Time for a change in racing?
 

Watching the Superbikes on the red button at the NW200 yesterday got me thinking. They were too powerful to race in the given conditions.

Does this mean that they've passed the limit? why do bikes need to get faster and faster (meaning more and more potential danger is the bloke on it stacks it)?

Isn't it about time we limited the power of the bikes to say 100bhp (nice round figure) and then awarded more points the smaller the engine that wins. So anyone who wins on a 500 that's producing 100bhp gets more points than someone who wins on an 800 with 100BHP and they get more than someone that runs a 1000 with 100 bhp.

No one needs 180bhp on the road. No one actually needs 180bhp on the track. Why is the only consideration when limiting a class engine size/power?

In 10 years time we'll have bikes that have 300bhp and no wet races. Full traction control and accelleration control. the rider will only be there to push the buttons.

Discuss :)

C

Re: Time for a change in racing?
 

I think the 100bhp is a little too low, but why they went and let IL4's have 1000cc (from 750cc) is beyond me. They should have just brought the twin down to 900cc imo...

Oh well. :rolleyes:

Re: Time for a change in racing?
 

It's the usual "mines bigger & faster than yours" routine. Racing is about winning & if you have more power & the handling & rider are better then you win races.
Winning races sells bikes, just look at Ducati. They nearly went under until they started to win races, now everybody wants one.
Who is it that is always kicking up a stink in racing about CCs & power? Ducati, because they know that coming 1st is the formula to sell bikes :)

Re: Time for a change in racing?
 

I think the 400 class needs reviving. Get some 140kg 20,000rpm screamer with 90-100 hp :thumbsup:

Re: Time for a change in racing?
 

better yet, why not award points on how little fuel the bikes consume? or who can priduce an engine with the lowest CO2 emmissions on an arbitrary goverment mandated synthetic test cycle, or even which bikes kill the fewest flys during a lap?;)

Re: Time for a change in racing?
 

Bah!
Back to 500 2 strokes. Traction control is for poofters.

Re: Time for a change in racing?
 

:smt043


yc: :salut:

Re: Time for a change in racing?
 

The thing with giving someone a 400cc/100Bhp and racing them against someone with a 1000cc/100bhp, is that it wouldn't really be fair. The 400 would fly (and probably win) because it would be much lighter than the thou, the power to weight ratio would be much better.

There are fair racing classes where drivers and teams use the same machine (minitwins?), but racing like MotoGP and WSB, BSB etc must be about selling bikes and making money.

Its all about what you want to race, whether you want to win by power or ability and how much money you have.

Look at F1 at the moment. Where is Hamilton now, and where did Button come from..?

Re: Time for a change in racing?
 

Exactly my point Ben! No one would use a 1000 cc engine. and if the points were further stacked towards even smaller engines then they would be produced.

The thinking above is still inside the box. If the manufacurers had to work to a bhp limit then we'd get all sorts of great new bikes showing up.

How about a 250cc Turbo revving to 35,000 rpm and having 4 balancer shafts. Or a Supercharged 350 with variable valve timing and an auto gearbox.

Its the same in many sports where any variables may be restricted or measured it seems we are stuck in the rut of only using one variable. Like bikes are measured in cc's, fisha re measured in pounds in competitions. They could be measured by length, girth, length of fight or many other things but its set in stone that its the weight in pounds that is the parameter that is "good"

We were at the racing at East Fortune and all classes had fantastic racing, expecially the open classes. The guy on bike 21 (minitwin) was blitzing all sorts of others. The tiny guy on the 125 that beat at least 100 grands worth of Ducatis must have been well pleased (and the ducati riders thoroughly ashamed!). The guy on the fastest bike there (the fully race sorted 09 R1) could not lose the guy on the R6 behind him and they both posted fastest times that were exactly the same.

So instead of having the cc as the limiting factor bring in a bhp limit where chassis and RIDER ABILITY make the racing. Add points for gaining that BHP from a smaller engine and in 10 years we'll all be riding turbocharged 250's that will top 180 mph. And will probably get 80 to the gallon too! :)

But no traction control or other gubbins that dumb down rider ability.
We have bikes with idiot buttons on them now because the bikes are producing more power than people can cope with. Whats the point?

No one needs 180bhp on the road so it would lead to better, more efficient and technologically interesting road bikes too.

C

Re: Time for a change in racing?
 

Now that sounds like a challenge.

Re: Time for a change in racing?
 

Indeed, the power has to be produced by burning something... ;)

Re: Time for a change in racing?
 

Obviously you're not going to get 80mpg at 180mph :-P

Re: Time for a change in racing?
 

YES!!!:smt057

Re: Time for a change in racing?
 

Or wankel engined 275 running on Avgas? or a 8 pot rotary 350 with supercharger.

Handling would be paramount so we'd see hub centre steering and all sorts of other weird and wonderfuls coming out.

The Ducati Desmo was designed as a V4 for GP to Suit the regulation restrictions. thats why they still use a V twin for Superbike and road racing. The V twin suits the regulations better.

Change the regulations and you shape the type of motorcycles and motorcycling fundamentally.

The route to more speed and higher lap times should be based not solely on power. The WSB bikes are running about 2.5 seconds a lap slower than the GP bikes but cost 10% of the GP bikes to put a team together.

are GP bikes 10 times more technologically advanced?

C

Re: Time for a change in racing?
 

Last time I checked the difference wasn't all that great, there's not a lot of road bike left in a WSB front-runner.

I like the idea but I have to say I think it's flawed.

Changing to a BHP cap won't lead to hub-centre steering, or 250 turbos (all of which sounds very 80s). Bike manufacturers spent years trying to find what works, the reason bikes are so similar is that they've found a formula that does.

You can get 100BHP from a 2 stroke 250.

We already have classes down on power, Supersport 600, and superstock classes, any number of club races, the mini-twins, 250 and 125 GPs.

The fact is the public want to pay to see the biggest boys go fastest on the best toys, so that's where the money goes. Now when you go to road racing circuits like the NW200 the playing field is very different, you clearly don't need, or can't use 200BHP in poor conditions on the roads, even if the speed limits and other vehicles are removed.

Current efforts to reduce fuel loads and capacity in MotoGP have simply led to more expensive, complex bikes, as getting the power delivery out of a smaller engine is harder. Back when you had 990cc to play with 250BHP was easy. Now from 800 it's harder, guess what, the companies with the biggest pockets did well. Meanwhile all the independants (and some of the main factories) have gone.

If you want good racing make R&D cheap, don't reward people with the deepest pockets that can afford to develop a 180cc 100bhp bike that's fragile and built of exotic metalergy.

Just my thoughts

Jambo

Re: Time for a change in racing?
 

Retain engine size, make manufactures work on extracting large bhp whilst retaining reliability. It can only be a good thing :) if you can have an engine giving 180 bhp reliably, then detuning it for another bike should retain that reliability and still be more than enough :)

I would like to see, in racing, KERS type systems. KTM had one penned for their 125, but Dorna rejected it. Idiots.

Re: Time for a change in racing?
 

That formula is entirely based on the regulations in place for the specific race series. The bikes have evolved due to being limited by engine size and other restrictions. Theya re the best at what they do due to having to work within those restrictions.
and racing in the 80's was about as exciting as it got. I clearly remember shouting for Ron Haslam on the hub centre steered Elf bike and the same for the rotary Norton. Racing was fantastic.

I'm also really looking forward to the Electric TT this year for the exact same reasons.

Regarding the classes down on power. Which is more exciting to watch? Elbow barging, place swapping Supersport 600's or the procession that is GP?

They [GP] will all be working to produce a more powerful bike for next years racing and the whole cycle will repeat again and again until we can buy bikes that produce 250bhp rear wheel hosepower and have 7 idiot settings that take away 75% of it so they can actually be used on the road.

The idea I'm talking about is personified in Single series racing. The BMW cup, The KTM series, the Hornet cup, Minitwins. All fast and furious races with lots of exciting and interesting action. And anyone of the boys out there could win. Not just those with the deepest pockets.

However, single series racing also limits the riders to the same *everything*. But opening up the restrictions to use the same engine and then "anything else goes" as far as chassis, brakes, tyres etc it would lead to higher innovation.

Now add in extra points for producing the same power using a smaller engine with forced induction or different engine configuration and suddenly you have a carrot to tempt smaller engine innovation.

We already have access to more power than we can realistically use (which is why the French limit everything to 100 BHP) so we don't need more, but the system is set so that the only way to get a faster bike is by producing more and more... and more.

C

Re: Time for a change in racing?
 

This I agree with, though if you were to say ban, telescopic forks Showa and Ohlins would each design a system and sell to part of the field, Within 2seasons everyone's on nearly the same system as one works better.
This I disagree with. If people are allowed to use any means to produce their 100BHP, and get more points for using smaller engines, then the companies with the deepest pockets win. No independant can afford to run with a tiny forced induction engine machined from scratch. Anyone can afford a de-tuned SS600 engine. So Honda win.

You want fun racing you want a set of rules very much like the ones drafted up for the GP250 replacement class. I believe everyone will be running 600cc engines (I think Honda has won the contract to supply all of them) and you can bolt your own chasis to that.

Should anyone want to, they can buy your engine off you for a small fixed fee after any race, this stops people throwing thousands at an engine in trick parts, or cheating too obviously.

All the engine development concerns go out the window overnight, and people concerntrate on building a good bike. Watch this class;)

Jambo

Edit:
See from Post #26 onwards in this thread: http://forums.sv650.org/showthread.php?t=114818&page=3
Up to this point we weren't sure on the rules, but the ones proposed there have some interesting points.

It became apparent later that there would be one control engine, made by one manufacturer for the whole field

Re: Time for a change in racing?
 

Can't the big guns jus buy up the good engines? So all the little teams who are just getting going have to start again?

Re: Time for a change in racing?
 

Yes they could, but then the little team could just buy the engine back again. As if I understand the process rght, the purchase price of the engine is limited and is therefore kept at a reasonable cost.

Re: Time for a change in racing?
 

More variety of approaches would just mean the closeness of competition would suffer, and in the end we as spectators of motorsport complain about that more than anything.

Re: Time for a change in racing?
 

Isnt the new 600 gp class going to be a build your own bike around a standard engine?Be interesting to see how that pans out.

Re: Time for a change in racing?
 

I believe that is how its going to work.

Re: Time for a change in racing?
 

Yea but even if they've got the same engine wont the big multi million £ companies still be able to develop their frames and suspension etc more than Joe Blogs Racing.

Wouldn't it be more fun to have 2 races, have qualifying etc as normal for race 1 then make the top riders have to add weight (similar to BTCC) or reverse the grid or summet similar?

So that the pack can get shuffled and the championship becomes closer and hopefully one day we'll have it where any 1 of 6 or 7 riders could win the championship on the last race day:p that would be a good race to watch.:cool:

Re: Time for a change in racing?
 

R.e your first paragraph, I'm not sure how that will pan out. There will obviously be technical regulations for materials and more importantly minimum weight. Of course any team that can afford to test and develop more than another will have an advantage, at least at first, but it's good to know that there won't be any horsepower disparity.
The thing that interests me most about the new 600 class is whether it will attract riders that wouldn't have considered 250gp, will it be seen as a step up from Supersports 600 for instance, or will it remain purely a 125 graduate destination? Will we see riders from outside of GP being "trialled" in the 600 GP class rather than going straight into a satellite motogp ride?

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Generally I don't really like systems which "reward" failure, ballast, reversed grids, in the case of touring cars "balancing" of the class to give slower cars/teams a leg-up. Obviously they all know the rules going in to it, but to me it just seems a bit shallow and undermines the competition to an extent. I don't think bike racing requires this sort of system in the way that touring cars apparently does nowadays.