Vaughn wrote:
>While this does bring pretty amazing technology into the hands of
>minimally trained mortals, are you proposing some kind of national
>regulations on sportbike sales?
I'd rather not see the government get any more involved in my life than it
already
is. But, the riding public needs basic transportation far more than they need
race bikes.
As it stands right now, the state of California has a list of motorcycles
that they will not register
for street use, no matter what the rider does to make them street legal. No
motorcycle with a model prefix
of YZ, TZ, RM, KX or CR will be registered. All except the TZ are motocross
bikes.
I think the prefixes GSXR, ZX, YZF and CBR should be added to the list.
Yamaha began mass producing production racebikes like the TD-1 series back in
the early 1960's.
Before that, we used to have to build our own sportbikes. I built my own YDS-
2 into a replica of an "Asama Racer",
but nobody had any idea what it was, one guy asked about the "funny little
chopper" I was riding.
http://www.freespaces.com/td1racer/frametank1.JPG
A wouldbe squid couldn't get a factory built TD-1 racer without a racing
resume that showed (1) he knew
how to ride it and (2) he would use it only on the race tracks.
But we could still buy TD-1 parts and bolt them to our street bikes or we
could build a whole TD-1 out of the Yamaha parts catalog and try to get it
registered.
25 years ago, a racer could start with a street bike and install a $100K
factory kit to race at the national level. Now he can buy a $10K GSXR750 and
stunt it on the street instead of taking it out for a track day.
I would like to see the Japanese factories get back to building
transportation bikes and restrict sales of race replicas to
expert racers. If there had to be a law regulating replica racers it should
be that if you try to put lights and mirrors on it and
ride it on the street, it gets seized and goes to the crusher, so the
scofflaw can never get it back.
This would actually *help* club racing, IMO. A grass roots racer would have
to start on a small *street* bike, modify it
into a more suitable racer by wrenching on it himself, before he could get a
real racebike. Nobody needs a 200 horsepower
ZX14 to ride to the Rock Store on Sundays.
There used to be all sorts of small bore road racing classes based upon 50cc,
125cc and 250cc motorcycles and a racer didn't have to spend $1000 a month
just to campaign for one season. A set of tires would last a whole seaon on a
125 GP bike and would last for years on a 50cc machine.
I think it was Paul Van Valkenburg who wrote an article about what a scam the
GSXR Cup series was back in 1987, only a year into the series. The GSXR's
were being sold at a loss, but a rider trying to campaign the series to get
the contingency money and (in his wildest fantasy) a factory team ride, would
spend $10,000 for that one season and wind up with a bike that was worth
$2000 and some cheap plastic trophies.
Paul could do anything on a motorcycle, he could do wheelies on a Gold Wing.
I watched him race a Yamaha 900cc Europort in the Battle of the Twins.
BOTT. There's another racing class that has dropped off the public's radar
screens, along with the 883 Harley Sportster class.
--
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