What’s it like to ride?

Where each successive version had felt like the powered-up progeny of the previous year, the world champion Honda had a character all of its own. Riding Kocinski’s RC45 first underlined this. To make this bike motor, I had to ride it like the four-stroke GP racer it had become. Maybe that’s why LI’I John took to it so quickly, as he was the only man, until Max Biaggi more than a decade later, to have won world titles in both GP and Superbike racing. The Honda revved like a two-stroke, but it still drove as cleanly as a road bike from 6,000rpm upwards. From 10,000rpm on, things happened faster, then from 13,000rpm it took on the mantle of a two-stroke GP racer. No four-stroke I’d ridden before had ever picked up speed like this. Despite the SBK class’s 32kg weight penalty, I reckon a few 500cc GP bikes would have struggled to stay with it out of a slow corner. It even sounded different. That flat drone became a whine as the revs soared and suddenly I was hitting the 14,750rpm rev-limiter. The main factor in Honda’s horsepower hike was adapting twin injectors for the 72 x 46mm 16-valve V4 motor’s PGM-F1 electronic fuel injection. Combined with larger air intakes, a bigger airbox, revised valve and ignition timing delivered a significant power increase from 10,000rpm upwards. “We use the first injector only till 8,000rpm, then the second one comes in as well, to give maximum fuel flow,” said Nakamoto. “We can change the point at which this happens, but so far we didn’t do so at races, only in testing. But it made a big improvement to performance.” This helped fill the midrange trough in the power curve which had previously necessitated the bulky system of variable-length intake trumpets. “While Honda’s main development for their championship season went into the engine, the chassis was very little changed, said Nakamoto. Hopping board Kocinski’s bike, I immediately discovered the same jacked-up Gp-style stance as on his works Ducati I’d ridden a year earlier. My body weight was in the middle of the wheelbase, but it was still a surprisingly spacious riding position. John sat further back on the RC45 than Aaron, who loaded up the front end with his body weight. On the Kocinski bike, this allowed me to tuck well down behind the screen in a straight line, yet still slide forward a little when sitting up for turns. It felt good. But jacking up the rear end steepened the effective steering head angle from its 24º static measurement, and this, combined with John running the shortest swingarm and tightest wheelbase possible on the bike, delivered a machine that steered quickly, turned sharply and handled nimbly. The RC45 had a variety of different swingarm lengths ranging across a 27mm span. Slight usually went for the longest option, Kocinski the shortest. This helped him counter the effect of the Honda’s fairly high centre of gravity. Using the beefy midrange to powersteer in corners, the shortened wheelbase and rearwards weight transfer lightened the front wheel, and helped him turn the bike on the throttle. He’d used a similar technique to win 500cc GPS with Cagiva. Without pretending to emulate JK, I could feel this setup in two ways. The shorter, steeper Kocinski bike turned in more nimbly than Slight’s RC45. Then it waved the back wheel in the air when I squeezed hard on the brakes, even with my extra weight compared to JK’S. Partly this was due to the shorter wheelbase, partly to what felt like soft front suspension settings, and partly to the raised rear ride height, all combining with the extra weight transfer to lift the rear wheel. I noticed just one more handling glitch, namely understeer while on the gas exiting corners. The Hondas ran 17in Michelins at most rounds that year while many rivals were on 16.5in Dunlops. Still, Honda won that World Superbike title with a bike that was simply the best. Kocinski took full advantage of several wet races, using his peerless rain skills and the RC45’S flat torque curve. But he also excelled in the dry. Anyone who watched him catch the pack and pass them to win at Assen knows he deserved the World Superbike title. But if JK hadn’t done it, there’s a good chance team-mate Slight might have instead.