Playing with Fireblades
A more English autumnal scene you couldn’t hope to see. But while the third season exploded around me, I was more concerned with not crashing a bike so precious it effectively has no price; the HM Plant Honda Fireblade.
Now, Honda can control lots of things, but one thing out of its remit was the destiny of the 2005 British Superbike championship. Thanks (at least in part) to injuries to its two riders, Michael Rutter and Ryuichi Kiyonari, Airwaves Ducati’s Gregorio Lavilla snuck in and took the spoils at the last round of the season and pissed all over Honda’s chips.
So while we’re not looking at a title-winning bike, we are gazing upon a machine that won the most races in 2005 and is one of the most sorted bikes in the paddock. But after quizzing Kiyonari’s crew chief, Kiwi Adrian Gorst, the HRC-spec Fireblade isn’t quite the exclusive machine that it’s made out to be in most parts of the press.
“Well it’s a standard road bike chassis for a start, the swingarm is virtually identical to the road going version – there’s just a couple of small modifications like the chain blocks – and we’ve even raced and won using the standard road bike linkage,” so there goes your arguments about exclusivity. What about the fire-breathing motor?
“The motor can have pretty much anything done to it,” says Gorst, and you only have to look at the Yamaha superbike for evidence of that: the Virgin squad radically changed the firing order of the R1. “But in truth we’ve not done that much to it. It’s a 1,000cc four-cylinder unit so it’s not that difficult to get horsepower out of it.
We’ve compared our bike with other Fireblades racing in the series and they’re all putting out about the same sort of power, over 200bhp, so the most important thing is developing useful power.” You see, the money goes into extracting the final few percentage points from the package. Michael Rutter agrees “This year’s bike is one that virtually anyone could have bought: but no-one really believes how standard the bike actually is.
Virtually everything on it is kit parts and I’d say that last year’s bike was more of a factory machine.” All of which is doing little to calm my nerves before my first shot on the machine. To warm up I get a few laps on the standard road bike to re-acquaint myself with riding at 130mph on a wet track.
Other than the stock tyres protesting at the application of power, the 1 stock ‘blade feels easy to ride. There’s so much room to lever the bike this way and the brakes are nicely progressive and the machine seems to almost relish the difficult surroundings.
The motor never overwhelms the chassis and you just get a feeling of a very accomplished package as you feel your way around the circuit. My nerves are still shot though, and on my return I contemplate the addition of another 60bhp in a hugely focused chassis.
The HM plant crew buzz around their temporary queen bee, i.e. me, and they all wear their serious race faces as they download data from the previous rider. I hop on and get pushed to bump start the machine as I tiptoe onto the circuit. Five laps later, and as my breathing recovers to a level just below pant, my arms and legs ache from the tension.
I’l hop off thinking that I’d done OK but a few minutes later I get Adrian Gorst berating me, “Hey Kiyo, look at this.” He shows Kiyonari the throttle opening trace, “If you come and ride like this you get sacked.”
Kiyo laughed politely, not really understanding the point, but I get it, big time. I’d managed to open the bike to 68 per cent full throttle, which equate to around 140mph. It felt like I was going to die but it turns out that my cajones are 32 per cent too small. The traces also ridiculed me for closing the throttle instead of leaving it open and letting the quickshifter do the work.
Trickling through the mountain section the bike also felt cumbersome and indignant at going so slowly. The steering lock is understandably limited and for the fi rst few laps it felt like I’d have to three-point turn it round the wooded section. I got off thrilled but disappointed. It was the ultimate ten-minute tease.
I wasn’t expecting another shot on the bike, but Gorst quietly muttered, “Who wants another shot on it then?” Ask a stupid question… Session two was fantastic, even with the track still damp and now speckles of rain peppering my visor.
At least I got my self-respect back as I nailed that bastard and came back with the traces to prove it. It was truly frightening and I have no idea how any racer does that in the middle of the pack or at the North West 200.
But slowly the ‘blade started to accept my humble speeds. Riding it got easier as lines could be picked easily and the power applied smoothly from 4,000 rpm. There’s not much more I can say about the ride. It felt as if Honda had fitted a CBR600 engine as well as the ‘blade motor to give it that mighty kick.
But the rest of the package needed a dry day to start to tell you the truth. But the racing speaks for itself. If it wasn’t for crashes into too-near tyre walls at Mallory (Kiyonari) and Snetterton (Rutter) this would almost certainly have been the championship-winning bike. It oozes ability like the day’s sky oozed moisture, another stroke of bad luck which pretty well sums up this bike’s season.
Source: SuperBike Magazine