I don't know about FIM, but they sure separate
them in roadracing. Back in the stone age when
Yamaha introduced their reed valve 350, everybody
laughed at them when they shipped over a racing
team to compete against the 750s at Daytona.
When they took something like first, second,
third, fourth and sixth places, nobody laughed
any more. Once upon a time I had a Yamaha 350
road racer that dynoed out at 18.5 HP from 2500
to 6000. From 6000 to 6500 the power jumped to
48. When racing that thing, you damn sure wanted
to be paying attention as the tach needle got
close to that 6000 mark! When Yvonne Duhammel
won Daytona on a Kawasaki three cylinder two
stroke back in the late 60s or early 70s,
everybody thought he was showing off by doing
wheelies everytime he went up onto the banking
out of the chicane at NASCAR turn three. After
the race, in a news interview, when asked about
the wheelies, he said that he had no intention of
showing off, the wheelies were simply the
uncontrolable results of multiplying the
horsepower by five all at once. (Must be what
it's like to hit the nitro button.) There's no
doubt that the two strokers put out more HP per
pound of motor (thus they rule GP motorcycle
racing,) but once you go looking for absolute
maximum power, I think the 4 strokers catch up
quick. I'm sure that comment will provoke a lot
of response!
Dick J
[This message delayed, as it needed manual intervention by the list
administrator. Just another person who has their mailer set to just
automatically include everything in the reply. mjb.]
///
/// land-speed@autox.team.net mailing list
///
|