MotoGP

[johnny comelately]

continued

By the time he got to building his own motorcycles he was more accustomed to the business side of things. “Marlboro put 17 million dollars into the KR3 in its first season, 1997, then dropped it. If they’d stayed, we would’ve had the right motor in three years.

“When I told Bernie [Ecclestone] I was going to build the three-cylinder engine with TWR, he said, ‘Don’t do it, they’re over-extended.’ He told me to go with Hart, but by then TWR had done the drawings. It was a disaster. The KR3 never really panned out for a lot of reasons.”

Roberts now had his HQ in Banbury, close to Britain’s so-called F1 belt, but he had the second-generation KR3 engine done in Japan. The engineers were retired Yamaha race chief Maekawa and retired Honda Racing Corporation chief Youichi Oguma, who had only recently been sworn enemies.

The Maekawa/Oguma engine was a huge improvement. Roberts had chosen a three-cylinder because of his experiences duelling with Spencer. Since then racetracks had got shorter and tighter, so a small, nimble motorcycle made a lot of sense against the heavier, more ungainly four-cylinder machines.

But then someone threw a curveball. Michelin released a new rear slick with a different profile that allowed riders of the four-cylinder bikes to get on the throttle earlier.

“The problem was, and always is, that something blindsides you. Michelin changed the rear tyre and we were done.”

[johnny comelately]

continued more

The final 2002 iteration of the KR3 was a thing of great beauty and very effective. However, it had to race against MotoGP’s new 990cc four-strokes, including Honda’s awesome RC211V. That didn’t stop Jeremy McWilliams from putting the bike on pole at the 2002 Australian GP, despite giving away 50bhp.

Next Roberts built a four-stroke, with his own V5 engine. The machine was a masterpiece, but doomed to failure due to lack of budget.

“The bike I’m most proud of technically was the last V5 we made in 2004 with John Barnard. It was so nice, every piece was made just for that motorcycle.”

In 2006 Roberts switched to Honda power, which took his eldest son, Kenny Junior, to within 0.178sec of victory in the Portuguese GP. Six years earlier KRJR had won the 500cc world title on a Suzuki RGV500 that had been largely engineered by Team Roberts, unbeknown to Suzuki management.

The money finally ran out at the end of 2007. Many of Roberts’ staff had been with him since the 1980s. Most moved to rival MotoGP teams. The Banbury operation shut down, a huge blow for motorcycle racing, because this small, independent centre of innovation and excellence was unique in the sport.
In 1975, Roberts’s XS650 was outgunned on the dirt by the ubiquitous Harley Davidsons. This didn’t stop him from regularly defeating them, but he did need more power, so someone had the bright idea of replacing the 70bhp four-stroke XS motor with a 120bhp engine taken from Yamaha’s TZ750 road racer, which was already frightening riders on the asphalt, let alone the dirt. Madness, but worth a go.

Roberts rode the bike for the first time at the Indy Mile in 1975. “It freaked everybody out. We had it geared for 150mph and they put a cut-out switch on the handlebar to kill one cylinder, for when I needed more traction.”

[J.A.W.]

Actually Johnny, if you check back to 'On any Sunday' you can see ( & hear) the BSA/Triumph factory
F750 triples being raced in flat-tracker form for the mile AMA final at Sacramento..

& Erv Kanemoto had built several dirty mile H2R Kawasaki triples like-wise, for Gary Nixon & others,
before Kel Carruthers jumped on the big 2T bandwagon for Roberts.. & so - 'pandemonium' ensued..

The upshot was, the AMA cut a deal, whereby the requirement to win the 'No 1 plate' was no longer a
combination of dirt & tarmac racing, & promptly banned flat-track engines with more than 2 cylinders,
allowing a close to virtual Harley-Davidson monopoly - for several decades following..

Yamaha could then focus on road-racing to win the other - 'No 1 plate' - with Roberts on their factory YZR 750..

[johnny comelately]

Actually Johnny, if you check back to 'On any Sunday' you can see ( & hear) the BSA/Triumph factory
F750 triples being raced in flat-tracker form for the mile AMA final at Sacramento..

& Erv Kanemoto had built several dirty mile H2R Kawasaki triples like-wise, for Gary Nixon & others,
before Kel Carruthers jumped on the big 2T bandwagon for Roberts.. & so - 'pandemonium' ensued..

The upshot was, the AMA cut a deal, whereby the requirement to win the 'No 1 plate' was no longer a
combination of dirt & tarmac racing, & promptly banned flat-track engines with more than 2 cylinders,
allowing a close to virtual Harley-Davidson monopoly - for several decades following..

Yamaha could then focus on road-racing to win the other - 'No 1 plate' - with Roberts on their factory YZR 750..

Very interesting!
Harleys did the same in drags, just like ferrari in f1 and honda in motogp

[Monster Hesh]

I love this SPORT!!!! What a qualifying session. so hyped for tomorrows race, results are just an unknown in the sport, its perfect.

MotoGP is how you do 'Pinnacle of MotorSport'

Not a bad word to say about any aspect of MotoGP. The sport, the coverage, the on screen GRAPHICS!, the SuperHumans literally hanging on for their lives, Jack Millers certainly playing testament to that, for his pole position.
Slicks on a 100m dry line for 70% of lap, still wet for the rest.
He spent more time out the saddle than in, a jaw dropping show.

F1 has a lot of work to do just to match the sport level of coverage and TV presentation alone, so much info, all neat, none obtrusive on the screen. I'm raging at F1 every minute because of something wrong on screen, and the show is so lackluster. MotoGP I can enjoy every second of every atom.

[roon]

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