IT’S NOT CHEATING, IT’S JUST INTERPRETING THE RULES…

As WSB is a ‘production bike’ race series, its rules require a company to homologate a road bike for racing. However, in order to encourage smaller manufacturers to compete with the might of Japan, the number of bikes required to be built is relatively low and it is currently just 125 to be allowed to race, 250 by the end of the race year and a total of 500 produced after two years. And this is the key to Ducati’s success. WSB’s rules are fairly strict in certain areas. However, what Ducati realised was that due to their small volume of production, they could quickly modify the road-going homologation special to ensure the race team could reap the benefits of a certain part. This is exactly what happened in 1998 when the WSB team required a modified frame to fit a larger airbox – Ducati simply built 202 ‘Foggy Reps’ with the altered chassis and the WSB team could then run it. However, it is when you look at a homologation special’s motor that it gets very interesting.

Very few SP, SPS or R models have the same bore and stroke as the road bike and most of them use exotic materials such as titanium con rods, uprated desmodromic systems, sand cast cases, close ratio gearboxes and even balanced cranks. Again, this is a simple exercise in rule bending as, if a part has to remain standard to be eligible for racing, Ducati simply stuck the uprated component in the limited edition model and added a few extra zeros to the bike’s price tag! One of the best examples of this is the 996R, which actually has a prototype testastretta head as well as a 2mm larger bore and 2.5mm shorter stroke in its 998cc engine, when compared to the road-going 996! Oddly, Ducati won the 2001 WSB title as Troy Bayliss’s 996R suddenly gained the bit of extra power required to top Colin Edwards’ SP-1 having been beaten by the Honda in the previous season…