw flashes of brilliance mixed with a few disappointing crashes, but stand-out moments included pole position in just his second race at Qatar followed by a battle to the line with Marco Melandri in Turkey where he was just pipped into second place. His performances saw the Ducati factory come knocking at the door, and since the end of 2006 his career has gone into overdrive.
A maiden MotoGP victory the first race of 2007 at Qatar was a self-confessed surprise for both rider and team, but once he followed this up with wins at Turkey and China, it was clear the Stoner juggernaut was rolling towards a title tilt. His standout performance at Catalunya, where he battled toe-to-toe with five-time champion Valentino Rossi will go down as one of the great races in history, whilst he dominated the mid-season with pole-to-flag victories at three consecutive races at Laguna Seca, Brno and Misano. He has been the dominant force in MotoGP this season, the only rider to score points in every round, and with four rounds still to go he seals the title with a total of 297 points, 8 wins and 11 podiums, including 5 pole positions.
Birth date: 16/10/1985 (21 years)
Birth place: Southport, AUS
First Grand Prix: GBR – 2001 - 125cc
First Pole Position: ITA – 2003 - 125cc
First Podium: GER – 2003 - 125cc
First GP Victory: VAL – 2003 - 125cc
Grand Prix Starts: 92
Grand Prix Victories: 15
Podiums: 32
Pole Positions: 10
Race Fastest Lap: 9
World Championship Win: 1 - 2007 - MotoGP
Total Points 2006: 297
*all data correct at 23/09/2007 (Japanese GP)
MotoGP Career
2001: 125cc World Championship - 29th position on a Honda, 2 starts, 4 points
2002: 250cc World Championship – 12th position on an Aprilia, 5 starts, 68 points
2003: 125cc World Championship – 8th position on an Aprilia, 14 starts, 125 points, 1 win
2004: 125cc World Championship - 5th position on a KTM, 14 starts, 145 points, 1 win
2005: 250cc World Championship – 2nd position on an Aprilia, 16 starts, 254 points, 5 wins
2006: MotoGP World Championship – 7th position on a Honda, 16 starts, 119 points
2007: MotoGP World Championship – 1st position on a Ducati, 15 starts, 297 points, 8 wins
Some facts about Stoner's achievement
- At the age of 21 years and 342 days, Stoner becomes the second youngest rider to win the premier-class title in the 59-year history of world championship Grand Prix racing.
- He is only the fifth rider in history to win eight or more premier-class races in a single season along with motorcycling greats Giacomo Agostini, Mike Hailwood, Mick Doohan and Valentino Rossi.
- He wins a first MotoGP riders’ title for Ducati and it is also the first time a European manufacturer has won the title since Phil Read on an MV Agusta in1974.
- Stoner is the third Australian to win the MotoGP title, after MotoGP Legends Mick Doohan and Wayne Gardner.
| Casey Stoner claims first MotoGP crownBy Dave Fern Last Updated: 1:56am BST 24/09/2007 | Casey Stoner clinched the MotoGP title yesterday, becoming the second-youngest rider to win the championship and the first for 33 years to do so on a European-manufactured bike The 21-year-old Australian's sixth-place finish in the Japanese round of the championship was his worst result in a campaign of eight victories and three other podium finishes. However, it was enough to ensure him an unassailable 83-point lead over his nearest rival, Valentino Rossi, with just three rounds remaining. "It all feels a bit unrealistic," said Stoner, who has claimed his, and Ducati's, first MotoGP crown in only his second season. "I don't think there is any feeling that can compare to this. I can hardly believe it. It is a bit overwhelming because we did not expect to get the title here. It's come on me quite quickly? " "Towards the end, everything was creeping into my head, so I just tried to stay focused on the job in hand and bring it home for the team. I have to thank a lot of people for this, particularly my parents, who made big sacrifices for me and I hope this repays them." Stoner's success overshadowed the achievement of his team-mate, Loris Capirossi, who completed a hat-trick of successive MotoGP victories at the Motegi circuit The damp, humid conditions meant tyre choice was crucial. Pole-starter Dani Pedrosa led at first but Stoner, charging through from the third row, was ahead by the fourth lap. Marco Melandri, who joins Ducati next season, soon took the lead away from the Australian, with Rossi, just adrift of them, reeling them in on a drying track that was causing tyre problems. By half distance, Rossi was briefly ahead, Melandri and Stoner having both pitted to rejoin on their spare bikes, which were fitted with tyres better suited to the conditions. Next time around, Rossi called in to change his Yamaha, although he was soon in trouble with a front-brake problem that caused him to make another pit-stop. Then he took an excursion into the gravel that left him running down the pack. After that, Stoner had only to keep going, though he had to adjust the steering damper on his second bike. "The team put the sign out telling me to pit to change tyres and that was a big help in what was a very hard race in which nothing seemed to be going right for me," Stoner said. "Then I had the signal that Valentino was in trouble and we managed to stay ahead of him and I guess that was the name of the game." Stoner, at 21 years and 342 days, is the second youngest rider, after Freddie Spencer to win the title. He also became the first rider since Phil Read won the 500cc title on an MV Agusta in 1974 to land the crown on a European bike. At the front of the race, Capirossi, who had pitted before the rest to change bikes, reaped the benefits with an easy win ahead of Randy de Puniet and Toni Elias. Ducati's on the day was mirrored at Donington Park, where Leon Haslam maintained his outside hopes of taking the Bennetts British Superbike crown with a winning double aboard his Airwaves bike in the penultimate round on a problematic day for the leading HM Plant Honda duo, Ryuichi Kiyonari and Jonathan Rea. Kiyonari was bundled out of the opening race as Cal Crutchlow lost control of his bike at Goddards, but the reigning champion fought back, taking a third place next time out, while Rea, who survived one scary moment after clipping Haslam's wheel, took fifth and seventh places. Haslam, who held off challenges from the Stobart Honda rider Tom Sykes in both races, goes into next month's finale at Brands Hatch on 363 points, while Kiyonari leads Rea by 404 to 363 with 50 points at stake. Producers: Jonathan Harley He's Australia's new world champion, the fastest man on two wheels. Just a few hours ago, Casey Stoner took out the MotoGP crown in Japan. And he did it in style, knocking off the reigning champ, Italy's Valentino Rossi, the greatest rider of all time. Not bad going for a shy 21-year-old country kid who looks too young to drive. But Casey knows better than most in the ferocious world of motorbike racing, that world crown's a tough thing to hold onto. And, as Ben Fordham explains, he's already got another young Aussie hot on his tail. a bloke who's just as hungry to win. Transcript BEN FORDHAM: It's the moments before the Portuguese Moto Grand Prix, and in Casey Stoner's garage mechanics are fussing around his bike, making final adjustments. Casey is composed, quietly contemplating speeds of 300 km/h and more. Out of the pits, there's the anticipation of speed and noise. You're waiting on the grid, what are you thinking? CASEY STONER: Just trying to think about the track, you know, you sort of do a lap of the track in your head, and just, uh, praying, you know, that everything's gonna go alright. BEN FORDHAM: So you say a prayer? CASEY STONER: Yep. BEN FORDHAM: Is it to do with surviving or winning? CASEY STONER: No, it's more to do with surviving, I think. BEN FORDHAM: Casey Stoner is 21. His job is to ride his 800cc Ducati motorcycle as fast and as hard as possible, without falling off and crashing. And if this young Australian gets it right, as he has been all this season, he'll be a worldwide hero. This will give you a sense of just how fast these blokes are moving. Casey Stoner is just about to hit the final corner, down there, and enter the straight. Now that position is half a "k" away from where we are right here. Okay, here they come. Let's see how long it takes for them to reach us. Remember, half a "k"! How much do you love the speed? CASEY STONER: You can go as fast as you want in a straight line, but it really doesn't give you a big kick. It's more going through the corners fast and, uh, and acceleration coming out of 'em. BEN FORDHAM: And knowing when to slow down? CASEY STONER: Yeah, basically that's a pretty important point. BEN FORDHAM: Is Casey Stoner the best? MICK DOOHAN: He is this year, that's without a doubt. You know, hopefully he'll continue along that path, but every time he's hopping on the bike he's gaining more confidence, and you see that he's just getting quicker and quicker. CASEY STONER: When it's five times world motorcycle champion Mick Doohan saying nice things about Casey Stoner, take note. MICK DOOHAN: Casey's very intense, you know, and that's what makes him what he is. He's very focused, he's sort of always looking for a better edge and, um, he's just got one thing on his mind, and that's racing. BEN FORDHAM: But it's not just Casey's number 27 we should be cheering this season. '71' is another Australian whizzing by, 25-year-old Chris Vermeulen. It's a pretty glamorous lifestyle you lead. BEN FORDHAM: From the outside there's the money, fans. CHRIS VERMEULEN: There's the women, you could say. BEN FORDHAM: You said it. BEN FORDHAM: Chris rides for Team Suzuki. What's the game plan? CHRIS VERMEULEN: When in doubt, flat out. BEN FORDHAM: And on his bike, you get a terrifying sense of what these guys do. BEN FORDHAM: And is your chest down on here? CHRIS VERMEULEN: My chest is down there and my chin is touching on here. BEN FORDHAM: Your chin is touching that? CHRIS VERMEULEN: Chin and helmet. And I look through this bit when I'm down the straight. BEN FORDHAM: Mate, there's not a lot you can actually see out of there. CHRIS VERMEULEN: Bugger all, really. BEN FORDHAM: Can Chris go as far as Casey? MICK DOOHAN: I think he can, you know. Casey has a little bit more experience than what Chris has, but every time he's out on the bike Chris is getting better and better and is a candidate for a world champion, without a doubt. BEN FORDHAM: When it comes to motorcycle racing, Australia likes to do things in twos. Mick Doohan took on Wayne Gardner in the '80s and '90s. Now it's Casey Stoner up against Chris Vermeulen. Their rivalry's fierce, but friendly. Chris Vermeulen. CASEY STONER: I really enjoy his company, especially when we're on the podium together. I'm happy for that, you know, that we can be countrymen and still get along very well. BEN FORDHAM: So, are you looking forward to beating him? CHRIS VERMEULEN: Bloody oath, that's the main thing. It doesn't matter who it is, if it's Casey or anyone, I want to cross that line first. BEN FORDHAM: With the millions they've now earned, these two countrymen have both bought country properties to escape the mania of the racetrack. Chris is up on Queensland's Sunshine Coast, and Casey's out on the bike, rounding up the cattle outside Tamworth, New South Wales. Where are you most comfortable? CASEY STONER: I'd say out on the farm. I don't have to sort of worry about the pressure and stress of the racing and I can sort of come out here and relax, BEN FORDHAM: Casey's Dad, Colin, is also his manager. Mum, Bronwen, his biggest fan. When you look at him now, is he still just that little boy or … ? BRONWEN STONER: Yeah, he hasn't changed, not a bit. BEN FORDHAM: He's got a baby face. BRONWEN STONER: He has. BEN FORDHAM: Casey's wife, Adriana, is the new addition to the family. Not surprisingly, they met at the racetrack four years ago. I hear that someone signed someone's stomach. Can you please clear up this story for me? ADRIANA STONER: He was, um ... I approached him before we started properly talking and asked him to sign my stomach. It was completely decent, it was just here, so yeah. BEN FORDHAM: What did he write? ADRIANA STONER: Oh, just his autograph. BEN FORDHAM: First time you'd ever signed a piece of flesh? CASEY STONER: Yep. ADRIANA STONER: He was more than willing. BEN FORDHAM: Lunch has hardly settled when Casey's back in the saddle — Team Stoner now includes a full-time trainer. To be the fastest, you've also got to be the fittest, and when you're only 59 kilograms handling a heavy-duty machine, Casey knows it takes plenty of muscle. CASEY STONER: I think I've had 17, almost 18 years, of racing. BEN FORDHAM: You've had 18 years of racing? CASEY STONER: Mmhm. BEN FORDHAM: Casey you're 21-years old. That doesn't sound funny to you? CASEY STONER: Yeah, but, um, you know, I suppose I've been riding since I was three, racing since I was four. BEN FORDHAM: Casey was a childhood champion — but growing up wasn't always easy for this skinny kid. So you had a bit of a rough time at school? CASEY STONER: Yep. BEN FORDHAM: With bullying? CASEY STONER: Pretty much. I dunno why, but I didn't exactly have a heck of a lot of friends back in school, primary school days, and that. Um, dunno if it was jealousy or what. BEN FORDHAM: It was Casey's parents who made the ultimate sacrifice. When he was 14, they bought a one-way ticket to Europe, a tiny caravan, and travelled track-to-track to take on the big league. The gamble worked. Has he ever questioned his own ability? COLIN STONER: Never. BEN FORDHAM: One hundred percent all the way? COLIN STONER: One hundred percent all the way. He's always been like that. We started him on the roller-coaster to get there, and then we just got dragged the rest of the way. BEN FORDHAM: Over at Chris Vermeulen's farm, he's showing off his latest toy — not as fast as his racing bike, but it's not bad. Like Casey, getting to the top meant leaving Australia and heading for Europe when he was a teenager. He still spends most of his year overseas, so getting home for a break is a bonus. Can I ask you a slightly personal question? CHRIS VERMEULEN: Okay, sure. BEN FORDHAM: How much do they pay you? CHRIS VERMEULEN: It's never enough, you know, but we get good rewards out of it. You can see the cars and things like that but, ah, to be totally honest, I would do it for nothing. Both Chris and Casey are coy about what they earn, but if this bloke's anything to go by, then it's probably a fair whack. Do you have to be a bit crazy to do what you do? VALENTINO ROSSI; Just a little bit, yes. A little bit, yes. BEN FORDHAM: Valentino Rossi is the seven-times world champion, and he'll take home more than $30 million this year, even though he's been well and truly out-ridden by Casey Stoner. But Rossi is gracious in defeat. VALENTINO ROSSI: He deserves it. BEN FORDHAM: He deserves it. VALENTINO ROSSI: Yes. He's pretty amazing at 21 years of age. VALENTINO ROSSI: Yes. BEN FORDHAM: What's you advice to him as world champion? VALENTINO ROSSI: I remember when I was 21 years age, and I was already three times world champion so ... BEN FORDHAM: You're doing alright, huh? VALENTINO ROSSI: The advice is continue like this and I hope to fight with Casey stronger for the next year. BEN FORDHAM: In this multimillion-dollar business, winning is vital. In Chris Vermeulen's pit, team engineer Tom O'Kane has a blank cheque to make this motorbike go faster and faster. This thing already goes 340km/h, what would it cost to get that lifted to 341km/h? TOM O'KANE: About a million bucks. BEN FORDHAM: A million dollars for one extra "k"? TOM O'KANE: Yeah, and ask Chris and he'll tell you it's worth it. Every penny. CHRIS VERMEULEN: Every single '"k", he's exactly right. If we can get one km/h or one horse power more out of the bike, it is crucial, and it can mean the difference between being on the podium or not, you know. BEN FORDHAM: The bikes keep getting better and faster but for all the engineering and aggression, there's an undeniable poetry about this sport. That is, until they fall off. CHRIS VERMEULEN: I've broken some bones in my hand, uh, a ligament off there, I wore away one of my toes earlier this year. It's grown back. BEN FORDHAM: Grown back? CHRIS VERMEULEN: I lost all of the nail and the end of the bone was completely gone off there. I lost a little bit off there and there. CASEY STONER: You don't have time to think. As quick as it happens on TV is as quick as it happens in real life. BEN FORDHAM: Staying on the bike has been Casey's crucial lesson. CASEY STONER: You know, you're in the air, but you're not thinking. "This is going to hurt", or anything. You're just trying to put yourself and your body in the right position. Last year, he crashed more than anyone else. This year, he stayed upright and became the world-beater. Casey Stoner's going alright, mate. CASEY STONER: I'm having a very good season at the moment. BEN FORDHAM: The difference between a winner and a loser can be hundredths of a second, and no-one wants to be a loser. That means Casey, the champion, is now a marked man. CHRIS VERMEULEN: I'm not gonna help him and say, "Oh Casey, here you go, you can pass me so you can win the world title", or anything like that. I'm going out there to beat him. BEN FORDHAM: He's just another guy you want behind you? CHRIS VERMEULEN: He's just another guy I want behind me. CASEY STONER: You know, a lot of people always say you can't do this, you can't do that. I think it shows that if you keep fighting and if you keep dreaming and it can happen. RACE COMMENTATOR: Casey Stoner is the 2007 MotoGP world champion! Only one Japanese rider has ever won a TT race, and, although it was on a Suzuki, it was 44 years ago. Mitsuo Itoh is that rider, and he returned to the Isle of Man in June for the 100th anniversary celebrations Itoh-san began his working life as a Suzuki engineer and first became involved in motorsport through hill climbs in his native Japan when he was 23. However, there were no asphalt circuits in Japan in the late 1950s so it came as a surprise to him when Suzuki asked him if he would like to go racing in the Isle of Man.
When Itoh joined the company, there was no official involvement in any racing activities.
All Suzuki's riders were chosen from serving employees, who were also very much involved in the race bike development programme. But, adds Itoh, the desire for success ran through the entire company.
"It was a very exciting period for the company and I liked the TT circuit when I first arrived," he says, "but it was very difficult to learn because it was a public road. You had to be very controlled there, very smooth, and I had to keep upright as much as possible so as not to lose power."
Itoh's 50cc Suzuki RK67 had a 14-speed gearbox to keep revs high ' it revved to over 20,000 rpm ' but he reckons that it could have done with two more gears! In fact, as part of his engineering development work with Suzuki, he had been planning some high speed runs in Salt Lake City with 16 and even 18 gear bikes before a change in FIM regulations.
He admits to being very nervous before the 1963 50cc TT and was just 0.3s behind Ernst Degner when the German broke down in the middle of lap two. "The circuit was very bumpy in those days," Itoh remembers. "I hardly spent any time on the seat but it was an amazing feeling when I realised I had won the race."
When he returned to Japan, Suzuki held an enormous party in honour of Itoh-san and paid all its 1000 employees a generous bonus. The factory's first successful TT rider also received congratulatory messages from all the other Japanese manufacturers, especially Honda, who first went to the TT four years earlier.
Itoh believes that riders in the 1960s had a much more difficult job than today. "The machines were much more basic then," he says, "and the rider had to make up for a lot of the bikes' deficiencies."
He continued to ride for Suzuki, combining his engineering role with racing duties, and finished in fifth place in the 50cc world championship for four successive years from 1962. Itoh also contested the 125cc world championship from 1962 to 1967, with a best finish of eighth in 1964.
In 1969, he raced for Suzuki at Daytona on a 500cc two-stroke triple from which he went on to develop Suzuki's classic GT750. After developing further three-cylinder GT models - the 380 and 550 were launched in 1972 - he moved to the company's marketing division at a time when the Japanese government introduced new riding legislation.
"Many young riders were crashing in those days," Itoh recalls, "so the government brought in special motorcycle instructors and I became one of those. We were also selling a lot of machines to the police, so I combined those two roles."
Itoh also spent some time working for Suzuki in China before moving to the company's overseas operations in the early 1980s.
It was at this time that Suzuki asked Itoh to co-ordinate the resurrection of its official GP racing programme, which had finished at the end of the 1960s. Heron Suzuki - the UK's official importer - had asked for the factory's race bikes, and one of Itoh's 125cc machines found its way into the hands of a certain Barry Sheene.
Mitsuo Itoh officially retired from Suzuki Motor Corporation in 2000, but he wasn't quiet for long. From 2002 to 2006 he acted as advisor to the title-winning Junior World Rally championship team, paving the way for Suzuki's entry into WRC next year with the SX4 car.
"It was wonderful to be back in the Isle of Man for the 100th TT," says Itoh-san. "I was here for the 80th anniversary but it was good to see the way the Island has changed since I won here and to meet some old friends again. I hope it is not so long before another Japanese rider can win a TT!" | HRC 25 | Sep 30, '07 1:29 AM
for everyone |
| September 1st is the twenty-fifth birthday of HRC. | September 1st is the twenty-fifth birthday of HRC.
1982 was the year when we introduced the two-stroke, three cylinder NS500 to the World Championship Grand Prix 500cc class. In 1979 Honda had made the comeback to Grand Prix racing with the four-stroke NR500 and had struggled since then. We couldn’t even gain a point, to say nothing about winning a race. I was working then as a staff member in the Grand Prix racing department. It was anguishing not to win a race but at that time all of us were battling desperately saying, “We will fight back! One day we will win a race and one day we will grab the World Championship!” On July 4th, 1982, in Spa Francorchamps, Freddie Spencer won the Belgian Grand Prix. It was the first victory for us after the comeback and I remember the day very well, as if I were there now. Our effort during the 1979-1982 period led to Honda’s first 500cc World Championship in 1983 by Freddie Spencer and, I believe, also to all the success by Honda riders since then. It is a quarter of a century since 1982 and now we are heading into a new quarter of a century with all our fighting spirit and dreams with us.
I want to thank all of you for your support over the years and your continuous understanding towards HRC as we celebrate its twenty-fifth birthday together today. This heart-warming reception will become a milestone in the history of HRC.
August 31st 2007
| 
Takeo Fukui
President and CEO
Honda Motor Co., Ltd | | A QUARTER CENTURY OF ENGINEERING EXCELLENCE | September 1st 2007
Honda Racing Corporation celebrates its 25th birthday | Racing has always been at the heart of Honda, indeed racing is Honda’s very DNA.
From the very beginning company founder Soichiro Honda insisted that his engineers prove the company’s engineering capabilities and accelerate development by testing their creations in the white heat of competition. It has always been thus, from Honda’s very first Model A to the current RC212V MotoGP weapon. As current HRC president Masumi Hamane says: “A racing motorcycle is a rolling laboratory that provides us with live information and the racetrack is the stage where our dreams come true.”Initially, Honda’s racing efforts were run from within the Honda Motor Company, but in the early 1970s RSC (Racing Service Center) was established as a separate company to look after the company’s racing programme. On September 11982 the Honda Racing Corporation was founded, its mission the development, manufacture and sales of motorcycles and parts for racing. Since then HRC has become a byword for high-performance engineering excellence and winning performance | 1982 | Honda Racing Corporation founded on September 1, replacing RSC (which was established as a separate entity from Honda Motor Co. Ltd in 1973) and the NR technology group. Legendary engineer Shoichiro Irimajiri is first HRC president. NS500 triple unleashed. Freddie Spencer wins Honda’s first two-stroke Grand Prix victory aboard the NS at July’s Belgium GP. Cyril Nevue wins Honda’s first Paris-Dakar victory. Eddy Lejeune wins first World Trials Championship with Honda RTL360. Shigeo Ijima, Shinji Hagiwara and CB900F win Suzuka Eight Hours (shortened to six hours due to typhoon). Pro-link rear suspension and cartridge fork developed in motocross. |  | | The wondrously talented Freddie Spencer wins Honda’s first 500 World Championship with the NS500, a beautifully balanced motorcycle that encapsulates HRC’s philosophy of creating machines that deliver all-round performance. ATAC exhaust system developed on NS500. King of the Roads Joey Dunlop wins Honda’s fourth title in the road-based TTF1 World Championship with the RS850R V4 four-stroke. Honda begins sales of RS500 GP production racer, based on NS500. Hiroyuki Yoshino succeeds Irimajiri as HRC president | 1984 | Honda debuts the awesomely fast single-crank V4 NSR500, with experimental underslung fuel tank, which an injury-hit Freddie Spencer takes to fourth place in the 500 World Championship. RS750R rams home Honda’s four-stroke genius with Gerard Coudray and Patrick Igoa winning World Endurance crown, Mike Baldwin and Fred Merkel taking Suzuka Eight Hours victory and Joey Dunlop the TTF1 crown. Andre Malherbe wins second 500 Motocross World Championship. Eddy Lejeune completes hat-trick of World Trials Championships. Ricky Graham wins Honda’s first US Grand National dirt track title. |  | | Freddie Spencer and Honda enjoy their greatest year together, taking a unique 250/500 World Championship double with the NSR500 and the new NSR250 V-twin. For good measure, Spencer wins Daytona 200 aboard a VF750F superbike. Stunning new RVF750 wins endurance crown with Gerard Coudray and Patrick Igoa, TTF1 title with Joey Dunlop and Suzuka Eight Hours with Wayne Gardner and Masaki Tokuno. Mike Baldwin and Honda win fourth US F1 title in a row. Britain’s Prince Charles and Princess Diana inspect HRC race bikes during official visit to newly built Honda Motor HQ in Aoyama, Tokyo. Isamu Goto appointed HRC president. | 1986 The RVF750, now with single-sided swingarm, wins endurance world title with Patrick Igoa and Suzuka Eight Hours with Gardner and Dominique Sarron. VFR750 rider Fred Merkel completes hat-trick of US Superbike crowns. Briton David Thorpe wins his second consecutive 500 MX title, Honda monopolise championship top three. Tough Aussie Wayne Gardner takes the baton from injured Freddie Spencer and takes second place in the 500 World Championship with the NSR500 1987 | Honda two-stroke technology dominates GP racing, Wayne Gardner winning seven 500 GPs to take 500 title, German veteran Toni Mang winning the 250 crown with his NSR250. Computer-controlled variable exhaust valve developed. Hi-tech NR750 racer with oval pistons contests Le Mans 24 hours, scoring pole position. Up-and-coming Californian talent Wayne Rainey wins US Superbike crown and Daytona 200 with VFR750. Eric Geboers scores Honda’s first 250 MX world success. Dirt track legend Bubba Shobert completes hat-trick of US Grand National dirt track crowns, riding an RS750D. Takeo Fukui is new president of HRC. |  | | Honda returns to 125 GP racing with RS125, a low-cost two-stroke. Ezio Gianola wins two GPs on the RS and finishes second in 125 World Championship. Spanish hero Sito Pons wins the first of two successive 250 world titles with NSR250. HRC begins development of electronically controlled two-stroke fuel injection system. Big-talking American Fred Merkel takes inaugural World Superbike title aboard RC30, Honda’s hugely acclaimed V4 superbike. British privateer Carl Fogarty wins TTF1 crown on RC30. Wayne Gardner finishes a close runner up in 500 GPs. Eric Geboers and Jean-Michel Bayle win MX title double with 500 and 125 successes. Katsumi Ichida appointed president. | 1989 Master of smoothness Eddie Lawson joins Honda and carries off the 500 World Championship with his NSR500. Honda wins tenth 250 Constructors’ World Championship. Merkel, Fogarty and their RC30s repeat their World Superbike and TTF1 titles. Privateer John Ashmead wins Daytona 200 aboard an RC30. Frenchmen Dominique Sarron, Alex Vieira and RVF750 win Suzuka Eight Hours. Gilles Lalay proves Honda power in the most gruelling of conditions by winning Honda’s fourth consecutive Paris- Dakar race aboard his NXR750. Jean-Michel Bayle and David Thorpe win 250 and 500 MX titles. Takeo Fukui begins second term as HRC president 1990 | Seventeen-year-old debutant Loris Capirossi wins Honda’s first two-stroke 125 World Championship on an RS125R, the first of two back-to-back title successes for the little Italian. Alex Vieira, Jean-Michel Mattioli, Stephane Mertens and RVF750 win Honda’s sixth consecutive victory in the hugely popular Bol d’Or 24 hours. Eric Geboers wins his second 500 MX title with Honda. Jeff Stanton and CR250 win the second of their three US Supercross championships. Aussie veteran Malcolm Campbell wins his second consecutive Australian Superbike title aboard RC30. |  | | Luca Cadalora joins Honda and wins 250 world title on NSR250, Honda’s tenth 250 riders’ crown. Wayne Gardner and Mick Doohan win Suzuka Eight Hours aboard RVF750. Honda two-stroke technology dominates the world of motocross and Supercross, George Jobe wins the 500 MX world title, American Trampas Parker wins the world 250 crown, Jean-Michel Bayle moves to the US and wins Supercross title with CR250 and US Motocross Championship with CR500. Miguel Duhamel and RC30 win Daytona 200. NR750 streetbike in production. | 1992 | HRC’s newest star Mick Doohan dominates 500 World Championship with new ‘big bang’ configuration NSR500 but loses title due to injury. Nevertheless Honda wins 500 Constructors’ World Championship. Italian Luca Cadalora wins second consecutive 250 World Championship. Australian GP riders Daryl Beattie, Wayne Gardner and RVF750 win Suzuka Eight Hours. Greg Albertyn takes the laurels in 125 MX with CR125. Takashi Shinozaki becomes HRC president. |  | | Shinichi Itoh and fuel-injected NSR500 break the 200mph barrier at the German GP at Hockenheim. Diminutive German Dirk Raudies takes the 125 World Championship aboard his Honda RS125R. Ricky Graham wins US Grand National crown, 11 years after his first title success. CR250 dominates the motocross world with Greg Albertyn winning the 250 MX title, Doug Henry scoring the first of back-to-back US 250 MX championships and Jeremy McGrath taking the 250 US Supercross series. |  | | Mick Doohan wins the first of five consecutive 500 World Championships with his NSR500, Honda also wins constructors’ title for seventh time. New Zealander Aaron Slight and American Doug Polen score Honda’s tenth Suzuka Eight Hours success, riding the new RC45 Superbike, the latest product of HRC V4 technology. Honda wins its tenth 125 Constructors’ World Championship. Swede Marcus Hansson wins 500 MX World Championship. Jeremy McGrath continues his domination of 250 US Supercross. Suguru Kanazawa appointed managing director of HRC. | 1995 RC45 four-stroke scores more major international successes with Belgian Stephane Mertens and Frenchman Jean-Michel Mattioli winning the World Endurance Championship, Miguel Duhamel taking the US Superbike title and Aaron Slight and Tadayuki Okada winning the Suzuka Eight Hours race. Haruchika Aoki scores the first of back-to-back 125 World Championships aboard Honda RS125. Alessandro Puzar wins 125 MX crown 1996 | Mick Doohan, Alex Criville, Luca Cadalora, Alex Barros and the NSR500 take the top four places in 500 World Championship, the NSR500 wins 13 of 15 GPs. Haruchika Aoki scores second 125 title. Miguel Duhamel wins Daytona 200 on RC45. NSR500V twin, ridden by Tadayuki Okada, scores pole position on GP debut. Stefan Everts wins the first of two back-to-back 250 MX world prizes aboard CR250. Jeremy McGrath and CR250 win fourth US Supercross title in a row, taking Honda’s unique run of success to nine consecutive crowns. |  | | Mick Doohan wins fourth 500 title riding NSR500 with ‘screamer’ firing order. Honda machines monopolise top five places in series, Doohan, Tadayuki Okada, Nobuatsu Aoki and Alex Criville on NSR500s, Takuma Aoki is fifth on NSR500V twin. The NSR500 wins all 15 GPs, Honda wins tenth premier class constructors’ World Championship. Max Biaggi joins Honda and wins 250 title on NSR250. Production version of NSR500V goes on sale. RC45 continues to dominate four-stroke racing, John Kocinski wins World Superbike crown, while Japanese stars Shinichi Itoh and Toru Ukawa win Suzuka Eight Hours. Stefan Everts retains 250 MX crown. | 1998 | Led once again by the mighty Mick Doohan, NSR500 riders dominate the 500 World Championship, taking the top five places in the points chase. HRC introduces new twin crank NSR250 which Toru Ukawa rides to fourth place in 250 World Championship. More success for the RC45: Doug Polen and Christian Laveille win the world endurance prize, Shinichi Itoh and Toru Ukawa score second successive Suzuka Eight Hours and Ben Bostrom takes US Superbike crown. Yasuo Ikenoya takes over as new president of HRC. |  | | Quietly spoken Spaniard Alex Criville and his NSR500 wrap up Honda’s tenth riders’ 500 World Championship, following Mick Doohan’s exit from the sport due to injury. Emilio Alzamora and RS125R win 125 World Championship, Honda’s tenth 125 riders’ prize. Tadayuki Okada and Alex Barros win the Suzuka Eight Hours, Miguel Duhamel wins the Daytona 200, all on the hugely successful RC45 | 2000 Honda launches its first big twin supersport bike, the VTR1000, which Colin Edwards takes to a debut victory in the World Superbike Championship. The VTR1000SPW also wins the Suzuka Eight Hours with Toru Ukawa and Daijiro Kato. Premier-class debutant Valentino Rossi joins Honda and finishes second in the 500 World Championship aboard his NSR500. Frederic Bolley wins second consecutive 250 MX world title on CR250R. Dougie Lampkin wins the first of four back-to-back Trials World Championships 2001 | Valentino Rossi closes GP racing’s 500 era by winning the final 500 World Championship aboard his NSR500. The Italian superstar also wins Honda’s 500th GP victory at the Japanese Grand Prix and wins the Suzuka Eight Hours riding a VTR1000SPW with partner Colin Edwards. Major Japanese talent Daijiro Kato wins the 250 World Championship aboard a Honda NSR250. RC211V MotoGP machine seen in public for the first time at Motegi, ridden by Honda legends Mick Doohan and Freddie Spencer. |  | | Valentino Rossi wins inaugural MotoGP title aboard HRC’s acclaimed RC211V. Honda also takes Constructors’ World Championship by a large margin. The V5 – which takes motorcycle racing technology to a whole new level – wins all but two of the 16 GPs. Colin Edwards wins his second World Superbike Championship aboard the VTR1000SPW and backs that up with another Suzuka Eight Hours success, riding a VTR with Daijiro Kato. In the United States up-and-coming talent Nicky Hayden takes the US Superbike crown and Daytona 200 victory on a VTR. Frenchman Fabien Foret scores Honda’s first World Supersport title riding a CBR600R. Suguru Kanazawa appointed HRC president. | 2003 | The RC211V once again dominates the MotoGP World Championship, winning 15 of 16 races. Valentino Rossi wins the riders’ title ahead of fellow RC211V riders Sete Gibernau and Max Biaggi. RC211V equipped with rotary steering damper. Dani Pedrosa wins his first world title in the 125 class, aboard RS125R. The new CBR600RR, packed with HRC-derived MotoGP technology, wins the World Supersport title with Chris Vermeulen. Miguel Duhamel wins Daytona 200. Yukio Nukumi and Manabu Kamada give the VTR1000SPW its fourth consecutive Suzuka Eight Hours victory. Ricky Carmichael wins second consecutive US Supercross crown on CR250. |  | | Honda completes hat-trick of MotoGP Constructors’ World Championships with the RC211V, now equipped with Intelligent Throttle Control system. Dani Pedrosa wins 250 World Championship at his first attempt, with RS250RW. Italian youngster Andrea Dovizioso takes 125 crown on RS125R. Toru Ukawa/Hitoyasu Izutsu give the inline four CBR1000RR Fireblade its first Suzuka Eight Hours success. Aussie Karl Muggeridge wins Supersport world title on CBR600RR. Takahisa Fujinami wins Trials World Championship. Satoru Horiike appointed managing director of HRC. | 2005 | Dani Pedrosa wins second consecutive 250 World Championship, which gives Honda its 15th 250 riders’ crown and 19th 250 constructors’ title. Swiss Thomas Luthi takes 125 World Championship aboard RS125R. Toru Ukawa and Ryuichi Kiyonari win Honda’s 20th Suzuka Eight Hours victory on a CBR1000RR. CBR600RR continues to dominate middleweight supersport racing, Sebastien Charpentier taking the Supersport world title and Miguel Duhamel winning Honda’s tenth Daytona 200 success. |  | | Nicky Hayden wins the final 990cc MotoGP title, riding new generation RC211V using lighter, more powerful V5 engine. The Kentucky Kid also wins Honda’s 200th premier-class victory at the Dutch TT. This is Honda’s 14th premier-class riders’ title and 17th constructors’ crown. During MotoGP’s five-year 990cc era the V5 won an astonishing 58 per cent of the races. At the Sachsenring Yuki Takahashi secures Honda’s double-century of 250cc class victories. Another great year for the CBR600RR, Sebastien Charpentier takes second successive Supersport world title and Jake Zemke wins Daytona 200. Takeshi Tsujimura and Shinichi Itoh win Honda’s tenth Suzuka Eight Hours win in a row, riding CBR1000RR. 2007 New MotoGP technical rules reduce engine capacity to 800cc. HRC introduce the RC212V 800cc four-stroke V4. Masumi Hamane appointed president of HRC | Long before the Motorcycle World Championship was born, a group of intrepid British riders decided to travel along Europe to race at the different circuits of the old Continent. It was back in the early 20th century and no racetracks had been built yet on the British Islands; urban races were obviously not allowed. Those were the years in which the first motorbike fans started to take their caravans and travel around the different European countries, as a travelling circus looking for racetracks on which to race. This is the origin of one of the most common expressions used when referring to the Motorcycle Grand Prix: the Continental Circus. It continues to be a circus in the 21st century, but a much larger. Nowadays, MotoGP takes week after week, all around the globe, a much more complex structure, in order to let the current riders measure up against each other in front of millions of fans. And just like in a circus, the activity we see from the outside is as frantic as the activity inside. The activity actually starts long before the red lights go off on Sunday noon to let Dani Pedrosa and Nicky Hayden make the most of their RC212V machines. It starts on Tuesday before the race, with the arrival of the trucks carrying several tons of material to make the magic of the World Championship become real. On Wednesday morning, the IRTA - association representing the interests of the teams - organises the access of all trucks to the circuit. Then the members of the Repsol Honda Team start setting up the scenario that will host the whole activity of the next days: the unmistakeable orange pit garages and the hospitality facilities, where the team members have lunch and dinner during the race weekend. Before the start of the first act, i.e. the free practices on Friday, Thursday is the day to get everything set and ready. While mechanics and team members finish the set-up of the hospitality facilities and check every single piece of all bikes, the riders have to attend several commitments with the media, sponsors and fans. It's a day in which, despite not riding a single lap, the riders are already working at the racetrack and all their mechanics prepare and check all the settings they think they will need for that particular Grand Prix. The aim is to have everything ready for the moment a rider asks for a change, on the basis of previous races. One of the most important tasks of the riders is the meeting with the Michelin technicians, a meeting during which they will have to choose the tyres they will have to use during the weekend. They often have to go to their pit garage as well to put the final touches to the specifications of the bike for the Grand Prix, together with their technicians. The riders have to combine this job in the pit garage with interviews, press conferences and specifically reserved moments to share with their fans; moments that fill the less visible, though not less busy part of their agenda. Suddenly, the intensity rises with the practices on Friday and Saturday, i.e. when everyone has to be ready to give their best during the four practice sessions. That is the moment when suspension and tyre technicians, telemetry technicians, mechanics and all other members of the HRC technical team give it all to give Dani Pedrosa and Nicky Hayden everything they exactly when they need it. The aim of these two practice days is to set the bike according to the special features of the circuit, to achieve a constant pace and a good qualifying position for the starting grid on Sunday. The last practice session on Saturday is a key moment to prepare the race. During the hour they have available for practising, they do series of some six laps to try to find a consistent race pace. It is all about making the last tests to choose the tyre they are going to use for the race, a key element to have a chance to win. The final minutes are used to give it all for the fastest lap, to get a good position on the starting grid. The official tyre provider of the team, Michelin, has special tyres offering excellent grip during a single lap. Riders usually have a couple of sets of these so-called "qualifying tyres", to try to clock a faster time than their rivals. Like in a theatre play, before the curtain is raised, or before the red lights go off, there is a "dress rehearsal". On Sunday mornings, the riders have a last session of 25 minutes, called "warm-up" to give the finishing touches to the bike's settings, considering the track conditions expected for the race day. From that moment, there will only be some three hours before the start of the race. These are the last moments, which the riders use to have something to eat, watch the 125cc and 250cc races, get dressed and ready to get onto the track. Finally, on Sunday, at two o'clock everything is set and ready for the moment of truth. It's the time in which the importance of everything surrounding the Continental Circus becomes really clear. The red lights go off, the adrenaline rises and the show begins. Almost one hour of intense excitement during which the riders finish the work of a whole team that is backing them. In the Repsol Honda Team garage, the activity doesn't stop. The tension is focussed on following Nicky's and Dani's evolutions on the track, on getting ready for unexpected contingencies, such as rain and on communicating with them through the pit boards. The die is cast and it's the moment of all or nothing, the moment of giving it all to take the chequered flag and to pick the fruit of the work done. Then, when everything has finished, when the engines have stopped roaring, the fans have left the circuit, the teams repeat the ritual of packing up the garages, and the caravan gets back onto the road, heading for the next racetrack, where the show will start over again in a few days time. | joey | Sep 30, '07 12:26 AM
for everyone |
Remembering Joey Dunlop by rick matheny July 2000 I'm not one to believe in hero worship, on the contrary, my experience has shown me that those who are most prone to such worship are often the most humble and shun such infatuation. A confessed fanatic of motorcycle racing, I'm a dyed-in-the-wool, dedicated machine of a fan who takes his race observation seriously. Easily able to recognize just about any current World Championship or AMA racer by just a glint of color from his helmet, a flash of leathers, or the way a knee protrudes as he prepares to take a corner, I have followed such competitors and their progress for almost 20 years and have a mind full of junk to match. One race, and especially one racer, however, always caught my attention and made me long for first-hand experience: William Joseph Dunlop at the Isle of Man TT. After seeing brief glimpses of this public roads race in the early eighties, I made it one of my personal goals to attend this event and meet this gentleman. I knew little about it other than its visceral appeal to me, and I set about making it happen. I first set foot on the Island in 1994 after meeting Steve Cook, a friend of my future wife Helen, who raced there regularly. I quickly arranged a trip there to man his pit crew, and upon arriving, met Steve in his leathers exiting the pits only to hear him lament the certain death of Britten racer Mark Farmer. He had rolled past the gruesome wreckage only moments before. Such is the cull of the profession of public roads racer, the annual toll of death. Each of the remaining group accepts it, pauses for a moment of thought, and moves on to another lap of bravado and adrenaline. Last year, I lost my good friend Gavin Lee to a fatal accident at the Steam Packet Races on the 8-mile course on the South of the Isle of Man. Now, almost exactly a year later, it's happened again- Joey is gone. I can't say Joey was a good friend, hardly even an acquaintance. But his exploits were always something that I felt personally proud of. My excitement spilled over to racing friends who, in turn, followed Joey's exploits and asked about the latest result. Here was a wonderful family man who spent winters helping Romanian orphans with his own money, a humble, quiet soul who loved to talk racing, but disliked talking about himself, winning race after race in his late forties on what I feel is the most difficult race track in the world. I can't describe how amazing his abilities were to me. I sped round the circuit in a tiny car more than once, shaking my head in disbelief as my racer friends insisted that it was, 'flat-out through here, just aim for that phone box over the brow of the hill...' I met Joey in the beer tent that first year after my British friends insisted I belly up to the bar beside him. As I trembled with excitement, Joey looked at me and smiled that broad, toothy Joey Dunlop grin, an empty plastic cup in his hand. "Can I buy you a drink?" I asked. "Aye, vodka," the man replied, still beaming. He had just won the Lightweight TT, finishing the last half of the race with no right footpeg. Using the hot exhaust as a substitute, his lap times had hardly slowed. My veneration of the man grew with each gritty, superhuman feat until it was almost incalculable. The thrill of meeting a hero eased into only sincere enjoyment of a Manx afternoon as we spoke about racing, with the help of a couple of Irish-to-American translators, Joey's tuner translating my phrases and my friend Steve translating the thick Northern brogue for my inexperienced ear. I had met the King of the Roads, and it might as well have been just another bloke enjoying the afternoon- so sincere and humble he was. Now, he's gone. I can only repeat the phrase over and over. Of all the events I look forward to enjoying, the TT was most the special one, whether it was for the charm of the Manx residents or the absolute mind-blowing speeds the top riders achieved on that 37.75-mile course. Some of the charm has certainly gone for me now. Not just because I won't be able to watch Yer Maun race there, but because I won't be able to see his five children, so proud of their Dad as they wait for him to finish signing a few autographs. And because I'll never again enjoy some folk music at The Saddle pub, only large enough for twenty or so to squeeze inside, with the smiling face of Joey Dunlop lighting up one of the dark corners. I'll certainly go again, I love that tiny Island. But it will be different, maybe a bit empty. It has to be. Godspeed Joey, I will miss you There are opinions and then there are opinions you value. Instead of boring you with our opinions on subjects like John Hopkins, traction control, turn twleve at Road Atlanta and if Max Biaggi deserves a second chance in MotoGP, we decided to ask someone who enjoys near universal respect for his opinions: former world champion Kevin Schwantz. Since retiring from a successful Superbike and Grand Prix career Schwantz has raced amateur-level off-road events, works with Suzuki riders here in the US, started a riding school and is now the lead analyst for CBS/Fox's MotoGP television broadcasts here in the US. We talked to 'The Three-Four' as he is known around the office, yesterday while he drove to a trials event in Colorado. 1. John Hopkins leaves Suzuki after years of pledging to stay there for his entire career. Your thoughts? A My thought on it is I was sad to see John leave. I think he's done a lot of good work there, and I wish him well. Why did he leave? The only thing I can think of is, unhappy with the structure of the team, or the management of the team. And money. That, to me, seems to be the two things that you just—even though the bike is sneaking up on being one of the better bikes out there right now, the tire package is good, everything is coming along just like it's supposed to. There's still something in that team you're not happy about. I think it's been covered from a question-asking perspective. If you're happy with the team, everything that John was asked about he seemed to be happy with. The only thing that wasn't ever asked is from a management perspective: Are you unhappy with who's running the team, or how the team's being run. 2. What's odd is that the move to Kawasaki is peripheral, in that the Suzuki and Kawasaki are more similar than they are dissimilar. Pneumatic valves, same tire package, etc. Agreed? A Yeah. I think the Kawasaki seems to be quite a good. Randy dePuniet's doing a great job on it, even with the small amount of experience that he has. There wasn't—I don't think equipment was a reason to change. The only two things, from a rider's perspective, that I would have—the reasons I would have left would've been more money, or management that you got along with better, or that you liked more. That's all I can attribute it to. 3. You were offered more money to leave Suzuki, at least a couple of times. A Yeah. But I also got along fine with Suzuki management. Garry Taylor, I thought, did a great job running that team. He let the engineers get on with their job. He did what an ideal team manager does, and that's stay in the background and chase sponsorship, and do his best to keep the team held together as best it possibly can. I still have that same amount of confidence in the people at Suzuki. I know that any day, any time, they could come up with the best overall package out there. It's just it's difficult to do, but I know they can do it. And that's why I stayed 4. Next: With his 250 riding style, 250 riding experience, Max Biaggi could win 800cc MotoGP races. Agree or disagree? A Disagree. Max has a great style, but I don't think a good enough head on his shoulders. He's not smart enough. I don't think he could play with those guys at a MotoGP level. Yeah, he does good on a World Superbike, on occasions, but he's still very up and down Max, and the older that he gets, it seems like there's more downs than there are ups. I wouldn't give him a chance, if I ran a team. 5. Colin Edwards. If the choice is some lame MotoGP team or a factory Yamaha Superbike ride here in the US for 2008, what would you say he should do? A Colin Edwards needs to go where he can win. Wherever that is. It's obviously not at a MotoGP level, and I hate that for him. But if it's an AMA Superbike, back riding the factory Yamaha, then that's where he needs to come. If it's a factory Honda, then whatever. If it's World Superbike—go back to where you've had some success. And to say that he hasn't had success in MotoGP isn't fact, it's merely a statement from a person who sees success as winning races. Colin's been close a few times, but I think it's also an example of just how difficult it is at that level. 6. How do you think he would do in US Superbike on a Yamaha? A I still don't think either of the guys who are riding Yamaha Superbikes are getting everything that that bike has. We're not seeing the full potential of the Yamaha. Quite possibly, Colin could come here, ride a Yamaha Superbike, and I think he could contend for the podium early on, and after some more development on that Yamaha, maybe another 12 months from now, development on it, who knows? Maybe he's got the measure of the Suzukis. I don't know. He's a good rider. 7. Here's something I heard about at Laguna USGP; I'd like to get your reaction to it. One MotoGP team, who shall remain nameless, the crew were watching 600 Supersport practice, and as the bikes went through Turn 11 on about the third lap, and as the riders accelerated hard the bikes slid sideways, hooked up and wheelied out of the corner.Seeing this, the MotoGP crew reacted like drunken monkeys. They hooted and hollared; and smiled, laughing with a 'that's cool' look on their faces. They were impressed to see bikes doing that. Their team manager said that because of traction control they haven't seen bikes do that in two and a half years in MotoGP. A Well, I think it's a pretty general consensus across the board amongst the riders that electronics are making it very difficult to find the opportunity, to create the ability or the opportunity to pass somebody. Everybody gets on the gas at about the same time, the electronics all work just about the same, and going off into the corner it's now just a push come to shove on the brakes. I think the racing would be better without electronics. Yeah, I think seeing bikes sideways—even a couple of years ago, back when they were still 1000s, the racing was better, I think. Electronics are definitely the way everything's headed, and if you use Formula One as the motorsports Mecca, the draw, the thing everybody looks at, that racing's gotten boring too. The only place they pass now is in the pits, and unfortunately for MotoGP, we don't do pit stops. The only time they do is when it goes from wet to dry, or dry to wet. My opinion is, electronics have really made the average guy be able to go out and go fast, and everybody qualifies really, really well, and I think that we're paying too much attention to that. When I rode 500s, the front row was typically a second. The second row was another second. If you were on the third row, we considered ourselves on the barbecue row, because that may as well be where we were, at home having a barbecue, because we'd never stand a chance from the third row. But seeing everybody, all 20 bikes within less than a second or a second and a half in qualifying, hasn't made the racing any better. We need to go back to letting these guys really ride these things, and wrestle these things around. The one thing it's going to do is, it's going to make it a whole lot less forgiving of a sport. You're going to start seeing more banged-up riders walking around. Why? Because of all the power that the modern-day equipment has. With 250 horsepower, I doubt anybody would ever use all the power. You'd end up pulling plug wires, you'd end up doing something that wasn't proper traction control. When those things decide to snap sideways and spit you off, it's going to be a pretty hairy ride. 8. Not taking anything away from MotoGP at all—at all—but there's still something missing in the way that a 500 went into the corner, in the middle of the corner, and exited the corner, the combination of finesse going in and complete brutality coming out. Your thoughts? A I think you'd start to see that finesse ... I think we're starting to see it a little bit more getting in, and to the middle. But getting rid of the electronics is what I think would be the fix. A smaller displacement, 800cc bikes, taking all the electronics away, you're not going to have all that saving grace helping you getting out. You're going to have to get in, you're going to have to pick that throttle up as soon as you can, you're going to have to start trying to finesse the thing out. Whereas now it's just kind of grab it and do what you want, hang on. But I think the electronics would bring a little bit of that mystique back that there used to be in 500cc Grand Prix racing. 9. Turn 12 at Road Atlanta. What to do? A Fix it. That's, straightforward, the only respectable thing to do. Yeah, we've got an event coming up there, we need to do everything we can there. Hay bales, anything they can do safety-wise to make it safe enough for this event. But then, the proper fix for Turn 12 at Road Atlanta is tons of runoff, completely changing the corner and making it safe. 10. What can be done before the next AMA event, besides bales and air fence? A I don't know of anything else you can do right now. My take is move the tower inside to where the media center should be. Get rid of the bridge so that none of those footings play any part in it. If you need to get from one side to the other, the outside is for spectating or the support paddock, but if you want to go inside, to have some kind of shuttles to run you around and up the hill and across to where vendor row is, or back down into the pro paddock. It's not - there's not an easy fix to it. There's not an economical fix to it. But I think if Road Atlanta and the AMA - from a Road Atlanta perspective, they have to understand that the riders don't consider Turn 12 to be safe, because it's not. They need to align themselves with the AMA and come up with a plan of when they're going to fix that, and that's before there's ever another race on it. If there has to be 12 months where they're not going, where AMA doesn't go race at Road Atlanta, then that's fine. But then they plan on coming back, because it's such a financial commitment to the track, that they really need to know that when they get it fixed, they can have an event back there. There's other things that need attention at Road Atlanta, too. Turn 12 is by far the biggest of the problems, but I think you've got to have management that's willing to make an investment in a sport such as motorcycling. You're never going to fix that track for nothing. You're going to have to spend some money. I wish it was safe the way it is, but it's not. 11. Roger Lee Hayden might have a shot to go MotoGP racing. There seems to be some question as to whether he wants to go or not. Should he go? A My take on going MotoGP racing is, can you stand around and say "I'm the winningest Supersport or Superstock or AMA Superbike rider ever," or "I am MotoGP World Champion." To me, to have conquered the world means a whole lot more—meant a whole lot more to me when I was racing. I never even thought for an instant about doing anything any different. When somebody said, "You want to go do some Grands Prix?" I was like, "When?" and "Where?" and "Do I have to swim to get over there, or can I actually fly?" So. Anybody that has the opportunity and is still fairly young in age, should jump at it. It's the pinnacle of motorcycle racing. It is the championship of all championships. 12. In the same vein, Chaz Davies. How do you rate him? It's rumored that he doesn't think he's ready for a Superbike. A Come on, Chaz. The only way you're ever going to get ready is to get on one. You can ride 600 and Formula Xtreme bikes forever, and I don't think you're ever—ever—going to get the experience that you need to be comfortable immediately jumping on a Superbike, a World Superbike, or a MotoGP bike. You've just got to go do it. I think Chaz is a great talent. I think he's done a great job for his lack of experience on any tracks here in America. He has really, I think, opened some eyes. He's got some pretty decent equipment underneath him, and I think he's kind of been the pinnacle of what Yamaha's done, with the exception of a couple events where Josh Herrin seems to maybe have gotten just the better of him. 13. You're flicking into this role of the elder statesman of the paddock. Are you comfortable with that, or do you still get up in the morning with your head is stuck in 'racer mode'? A No, I'm pretty good with just sitting back and watching now. I went to the hospital and saw Miguel Duhamel after he crashed in Turn 12. And I don't ... I did not, I did not want to be in his position. I remember what it felt like laying there, all attached, all hooked up to wires, oxygen, struggling to breathe, broken ribs, punctured lung, internally as beat up as he was. I'm 43, and unless I go crash my motocross bike or fall off my mountain bike or bust my ass playing around on my trials bike, I get up in the morning and I hurt bad enough anyway. I don't need to still have my head pounded to try and prove something to somebody เกียโคโม่ อะกอสตินี่ 68 วาเลนติโน่ รอสซี่ 62 แม็กซ์ บิแอจจี 13 ลูก้า คาดาลอร่า ลอริส คาปิรอสซี่ 8 มาร์โก้ ลุคชิเนลลี่ อัมเบอร์โต้ มาเซตติ 6 มาร์โก้ เมลันดรี้ ฟรานโก้ อันซินี่ 5 ลิเบอร์โร่ ลิเบราติ 4 อัลเบอร์โต้ มิลานี่ อัลเบอร์โต้ ปากานี่ 3 เวอรจินิโอ เฟอร์รารี่ /เนลโล ปากานี่ 2 แองเจโล เบอร์ก้ามอนติ/จิอันฟรานโก โบเนรา/ปิแอร์ฟรานเซสโก ชิลี่/กุยเซปเป้ คอลนาโก/เรโม เวนตูริ 1 Q+A with Hiroshi Yamada - Bridgestone Motorsport - Manager Motorcycle Sport
Thursday 23 August 2007 Ducati Corse's Casey Stoner continued in Brno where he left off in Laguna Seca the previous month with a dominant pole to flag victory in the Czech Republic Grand Prix last weekend. The Australian rider's performance scored him a seventh win of the season to further extend his championship lead to an impressive sixty points. The only time during the season so far that Stoner has relinquished his grip on the championship was after Jerez GP back in March. Bridgestone's range of tyres performed well around the lengthy, undulating Brno track for the second consecutive Czech Republic GP win by a Bridgestone-equipped rider. This year, however, success was bolstered by a resounding performance from Suzuki's John Hopkins who used his Bridgestone tyres to good effect to take a MotoGP career-best second position and his second podium of 2007 after China. Six riders on Bridgestone tyres finished the 22-lap event in the top nine with Hopkins'team-mate Chris Vermeulen cementing his fourth place in the championship with a fine fifth place, Loris Capirossi in sixth, Randy de Puniet in eighth and Alex Barros in ninth. The hard work did not end at the chequered flag with most riders staying on for an extensive two day test, yielding important results for the climax of the 2007 season and beyond. Mr. Yamada, another win for the Casey Stoner-Ducati-Bridgestone package, was this an expected result? "Of course, we always head into each race weekend targeting victories and podiums, but after a one month break between races, and knowing how strong our competitors are, we never underestimated the challenge of Brno. It was just the second time this season that we returned to a track where our tyres had helped a rider to victory in 2006, so it was great to defend that honour with another formidable ride from Casey and Ducati. Additionally, it was a great performance from John Hopkins and the Suzuki team. John was on the pace in every single session and his second position, his best ever MotoGP result, was very well deserved." Qualifying was another success for Bridgestone in Brno with Casey on pole? "Casey's pole lap was another outstanding achievement and his best time was three-tenths quicker than everyone else. We had five riders on the front three rows and it is always an advantage to be higher up on the grid in those tense, close opening laps of the race. The qualifying times in Brno were not as quick as last year, but I think this can be attributed to the difference between how the more powerful 990cc machines used qualifying rubber compared to the 800cc bikes. Most riders improved their lap time by over a second on qualifying tyres and there was, I believe, more parity between the performance levels of the three tyre manufacturers' qualifying tyres." Were there any problems over the weekend or in the race itself? "We had a trouble-free first day but Brno is such a technical track that the teams used the two opening practice sessions to hone the set-up of the bikes. Although we had done the usual tyre evaluation work, we were not able to carry out any longer race simulation runs in practice. We were therefore pleased to see that the tyres were able to help riders achieve strong points and podium scoring results over the full 22-lap race distance. Our riders had opted for a variety of tyre combinations front and rear, the biggest range of the season, and all three tyres of rear compound - soft, medium and hard - were all represented in the top six, a great overall result. Bridgestone stayed on for two days'testing after the race - what was learned? "We tried a lot of new specification tyres in the post race test, both front and rear, with new compound, construction and shapes. We found some promising specifications for later in this season and for the future. It was important to gain this data for our ongoing technical development, so thanks must go to each of our teams for their valuable contribution." ENDS | Kenan Sofuoglu. |  | Date of birth: 25th August 1984
Place of birth: Adapazari, Turkey
Home town: Adapazari, Turkey
Status: Single
Height/weight: 1.77m/61kg
Hobbies: Supermoto, rootball, reading, cycling
First race: Izmit, Turkey
First win: Izmit, Turkey
Helmet: Shoei
Leathers: Alpinestars
Boots: Alpinestars
Race: number 54
| | CAREER HIGHLIGHTS | | 2001 | Turkey Supersport championship - Final position 2nd | | 2002 | Yamaha Cup championship - Final position 1st | | 2003 | German Supersport championship - Final position 2nd | | 2004 | European Superstock championship - Final position 3rd | | 2005 | European Superstock championship - Final position 2nd | | 2006 | World Supersport championship - Final position 3rd |  | A nice guy. This is the first impression that Kenan gives, but once he steps on the bike, all of his aggressiveness comes out and it becomes a completely different person. The Turkish rider began his career in some local tracks near Istanbul, tracks used for karting, therefore nothing compared what he found when he decided to move to Germany to try to make it in the passion of his life, Motorcycle racing. His older brothers, Sinan and Bahattin, also tried the same adventure, but later on decided to take another direction in their life.
In 2002 “little” Kenan lands in Germany where he invest in his future by renting a bike to race in promotional championship. Things didn’t go too well in the first three races, but as soon as he got used to the new bike, he dominated the last six races and people couldn’t do anything else then admire his abilities.
2003 saw a big change for Kenan which joined a private team in the Supersport Championship and he was able to fight with the bests from the first race on and thanks to this for the next season he was offered a contract as professional rider. In the 2004 and 2005 European Superstock Championship he has surely been the positive surprise for everybody, by finishing respectively in 3rd and 2nd place. The 2005 championship has been decided at the last turn in the last race in Magny course.
In the upcoming season Sofuoglu has the incredible opportunity to fight for the championship thanks to the Honda CBR 600 of the Winston Ten Kate Honda Team, which has to confirm his dominance in the championship after last two years successes with Karl Muggeridge in 2004 and Sebastien Charpentier in 2005. “I now have a great opportunity thanks to Honda, Ten Kate and Winston” declared Kenan Sofuoglu. “I was waiting for it and now that I have it I will do anything to demonstrate my qualities. I am glad to pair up with one of the greatest riders, Sebastien Charpentier, and I will have to learn all the secrets from him”. | | HONDA CBR 1000RR Fireblade | | | | | | Engine | | | Type | Liquid-cooled 4-stroke 16-valve DOHC inlinefour | | Displacement | 998cm3 | | Bore x stroke | 75 x 56.5mm | | Compression ratio | 12.2:1 | | Max Power Output | 170bhp/11,250rpm | | Max Torque | 114.5 Nm/10,000rpm | | Fuel System | | | Carburation | PGM-DSFI electronic fuel | | Fuel Tank Capacity | 18 litres | | Electrical System | | | Ignition System | Computer-controlled digital transistorised with electronic advance | | Starter | Electric | | Battery Capacity | 12V/10AH | | Drivetrain | | | Clutch | Wet, multiplate with coil springs | | Type | Diamond; aluminium composite twin-spar | | Chassis | | | Dimensions (LxWxH) | 2,030 x 720 x 1,118mm | | Wheelbase | 1,410mm | | Caster Angle | 23° 30' | | Trail | 100mm | | Turning Radius | 3,34 | | Seat Height | 831mm | | Ground Clearance | 130mm | | Dry Weight | 176kg | | Suspension | | | Front | 43mm inverted HMAS cartridge-type telescopic fork with stepless preload, compression and rebound adjustment, 120m axle travel | | Rear | Unit Pro-Link with gas-charged HMAS damper featuring 13-step preload and stepless compression and rebound damping adjustment, 135mm axle travel | | Wheels | | | Tyres Front | 120/70 ZR17M/C (58W) | | Tyres Rear | 190/50 ZR17M/C (73W) | | Brakes | | | Type front | 320 x 4.5mm dual hydraulic disc with 4-piston callipers and sintered metal pads | | Type Rear | 220 x 5mm hydraulic disc with single-piston calliper and sintered metal pads | | HONDA CBR 600RR | | | | | | Engine | | | Type | Liquid-cooled 4-stroke 16-valve DOHC inline-4 | | Displacement | 599cm3 | | Bore x stroke | 67 x 42.5mm | | Compression ratio | 12.2:1 | | Max Power Output | 115bhp/13,000rpm | | Max Torque | 66 Nm/11,000rpm | | Fuel System | | | Carburation | PGM-DSFI electronic fuel injection | | Fuel Tank Capacity | 18 litres | | Electrical System | | | Ignition System | Computer-controlled digital transistorised with electronic advance | | Starter | Electric | | Battery Capacity | 12V/8.6AH | | Drivetrain | | | Clutch | Wet, multiplate with coil springs | | Final Drive | #525 O-ring sealed chain | | Chassis | | | Dimensions (LxWxH) | 2,010 x 690 x 1,115mm | | Wheelbase | 1,395mm | | Caster Angle | 24° | | Trail | 95mm | | Turning Radius | 3,2 | | Seat Height | 820mm | | Ground Clearance | 130mm | | Dry Weight | 163kg | | Suspension | | | Front | 41mm fully adjustable inverted HMAS cartridge-type telescopic fork,
120mm axle travel | | Rear | Unit Pro-Link with gas-charged HMAS damper featuring 13-step preload and stepless compression and rebound damping adjustment, 135mm axle travel | | Wheels | | | Tyres Front | 120/70 ZR17M/C (58W) | | Tyres Rear | 190/50 ZR17M/C (73W) | | Brakes | | | Type front | 310 x 4.5mm dual hydraulic disc with radial-mount 4-piston callipers, floating rotors and sintered metal pads | | Type Rear | 220 x 5mm hydraulic disc with single-piston calliper and sintered metal pads | | jt | Aug 12, '07 3:46 AM
for everyone |
| | James Toseland, World Superbike Champion at just 23 years old, has rocketed into a league of biking legends, following in the footsteps of Carl Fogarty, Troy Bayliss and Neil Hodgson. Despite his relative youth, The Sheffield-born rider has more racing experience under his leathers than some of the series' other veterans. Early competition in trials and motocross awarded him an impressive haul of trophies and ultimately laid the foundations of a promising career in road racing. James quickly worked his way up through the ranks of 125cc racing and into British Supersport and shone in the European Championship. However, it was in 1998, at the tender age of 16, when he was given his big break and was chosen by Castrol Honda to ride the CBR600 in the World Supersport series. Never one to turn down a challenge, over the next two seasons, James finished 18th and 11th overall before returning to Britain to ride in the 2000 British Superbike Championship. Despite missing almost half the season through injury, the Yorkshireman finished 12th and was quickly snapped-up by GSE Racing for its World Superbike campaign. An impressive 13th place in the 2001 series, including sixth at Brands Hatch, was enough to confirm the rider as a clear World Superbike contender. Since then, James has emerged as a world-class rider. In only his second year in the world Superbike series in 2002, he made his name as a regular top-six finisher and scored his first-ever podium finish at Assen. In 2003, he ended fellow Brit Hodgson's winning streak with an impressive win at Oschersleben and earned his first pole position in the final round at Magny-Cours. An extraordinary 2004 season with Ducati followed, with James making the history books as the youngest-ever World Superbike Champion. Despite a relatively tough 2005 season with the Ducati team - when he finished fourth overall - James bounced back in 2006 to take second potion overall with Winston Ten Kate Honda. 2007 heralds his seventh consecutive year as a permanent fixture on the Superbike grid - this time with HANNspree Ten Kate Honda.
Nationality: | British | | Place of birth: | Doncaster (UK) | | Date of birth: | 5 October 1980 | | Age: | 25 | | Height: | 1.77m | | Weight: | 70 kg | | Residence: | Isle of Man (UK) | | Marital status: | Single | | Hobbies: | Motocross, playing the piano and training | | First race: | 1995 Three Sisters, Cagiva 80 | | WSBK debut: | 2001 Valencia | | First WSBK win: | 2003 Oschersleben | | Titles | | | 2004 | World Superbike Champion | | 1997 | British Honda CB500 Cup Champion | | 1995 | Junior Road Race Champion | |
| | | | 2006 | World Superbike Championship, 2nd overall | | 2005 | World Superbike Championship, 4th overall | | 2004 | World Superbike Championship (Champion) | | 2003 | World Superbike Championship, 3rd overall | | 2002 | World Superbike Championship, 7th overall | | 2001 | World Superbike Championship, 13th overall | | 2000 | British Superbike Championship, 12th overall | | 1999 | World Supersport Championship, 11th overall | | 1998 | World Supersport Championship, 18th overall | | 1997 | British Supersport Championship, 3rd overall
British Honda CB500 Cup (Champion) | | 1996 | Superteen Championship, 11th overall | | 1995 | Junior Road Race Championship (Champion) | | 1994 | 125cc Road racing | | 1992 | Inter 100cc Youth Series (Best Newcomer) | | 1989-1993 | Trials | Likes: | Keeping fit | | Dislikes: | Hospitals | | Food: | Ginger's Sunday lunch | | Drink: | Mineral water | | Animal: | Dog | | Colour: | Red | | Word: | Oh yeah! | | Christmas present: | My first bike | | Season: | Summer | | Day of the week: | Sunday | | Time of the day: | Breakfast | | TV show: | I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! | | Movie: | Lord of the Rings | | Actor: | Jack Nicholson | | Actress: | Penelope Cruz | | Music: | Rock - Bon Jovi | | Other sport: | Football | | Sportsman: | Lance Armstrong | | Dream: | Winning | | Country: | UK | | City: | Sheffield | | Holiday: | Newquay | | Circuit: | Brands Hatch | | Rider: | Kevin Schwantz | | Most feared rival: | Regis Laconi | | Best moment: | Winning first Superbike race | | |
