Factory specials in stock class racing

As most know, Yamaha announced the R1 LE with a bunch of trick bits and they
almost immediately sold out. Some to collectors, most to racers. Notably to,
I imagine, the Yamaha Factory Team as well as probably Graves. I reckon
these guys may well have got first pick.

Now, I don't know what the rules state for what modifications can be done to
a SuperStock bike, beyond I guess suspension and exhaust. More importantly,
I don't know what if any changes to the LE would not have been allowed if
you took a stock R1 and converted it into a an LE. I don't know if it would
be a legal SuperStock bike.

LE could simply be a nice package deal of parts and wheels.

But this harkens back to the day when Honda "sold" the RC45 in the most
limited numbers to meet homulgation, and then proceeded to campaign with it
for several years in Superbike.

So, basically, are the SSport and SStock classes important enough to the
factories that they're willing to basically sell race kitted "production"
street bikes in "limited" numbers to get an edge on competitors who may not
be selling such things? Obviously there are EPA, reliability, and other
general limitations on how racy a production bike can be, but most of those
are vetted in the conversion process as they toss the stock exhaust and rip
on the turns signals and lights.

What's to stop a factory from selling a $30K "stock" "special edition" race
bike with motor work and using it to unbalance the race series, particularly
when (for a very small run of, say, 50) 20% of the units are sold directly
to high end race teams.

It's clear to me that there is a different mind set and process between
Stock class racing and the Super Bike class racing, which is more of an
engineering and development series versus a pure riding series like the
Stock classes are. But the Stock classes are pretty darn popular, more so in
the past few years (particularly after they switched to the 1000's and
switched from the, effectively, Suzuki Cup). So, I'm just curious if y'all
think that factories may start doing more race focused specials to get an
extra edge in stock classes.

Regards,

Will Hartung

 

I thinkn he ment this years laguna race where they went all retro in
the paint scheme across all their bikes. I don't believe the original
paint scheme was special to weest coast - it was the team colors.

Bruce

 

Note here that Ducati have played this game for 15 years now. Every year
there's been a 9xxR or a "xxxx" replica that formed the basis for the
factory racers and introduced improvements outside the normal production
cycle that the racing team needed. The Replica idea can back fire as
they produced a run of Bostrom Reps which didn't sell.

I've argued before that the Japanese could do the same thing despite the
larger numbers they typically have to produce for homologation. And you
can argue that the OW31, RC30, ZX7RR, YZR7, RC45, SP2 all followed this
path. Of course it does help if the factory paint scheme stays stable
for a few years. A Rossi replica Honda 'blade for 2004 might have been a
mistake...

If you look at the raw components there's no reason why a race replica
should be that much more expensive. Perhaps double at say $15k to $20k.
I suspect most of the extra cost is really from short run production and
EPA testing. These days, short run production shouldn't be a problem
with today's flexible production lines and JIT manufacturing. Which
leaves the cost of testing and homologation. It's very likely that the
only way to get a race spec bike through is by hobbling it with a stupid
exhaust and dangerously lean fueling. So for the average punter, the
bike will end up being less good on the road. Look at those race reps
and most of them needed the same money spent again to get them back to
where they should be and better on the road than the stock equivalent.