Testing Times At Laguna Seca

Wait a minute, 3 of the 4 best lap times were V-Twins? This must be a misprint, I was told the V-Twin was dead as a racing platform.

Now now, let's not encourage KPaul. You know he's going to crawl up to his soap box and tout "unfair displacement advantage".

The displacement advantage has been eliminated, but yet the 1000s are being hamstringed with bogus restrictor plates a'la NASCAR. If twins are SO good (maybe they are, what do I know) then why must other engine types be automatically restricted and placed at a disadvantage under the rules? Let go of the reins and let the fur fly, then we'll see what really is better. If I recall correctly, Rossi doesn't ride a V-twin......

Of course there are no more 4 cylinders, duh

Uhmmm, the only team testing with a 4 cylinder would be Kawasaki, and they only have one rider, and he's .09 second off fastest time, so I'd say he's doing pretty damn good. Of course there will be at least three more 4-cylinder bikes in the mix with Suzuki and if No Limit Honda shows up in SBK. Twins aren't dead yet, but pretty damn close. Wait til next year to see it really flesh out, then wait another couple of year and they'll probably do something else to get Ducati, Aprillia, Harley to join the fray again.

A quote from Anthony yesterday - "It’s going to be really, really hard to beat Ben Bostrom. Watching him go around, he looks really, really good and he looks like he’s taking it easy at the moment. At the moment there’s a lot of guys that could surprise. Mat’s [Mladin] always really quick. [Aaron] Yates is always quick here and there. It’s going to be a really tough year. It’s going to be really hard to get a championship. It’s going to be good for everyone watching, it’s not going to be good for us riders."

Re: Of course there are no more 4 cylinders, duh

Both Honda and Suzuki are campaigning 1000's this year. It doesn't look like Suzuki was at this test ( or maybe just not on this list), but you can see Honda is at #11. Three seconds off the pace is a lot, but considering the lack of development timing, it's not too bad.

I do think that either this year or next year will be the last year that twins dominate the series. They will probably win some races after that, but not like they are now.

Not so fast.

The restrictor plates are only in the WSB; in AMA they are allowed only limited modifications to the stock, showroom style, bike (granted race prepared, polish, balance etc.)

Just a minute. Look at day 2

Yep Right. I don't the Suzuki 1000s are there. Also we have a Kawaski 800cc ZX-7R right up there.

See Day 2 here where the ZX-7R is the fastest <a href="http://www.mcnews.com.au/MotorcycleRacing2003/AmericanSuperBike/Test_Laguna/Day2_Times.htm"> Day 2 testing results

Note the 954 is up there as well.

Day 2 times Revenge of the Inline 4

Day 2 times click here

Re: Day 2 times Revenge of the Inline 4

Five out of the top six bikes are V-Twins. Thanks for pointing out the improvement on day two for the twins. Imagine how much faster a talented guy like Bostom would be on a Duc or a 51!

Re: Day 2 times Revenge of the Inline 4

LOL Wait till Mladin shows up with a 1000 tuned to Superbike specs. The rest of those inline bikes are 600s. Good grief Charlie Brown. Notice the raw 954 is up there. Give the liter 4s time and its history for V-Twin..

Re: Day 2 times Revenge of the Inline 4

My money says that Yates kicks Mladin's ass. I expect the big gixxer to do well at Daytona, and maybe a couple of the other NASCAR tracks, but I predict that the battle for the championship is between BBoz and EBoz, although GoShow could be the spoiler.

Re: Day 2 times Revenge of the Inline 4

Note that all these times (for Superbikes) are somewhat off the pace -- eg GoShow ran 1 25.5 in Apr 99 on his Duc, Troy and Colin were in the 1 24.8s last year, while EBoz and Nicky were 1 25.5 and 1 25.8, respectively.

I assume that all of the top superbike riders out there are not going all out for fastest time. This is a test, and the idea is to learn as much as possible about tires, setup etc more than getting fastest time. While test times are interesting to follow (especially this time of year when there is no road racing to follow), one should not place too much stock in relative times -- different riders/teams may have different test objectives.

It is interesting that the top 600s ARE at under record times though.

Hey, whatever man, as long as the rules aren't different for each type of engine, I will be happy.