Brands (Spoiler)

Well it looks like the factory Ducati guys refuse to take the
championship. This series has ended up being the most
interesting of any that I watch (AMA series and MotoGP).
It is a shame that Chili dumped his bike in the first race
or he would have a chance at the championship too.

The other day I was reading some fan notes at superbikeplanet.com
and it seems that most of the american fans seem to hate WSB.
Is this just because there are no americans in the field? If so,
that is pretty silly. WSB may not be the fastest series in the world
but they seem to have the best racing, most winners, and closest
championship.

 

American's hating WSB... well certainly not given recent racing
events. I only represent one American's opinion, but the prospect of
watching a bunch of Ducati's on Pirelli's go round-and-round at the
beginning of the year didn't sound all that interesting. I am a huge
Haga fan, and who doesn't love Chili, but c'mon guys, it didn't look
to promising on paper. The reality is WSB has been very exciting,
Haga is riding better than ever, and I won't miss a minute of racing
the rest of the year...

J

 

It's produced some good racing and a wide open championship. But it's
still kind of depressing. The whole thing feels too much like a bunch of
amateurs. Way too many silly mistakes, blow ups, DNFs. Haga rode well
this weekend, but man of the meeting for me was James Ellison. A 5th and
a 6th and not that far back from the winner. In a team with zero budget
and a home tuned R1. He's got some history with two European Superstock
titles so he can ride. But I think what it really shows is how hopeless
the bottom 2/3 of the field are.

In BSB he's been getting 10th to 5th places and currently lies 12th in
the championship. In WSB he's 16th from 32 and he's only been to two
meetings.

Again, in BSB all the manufacturers have won races and apart from Suzuki
this is with bikes that are brand new this year. There are equivalent
teams in WSB but they've shown almost nothing. After Ten Kate+Vermeulen
who are a class act; the Kawasakis have shown occasional promise but
they're apparently running stock engines and don't have a lot of budget.
There's an ex-Rizla Suzuki and an ex-Zongshen endurance Suzuki; A
Yamaha-France endurance Yamaha. But they're all just filling in the gaps
at the back. Then there's Foggy-Petronas. I'm getting tired of hearing
the excuses about "We're only new". They're creeping up to the front but
Corser's strong showing in the first race was still limited by engine
performance and ultimately by a water leak.

Even Fila-Ducati seem to have been infected. 2 DNFs, one engine blow up,
one poor performance beaten by a privateer Yamaha and all in front of a
head honcho. WTF?

ps. What's the deal with Eric Boz going private testing at the factory?
Is this TPG saying "just do whatever it takes to sort it out, we don't
care what it costs"?

 

So help me out because I don't follow BSB at all, and have only
recently been watching WSB with interest this year; I assumed Ellison
was a Brands Hatch specialist and used his superior knowledge of that
track to get a fantastic result. Similar to what Ben Bostrom is able
to do at Laguna Seca each year he rides it. Am I way off here?
Unfortunately the TV coverage in the US via speed channel didn't
showcase any of Ellison's riding, so I can only see the result.

Agreed - wtf? This is inexcusable. I don't see top teams in MotoGP
DNF out of races like Fila Ducati this year. I thought the skill was
knowing just where to balance high performance with reliability so the
racers can get to the finish line... it doesn't help that Fila Ducati
is working with a brain-fart like Laconi, but then again who's left as
you say.

I hope so. Sad to watch the poor results this year. I've followed
E'boz closely for a couple years. I'll confirm everything good that's
been said of him off the track. He is gracious, spends time with
fans, signs autographs like crazy, and is a helluva representative for
any sponsor who wants quality people as well as top talent. We all
want Eric to be dicing it up at the front, no matter what bike he's on
and no matter what series he's running in.

J

 

James did the same thing at Silverstone. And he's a little unusual in
Brits in that he got out early. His two European Superstock
championships were done in an old school fashion. They put a GSXR in the
back of a van and hit the road. When you get to the venue, you put up a
tent and move everything into that and then sleep in the back of the
van.

He had one bad year in WSS 600 Supersports on a Kawasaki that wasn't
competitive, then 3rd in European Superstocks again. This year he's
taking the Shakey Byrne route of competing for the privateer cup in BSB
and regularly beating or just outside the high profile teams. He's been
pretty embarrassing for the Virgin Yamaha team. They both started with a
new bike in Dec-Jan and used the UK support structure to build up a
hotrod except that Virgin probably spent 10 times as much. Until James
Hayden came along Ellison was regularly beating the Virgin riders.

He's a class act who knows how to win championships and he's proved now
he can ride SBK. Somebody will give him a top BSB or WSB ride next year.

 

As it should have been about UK and BSB guys at Brands, Silverstone and
Donington as well.

Anyone racing at world level should be able to pick up a new track
quickly and by the second time they go there should be at least as quick
as people who grew up racing there.

 

WSB has had 2 manufacturers win (Honda and Ducati).
MotoGP has had 2 (Honda and Yamaha) and AMA SB
has had three (Honda, Ducati, Suzuki). Anyway, I would prefer
a Ducati cup with lots of different riders winning and good
racing than something where just one rider wins all of the
races (like most years of MotoGP).

 

Honda is there because they want to develop a 600 Superbike. By crowing
about their successes, they raise the bar for the other manufacturers. Now
some may say "Well, it's FX, so nobody care how well Honda does and the ads
are meaningless". But it is pretty clear, for whatever reason, that race
results seem to have some marked effect on sales.

Ducati/Michelin is the other example of this (though they're not really
getting the results they want). Michelin wants track time here in the US,
but Ducati certainly doesn't need the AMA to develop their bike, so there
must be another reason why Ducati is here in the states.

If race results translate into sales, the other manufacturers may have to
throw some dollars into FX to try and stop that marketing tap for Honda.

Also, the rise of the 600's has been buzzing for a while. The SSport
championship is probably THE most important race series in the AMA, both
with manufacturers, riders, and fans. As those bikes get faster and faster,
there is more and more mumbling about "600 Superbike". Part of this is
simply practicality, in that the tracks we have now get more and more unsafe
as the bikes get faster and faster. Look at the US MotoGP problem, we simply
don't have a track that can handle bikes that are as fast as the GP bikes.

So, if we have a 600 Superbike class in our future, Honda is smart to start
work on it. Plus, it's been argued that the 600RR is simply not competitive
in SSport (too heavy among other things), so it's more suitable for a more
custom platform role than in a stock race class. Honda wants a platform that
they can use to experiment with lightweight technologies, composites, etc.,
and right now FX gives them the ability to do that AND win races and crow
about them.

I like the backfield of FX too, with its mix of Ducatis, 600's from the Big
4, and the Buells. Good to see Chandler back. It's got better as the year
progressed.

Hopefully next year the other manufacturers will dive in and raise the ante
to make it less of a runaway for the Miguel and Jake show.

Regards,

Will Hartung
()

 

I think there's a formula somewhere between FX, WSS600 and AMA SS600
that fits but I don't think any of them are right. The trick is to allow
enough tuning to level the playing field under racing conditions, but to
limit it so that costs don't spiral out of control. Now Ohlins forks and
shocks, Brembo brakes and OZ or Marchesini wheels are commodity items
now. These are probably cheaper than modifying stock gear. If you keep
stock frames and swingarms that avoids a big cost. So I'd leave the
running gear free as in FX.

Motec engine management is off the shelf (although not exactly cheap).
But replacement gearboxes, titanium rods, cranks, special valves and
springs and so on are too much. The difficult bit is cams and head work.
It's potentially expensive and difficult to scrutineer.