1200 approved for ama superbike

Now they're allowed, MAYBE something will finally challenge the Yoshi 'zooks.

Does Suzuki have a bike that big? The 'Busa is too big and not raceable. Hmmm... Honda could challenge, but they have the weakest factory lineup in 2008. Duhamel, Zemke, and Hodgson. Only one top quality rider. Yamaha start came back in 2007 and did okay. Still need development on the 07 bike to get anywhere. DiSalvo and Bostrom are not cutting it. Kawasaki has the ever aging prick of Hacking and Rog Hayden. If they had kept Tommy, they'd be a title contender.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Hayden Fan @ Jan 21 2008, 04:12 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><div class='quotemain'>Does Suzuki have a bike that big? The 'Busa is too big and not raceable. Hmmm... Honda could challenge, but they have the weakest factory lineup in 2008. Duhamel, Zemke, and Hodgson. Only one top quality rider. Yamaha start came back in 2007 and did okay. Still need development on the 07 bike to get anywhere. DiSalvo and Bostrom are not cutting it. Kawasaki has the ever aging prick of Hacking and Rog Hayden. If they had kept Tommy, they'd be a title contender.

Zemke will be riding for Erion this year,a good team but not quite factory.And that is only in Supersport and FX.No Superbike

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Hayden Fan @ Jan 21 2008, 09:12 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><div class='quotemain'>Does Suzuki have a bike that big? The 'Busa is too big and not raceable. Hmmm... Honda could challenge, but they have the weakest factory lineup in 2008. Duhamel, Zemke, and Hodgson. Only one top quality rider. Yamaha start came back in 2007 and did okay. Still need development on the 07 bike to get anywhere. DiSalvo and Bostrom are not cutting it. Kawasaki has the ever aging prick of Hacking and Rog Hayden. If they had kept Tommy, they'd be a title contender.

Dont agree with Ducati playin the rules game like they do in supers, bring back Lil John to .... on them at their own game I say!

Pete

I think AMA WANTS somebody to finally be competitive against the Yoshis and this is one of the ways they are able to do that. I don't believe it's really fair either, but it should finally make for some interesting AMA Superbike action...

Why do people still think displacement is the standard to compare engine configurations? I know somewhere we've had this discussion.

Anyway, good news, now maybe somebody can hopefully compete in the Suzuki cup. (But if ever the Ducatis have any success, there will be people asking why a 1200 is given an unfair advantage over a 1000, when they should be asking, why has a four had an unfair advantage over a twin all these many years?)

Discplacement has zero to do with the equation of what makes a fair contest between bikes.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Jumkie @ Jan 23 2008, 03:14 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><div class='quotemain'>Why do people still think displacement is the standard to compare engine configurations? I know somewhere we've had this discussion.

Anyway, good news, now maybe somebody can hopefully compete in the Suzuki cup. (But if ever the Ducatis have any success, there will be people asking why a 1200 is given an unfair advantage over a 1000, when they should be asking, why has a four had an unfair advantage over a twin all these many years?)

Discplacement has zero to do with the equation of what makes a fair contest between bikes.

That is true up to a certain point but eventually displacement will win out.It doesnt matter anyway because in 2009,AMA Superbike is going to be nuetered into a glorified Superstock class.Put 2 and 2 together,new rules have been made for 09 but not released and Superstock is going away after this year.That adds up to a watered down Superbike class that they think will help the underfunded sattelite teams and the privateer.I dont care if they race vespa's,the best riders Mladin,Spies] are going to win.Mladin has done more to harm AMA Superbike than he will ever know by sticking around and pounding up and coming riders.Cant blame him though,he makes more money than all but about 3 riders in all of racing.And at the end of the day,thats what they really race for.Sure they love racing but the idea is to get rich while doing something you love.Here is an idea,put a salary cap on AMA riders that will force them to look at other series instead of hanging around getting rich in what is supposed to be a feeder series.

I don't think for one minute that the AMA rules were rewritten for Ducati. AMA BENDS the rules like this for mainly Harley Davidson. Always have, and always will.

You will see Buells out their in full force in AMA SUperbike

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Traverser @ Jan 23 2008, 01:24 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><div class='quotemain'>I don't think for one minute that the AMA rules were rewritten for Ducati. AMA BENDS the rules like this for mainly Harley Davidson. Always have, and always will.

You will see Buells out their in full force in AMA SUperbike

I hope not. Buells are slow, and have no place on a race track.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Hayden Fan @ Jan 23 2008, 01:25 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><div class='quotemain'>I hope not. Buells are slow, and have no place on a race track.
Not the latest Buell. Dropped the Sportster engine for a Rotax built only for Buell.

It is real sad that Harley can't build a proper race bike engine for Eric Buell. I wish some day that Harley/Buell would build a true sport bike from the ground up. Maybe then I'd want one.

AMA needs more regulation. Theres like 5 little Mini races going on within the field.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Hayden Fan @ Jan 21 2008, 04:12 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><div class='quotemain'>Honda could challenge, but they have the weakest factory lineup in 2008. Duhamel, Zemke, and Hodgson. Only one top quality rider.

Really? I count two; and who knows what Zemke could do in SBK if he wins FX and SS races and Honda brings him back to SBK. I don't think you're being fair with your assessment of Honda's talent.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Mr. Shupe @ Jan 23 2008, 09:12 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><div class='quotemain'>Really? I count two; and who knows what Zemke could do in SBK if he wins FX and SS races and Honda brings him back to SBK. I don't think you're being fair with your assessment of Honda's talent.

That was based on Duhamel and Zemke. I did not know at the time, Zemke was no longer a SBK rider. But even still the team only really tops Yamaha with DiSalvo and a Bostrom. No matter how much you dislike and find Jamie Hacking's style as dangerous, he still is fast and a good rider. Kawasaki have a great lineup. Same with Suzuki.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Hayden Fan @ Jan 24 2008, 12:11 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><div class='quotemain'>That was based on Duhamel and Zemke. I did not know at the time, Zemke was no longer a SBK rider. But even still the team only really tops Yamaha with DiSalvo and a Bostrom. No matter how much you dislike and find Jamie Hacking's style as dangerous, he still is fast and a good rider. Kawasaki have a great lineup. Same with Suzuki.

Before getting injured, DuHamel was consistently the best of the rest behind the Yosh bikes. Hodgson made a wildcard appearance at the USGP weekend and battled with Yates and DuHamel for 3rd and 4th spot.

About Zemke, in '06, he was the only non-Yoshimura rider to win a race.

And no, I don't dislike Hacking. I know he is about as good as anyone on the AMA grid.

So, if Ducati come in with the 1200 and win everything is that more acceptable that Yoshi winning everything?

Call me totally unedumacated (deliberate by the way) but displacement does play a large part in determining parity within race classes. Certainly in a horsepower sense, a 4 should produce more outright power than a twin, but conversely a twin should be able to produce better power delivery, As such, it should in theory be swings and roundabouts where one bikes suitst his track and another suits that track.

Have they also implemented a lower weight for the twins as has been in the past in some series?

IMO, if the series is designed for 1000cc bikes than that should be the maximum limit. If that rules out certain bikes (ie. Benelli etc) than so be it as there are some race classes that the Japanese cannot enter (ie. BEARS) so it does even up.





Garry

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Gaz @ Jan 26 2008, 01:53 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><div class='quotemain'>Call me totally unedumacated (deliberate by the way) but displacement does play a large part in determining parity within race classes. Certainly in a horsepower sense, a 4 should produce more outright power than a twin, but conversely a twin should be able to produce better power delivery, As such, it should in theory be swings and roundabouts where one bikes suitst his track and another suits that track.

I think you are right. However, the new 1200cc Ducati bike is about money.

The 1 liter twins were capable of holding their own, but they had to be tuned to near F1 standards and they had to be scrapped more frequently. Ducati asked for displacement instead of engine modifications so they could cut costs. They succeeded.

I think you're right. Allowing multiple displacements is pointless but I think Ducati need WSBK and WSKB need Ducati. Whatever, the more manufacturers get consolidated, the more lame motorcycle racing has become.

It’s amazing how people still don't understand that displacement is an <u>arbitrary</u> irrelevant number. Just because the Japanese bikes arbitrarily decided to make a 1000cc bike, all of a sudden people think this is some kind of standard. What if all the Jap bikes were 929s, would people go around saying all the super bikes should be 929? Its an issue of power to weight. That's it. Some do it with in-line fours, some do it with twins. Some tried to do it with triples. If we were to use the Norton rotary engine, a 1000cc displacement would make over 30-50 horse power more than the classic in-line four 1000cc, that's why Norton used less than 600cc but competed with the super bikes until the rules makers (pro-Jap) eliminated them from competition. Here we have a case where if a 1000cc rotary engine was allowed to compete with a 1000cc engine it would make the in-line fours inferior in power. Its the mirror image of those here making the argument that a twin should be made to compete at 1000cc just because fours do it at that displacement. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, look it up and educated yourself away from the notion that 1000cc is some magical number.) It doesn't mean .... except that the Jap bikes have all gone with it. According to what I'm reading, you guys would have it a Jap bike in-line four series, period. No other bikes allowed. But in fact, the rules have allowed for bikes with smaller and larger displacement deviations of 1000cc.

The number of 1000cc displacement doesn’t mean ....!!! It’s a made up number. Get that number out of your head. It is not a standard, but only a number readily used by the cookie-cutter Jap bikes.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Jumkie @ Jan 30 2008, 05:22 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><div class='quotemain'>It’s amazing how people still don't understand that displacement is an <u>arbitrary</u> irrelevant number. Just because the Japanese bikes arbitrarily decided to make a 1000cc bike, all of a sudden people think this is some kind of standard. What if all the Jap bikes were 929s, would people go around saying all the super bikes should be 929? Its an issue of power to weight. That's it. Some do it with in-line fours, some do it with twins. Some tried to do it with triples. If we were to use the Norton rotary engine, a 1000cc displacement would make over 30-50 horse power more than the classic in-line four 1000cc, that's why Norton used less than 600cc but competed with the super bikes until the rules makers (pro-Jap) eliminated them from competition. Here we have a case where if a 1000cc rotary engine was allowed to compete with a 1000cc engine it would make the in-line fours inferior in power. Its the mirror image of those here making the argument that a twin should be made to compete at 1000cc just because fours do it at that displacement. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, look it up and educated yourself away from the notion that 1000cc is some magical number.) It doesn't mean .... except that the Jap bikes have all gone with it. According to what I'm reading, you guys would have it a Jap bike in-line four series, period. No other bikes allowed. But in fact, the rules have allowed for bikes with smaller and larger displacement deviations of 1000cc.

The number of 1000cc displacement doesn’t mean ....!!! It’s a made up number. Get that number out of your head. It is not a standard, but only a number readily used by the cookie-cutter Jap bikes.

Fair enough, but if the number has no relevance why is there an upper limit of 1000cc for bikes of 4 cylinders?

To my obviously uneducated self, the fact that there is a maximum capacity for specific configuration motorcycles must mean that the number chosen bears some significance.

I do recognise the difference between 1000cc, 1200cc etc but to me the point remains which is if, and I emphasise if the intent of the class is to have a maximum capacity limit of X, then all engine configurations that wish to compete should fit within that capacity.

Now that said (or typed) I also acknowledge that a 1000cc twin will reach its peak of development well before a 1000cc four which of course means that the twin will fall behind at some point. But, is increasing the capacity of that twin the answer to the problem or do other options exist that will not lower the safety of the sport.

I am comfortable with (but may well not like) the fact that twins of 1200cc can compete but will it solve the very problem of 'one team/manufacturer winning' within the AMA or will it simply move the results from a Jap factory to the Ducati.

If the Ducati starts to dominate in the same vein as the Suzukis what is the answer then?

Will the fours be allowed a capacity increase ...................................... no way. Instead to be competitive the Japanese will be expected (much like WSBK of yore) to suck it and see, or build a twin to be competitive and therefore increase costs.

I don't watch the AMA (we don't get coverage in Oz) but I do understand the problems that one team or manufacturer domination can bring. But is the answer to increase the maximum limit or have they just fallen into line with WSBK?




Garry