Re: The Big Picture

On Sep 14, 11:18 pm, Mark N <menusbaumNYETS...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
pablo wrote:
Beep?! Same chassis and tires? You are out...

If you recall, when the first Yamaha and Suzuki 800s were tested in the
fall of 2006 they were running them in the latest 990 chassis, and the
tire manufacturers hadn't yet built any tires specifically for the 800s.
Honda obviously had an all-new bike, and I don't recall what Ducati and
Kawasaki ran - seem to recall Kawi's 800 motor wasn't ready for testing
right after Valencia, but I may be wrong about that. But the word from
the regulars right away was that the new bikes were faster in the
corners, and they would have to be ridden more like 250s because of that
advantage and the lack of jump off the corners, plus the shorter braking
zone because of the lower top speeds and higher cornering speeds. And
the lap times had hardly slowed at all. So it was immediately a
different world and just based on the basic nature of the motors,
nothing else had appreciably changed.

That was then, this is now. There has been progress in both tire and
chassis technology to better cope with the higher *overal* speed.

From a safety perspective, it was necessary to curb top speed, at
least for a little while (they are faster now, of course). Plus I
think racing benefits far more from faster corner speed than top speed
on the straights. It also hapens to be where riding skills matter the
most, braking and cornering. At least they haven't come up with
computer assisted ABS...

What I am saying simply is that we are witnessing the result of a
highly evolved sport, which means that at the very top every single
little detail matters. And yes, rider size has ALWAYS been a factor in
motorcycle racing, only with the current evolvement of the sport it
does so even more - that's one of the side effects of it.

I *do* agree that a less highly evolved version of the sport is more
entertaining to watch. It may not be the absolutely fastest way around
a track, but then again, it is more fun to watch guys sliding and
fighting less capable machinery.

So I don't have the answers, and it is obvious MotoGP and WSB haven't
got them either yet. Because we people watching are hard to lease:
give us guys fighting very hard on very equal machines (all entry
classes tend to be like that) and we'll still be looking at our
watches waiting for the less entertaining top class with the big names
and big budgets to truly thrill us because that's where the stars
race... we're a contradiction in our expectations.... we want
prototypes and the most sublime engineering and the highest possile
pace, and yet we want the racing to be very close and entertaining.

....pablo
.

Relevant Pages

  • True routed interfaces for a 6500 switch?
    ... speeds of between 2 and 10mb/s. ... Does Cisco provide a blade for a 6509 ... chassis that provides true layer 3 routing? ...
    (comp.dcom.sys.cisco)
  • Plusnet treacle (again)
    ... The web is unusable tonight - pages are loading more slowly than i ... recall they used to on a 14.4 modem connection! ... speeds - there's nothing on the status pages? ...
    (uk.telecom.broadband)
  • Re: "Jungle" IC
    ... S-tage. ... As I recall, it was used in the 8500 chassis - maybe the 8000 as ... well - and was a bloody nightmare to work on! ...
    (sci.electronics.repair)
  • Re: whats your top speed of all time?
    ... > speeds are, and how do you feel when you're flying at the seat of ... I recall several downhills over 50, but don't have a record number that I ...
    (rec.bicycles.misc)
  • Re: whats your top speed of all time?
    ... >> speeds are, and how do you feel when you're flying at the seat of ... > I recall several downhills over 50, but don't have a record number ...
    (rec.bicycles.misc)
Loading