Cycle World Podcast May 20, 2026

MotoGP 2027: Smaller Engines, Less Aero, More Thrills?! Thoughts on the New Era.

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Term

displacement

Displacement is basically how big the engine is inside, measured by cylinder volume. Changing it forces the bike to be engineered differently because the engine behaves differently.

Term

ride height

Ride height is how high the bike sits above the ground. If it’s closer to the track, the airflow under and around the bike changes, which can affect grip.

Car

Ducati GP26

The Ducati GP26 is the current MotoGP bike the hosts think the new one looks like. They’re talking about the bike’s shape and airflow parts that help keep it planted on the track.

Term

downforce

Downforce is the “suction” effect from the air that presses the bike onto the track. More downforce usually means the tires can stick better when you’re turning fast.

Term

venturi

A venturi is a duct shape that makes air speed up. Faster air over/under the bike creates a pressure difference that helps push the bike down onto the track.

Term

restrictors

Restrictors are limits placed on the engine’s airflow to make it less powerful. Racing rules use them to keep speeds and performance from getting too extreme.

Term

1000 CC engine

“1000 CC” is a way to describe engine size. It’s used to talk about what kind of engine the current MotoGP bikes have before the rules change.

Term

minimum weight

Minimum weight is the lightest the bike is allowed to be by the rules. If the allowed minimum drops, teams can build lighter bikes and the bike may handle more sharply.

Term

belly pan

The belly pan is the flat panel on the bottom of the bike. On race bikes, it helps control airflow under the bike, and when the bike is lowered it can work more effectively.

Term

A dragster is a purpose-built drag racing car designed to run very low to the ground for aerodynamic efficiency. The comparison suggests the MotoGP bikes are lowered at the start to reduce aerodynamic drag and improve acceleration behavior.

Term

maximum braking

Maximum braking means braking as hard as the tires can handle. If the bike starts to lift at the back, it’s usually a sign you’re very close to the traction limit.

Term

tire warm up

Tire warm up means getting the tires up to the right temperature. Tires that are too cool don’t grip as well, so you may need to wait before the bike’s best performance shows up.

Term

fairing

A fairing is the outer shell on the bike that covers the engine and other parts. On race bikes, it’s shaped to control airflow and can change how much grip the bike gets from aerodynamics.

Term

ram effect

At high speed, the air gets pushed into the engine’s intake with extra pressure. That can make the engine breathe better and make more power, but if the fuel doesn’t increase the same way, the mixture can end up too lean. A lean mixture can cause rough running or backfiring.

Term

air box

An air box (intake plenum) is the chamber in the intake system that smooths airflow before it reaches the engine. In MotoGP/F1-style setups, the air box can be tuned so pressure waves help the engine ingest air at the right moments. The hosts describe it as a resonant system where pressure acts like the “spring” and the air acts like the “mass.”

Term

stagnation

In fluid dynamics, stagnation refers to a region where airflow velocity drops toward zero, so pressure rises relative to surrounding flow. The hosts mention intake placement “at stagnation” to suggest the intakes are positioned where the pressure is more favorable and less sensitive to airflow direction. That helps stabilize the pressure feeding the air box at speed.

Term

twin V12

A twin V12 means two engines, each with 12 cylinders arranged in a V shape, working together. The hosts mention it to show that at very high speed, the air pressure changes can make the engine run too lean and backfire. It’s an example of why intake design matters.

Term

air racer

An air racer is an airplane designed to go as fast as possible in races. The hosts use it as an example of how high-speed airflow can change engine breathing and cause problems if fuel delivery doesn’t keep up. It’s a physics lesson applied to racing engines.

Term

lean condition

A lean condition means the air-fuel mixture has more air than the engine needs relative to the amount of fuel. That can lead to incomplete combustion and symptoms like backfiring or popping, especially under high-speed airflow changes. The segment uses this to explain how ram effect can make an engine act lean even if the baseline calibration was correct.

Term

induction system

The induction system is everything that delivers the air charge to the engine—typically intake runners, plenum/air box, throttle, and related plumbing. When the mixture and pressure conditions are wrong (like a lean condition at high speed), combustion events can occur at the wrong time and place, potentially damaging the intake components. The hosts mention “powerful explosions” blowing the induction system off as a historical failure mode.

Concept

streamlining

Streamlining is shaping the bike to reduce aerodynamic drag and manage airflow so it reaches the intake area cleanly. In this segment, the hosts say streamlining helps route air from the front around the steering head and prevents “junk” from interfering with airflow into the air box. That’s part of how modern MotoGP machines try to maximize ram pressure and intake efficiency.

Term

diffuser

A diffuser is a shaped passage that slows down and spreads out fast-moving airflow, converting some of that kinetic energy into higher static pressure. In racing aerodynamics, diffuser efficiency affects how much pressure recovery you get, which can influence how air is managed around the bike and intake area. The hosts tie diffuser efficiency to how much power gain is available at speed.

Term

850 cc

“850 cc” refers to engine displacement, measured in cubic centimeters, which is the total volume swept by the pistons. Lower displacement generally limits how much air/fuel the engine can ingest per cycle, so teams compensate with higher revs, improved combustion efficiency, and intake/aero tuning. The hosts frame it as a rule change that could reduce peak horsepower but still allow strong performance via airflow management.

Term

MotoGP

MotoGP is the premier motorcycle road-racing series, where teams develop engines and aerodynamics under strict regulations. In this segment, the hosts discuss upcoming rule-era bikes and how engine displacement changes (850 cc) relate to power output and intake/aero strategies. The context is about how regulations drive technical tradeoffs.

Company

FIM

FIM is the group that makes the big rules for motorcycle racing. They decided to lower the maximum engine size limit discussed here.

Term

corner speeds

Corner speed just means how fast you’re going while turning. If you go faster through corners, mistakes are harder to fix and crashes tend to be worse.

Brand

Yamaha

Yamaha is one of the motorcycle brands that competes in MotoGP. Here, the speaker says Yamaha was trying to figure out how the newer bikes were matching or beating the older 990 cc machines.

Term

acoustic analysis

Acoustic analysis means using sound to figure out what’s happening with the engine. Instead of reading data directly, you listen to the bike and use that to estimate things like revs.

Term

RPM

RPM means how many times the engine spins each minute. Higher RPM usually means the engine is working harder, and it’s a key number people watch in racing.

Term

tachometer

A tachometer is the gauge that shows engine speed, typically in RPM. The speaker is describing how MotoGP broadcasts used to show the tachometer so viewers could see engine revs during a race.

Company

Dorna

Dorna is the organization behind MotoGP’s event and broadcast presentation. In this story, they used to show the tachometer/RPM on-screen.

Term

bore

Bore is how wide each cylinder is inside the engine. If you change bore, it changes how the engine breathes and how it behaves when you rev it.

Term

stroke

Stroke is how far the piston moves inside the cylinder. If stroke stays similar while bore changes, the engine’s overall “shape” changes and so does how it performs.

Term

V10

V10 means the engine has 10 cylinders arranged in a V shape. It’s mentioned here because older Formula 1 cars used that layout and could spin very high RPM.

Term

crankpins

Crankpins are parts of the crankshaft that the connecting rods connect to. They help determine how the engine’s cylinders are arranged and how the crankshaft turns as each cylinder fires.

Term

top-center

Top-center is when the piston is at its highest point. Ignition timing means the spark happens a little before that point so the engine makes more power.

Term

piston acceleration

As the piston moves, it speeds up and slows down every cycle. That changing motion creates forces inside the engine, and those forces can help explain why certain spots—like near the wrist pin—crack over time.

Term

wrist pin bosses

The wrist pin is the small pin that connects the piston to the connecting rod. The “bosses” are the thicker, reinforced parts of the piston around that pin—places that can crack if the engine is under a lot of stress.

Term

rev limiters

A rev limiter is like a built-in ceiling for engine RPM. It keeps the engine from spinning too fast, which protects it—but it can also cap how hard you can push it in racing.

Term

duct leading up to the valve

Think of it like the pipe that channels air into the cylinder. If that passage is the wrong size or shape compared to the valve, air has a harder time getting in efficiently.

Term

speed of sound

The speed of sound is how fast pressure waves travel through air. If air in the intake gets close to that speed, it stops flowing as easily, which can cap engine power.

Term

Mach effects

Mach effects happen when air starts moving near the speed of sound. In an engine intake, that can make airflow harder to push through, so the engine can’t breathe as well.

Term

choking of the flow

Choking of the flow means the intake passage reaches a limit where it can’t pass any more air, even if the engine tries to pull harder. That’s why power can stop rising and start dropping at higher RPM.

Term

dyno

A dyno is a machine that tests an engine and measures how much power it makes. When airflow gets “choked,” the dyno charts often show torque dropping after a certain point.

Term

torque

Torque is the engine’s twisting force—what actually “pulls” the car forward. If the intake can’t move more air, torque can start to fall as revs go up.

Term

horsepower curve

A horsepower curve is a chart of how power changes as the engine spins faster. If the engine can’t get enough air at high RPM, the power chart stops improving and can start to flatten or drop.

Concept

limiting piston speed

Engines can only spin so fast because the piston has to move back and forth extremely quickly. At some point, that motion starts to stress the engine too much, so RPM stops increasing safely.

Car

Audi 4000

The Audi 4000 is an older Audi passenger car, built as a comfortable sedan for everyday driving. It’s significant because it helped bring Audi into the U.S. market. It may be mentioned in a podcast when discussing older car history or technology.

Term

top dead center

Top dead center is the point in the engine cycle where the piston is at its highest position. The podcast says the hardest forces happen near that point, which affects how fast the engine can safely spin.

Term

connecting rod

The connecting rod is the part that physically connects the crankshaft to the piston. Because it has a real length, it changes how the piston speeds up and slows down during the cycle.

Term

fatigue failure

Fatigue failure is metal getting damaged over time from repeated stress. The podcast explains that heat and vibration make that damage happen faster, so the engine parts eventually fail.

Car

Honda NR500

Honda’s NR500 was a race bike from the late 1970s that tried a very unusual piston shape to chase very high engine speeds. The hosts mention it as an example of how ambitious RPM targets were back then.

Term

predicted life

“Predicted life” means the team estimates how long a part can safely last. They use that estimate to decide when to replace it before it breaks.

Term

sealed case

A “sealed case” means the engine comes in a controlled container. The idea is to keep it from being changed and to make sure everyone follows the same rules.

Term

piston temperature

Piston temperature is how hot the piston gets while the engine is running. If it runs too hot, it wears out faster.

Term

log book

A log book is a written record of how much a critical part has been used. Inspectors check it to see what service or inspections are required next.

Term

piston fatigue limit

This is about how long an engine part can keep taking repeated stress. After enough cycles, metal can start cracking, so rules may limit how much the engine can be pushed.

Term

breathing

“Breathing” here means how well the engine can pull in air and push out exhaust. If it can’t move enough air fast enough, power is capped.

Concept

spec tire

A spec tire is the same tire everyone has to run. It helps keep the competition fair by limiting how much teams can gain just by choosing a better tire.

Term

carcass

The carcass is the tire’s internal framework. If it’s softer or stiffer, the tire flexes differently, which changes how it grips and how it “warns” you when you’re running out of traction.

Term

footprint

The footprint is where the tire actually touches the road. How big and how stable that contact area is can change grip and steering feel.

Term

rubber compounds

Rubber compounds are the recipe inside the tire tread. Different recipes can make the tire grip better, wear differently, or handle heat in different ways.

Term

ultimate grip

Ultimate grip means the most traction the tire can provide before it starts losing control. It’s basically the tire’s “best possible” grip level.

Term

step

Here “take a step” means the tire’s feel changes after some laps. It’s like the grip level settles into a new stage as the tire gets used to the race.

Brand

Pirelli

Pirelli makes race tires. Here, they’re talking about changing their MotoGP tire so it feels closer to what riders are used to with Michelin.

Brand

Michelin

Michelin is also a company that makes race tires. The hosts are using Michelin as the reference point for the kind of tire behavior they want to copy.

Term

fuel horsepower

Horsepower is how much power the engine makes. “Fuel horsepower” here is a way of talking about the power level the rules allow the engine to produce.

Concept

World Superbike

World Superbike is a top motorcycle racing series. In this segment, they’re comparing it to MotoGP to see which series should be quicker under the new rules.

Term

virtual power band

It’s a computer trick that makes the bike’s pull feel smoother. Rather than the engine surging and then falling off, the electronics smooth out the “strong” and “weak” parts so it’s easier to ride and control.

Term

anti spin systems

These are traction-control systems that help stop the rear wheel from spinning when you accelerate. They step in to reduce sudden surges of power so the tire can keep traction.

Term

butterflies in the intake system

They’re the valves that control how much air the engine gets. More air usually means more power, and the computer can adjust these valves to make the bike’s response smoother.

Car

Aprilia Shiver 750

The Aprilia Shiver 750 is a 750cc V-twin motorcycle. The host is using it as an example of how electronic throttle control can make the engine’s pull feel smoother and more controllable.

Term

electronic throttle

Instead of cables directly moving the throttle, a computer controls it. That lets the bike adjust power delivery more precisely than a purely mechanical throttle.

Term

seamless transmissions

A seamless transmission is a gearbox that shifts so smoothly you barely feel the power drop. The goal is to keep the rear wheel driving without a big interruption.

Term

Big Bang firing order

Big Bang firing order is a way of timing when the engine fires so the power delivery feels different. The goal is usually to help the bike stay stable and hook up better to the road.

Term

backlash protector

Backlash is a little looseness in the drivetrain. A backlash protector helps the bike take up that slack smoothly when you start accelerating again out of a turn.

Term

ECU

ECU means the bike’s computer. It constantly adjusts how the engine runs so the bike responds the way the rider wants.

Term

ignition map

An ignition map tells the ECU when to fire the spark. Changing that timing can make the engine pull smoothly instead of jerking.

Term

sliding

Sliding means the tires aren’t gripping the road as they should. When that happens, the bike can start moving sideways, and the rider has to manage it to keep control and speed.

Term

durable tire

A durable tire is a tire that stays grippy and consistent for longer. That matters in racing because tires wear out and lose performance as the race goes on.

Term

rear tire lifts up off the pavement

If the rear wheel comes up, it means the bike’s weight is shifting forward hard. That changes how the bike turns and can be part of a dramatic, controlled entry into the corner.

Term

two wheel drift

A two-wheel drift is when both tires are sliding sideways in a controlled way while cornering. It can look wild, but it’s done on purpose to help the bike turn and stay fast.

Term

turn in point

The turn-in point is when the rider starts the steering input to enter the corner. Do it at the right time and the bike rotates smoothly; do it wrong and grip can fall off.

Term

brake line pressure

Brake line pressure is how hard the brakes are being applied, measured as hydraulic pressure. If the rider eases it off at the right moment, the bike can settle and rotate smoothly into the corner.

Term

slip angle

Slip angle is basically “how much the tire is pointed vs. how it’s actually sliding.” Riders use it to keep a controlled amount of sideways motion instead of losing the bike.

Term

tread surface temperature

Tread surface temperature is how hot the rubber on the tire gets. Tires usually grip best when they’re in the right temperature range, so heat affects traction.

Concept

drifting attitude

A drifting attitude means the rider is intentionally letting the bike slide a bit while still controlling it. It can help the bike aim for the corner’s inside point (the apex).

Term

apex

The apex is the point in a corner where the rider aims to pass closest to the inside. Hitting the apex helps determine the bike’s exit angle and how effectively it can transition from braking/turn-in to accelerating out of the corner.

Term

non fossil origin fuel

Non-fossil fuel means the fuel isn’t made from regular petroleum. The idea is to reduce the climate impact compared with traditional gasoline or diesel.

Concept

fuel synthesis from CO2 and water (hydrogen/oxygen separation)

They’re describing making fuel artificially using captured CO2 and hydrogen made from splitting water. Then they combine those ingredients to build fuel molecules that can be burned in an engine.

Term

products of combustion

When fuel burns, it creates exhaust gases. For typical fuels, that includes CO2 and water vapor, and that’s what they’re referring to as combustion products.

Car

Tesla Semi

The Tesla Semi is a fully electric truck used to move cargo. Instead of using diesel fuel, it runs on electricity stored in large battery packs. It’s often discussed because it changes how trucking gets its power for long trips.

Term

GPS data session by session

The rules say teams have to share their GPS track data after each practice/race session. That data shows the path the rider takes through corners, so teams can compare and learn from each other.

Term

trajectories

Here, “trajectories” means the exact line the rider takes through a turn. Teams look at it to understand where to brake and when to turn so the bike follows a faster path.

Term

engine control unit

The engine control unit is the bike’s main computer. It decides how the engine runs by reading sensors and adjusting things like fuel and timing.

Term

spec software

Spec software is the standardized ECU program that the series provides to all teams. By controlling the software, MotoGP reduces the performance gap that could come from teams developing their own engine-management algorithms.

Term

tire company

In MotoGP, tires are a huge part of how fast and how safe the bike feels. The idea mentioned here is to change the tires so they provide less grip, which can make the racing slower and more controlled.

Term

fuel capacity

Fuel capacity is how much fuel the bike is allowed to carry. If the limit gets smaller, the rider and engine have to use fuel more carefully, especially when accelerating or riding at partial throttle.

Term

part throttle

Part throttle is when you’re not going 100%—you’re giving the engine some, but not full, power. That’s a key area because fuel-saving strategies often have to work there too.

Term

aerodynamics

Aerodynamics is how air moving past the bike affects speed and grip. If aero is reduced, the bike may handle more based on tires and suspension instead of airflow tricks.

Term

octane grading

Octane grading is a fuel’s ability to resist knocking. Better knock resistance helps the engine run harder without the combustion becoming uncontrolled.

Term

synthetic oil

Synthetic oil is a specially made engine oil. It’s built to have consistent lubrication properties, which can help engines run better and last longer.

Term

aromatics

Aromatics are a class of hydrocarbon molecules found in some fuels and oils. The speaker contrasts aromatics with branched-chain molecules, implying that oxygen’s chemical reactivity with certain structures can affect how the oil degrades.

Concept

compression

Compression is how tightly the engine squeezes the air/fuel before it burns. That squeezing can affect how much power you get and even the character of the exhaust sound.

Term

blow down

“Blow down” is the sudden rush of hot gas out of the engine when the exhaust opens. That quick pressure drop is a big part of why the exhaust sounds the way it does.

Term

intake trumpets

Intake trumpets are special-shaped tubes on the intake side. They help the engine breathe at the right times, and that can change how it sounds and feels.

Term

cam profiles

Cam profiles are the shapes on the camshaft that control when the valves open and how they move. Changing them can change how the engine breathes and what it sounds like.

Term

exhaust valve lift

Exhaust valve lift is how much the exhaust valve opens. If it opens more, more gas can get out during the exhaust event, which can change the sound.

Car

Yamaha TD-1B

The Yamaha TD-1B is a vintage Yamaha two-stroke. The speaker brings it up to show how when the exhaust port opens changes the engine’s sound.

Concept

rotary deal

“Rotary” here means a special type of engine where parts spin to create power, rather than pistons moving up and down. It also tends to sound very different from a normal engine.

Car

Mazda 787B

The Mazda 787B is a Le Mans race car that used a rotary engine, which sounds and works differently than a normal piston engine. People bring it up because it’s one of the most iconic rotary race cars ever.

Topic

Super sport 1000

“SuperSport 1000” is a motorcycle racing category with 1000cc bikes. Different classes race under different rules, so the bikes and development strategies can be quite different.

Concept

optimize everything happens every year like that

This is about how race teams improve over time. When new bikes or rules start, it takes a few races to dial everything in, so older “sorted” bikes can sometimes be faster at first.

Concept

parity

Parity in racing means the organizers try to make the competition more even. The goal is that no single team or bike has a huge advantage all the time.

Term

twins

“Twins” means a bike engine with two cylinders. The hosts are talking about whether Moto3 should use that kind of engine instead of a different cylinder layout.

Term

singles

“Singles” are bikes with one-cylinder engines. The point here is that they’re simple and enjoyable, but fewer people buy them for road use.

Term

city courses

“City courses” are street-circuit layouts staged in urban areas, typically with tighter corners, more braking zones, and less runoff than purpose-built tracks. The hosts connect this to MotoGP’s push for broader appeal (“more eyes”) and a more casual fan experience.

Term

tires are not cold

Tires work best at the right temperature. If they’re cold, they grip less; if they’re warm, they usually feel stickier and more predictable.

LIVE

Hey, it's the Psycho World podcast. I'm Mark Hoyer, Editor-in-Chief. I'm with Kevin Cameron, our technical editor.

Our topic today is MotoGP 2027. It's coming fast.

We are going down in displacement and we are deleting lots of the fancy arrow and some ride height business.

We'll get into all those details, but it's an exciting time.

And a big transition for the class. We've done it before. We've gone, well, what have we done before?

We've gone down in displacement before and perhaps the outcome wasn't exactly what we expected, but we'll talk about those details as well.

Thanks for joining us here on YouTube. If you're on YouTube or on Spotify, etc., you can also find us on Patreon.

So for a small payment, you can get all this stuff commercial free. So check out the link in the description and you know, etc., also like, comment and subscribe, hit the bell, etc.

Okay, Kevin. MotoGP, lots of images and videos have emerged from Ducati's pre-27 test of their new bike.

Yes, but we don't know what they are. So it's a little difficult. Look at the thing. There's one of a fairing in black, that is, no paint, just plain carbon fiber.

And it looks just like the GP26. And the closer you look by Golly, it is a GP26.

And you look and you say, oh, that's really a big downwash duct. And it turns out it's a GP26 downwash duct. And so is the gently curving fairing sides.

So are the gently curving fairing sides, they are two of them, which when close to the pavement form a venturi.

And a venturi is a very efficient way of creating downforce because the air is quickly accelerated at the leading edge of the restriction.

Just as it was back when the AMA imposed restrictors on the TC750s at Daytona. With the restrictors in place, Kenny Roberts was able to lap the field.

And thus we would say that is anecdotal proof that a venturi doesn't lose a lot of energy.

Well, those features are present on GP26. So we just say, that's what we're looking at.

Nobody would be so foolish as to come out in public and say, here's our new bike, while you guys still have time to copy it.

There's any good reason to do that.

Well, fair enough going that well for Ducati.

But we're getting close. We're getting to a time when all will be revealed.

Now, the present motorcycle has 1000 CC engine. So it's something of a locomotive.

It's a minimum weight, 157 kilograms, 346 pounds, something like that.

157, yeah.

And that will decrease to 153, which is eight pounds or so lighter.

And I'm thinking to myself, the reason they gave them a break was so they wouldn't have to carry Joe wider weight plates on the bike to make up for the fact that it doesn't have variable ride height anymore.

Because what is still continuing at the present moment is that at the start of the race, the motorcycles are down.

So the belly pan is nearly touching the pavement.

They are low like a dragster.

And at the start, that low position allows them to accelerate towards turn one very vigorously so that then they have to use extra brake to get stopped for it.

This then continues throughout the race.

If you're breaking and the rear end comes up, that's maximum braking.

But by analogy with the dragster case, if you lower the bike, you can brake harder.

Not immediately.

You have to wait for the tire to warm up some because it cools off down the straightaway.

But these ride height devices are required by rule to be rider actuated, meaning I think it now can be a can cycle.

It's automatic, but you have to choose it or not choose it depending upon the corner.

So if you're entering a series of twisties, you're not going to hope that the bike is going to gain some advantage by rising and falling.

You're going to leave it high cornering mode throughout.

And then you will decide at the next corner that has a decent straightaway extending away from it, whether you need the advantage of the low ride height for acceleration.

Now, the reason that's been given for no longer permitting the use of these devices is everybody has them now.

So it's kind of like everyone has titanium fasteners.

So where's the advantage? Let's go back to steel. It's a lot cheaper.

And that makes sense because racing is expensive.

Check those hotel prices in Austin.

So the thing is that they're going to with less horsepower, they have less energy with which to push air across a lot of downforce arrow.

So a bunch of stuff will be missing.

They've fiddled around at the front of the fairing. The fairing will be narrower.

There'll be more room in front of the fairing for what have you.

And this is just details.

But I was thinking about the present motorcycle and they claim 300 horsepower for a good strong one.

And when you run the numbers, it comes up with a stroke average combustion pressure of that is unrealistic.

But then I thought, well, yes, but at 225 miles an hour, there is a ram effect that raises the pressure of the air entering the air box.

And you'll notice that those intakes are at stagnation.

They aren't off-center or you used to see them all over the place.

Formula 1 cars, you know, often have had them above the driver's head and slightly back.

So I always wanted to draw a swan face on those big necks sticking up.

The ram effect was a huge problem for the Italians in running their twin V12 air racer in the late 30s, late 20s and early 30s.

Because when they got to high speed, their engine began to backfire as if it were lean.

It was lean because the ram effect was packing in more air, but nothing was packing in more fuel.

This equals a lean condition and powerful explosions blowing the whole induction system off of an engine is not unheard of.

What's that bang I hear?

So in their case, Rolls-Royce had taken this into account and they were gaining something like 17% extra horsepower.

Well, at 220 miles an hour on one of these MotoGP locomotives, you have a theoretical gain of 5.8% available to you.

In order to get as much of that as is possible, they do a lot of streamlining to get the air from the inlet at the front around the steering head.

No junk sticking out, no tubes in the way to enter the air box.

And because it is a resonant air box, which came in around 1990, which is like blowing across the top of a beer bottle.

You get a tone.

And the air in the intake acts as the mass, the compressibility of the air in the air box is the spring.

And the trick is to get the engine to take air from the air box when its pressure is high and not when it's low during refilling.

But that thing is sitting down there humming.

So then we add RAM pressure to that and 300 horsepower is definitely a possibility because they're going to pick up 12 or 13 horsepower depending on how efficient their diffuser is.

The slowing down of the air entering the air box.

So that makes sense.

The rumor mill tells us the new bikes, which are 850 cc's will have 35 fewer horsepower.

And that probably means that we'll get 250 or 260 out of it without the air box booth.

Now, we all know, most of us know, that at the end of 2006, the FIM switched the maximum displacement from 990, which it had been from the beginning of the series in 2002 to 800 cc's.

Why did they do it?

Well, many riders were saying, our bikes have outgrown the gravel traps.

We're going to slide across the gravel with little stones flying in all directions and then we're going to go bam into the barrier.

And Valentino Rossi added his voice, he said, tires are improving very rapidly now, back when he was saying this 20 years ago.

And it was true.

So corner speeds are up.

This is a real problem because that's where the crashes occur.

And if you lose it in a corner at a higher corner speed, that's double the trouble and an increased risk of thumping the barrier, which nobody wants to do.

So the idea was, we'll just take away a bunch of displacement, nearly 20% in this case, and they'll be slower.

So at the end of the 2006 season, the last race, Valencia in Spain.

We've all heard of Valencia oranges.

They had a 800 cc prototype test on the Tuesday after the race.

The bikes went out on the track, they warmed up their tires.

They were, some of them were as fast as or faster than the 990s already.

How are they doing that?

Well, Yamaha wanted to know.

So I walked down to the end of the straightaway where they had an acoustic analysis business set up.

They had machines on the pit wall and they were recording the sound of the Yamaha in top gear as it approached Turn 1.

And of course, nobody discloses their RPM anymore.

It used to be that Dorna would put it in a corner of the display so that you could see the tachometer.

And there was some muttering and grumbling about that and so, okay, we'll take that down.

So we don't know now.

But if the Ducati's were turning 20,000 RPM, can comparison with the 16-4 or something of Haydn's Honda more than makes up for the decrease in displacement?

So they had made a mistake and they called the result an RPM race, which means everyone is trying to turn 20,000 or 21,000 or 21,500.

And that means a lot of testing where parts break.

And yes, you're calling your suppliers and saying, we need another conference.

Where can we meet? We'll bring you a basket of fragments.

And it's exciting to engineers, but the spectator tachometer information, it has minor interest.

What they want to see is racing.

So the 800cc series, the first year was won by Casey Stoner on a Ducati.

And he won 10 races.

And it was, you know, not much of a contest.

So this time people are saying, well, why would they make the same mistake twice?

850cc? That's not that...

Where's the RPM race?

Well, what they did this time was they said, we're going to reduce the bore, but we're going to keep the stroke very close to the same.

So before for the 1000cc bikes that we've raced since 2012, there was 81mm bore by 48.5mm stroke.

Now that's not an extreme ratio of bore to stroke.

Back in the Formula 1's V10 days, in what 2004 or 2005 or thereabouts,

they were running great big three-liter engines to 20,000 RPM with a bore of 98mm and a stroke of 39.75 for a bore stroke ratio of 2.4 something.

So this crankshaft, five crankpins long, two rods on each crankpin for V10.

And the stroke was just 40mm, it's small.

And with this great big piston, how would you light up a cylinder like that?

Crackle, crackle, said the flame.

Lots of way to go yet, crackle, crackle.

That was a problem because those engines had to be ignited like 60-something degrees before top-center.

Darna didn't want that, that's why they limited the 1000's to 81x48.5 which is not an extreme ratio, it's highly sporting.

But now they've reduced the bore only, they've told the constructors, you cannot use a bigger bore than this.

So it will be 75x48, same basic stroke as before, half a millimetre difference.

What that means is piston acceleration which is what produces cracks around the wrist pin bosses.

If you're not really clever about making beautiful organic shapes, then buying your pistons from the people whose aluminum is excellent.

That's expensive, so let's keep the same stroke.

And we are not going to impose rev limiters, why?

Because there's a big tradition of Honda tearing their hair and rending their garments over rev limiters.

We will withdraw from the series, forget Honda if you ever do this.

I don't know if that still puts a scare into the people in the blue blazers, maybe not, but at any rate they didn't say rev limiters.

So we have 75x48, in a 75mm bore the valves are smaller than an 81mm bore, so that's another thing that limits performance.

But the deal with that is you've got this duct leading up to the valve and typically the duct is like 0.81 to 0.85 times the valve head diameter.

And when the air moving down the duct and shouldering its way past the valve guide and cruising out into the cylinder over the 45 degree seating area,

when you get up towards half the speed of sound there's a lot of resistance to going any faster.

There are areas in which there are Mach effects, that is the speed of sound might be approached very closely in certain places.

Imagine a P-47 Thunderbolt of World War II in a vertical dive cruising along at 500 miles an hour or so.

You can imagine that going around that great bulky fuselage, air is going to get close to the speed of sound somewhere.

So this is part of what causes choking of the flow.

When there's choking beginning you can suck on the intake side, you can have a piston a mile in diameter moving at high speed and it wouldn't push any more air,

pardon me, suck in quotes because it's the atmosphere that's pushing.

No more air would go through the choked intake port.

That is why when you look at the output of the super flow or any other dyno, you will see that the torque goes along and then it starts to drop.

And if you look at the corresponding horsepower curve it goes up on a nice slope and then it softens and it turns southward.

And what this is is the torque is trailing off because the intake port is getting choked.

So at that point you would normally make the valves bigger or you might wisely be satisfied with what you have.

I don't know.

Who's ever done that?

So another thing that they talk about of course is that there's a limiting piston speed.

And this was always written about or spoken of in a sort of, this is something that is ruled by the elves and the elves don't give details.

And in 1907 4,000 piston feet per minute was reached by Césaire Naudin single cylinder race car engine with a 250 millimeter stroke.

4,000 feet per minute was talked about as the limiting piston speed for years and years right through the 60s.

Then it became 4,500.

This is not what limits RPM.

What truly limits RPM is piston acceleration.

If you look at one of those velocity versus crank angle charts you'll see that maximum piston acceleration is reached in the final instance approaching top dead center.

And not at bottom center.

There's high acceleration at bottom dead center but not as high as at top center.

And that's because the connecting rod is not infinitely long.

So the old banks Norton when its piston was being dragged to a stop by that mighty connecting rod of steel.

Peak acceleration was like 4,000 times the acceleration of gravity.

4,000 G's.

When Yamaha produced their 600 that was really hotcy-totcy, 7,000 G's.

And when MotoGP, mind you now they've got oil cooling of the piston so that helps with aluminum's fatigue strength because aluminum in Muzzy's words starts to go bad pretty fast when it's hot.

Because all those little atoms in the crystal lattice which are normally vibrating but not with enough energy to break loose very often.

But when you make it hotter they're vibrating with more energy that is closer to the threshold required for them to pating leave.

So you've got all these little atoms packed in there that are holding themselves together and external strains such as the rod dragging the fast-moving piston to a stop in one inch.

Those bonds are stretched and if you have the vibration of being hot added to that pop you start to get defects in the metal.

That is fatigue failure in progress.

So this is what has held back engines from reaching tremendous RPM.

Back when Honda were playing with their oval piston NR500 at the end of the 1970's their goal was 23,000 RPM.

And they wanted to make 150 horsepower.

They only got to 19,000 because 23,000 was like 30% greater acceleration than Formula One was using at the time.

So it's great to have ambition but sometimes you reach for it and it eludes you.

Stretch goals as I say business.

Stretch goals, yeah.

So one afternoon after 5pm I was at Laguna and I was walking past the Suzuki pit.

This is the story I've told before so just save L-Asset to yourself many times while I recite it.

But I noticed that the crew were having good time and they were lifting the flag in frequently.

They were having a good old time and I said what could you tell me what the occasion is?

And they said sure they just took our pistons off the 100, we went back on the 100k list.

Meaning that there's a statistical good chance that the pistons will go 62 miles.

So they were right up against it.

And many teams have experienced this.

Every part in a racing engine has a predicted life and if you've been to the races you've seen that new engines come in a sealed case on.

Often it has little casters on it so nobody has to throw his back out trying to lift it.

But this is a, well back to the problem Suzuki had been improving the performance of their engine by stages.

And in doing so the piston temperature had risen and so piston life had decreased.

So that's why they were delighted.

It meant that their riders had a good chance of finishing the race on something.

And it's extremely common to have the hour limitation I mean aircraft.

Oh absolutely yes.

Major overhauls, pistons, check the turbine blades you name it.

Wing spars, you know short hours, long hours depends.

That's why there's a log book.

So the inspector can say oh you're due for this and that and the other.

Please pay this amount.

Landing gear bungees on a 1946 Taylorcraft, 500 hours that's it.

And then also a time limit if it's less than 500 hours.

So sure.

And they literally are, they're just great big bungee cords that go under the lever for the gear and they attach onto the airframe.

So the FIM in this case or Doran or whoever is running the show technically speaking are relying on having on the same stroke as before imposing the same piston fatigue limit.

So if they want to run over 18,000 they'll have to come up with something.

They say, I looked for it in the rules.

It's supposed to say somewhere aluminum alloys only but I didn't find that part.

And as you know formula one are evaluating steel pistons and steel cylinder heads.

Because steel has a fatigue limit and it is much stronger than aluminum and it is more tolerant of high temperature.

The problem would be to make all the parts as thin as they need to be to have an acceptable weight.

And the other limiting factor is the breathing because the bore is a limited size and the valve is so big and you can only accelerate the valves as much as you can accelerate.

So we talked about bore stroke ratio and the NR500 and what have you.

One of the other changes that's coming in 2007 is Pirelli will replace Michelin as the spec tire for the series.

And Pirellis have a reputation of being softer in the carcass.

Spreading out more to create a large footprint and generally being well of giving good warning of imminent disaster.

Now years ago Michelin this is back in the two stroke era Michelin were making great strides toward ultimate grip of rubber compounds.

But they had carcasses that were stiff enough that when a lot of stress was passing through the footprint the edges of it didn't tend to buckle or roll up.

And by a series of little slips remind the rider hey buddy you're getting there stay on this side of that fence please.

And then suddenly comes this modest bombshell.

Now Giorgio what is his name.

Barbier Giorgio Barbier says in public that we are going to toward greater stiffness and less flexibility.

And the reasons that he gives are one MotoGP bikes are more powerful than the world super bikes where Pirelli has a lot of experience.

Another thing is that the Pirellis and this is something that Toprak Rasgat Yoglu has talked about the Pirellis after about 10 laps kind of take a step.

I'm not really up to all that great stuff anymore so just watch it.

So this means that Pirelli are looking to move toward some of the qualities of the Michelin when they begin to be the spec tire next year.

And this will this is a big unknown.

Supposedly people have had some experience on the prototype Pirellis and everyone's very optimistic but what would they say oh we're all downcast the prototypes are lousy we've had to start up in a new direction.

They're not going to say that.

So now is another concern which may have occurred to you and that is if the new MotoGP bikes with 35 fuel horsepower are a second or so slower will would they be beaten in a race by world super bikes which remain at a thousand CCs.

And how do you cope with that if you're Liberty Media owning both series and how does World Superbike go faster than MotoGP just can't happen.

So I looked at the lap record for the seven race tracks where both series run and at Phillip Island eight tenths of a second in favor of MotoGP Porta Mao one point six seconds awesome one and three quarter seconds and so on.

Finally we get to our own point 140 second.

So that one's really close.

But here's the thing.

If we take away from MotoGP its variable ride height system how much slower is that going to make them because the front end is going to want to pop up and there's going to be less arrow down force to push it back.

Well again this is all hearsay you know you go on the Internet you talk to people on the phone and they say well mumble mumble mumble and the name of that game is of course how can I avoid looking stupid.

And not give any information because they don't have any it was said at the time that these variable ride height systems were just beginning that there was point two to point three second advantage.

But then as they got the systems to work better and to poop out less frequently.

They never overcame that all together because you always are hearing about somebody that was doing well in the race and then his system locked in the upper down position and that was that.

Well along comes.

Or more slower because they can't accelerate as hard in the up position as they could in the down position.

So you can bet that they're all very well aware of this and no doubt they have a solution in mind.

I'd like to know what.

Well they're certainly having meetings right they've got to be having lots of conference calls and Matt trading math and sending coffee.

Yeah.

So another thing that's been said.

And to me this is this is just time filling words.

Oh well if they can't build more power.

Then they'll concentrate on making smoother power.

Does anyone think that they're trying to build in a lot more power.

Everyone in that business knows of in numerous innumerable occasions in which people came up with eight more horsepower and went slower.

Because what they had to do to get more power caused the power band to develop features like when continents collide when when the Indian subcontinent pushed its nose into the southern parts of Asia the Himalayas resulted.

So we don't want mountainous torque curves.

I think some of these people don't know much because everyone in MotoGP has been working very hard on developing smooth power since the beginning as follows.

Ever hear of virtual power bands.

It comes from Formula One and we know we know that anti spin systems can clip the tops off of torque spikes.

But what about the valleys.

Virtual power band can fill in the valleys and result in a relatively smooth torque curve that is easier to ride for the rider and is better for the tire because without a lot of thumps or air time.

It's more likely to keep driving forward and accelerating rather than spinning and heading for the outside.

Virtual power band operates by putting the computer between the rider's throttle grip and the butterflies in the intake system.

And if the engine is accelerating towards the dip which four into one exhaust pipes used to have in spades.

What happens is that as the torque the torque is almost ready to start dipping but the butterflies open.

And as you go through the dip more power is added more torque is added by the butterflies opening which fills in the valleys.

And then when the peak comes next oh that's not the shape we want the butterflies closed down.

So that as the rider accelerates off a turn for example the butterflies are describing the same motion as the horizontal stabilizer on a carrier plane.

You see those things approaching the carrier and they're just they're moving constantly.

So this system has cost a great deal of money to perfect and it is king.

It is the jewel in the crown as far as power band smoothing systems.

Another one which also cost millions.

I want to add a little to the to the virtual throttle.

So Kevin's talking about the virtual power band and you know trimming the peaks and just averaging the torque so that the you know it's predictable to you.

What Aprilia did on the shiver 750 way back in the day was they lied to you with with the virtual throttle or with the electronic throttle.

So the shiver 750 was a moderately tuned 750 twin pretty nice bike.

And the first time you wrote it you're like man this is they really nailed the torque on this thing.

This is great and you'd roll in like a third throttle fourth gear third gear third you know third of a throttle maybe even half throttle and that thing would just scoot and you're like wow this thing really runs.

And then as you explore and as you test you'd roll it on past that point and there was nothing left.

They were throwing everything at you to get that nice surge feeling of torque out of this moderately tuned 750.

And that's just that's a what do you say that's the street bikes example of I'm going to give you what we think you want.

What do you think you want.

And it's it is it is virtual it's a virtual torque curve.

Another example which has cost the constructors a great deal of money is seamless transmissions.

Now when the seamless transmission was first announced in 2011 I think Honda had it.

Everyone then had to have it just as had happened previously with Big Bang firing order Honda came up with it in 93 everyone saying why are they making that deep tone.

Why are they going so fast.

Oh, I see.

People imagined that the seamless shift would save microseconds at every upshift because there would be no downtime.

There would always be a gear solidly driving the rear wheel.

But that was not what they were seeking.

What they were seeking was to smooth the upshifts so that the tire was not as deeply affected by the thumb as would otherwise be the case.

So everybody has seamless gearbox now.

And there are other things like you've spoken of the backlash protector.

Everyone has this little app in their ECU that when you've you're ready to start throttling up from a corner when the engine takes up the backlash it doesn't go kathom.

Yeah, we had we had this conversation with Romano Albesiano of formerly of Aprilia's MotoGP team.

Formerly, yes.

We had that at Kota and it was fascinating conversation because he and Kevin were talking about aircraft engines and I think some locomotives.

There was a wide range and he's an enthusiast of transportation as all of us usually are not just a guy focused on MotoGP alone because there is everything that you learn helps everything else that you want to learn.

And it was so fascinating for him to talk that talk about that picking up of the the lash that there was an ignition map and ignition map that at that initial role.

It gently brought the gears together and he did this motion with his hands.

He went and he brought the gears together to pick up that absolute seamless smoothness and that's what you see with the riders and their inputs.

It's, you know, they're right on that edge.

The idea would be to be right on that edge all the time without those pesky bumps on the track and those disturbances.

Yes, all those other disturbances that can set you sliding and once it's sliding, it seems to accelerate.

It's incredible how bad that can feel.

Well, I have a subheading in my outline here that says Advantage Toprak question mark.

And lots of people are saying that because Mr. Raz got no glue has won three World Championship World Superbike Championships on Pirellis.

Won't he have a lot of insight into how they behave?

He might, but with what Barbier is saying that they're they feel that they're going to have to make a more durable tire for MotoGP.

All the other thing, of course, is MotoGP races typically 45 minutes long.

Whereas World Supers have two races in the weekend.

Plus Super Pole, so it's a little different.

I wonder if he'll have an advantage.

He has this incredible braking style, which is so marvelous to watch.

And he says that at present that he's come to terms with the Michelin front tire in MotoGP.

It's the rear tire that mystifies him.

But watching him break, he's going away from the camera.

And you see the distance between the top of the rear tire and the underside of the seat begins to grow.

The seat doesn't jump up like he crammed on maximum braking.

And then a heartbeat or so later, the rear tire lifts up off the pavement and maybe kisses once or twice.

And then he brings it up to seven inches or thereabouts.

And he sails serenely into the corner on one wheel.

And when he gets to his turn in point, he does what we used to see Mark Marquez do in his strongest years, which is here he is with the rear end up in the air.

He lets the rear end swing out because he's turning in with the front.

And as it swings out, he eases up on the brake line pressure so that the rear tire sinks onto the pavement already at a slip angle appropriate to a two wheel drift through the corner.

That's why we're fans of these guys.

And when you read his description of what he does, he says, I don't break all that hard initially and you can see that.

And what we suspect naturally is that the tire, the footprint is not huge because there isn't a tremendous amount of weight on the back.

So he's he's going to ease into it with the front and the back.

He does use the rear brake on occasion.

But you can see that the process is of the front tires footprint getting bigger and warming up.

Dunlop provided information to journalists at one point showing graphs of front tire tread surface temperature rising as the bike goes into a corner.

So here's Rascal Yoglu with his machine in this drifting attitude.

That drifting is added to the braking force.

So at this point, other riders, if they're close by, have gone past him, but they're going to go wide because he's now aimed at the apex.

And then he starts to feed power and he says, I move the throttle a little and if that's OK, I move it more.

And of course, the thing is, these people talk about this kind of thing in such a matter of fact way because to them it is it's all happening in slow motion.

They're on top of it.

It's just delightful to watch.

So we wish him well.

We hope that everyone will have an easy time learning to cope with with the new tires.

But we don't we don't really know what how difficult that will be because of the changes that Mr. Barbier has outlined.

Now, I've spoken about the reduction in weight, which is 8.8 pounds.

And there's some pipe work and changes in the suspension involved in the variable height ride height system.

And 100% of the fuel must now be of non fossil origin.

This means that it's going to cost your four times as much.

But we knew that what's in the the ideal.

That is proposed for the future is that trillions of gallons of fuel will be synthesized by taking carbon dioxide from the air and breaking it down and keeping the carbon.

And using electricity to separate hydrogen and oxygen from H2O.

And then they will assemble fuel molecules from carbon and hydrogen hydrocarbons.

Now, obviously, what this process is is unburning the products of combustion, because when you burn a hydrocarbon, you get CO2 and H2O.

So they're not going to do that first.

Instead, they'll probably buy ethyl alcohol that is a result of fermenting corn.

I read somewhere that 40% of the U.S. corn crop is now burned in automobile engines.

Good for the farmers.

A democratic process does not always guarantee that logic shall rule, but some people will be pleased by it.

It hasn't been good for our carburetors.

It's leaned out a lot of our old carburetors.

We have to change needles.

And of course, we wonder about the expense and complication of fixing all the plugged in the eroded jets and all the water that's been captured out of the atmosphere.

And certainly there's been an impact there, hasn't there?

How many chainsaws have we tried to start that don't?

Oh, yes.

Every year in the spring, with lawn mowers and tillers and string trimmers, little tiny carburetors all to be cleaned out.

It is a nice sign to hang in the window to say, oh, we're synthesized.

We're using non-fossil and we're welding our molecules back together to make fuel again.

And we're pulling that out of the air and all of that.

But Kevin's going to say something about 787s and moving everyone around the globe.

Oh, yeah.

It would blow these many rounds.

787 burns 12 or 13,000 pounds of fuel per hour.

And if it's carrying 250 passengers or so, that works out to each.

On the pollution account of each passenger are 50 pounds of jet A burned per hour to move that person to the next place.

And a regional jet burns, they're much more efficient now, 5,500 pounds.

Not so long ago was 8,000.

So, oh, and one of the really frightening ones is manufacturing cement, which now uses unbelievable volumes of natural gas.

Because you have to drive the water of hydration out of the raw material from which cement is made.

And that takes temperature.

And yes, they do use heat recirculating methods and they try to green it up.

But fundamentally, it's a lot of energy.

I think just running a semi, semi across the United States.

If you want to get your semi from California out to Rhode, Atlanta, you're probably going to be in the $20,000 range just to make that drive.

I'm guessing, you know, have fueling the truck and moving just the physical act of putting everything together and having all the people go.

It's just this mighty expensive.

Yeah.

Beginning with 2027 MotoGP teams must share GPS data session by session.

And what that means is that teams that have digital competency will have no advantage from that.

It is simply going to be information on, you know, we're going to look at your riders line through a corner.

That's what they mean by GPS data is trajectories, corner lines.

Why do this?

Is it because of a spoil sport?

Every one of the party must get the same present as the birthday girl?

No.

What they're doing is continuing the work which began long ago when they said everyone must use a spec ECU, the same engine control unit for every bike.

And it must run our spec software, which we will issue to you.

So that meant no more long tables of men and women hunkered over laptops trying to find a better way to get through turn seven.

Trying to optimize all the settings.

So ultimately what they want to do is not to stop technology.

They don't want to say rip out all them electronics.

They don't want to say and this was proposed when they were saying that the bikes were getting too fast.

They proposed that the tire company should be should be told to make bad tires.

Make tires that skid out real easy so that it's thrilling to watch and it's slow.

So it's a difficult fuel capacity 22 liters now 20 liters next year.

Why less engine power, slightly lighter bicycle probably works out be okay.

They tried the 1000 CC engines on 20 liters and it was sort of ridiculous because they were having to run extremely lean whenever it was part throttle.

And it didn't always work out all that well.

What if they tried EGR?

Yeah, so when you think about all of these things less power, no more variable ride height aerodynamics toned down.

Our world super bikes going to be faster than MotoGP.

I think all we can say is stay tuned because that could be the result.

One series racing against another.

Not heard of.

But I have to sympathize with Dorna's desire to green up their series by saying,

Look, we are lubricating oil is made from non fossil sources.

This is easy.

I didn't say inexpensive.

This is easy for the chemical industry, the oil industry, frankly, because they are the ones who have these enormous reforming systems with fabulous catalysts.

That will change, that will allow you to add little short molecular pieces to previously very undesirable olefins to make excellent alkali good anti knock grading.

Nice smells in the gasoline.

Not too deep.

Yeah.

So the same thing with oils.

The synthetic oil people are starting with something like natural gas or other fragments, and they are assembling oil molecules of an ideal nature.

And these are branched chains, not aromatics, which have those double bonds, those circulating double bonds, which oxygen loves to take a bite out of and causing your oil to come.

It used to be that a lot of things that were bad for your car engine or motorcycle engine were taken out.

But now the oil industry is making oils that are equal in performance to synthetics, which are molecularly indistinguishable from them, from the opposite direction.

They're reforming existing molecules to make them more suited to purpose.

So this won't be a problem.

It's just racing is expensive.

Here's another little expense for you.

Remember, the fuel that they're using now, they can't go out to the airport and get kind of cheap void race gas.

The gas is very expensive.

What is the major cost?

It is the testing required to certify that the fuel meets all of the specifications of the sanctioning body.

So it's those people have their meetings.

They sit there in their blue blazers and they make these decisions.

And so far so good.

The series was attractive enough that the big media company bought it.

Must have looked like this is this thing's doing OK.

And we think we can improve its value so that someone will want to buy it from us.

And cross your fingers on everything in the future because this is a fast changing world.

I was just hearing the other day about how much the prices of normally used consumption items for race car teams have increased in price because of the current push and shove in international trade.

But that's the game that's being played today.

So you want to play, you have to pay.

Tell you what, just on the on the base level of going going to your local race gas provider and looking at your five gallon pails of various fuels.

It's super easy to I mean a hundred bucks is just getting you in the door for five gallons.

It's more than that now.

It's really something.

Yeah.

So it makes me wonder.

They've made this step to a slightly smaller motorcycle engine.

But we know that twins are the biggest selling full size motorcycles at the moment.

Now some people will say oh well prosperity will come back and four cylinder bikes will look good again.

And maybe even that V8 I've been dreaming of since I was 12.

But we can't know that because if we could we'd be all be rich.

And so I keep thinking.

Oh look, they're proposing to replace Moto three with a twin, a mid sized twin.

Now that makes sense to me because it is saying yes, this is the kind of thing that the market is interested in now.

I know that the charm of the great monstrous locomotives going 225 miles an hour.

That's a thrill.

And the noises are good.

I like the noises even though they are not megaphone music because they are harsh and crisp.

You think that things are happening inside those engines that are just right.

I love that sound.

So what's the compression do we do we theorize I mean I've always and I've always enjoyed the sound of a high compression engine the blow down you know that that initial opening of the valve that ultimately makes the sound coming out of the tailpipe.

Sure.

When it's right it's right like the original R7 the homologation special special I wrote one of those at Willow Springs that is the finest inline four sound I have ever heard from the saddle.

It was spectacular.

And it's just going to be a combination of intake trumpets and cam profiles and compression and.

Well it's a repeat of exhaust valve lift is what it is.

It's just like a two-stroke.

The piston is at maximum velocity at 76 degrees after top dead center.

And my 1965 Yamaha TD-1B opened its exhaust port at 79 degrees after.

Oh boy.

So that means that the release of gas has a really steep front.

And that's what really smacks your ears.

That's the rotary deal this like the 787B homazda that they did at Le Mans and all that is.

Oh very loud.

Opens the port with sonic.

Yes.

Much ado.

Yeah.

When I visited Kawasaki in 1972 we went to to a the Fuji circuit.

And there was a Mazda there doing laps.

So that was a feast for the ears.

Very sharp sound.

Well I'm interested to see what you were saying there the day when we were discussing this.

Podcast topic.

What will they do?

Well will they try to slow down world super bike?

You said stock 1000?

Super sport 1000?

These are legitimate questions.

Bad tires.

Yeah bad tires.

Well that was another one of the space filling comments that I read on the on the internet which was.

Well you know the bikes will be slower at first and it will take them people a while to optimize everything happens every year like that.

You get the new the factory guys get the new this year's bike.

And in the first two or three races.

There's a good chance that somebody with last year's bike will win because their bike is already optimized.

Now this is a fresh start for everyone so.

It'll be interesting though those first three races to see which way the beam of the scale tilts toward world supers toward MotoGP.

Something to look forward to.

Yeah I mean next gen next gen super sport you know they're they're just managing ECUs and.

Parity you know they're just doing it inside the box because that's how we're getting the variety of bikes and.

It's good racing and people are going fast and.

We have the diversity of product that I think we find enticing.

I think that the shift to twins would be really interesting for Moto three.

I mean I I think the bikes are are delicate and exquisite but man.

Outside of dirt bikes the passion for singles on the road is low since they just don't they don't sell in a particular volume even though they're wonderful and simple.

Dare I say Vela set in this context.

You know twins would be interesting certainly and I wonder what they would do you know Moto three is running a six the the Triumph triple race prepped and.

You know a lot of the twins are in the 700 range maybe we'd go to 500 twins there's plenty of those around 450 ish you know it's it'd be interesting.

But the world super is I wonder how you know how do you do that how do you negotiate that and if you're trying to grow Moto GP.

And as they've looked at like moving to city courses and trying to get into city centers and get probably more.

Maybe more.

More.

Yeah more more eyes more sort of festival a more casual fan I think Moto GP still has a very passionate knowledgeable fan that likes the technical details.

Phillip Island is a really great track to ride on I know they've had you know situations with.

You need to improve the track who's going to pay for the improvements and and all that and you don't get a lot of people out there as you might in a.

In a big city so it's cold and windy a lot of the time.

It's definitely windy been been there for that tires are not cold.

Yeah.

Well that's it folks yeah I'm curious about it.

Yeah so same here well well whatever is going to happen will and whatever has happened is everything that was going to happen.

Think yeah think about that Cook Nelson ism everything that could have happened did.

That's when whatever something spectacular goes on and this guy crashes or these guys come together.

That's what Cook will say out there in the public forums.

Everything that could have happened did because well well if there's no it's just how it's it's over that's exactly what could have happened did happen.

So well thanks for listening folks that's it for this episode checks out on patreon and thanks for riding with us appreciate your comments see in there we do yes we do oh yes.

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69:03

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