Pip challenges Guy Martin… Ooooh! Stand back!
(I mean, ‘Guy speaks’!)
Whenever Guy Martin speaks, we all listen, it’s the law. Anybody that loves a Tranny van as much as Guy does gets my unconditional respect. So it set me back on my heels a bit when he was chatting to David Coulthard in the pits at Spa. In case you missed the F-yawn confab, Guy was crewing for Williams in the mad scramble that sees a new set of hoops installed in less time than it takes me to blow my schnoz. Guy enthused greatly about the technical height to which the four-wheeled yawn fest had risen. Fine, I’m a believer, I love anything that tries to shove the world backwards. Having chatted a couple of years back at Goodwood with one of the Mercedes engineers about the techniques involved in the energy recovery systems and the hybrid turbo/supercharger on their latest engine I needed a lie down in a darkened room. But Guy went on to say that bike development was ‘a bit of a disappointment’. Now, he suggested that there was little in the way of innovation that had taken place for several moons, qualifying this with a reference to the way John Britten had turned superbike development from a Darwinian evolutionary process into a revolution that did, in fact, blow people’s socks off at 20 paces. True, Britten’s bikes were (and are) utterly amazing with composite frames and wheels, Hossack-style front ends and a zillion other ideas turned into functional reality. Nobody saw them coming and the world was robbed of a near unique free thinker when JB was tragically taken in the md-1990s. But I think we need a little injection of context when considering the relative two/four wheeled development process. In 1984 I remember taking a squint over Garry Taylor’s shoulder at a drawing board with the outline of a frame on it unlike anything I’d seen before. The bloke with the cheeky grin and a pencil behind his ear was Nigel Leaper and he’d been tasked with creating a frame (and subsequently swingarm and rim mounted disc brakes... oh I nearly forgot the upside down forks, a world’s first maybe) to house the Hamamatsu supplied XR70RV engine and possibly give Suzuki an edge over the other, fully works backed teams. What’s that? BMW are offering a carbon-fibre chassis now on their latest projectile and isn’t the Telelever front-end fitted to several Bahn-stormers remarkably similar to the aforementioned Hossack/ Britten front end? I think I see a pattern emerging here; there are incredible free thinkers out there and there always have been. Walter Kaaden, grandad of two-stroke revitalisation beyond anyone’s imagination, Michio and later Shunzo Suzuki who implemented many of Kaaden’s principles in their production bikes are also a couple of examples of engineers who were not frightened of innovation. How about Tadao Baba, the guy who put the ‘Fire’ into ‘Blade’, surely a seminal move in quick bike development due to his ‘total control’ ethos. But the one who springs to my mind is Philip E Irving, a visionary with the ability to think laterally to an extent that humbles me. Irving’s career bounced from his adjustable rear suspension seen on many Velocettes, big and small, to the V-twin heart of Vincent’s mighty Rapide and Shadow models. Now here’s a thought, two of the acknowledged 20th century bike innovators, Irving and Britten, hail from the antipodes… Irving’s CV also credits him with the design of the Repco Brabham F1 engine in 1964. Two years later, Jack Brabham won the F1 world title using Irving’s masterpiece. Personally I find this ability to create exceptional design icons, without any bias, quite astounding. I think the point I’m trying to make is that bike innovation can only respond to the rule book written by the governing bodies and there’s the rub. In an effort to control costs and thus encourage greater diversity into Motogp (and to a lesser extent most other formulae) our lords and masters have tied the metaphorical bootlaces of the blokes tasked with R&D to the extent that they are not doing much R and a minimal amount of D. This sketchy principle is a bit of a worry to me. Surely preferable to slacken the lead a bit and see just what today’s young brains can come up with. I accept that the law of diminishing returns is one that’s unlikely to be repealed and 200 horse power plus bikes weighing the same as an RD200 are getting increasingly difficult to improve, but as sure as eggs is baby chickens, if we can get the blinkers off there are bods out there with ideas as big and as fresh as anything that’s surfaced in the past; all they need is encouragement, and a goodly supply of sharp pencils. We want Guy and his enthusiasm on our side – F1 can keep DC, deal? One last thing, Nigel Leaper didn’t stop, or slow down after his time with Suzuki, he’s now on the top table at Red Bull F1, please come back Nigel...
“I love anything that tries to shove the world backwards, but maybe in the bike world there needs to be more R&D?”