World Superbike Weapon
WORLD SUPERBIKE WEAPON
Honda storms Ducati's castle
AS THEATRICAL DEBUTS GO, THE RC51'S FIRST OFFICIAL World Superbike test could only be described as a show-stopper. Held at Australia's fast and sweeping Phillip Island race course in early February, the event saw top Honda performance artistes steal the limelight with ill-concealed avarice.
Former factory Honda Grand Prix rider Shinichi Itoh visited the test with the two Castrol Honda WSB regulars,
Colin Edwards and Aaron Slight, and upstaged them both by setting the fastest time of the three-day affair.
In the end, the All-Japan Championship regular was about a tenth of a second off the existing lap record with his 1:33.194. “Texas Tornado”
Edwards was just a tick behind, while Slight, who spent most of the test with the front-runners, slipped to a still-respectable seventh. On this strength, the myriad HRC support staff that filled more than six pit garages wore the smiles of victors.
Even sitting still, the RC51 (known on the World Superbike stage as the VTR1000 SP-1)
looked like a finished article down to the last micron, from its beautiful hand-crafted titanium pipes to its brand-new Castrol paint job.
Edwards was impressed by the speed of his new machine, and even more moved by its ridability as compared to the now-obsolete fourcylinder RC45 Superbike. “On the VTR, all you have to worry about is where you’re going, not where you’ve just been,” said Edwards. “On the RC45, you would still be tank-slapping out of the corner and down the next straight. So far, the Twin just does not do anything wrong. It just does what you want. I have a lot of confidence about the year ahead. I have no reason not to.” The Texan has always been, shall we say, vocally confident. Prior to 1999, Edwards predicted he’d win 10 races that season. Maybe now it will come true, albeit one year and two fewer pistons later.
Slight, long a critic of big-bore Twins, was somewhat more reserved in his praise for the RC51. “Colin and Itoh have done some very good single laps, which shows what the bike can do, but the real test will be in a race situation, when you have to mix it up with other riders,” said the New Zealander. “I think that’s when I’ll really learn what the bike can do.”
What none of the Honda riders had to do was learn the
intricacies of starting a high-compression VTwin using one of Ducati’s or Aprilia’s lawn mower-engine-powered spinning-wheel contraptions. No, for the thoroughly modem Honda rider, only a thumb is required momentarily pressed on the little button that says “start.” How’s that for an in-your-face?
The RC51 ’s claimed weight of 363 pounds fully painted (allow 3.3 pounds for paint, according to project leader Syuui Nakamoto) proves that without a starter motor and shrunken battery, the RC51 would be significantly under the 357-pound limit.
But with a gestation period of several years, not to mention the sheer processing power of Honda Racing Corporation, the RC51 was always going to be something special, wasn’t it? “Some peo pie may be surprised at how well the bike has performed, but not us,” said Nakamoto. “We spent a lot of time testing this machine to make sure that it was competitive.”
Of more import in the great booming scheme of World Superbike is the question of whether or not the RC51 will be up to the task of beating the Ducati 996 at what has become very much the Italian bike’s own game.
On first evidence, the answer appears to be a definite yes. And with the Honda producing its claimed 160 horsepower at 10,000 rpm-some 2000 down from where the Ducati produces its own 168-there seems to be much scope for additional development.
Future perfect, then. And the present’s not too shabby, either.
Gordon Ritchie
