History repeating in BSB

- The teams agree to supersports level engine tune in SBK which means
stock conrods and pistons
- Ducati asks for kit rods and pistons to be competitive, the other
teams refuse
- The Ducatis are down on top end and equal on acceleration while the
Suzuki is the fastest bike out there. The lead Ducati is being ridden
well with no screwups and that as much as anything is why it's leading
the championship by a country mile.
- Yamaha and Suzuki have engine failures
- The teams demand kit pistons and rods "for safety reasons".

This is almost exactly what happened at the start of the 1000-4 era when
Suzuki had a couple of blow-ups after they couldn't handle the revs they
were using to create the fastest bike.

There's a strong whiff of hypocrisy there. But the irony is that despite
the lower engine tuning allowed, the only way to get the engines to
survive is to reduce the engine rebuild interval. At least for the
fours, it might actually be cheaper for them to use more aftermarket
parts.

 

It's not rocket science. BSB SBK allows the same sort of tuning as World
Supersports. So that's aftermarket cams with the same lift but altered
duration along with head work. So a lot of the extra power has to come
from revving the engine further. As the revs rise, the rod and pistons
get marginal. Push it too far or don't rebuild often enough and they
fail. Pay the extra for aftermarket items and you can run a higher rev
ceiling and still get the reliability.

Superstock (throughout the world) allows no engine top end tuning so
there's no gains to be had from over-revving the engine. With the stock
redline, the stock rods and pistons can survive.

Ducati's view was that road going 3 ring pistons (needed for oil control
on a road bike) caused too much friction for a racing engine and would
limit their power. With the restrictions they now have on top end work,
they were down on max power anyway despite the extra capacity. They
wanted 2 ring pistons with more compression to stay competitive on top
speed. They wanted aftermarket rods so they could run more revs without
making rebuild intervals stupidly and expensively short. This is all
further confused by them having intake restrictors in WSB which again
only really affect top end.

Right now the end result in BSB is that the Suzukis are pulling away
from everyone on top speed and from the Ducatis a little under
acceleration. But in the process they've had at least one blow up. Same
with the Yamahas. While the Ducatis are handling better and are more
usable and Shakey Byrne has made no mistakes. The Hondas are somewhere
in the middle.

 

Really, it sounds like they're using Duc's argument for aftermarket
stuff to their advantage. How dare they!

 

Shakey Byrne has made tons of mistakes, he's just been able to overcome
them.
I feel bad for Sykes, that was a big blow up!


--
Andrew
00 Daytona
00 Speed Triple
71 Kawi H1
05 Kiddo

 

So what happens in Supersport? Sounds like world SSp rules have a
fundamental imbalance between top end and bottom end, the head mods
allow a higher revving motor to make more power, but more restrictive
head mods would take care of that problem. And now that's been
transfered over to SB. So it's either a poor set of rules or you have
tuners stressing parts past the breaking point. If the real issue is
too much cost because of too-regular stock parts replacement, then
they need to tackle this at the head, it seems to me.

Sounds like the same problem again, an ill-conceived set of rules
creating an obvious weak link, and a factory wanting that eliminated
with more aftermarket stuff (or factory "unobtainium"?). Sounds like
Ducati is conceding that a twin race homologation special costing a
ridiculous amount can't cut it with just 20% more displacement. Too
bad.

 

IMHO, tuners stressing stock parts past their limit. We are seeing more
blow ups in WSS600 this year so maybe they're hitting the limits as
well. The smaller displacement probably makes the problem easier to deal
with. And note that the Suzuki 1000 is a relatively long stroke motor so
revs are going to stress the motor more than, say, the Honda.

No matter what the rules, somebody's going to complain. And with Ducati
well out in front in both BSB and WSBK they're playing the rules as well
as anyone. In WSBK they accepted air restrictors and the rolling weight
change. In BSB they accepted the stock pistons. The irony here is that
the other teams demanded that but are now demanding special treatment.

IMHO it's an interesting battle this year. The bikes have different
strengths and so do the riders and the best riders are out front.

And before you go sneering at a "poor set of rules" the motor tuning
rules are not so very different between FX and WSS600; BSB, SBK and AMA.
This is the first year of 1200-twins and BSB trying to reduce the motor
tuning costs so it's an experiment. The racing is good so it's mostly
working. In the two SBK series we've had close racing with Ducati,
Honda, Yamaha and Suzuki all winning races or on the podium. What's not
to like?

 

Yeah, well. You can look at the championship points or you can watch the
races. Shakey and Troy are leading the championships with big points
leads as much because their rivals keep screwing up and because they're
both riding well as because they've got some machine advantage. It's not
handed to them on a plate, they've had to really work at it. Look at
WSB. 2nd Ducati is Xaus in 7th.

 

Wow! Just Wow!. I can't believe they just did that and I think it's
wrong.

BTW. There's an additional hurdle here. For the 1098R to race in BSB,
they have to have sold 100 in the UK by some time mid summer. There's
some doubt whether this will have happened. If it doesn't Airwaves-GSE
have said they'll have to pull out.

Given the arbitrary and sudden change, I'm not surprised GSE are saying
this whether it's actually true or not. Kind of funny seeing a racing
team having trouble working out where to add weight as usually they'd be
sending large amounts of money trying to work out where to remove it.

10Kg is a lot isn't it? And those Ducatis are really dense. There's no
time to make big changes and no testing time. So they're going to have
to zip tie lead weights on the bike and go out into first practice and
hope.

 

Hey, they could just put Shakey on a pasta diet, a la De Niro. And
then Mark N would be happy, because a fat bloke would win.

Cheers,

 

So there's a compromise. For one race only, the Ducatis are 170kg in the
race and 175Kg in practice, instead of 168Kg. Now it turns out the
Ducatis were weighing in over 170Kg anyway, and they just carried a bit
of extra fuel in practice so when they were weighed they were 175Kg.
They haven't actually had to change anything. And in wet and drying
conditions, Shakey put it on pole, Rutter 3rd and Camier 8th. The
surprise is James Ellison 2nd. But then he always was good in the wet.

Today's weather is for rain in the morning and drying during the
afternoon. And Donington is notorious for being a bit greasy and
uncertain when it's damp. Should be... interesting.