Despite being royally shafted by Suzuki during his MotoGp stint with the team, my favourite rider, Chris Vermeulen, has taken it on the chin and accepted the “demotion” back to the ranks of the WSBK. But, like me, many were perplexed as to why, of all teams, he signed with Kawasaki. After all, you can count Kawasaki race wins in any category of road racing on the fingers of a one-armed man’s hand in the last 5 years or so. Kawasaki is a huge heavy industry company for whom their motorcycle division, while staffed by dedicated and passionate people, is a mere drop in the bucket when it comes to assessing the company’s overall bottom line. And, since the accountants rule the world and it always comes down to dollars, it’s not been surprising to see that Kawasaki’s racing efforts have been less than stellar. Road racing has not been a priority and perhaps hasn’t been for many, many years, going back to the days of Anton Mang in the late 1980’s.
Kawasaki’s MotoGp “effort” was a joke, breaking the spirit and the bodies of many of those involved and their BSB/WSBK efforts have been similarly without success. It’s been a long time since fans of the Green Machine have had something about which to cheer when it comes to road racing. A notable exception has been in the area of Irish road racing (where they race on public roads, literally). The weekend before last, Irishman Ryan Farquhar won all 8 races on the programme at the opening round of the 2010/2011 championship at Scarborough, riding all Kawasakis.
(photo from Ryan’s personal web site)
So, given Kawasaki’s dismal form over many a year, why did Vermeulen, a man whose full potential is yet to be realised, sign with them in WSBK in 2010? Surely he is smart enough to have assessed their potential and current state? Well, the answer is that he has been told that 2010 will be a development year and that, in 2011, the company will have an all-new superbike that will be a quantum leap over all the existing 1000cc sportsbikes. Eh? Surely talk is cheap. There must have been more to it than that. Well, we weren’t flies on the wall when the negotiations took place so we don’t have any idea what he was told, but, it stands to reason that he would had to have had more than just the rhetoric if they expected him to put his signature on the line.
So, my guess is that he has already been shown development work and, perhaps, even prototypes of the new bike. Now, if he HAS and he signed up on that basis, then the bike must really be going to be the duck’s guts, as they say.
What do we know about the 2011 ZX-10R? Nothing. Only that it’s going to be brilliant (if you believe Kawasaki). But, as we get closer to the inevitable launch date, which will almost certainly be sometime in our Spring when the European and Japanese show circuit is in full swing, some suggestions are starting to surface.
This artist’s rendition is a start. Then there are the Patent Application drawings. Now I’m not sure of the way this all works, but it seems that, in the USA, if you’re going to produce something, you have to submit Patent Applications to cover it (the USA is, afer all, the most litigious country on earth*). And these drawings have recently been obtained from the Patents Office.
This one shows a horizontal barrel mounted on top of the gearbox. Not unusual in the overall scheme of things, after all, Moto Guzzi ran a horizontal single for years and years. And there is a recent precedent with Husaberg showing this design not long ago.
Of vastly more interest, however, is that Kawasaki are planning the ZX-10R to be a “big bang” engine, and by that I mean REALLY big bang. The speculation is that it will be a 360 degree firing order; that is, all 4 cylinders will fire at once. Hard to get your head around THAT, isn’t it? Apparently there will be an auxiliary electric motor that will keep the engine firing “off bang” and also at low revs when it will, I guess, be very rough idling. Would it work? Who knows. COULD it work? If you throw enough money at something you can make anything work.
All in all, CV’s decision could end up being a stroke of genius (if the 2010 bike doesn’t cripple his will to win first) and 2011 might just be the year when we all get a bit “greener”.
* After the Wright brothers flew their plane at Kittyhawk in 1903 they continued to refine the design and execution and spent many years in continued flying experiments. Well, that is, Wilbur did. Orville spent most of the rest of the early part of the century conducting rigorous and persecuting lawsuits against parties who he deemed had infringed upon the Wright brothers’ patented designs. The fact that the brothers had copied both the wing design and the “wing warping” concept that actually enabled them to CONTROL the plane from Australia’s Lawrence Hargreave was conveniently ignored.
STOP PRESS: I must be psychic or something. This afternoon I went to the newsagent’s and there, splattered all over the front page of the latest issue of AMCN is “Kawasaki ZX-10R for 2011” and a huge article inside which confirms much of what I have written above but adds some extra details, like electronic traction control and variable valve timing. Pick up a copy of the “Horror” and read all about it.