Moto1

Champ wrote:
> Mark N wrote:
> >That said, the current WSB regs on motor modification are notably more
> >restrictive than what almost anyone would do with a MotoGP motor
> >derived from a production motor, even at relatively modest cost. I
> >wouldn't be all that surprised if a decent rebuild could get one up to
> >240-250 horsepower or very close to that.
>
> Yep, that's my view. *Which means, I think, that a privateer team
> could get on the grid with a bike good enough to challenge for the top
> 10, with a budget probably less than that required to lease a
> satellite bike from a factory. *And, perhaps more importantly,
> complete autonomy - such a team could run whatever kit they wanted.
>
> I think it could be promising. *But it requires a few things to fall
> into place yet.

I think the two biggest barriers for such a team, once you get beyond
the budget to build this machine, are having a rider good enough to
run that high and to have an electronics package sufficient to result
in that sort of performance. Really those two things come down to
money as well, but any independent team with that sort of budget is
almost certainly going to be running a satellite factory bike or maybe
a factory lease prototype motor in their own chassis (like KR). So the
basic performance of the motor probably won't be that much of an
issue, you give this sort of team a factory motor (sans electronics)
and they still end up at the back end of the grid. Which is why it's
worth opening things up for these kinds of efforts, it's just ends up
with the inevitable impact of expanding the grid, last place is lower
in the order than it used to be...