Re: The title should read - "4strokes still slower than NSR"
I admit I'm a 2-stroke nut. I have 3 of 'em. I don't dislike 4-strokes so much as love 2-strokes. I think that development of 2-strokes was stopped or at least slowed to a crawl because they already make -enough- power. Tires are the limiting factor and have been for what.. like 5 or 6 years now?
That said, we all know that 4-strokes can be easier on tires... note "can be", not "will -necessarily- be".. it's still down to how the engineers tune the motor's output characteristics. They've swapped one devil they know for a demon they don't... but that is an engineer's dream! They -want- a new and difficult challenge.
Two-strokes could have evolved a lot further... not one of them (today) has Elec. Fuel Injection (in GP1)...(well.. not that I've checked.. I suppose it's possible, but I don't recall) and we all know what a huge area of development that opens up. Beyond the possibilities for better emissions (not that GP1 would care -that- much), there's a ton of performance and power-delivery characteristics an engineer could tune with.
Two-strokes were cut down at their peak simply b/c someone somewhere thinks they are politically incorrect, have no connection to road bikes (false, I have two 'stroker road bikes in my garage!), and are 'old news'.
Change is part of stuff like this... so I guess we should all welcome it. I will mourn the passing of 'strokers, but it won't keep me from watching the diesels.
I will close with saying that if someone's interest in GP1 is based on the hope that they will see those types of engines in street-bikes in 2 or 3 years, you're dreaming. The closest you'll get are motors like the VFR V-4... which, it seems, the "hardcore sport-biking buyer" (guffaw!) eschewed long ago... never figured why --it's a nice motor!, but they did... so Honda re-focused that bike to "sporty-sport-tourer". Hmmmm... a motor that very closely resembles GP1 type stuff, right now, sitting on the dealer floor... but folks who claim to be "sport riders" choose other bikes... and they do so b/c they claim "Honda puts every single doo-dad and techno-gimmick on the VFR, diluting the experience and raising the price... gimme a 'pure-bred' race-machine w/out all the gizmos and some hard-edged, unrefined -character-!" ... or words to that effect. Ha! .. if you want THAT, you want a TWO-STROKE!... edge? YES, character? YES! heehee
GP1 == gizmos and hi-tech! I'll laugh if Honda "re-launches" the VFR as their GP1-derived sport-bike and everyone goes nuts over it... good for Honda... and if the bike is good... that's great too!.. but it'll be comical to see the new converts.
Then again, who really cares... if the bike is nice, everyone -should- want it. I just get tired of hipocrisy and bandwaggoning I suppose... though I guess everyone is apt to do that occasionally... I'm sure I have.
-James