What's that I hear in here?

i see it as more of an indictment of the top riders in the field not really much of an equipment thing. Elias comes in and whips them, but hasn't been able to keep a rider in motogp or wsbk. or maybe he did have opportunities and didn't except them.

 

This Suzuki vs yamaha,kawasaki or whoever thing only gets deeper when the "outdated bike" shows up and beats another platform that has had a handful or revisions or complete redesigns that everyone flocks too because of it's new tricks.
I agree with the cross pollination thing, I think the alarm has gone off now. Who knows if it will continue to ring but the local boys are on notice. If Tony wants to ride my bike he can but I'm keeping this wall and my tasty treats until further notice.

 

Tony Elias Toby Elias Tobias blah blah that's all you got? Did he ride both Suzuki's to take first and second? Seems there was another guy on a clapped out, other end of the spectrum, no good off the showroom floor bike who also smoked the field. Try again kids!

 

If a simple claw hammer does the job and sells okay why do you need to keep introducing new implements to drive in nails? To capture the shiny, new and latest market? Meh, they will most likely buy something "more exclusive" anyways.

 

And the sad part is that people actually think that SBK has anything to do with the actual bikes people buy in the showroom. Those outdated bikes racing in SBK have been upgraded with all of the same electronic gizmos as the newer bikes, have lighter wheels, better brakes, a lot more HP, so on and so forth. They spent a ton of money and make a ton of changes to get those outdated bikes competitive.

People will say stuff like "you don't need all of that fancy stuff the new bikes come with, the old Suzuki is winning without all of that modern stuff". But in reality, that is false. They added all of that modern stuff to the Suzuki before racing it.

 

Luckily the people at Suzuki disagree with you, hence the all-new Gixxer coming out for 2017.

 

Ill agree with that to an extent. Can Livengood put all this technology on say a 05zx10 and make it work? You have to have a decent place to start.

 

We'll have to see after a couple more races if it was just a track that suits Elias or if he's gonna run away from them but why the hate? Do you want to sit in a bubble and pretend our guys are fast enough and have them get shit on when they get over there or do you want them to get faster? The only way they are gonna get faster is by better competition.

 

I wouldn't discount Elias ability to provide input and feedback that benefitted both racers.

 

That is very true. You still need to have a good base, and the Suzuki is obviously a good base. With enough parts/money/etc thrown at it, it can be made competitive. But to see how good the bike truly is (without tens of thousands thrown at it), we gotta look at World Superstock.

 

I'd prefer that Elias had a much harder time of it and may still have it at less euro friendly tracks.

But still, I thank the sweet baby black jeebus that Elias and Pork Chop got the 1 - 2 thus giving me the joy of extolling the virtues of those BNG suzuki has. Hey, maybe when Lewis is back, they'll get some 1 - 2 - 3s.

 

The REAL question is, what kind of times would Elias be able to put down at TalladegaGP?

 

Along those lines, I remember when Hopper first hit BSB and was taking crazy lines compared to everyone else. The commentators were saying his GP experience likely had an influence on that and kept joking "Nobody told him you can't do that" so it worked.

 

Elias would win ALL the trackdays and set record pace at the tail of the dragon. BNG power, bitches!

He'd even out bike clean you.

 

Graves and HSBK have all those superbike parts too...but also have recent R&D investments into their bikes from the factory.
Is the only difference on the showroom floor between bikes which one comes with all the gizmos stock?

 

Ducati, BMW, Aprilia, Kawi (and now R1) have drastically raised the bar for stock bikes. You can take any of those bikes and reach 200hp without doing much motor work (and in some cases, without even touching the motor). They have advanced electronics (traction control, wheelie control, launch control, power modes, engine braking control, quickshifter, auto-blip, etc). Not to mention they have made a lot of chassis improvements, have lighter wheels, better braking systems, etc.

The difference is that once they are in Superbike trim, the playing field is level. You can take an oldass bike like the Gixxer or Honda and build the shit out of the motor. 215hp is 215hp, regardless of how much work it takes to get there. Then you can swap their braking components to Brembo, go with Forged Aluminum wheels, add Motec or Marelli electronics, change the Triples and linkage, weld bracing onto the frame, so on and so forth.

So at the end of the day, you end up with close to the same finished product across all brands, regardless of what the starting point was. That is why SBK racing is essentially useless or irrelevant when talking about how good a bike is. At that level, all of the bikes are relatively equal because they all have tens of thousands dumped into them. Which brings the emphasis back on the rider (which Elias is obviously world-class), quality of the teams, etc.

To find out how good a bike truly is, you have to look at WSTK racing where they can essentially do nothing to the bikes (compared to SBK's). The World Superstock rules are much more stringent than even WERA's Superstock rules. That is why it is a true test of the bike's abilities.

For a few years you only saw a Panigale, BMW or ZX10 running at the front of WSTK. I don't mean "usually", I mean ALWAYS...without fail. They were the only bikes capable of reaching 200hp without going into the motor and the other bikes couldn't compete.

 

The crazy part is that there is only a 3 second difference between the two.

http://resources.worldsbk.com/files....pdf?version=cfcd208495d565ef66e7dff9f98764da

http://resources.worldsbk.com/files....pdf?version=cfcd208495d565ef66e7dff9f98764da

 

But we both know that 3 seconds is WORLD of difference. It means by the end of the race, the WSBK winner would cross the finish line over a full minute before the WSTK winner got there.

Even in club racing, 3sec per lap can be the difference between winning an Expert race and finishing 10th in a Novice race.

 

This I know, but I am wondering what exactly is allowed for their superstock. Just for the basis of apples to apples.