Motorsport of the Month: Moto ST

It's time for a little road racing in the motorsport of the month feature. The Sun Trust Moto ST is not your typical racing series.. Moto ST is part of the Grand Am Road Racing Association, a road racing santioning body that primarily deals with prototypes and touring cars (Moto ST is their only motorcycle series). Events are run as endurance events and can be a short as three hours or as long as eight. What sets this series apart from others is that only production based twin cyclinder models are allowed. So you wont see your average inline four super sport or superbike. Instead you find BMW R1200S's, Suzuki SV1000's, and Ducati Sport Classics. Classes are based on weight and horse power. The classes are as follows:

Super Sport Twins (SST) 91-118hp minimum weight 400lbs

Grand Sport Twin (GST) 75-90hp minimum weight 390lbs

Sport Twins (ST) under 75hp minimum weight 400lbs

All bikes are tested on a dynameter following a race. Modifications to the bike are very limited, and machines run a common tire. One of the Moto ST series is fairly easy to get into as well, and offers a wide variety of bikes to choice from.

Bikes that compete in Moto ST include

(SST) Aprilia Tuono 1000R

(SST) BMW R1200S

(GST) Buell XB12R

(SST) Buell 1125R

(SST) Ducati 749

(SST) Ducati 848

(GST) Ducati Sport Classics

(GST) Ducati SS1000

(SST) Honda Super Hawk

(ST) Kawasaki Ninja 650R

(ST) Suzuki SV650S

(SST) Suzuki SV1000S

Adventure bikes, Italian style

In the United States the only adventure bikes you see are usually BMW GS's, Kawasaki KLRs, or Suzuki V stroms. Not many American riders are familar, however, with bikes like the Moto Guzzi NTX or Cagiva Elephant. There are quite a few adventure machines from Italy and its unfortunate there aren't many around. Although their rarety might be part of their appeal. 

The smaller TT came in 350 and 650cc versions. Moto Guzzi also had a handful of factory racers, including the V65 TT Baja for the Dakar rally.

The Moto Guzzi NXT was available in 650 and 750cc versions.

The Quota came along in the 1990's. It applied the adventure look to Guzzi's updated platform. The Quota, and Quota ES used the 1100cc V twin.

In 2007 Moto Guzzi introduced their latest adventure bike the Stelvio 1200.

Cagiva made its name when it bought Ducati in the mid 1980's. One of the first things the company did was put a Ducati twin into an off road chassis and call the beast the Elephant. Some Elephants were branded as Ducati's, but it was Cagiva that continued the line. Elephants were available in different sizes. Including 650, 750, and 900cc's.

Cagiva continued producing adventure bikes. The began selling the Canyon model and the Grand Canyon models.

Aprilia introduced the Pegaso in the mid 1990's. The bike shared a lot with BMW's G650 including the Rotax 650 single. 

Aprilia then tired to venture into the big bore adventure market with the Caponord. The Caponord used the RSV 1000cc V twin. The Caponord didn't sell well and only lasted a few years.

Moto Morini was responsible for a few dual sports. Below is a Moto Morini Camel, it has a 500cc V twin, which makes it an unusual dual sport. The company produced another model called the Kanguro (and/or Conguro).

With the resurgence of Moto Morini comes the new Granpasso 1200.

Benelli recently introduced their Trek. Like some of these other bike the "adventurousness" of the bike may be debateable, but it certainly is neat to look at.

And then there's the Ducati Multistrada. It's not really an adventure bike, but it carries on the Italian adventure spirit.

Rotary Motorcycles

Felix Wankel built the first working rotary internal combustion engine in 1957. The engine first appeared in the German NSU spider in 1964. During the late 1960's and early 1970's a lot of people thought rotaries were the way of the future. Wankel rotaries were designed for airplanes, cars, snowmobiles, and yes motorcycles. The first motorcycle to get this revolutionary powerplant was the Hurcules W2000 in 1974.

The W in W2000 was for Wankel. Followed shortly after the Hurcules was the Suzki RE5 in late 1974. Suzuki at the time was producing primarily small two stroke motorcycles. Honda and Kawasaki began shifting twoards large displacement four stroke street bikes, and Suzuki had nothing to offer. So what did Suzuki do? They came out with a large displacement two stroke and a rotary powered bike. Like most rotary powered vehicles the RE5 was very smooth and capable of high RPM's. The RE5 however produced a lot of heat and was prone to overheating. Combine this with the lack of demand for a rotary motorcycle and the RE5 only lasted three years (1974-1976). One has to wonder if bikes like this discourage Japanese companies like Suzuki from tring new designs.

Yamaha also had a rotary ready called the RZ201. After witnessing the failure of the RE5, however, they axed the program after a prototype was displayed in 1975.

The last manufacturer to play with rotaries was Norton. Norton's rotary development started back in 1969 when the English motorcycle industry was on its way to extinction. Norton decided to take a chance with rotaries and a working prototype was produced in 1977. Norton began selling selling these machines to law enforcement agencies in the early 1980's as the Interpol II.

Norton produced 100 civilian motorcycles in the late 1980's, all of which were quickly snatched up by collectors. A liquid cooled fully-faired model called the Commander was offered afterwards.

Perhaps the most interesting Norton rotary was the F1 racer. Norton's racing rotaries did rack up a few victories, including the Isle of Man TT and the British Supercup series. Early models had issues with heat build up from the air cooled engine, later models fixed the probelm but it was too late for Norton. The company finally went belly up and only 66 F1's were ever produced.

Cars and Bikes: part 2 BMW

Just like Ducati and Ferrari, BMW's autos and "motarrads" have more in common than just a badge.

Rennsport and the 507

R90S and the 2002

K1 and the M1

R1100S and the M3

K1200LT and the 7 SeriesK1200S and the M6
K1200R and the 135i (tii concept)
S1000RR and M3 GTR

Dirt Bike Timelines

They're colorful and they're at http://moto-timeline.blogspot.com/

Japanese Four Hundreds

In the United States 400cc's is not a lot. In Japan however 400cc bikes are the bread and butter of their industry. In Japan riders face restrictions (for licensing purposes I believe) for a long time there was a break at 400cc's. Because of these restrictions the Japanese domestic market is full of miniature versions of mainstream bikes, in this case sport bikes. And these 400's were a big deal in Japan. Japanese companies competed fiercely with their own respective repli-racers. Most of these models were sold predominately in Japan, some were exported so Europe and the rest of the world, and very few made it to the United States.

Honda's V4 program produced not only 750 version but a 400 version as well. Like the 750 Interceptor the 400 VF had high performance versions as well. Like 400's bigger the 750 V4 was gradually replaced by inline fours. The VFR400 made way to the CBR400RR. In addition to conventional four strokes Honda sold a 400cc version of their NS two stroke bike.

82-85 Honda VF400F NC12

'86-92 Honda VFR400 NC21 NC24

Honda VFR400R NC30

'94-96 Honda RVF400 NC35

'88-99 Honda CBR400RR NC23 NC25

85? Honda NS400R

Kawasaki offered a 400 version of the GPz in the 1980's. The GPZ evolved into the GPZ400R in 1985 and ZX4 in the 1988. The ZZR replaced the GPZ400R in 1990, and the ZXR400 replaced the ZX4 in 1989.

85-88 Kawasaki GPZ400R and ZX4

'89-99 Kawasaki ZXR400
'97-99? Kawasaki ZZR400
Suzuki produced 400cc versions of the GS and GSX Katana models in the 1970's and 1980's, but it wasn't until 1984 when the GSXR400 came to be. The GSXR400 actually preceded the infamous GSX-R750 by a couple of years. The design was based on Suzuki's racing GS1000R and 250 Gamma. Suzuki also sold the GSX400F Katana as a sport touring bike.

'84-99 Suzuki GSX-R400

'88-89 Suzuki GSX400F Katana
The Yamaha FZ400 was one of the few 400's to make it to the states, but it only lasted for three or so years. The FZ was followed by the much more aggressive FZR400.

'99-90 Yamaha FZ400?

'86-94 Yamaha FZR600R
No it's not Japanese, but I had to include it. It's the Ducati 400SS Junior, and it wasn't even really competitive with these Asian sports bikes. It was basically a 750SS with a smaller engine. A 750SS had 60hp, or about the same as any of these Japanese bikes. The 400SS only had 42hp.

Models like Kawasaki's ZZR400 and Suzuki's GSX400F are more sport tourers or soft sports bikes. Some day I hope to cover these types of quasi-crotch-rockets.

400cc versions of the big bore beasts I covered earlier are popular in Japan. Models like Honda CB400, Yamaha XJR400, Kawasaki ZRX400, Suzuki GSX400, and GSF400. For a while Suzuki produced a 400cc version of the popular SV650 in Japan.

I thought about including smaller bikes (125cc and 250cc) in this article, but I think I'll save that for another day.