The First Eras of Motorcycle Racing

To the uninitiated, motorcycle racing classes may seem arbitrary. Dig back in history and there is potential to add even more confusion. But let us start at the beginning.

In the late 1930s, BMW, Gilera, and DKW adopted supercharging, and their racing motorcycles reached new levels of power and complexity. Britain’s long-dominant Norton, Velocette, and AJS were unable to oppose the new supercharged bikes, whose funding often came in part from their national governments.

Then World War II intervened from September 1939 to 1945. In 1946-47 the motorbike racing’s ruling body decided that, with so many factories bombed flat, allowing supercharging would keep many smaller manufacturers from participating. At first a few “free formula” events were held in which prewar supercharged racers competed. Then new rules were adopted, with a spread of displacements to appeal to a wide range of constructors.

These were the classic FIM classes: 125, 250, 350, 500, and sidecar. Today, MotoGP’s three classes operate as a ladder to the top. You learn the circuits and the racing life in Moto3, on 55 hp 250cc four-stroke singles. You then advance to Moto2, powered by 140 hp Triumph 765 spec triples in artisanal chassis. Finally, if you win everything in sight, you advance to the top class: MotoGP, the 260 hp 1,000cc four-stroke prototypes.

When postwar racing restarted in 1949, its five classes did not function as a ladder. Companies such as Mondial, specializing in producing small bikes, would promote themselves via the 125 class. Others built 250s. English makers mainly participated in 350 and 500. Sidecars started out with single-cylinder Norton power but soon adopted the much lower “flat” BMW 500 twin that dominated that class for so many years.

Mike Hailwood, riding whatever bikes his hard-driving dad Stan could drum up for him, soon emerged as a major talent, winning many championships for Honda and MV Agusta.

Romantics write about this bygone era as a golden age, and in one sense it was: the new Japanese makers, all needing to make their names known worldwide, spent incredible sums to dominate the smaller classes with a fantastic display of tech expertise and tiny high-revving cylinders.

As English journalists waxed poetic over “the all-conquering red Italian fire engines” in the 350 and 500 classes, the most common result was a single factory—MV—far out front of a pack of privateer riders on thudding British singles. The winner, usually either Hailwood or Giacomo Agostini, would already be out of his leathers and relaxing with a beverage when the second-place man—riding very hard indeed to be first single, for it was from this group that factory riders were chosen—came past start-finish.

Greatest of all spectacles were classic battles between Hailwood and Agostini, on   Honda and MV respectively. In 250, it was between Phil Read or Bill Ivy on Yamaha two-strokes versus either Jim Redman or Hailwood on Honda four-stroke fours or sixes. In the 125 class it was the methodical and brilliant Hugh Anderson, somehow tuning as he rode, keeping his factory Suzukis on song against Yamaha’s twins and fours and Honda’s ultra-high-revving four- and five-cylinder powerhouses. Would the outpourings of advanced technology never end?

Yet as quickly as it had begun, it was finished. Honda and Suzuki pulled out after 1967, Yamaha a year later. Knowing that without the factories the series needed simpler bikes to survive, the FIM limited 125s and 250s to a maximum of two cylinders and 350s and 500s to four cylinders, all with no more than six transmission speeds. No supercharging, gasoline fuel only.

MV carried on, dominating the 350 and 500 classes with three-cylinder four-stroke power. From 1969 on, Yamaha dominated the 250 class with its production racers, beginning with that year’s TD2, its engine based on the production YDS6. Instead of factory-only eight-speed monsters of complexity, these were simple machines whose crankshaft could be changed by a rider in under an hour. And the price of a new crank? About $100 US. This was to be its own kind of golden age, as a fresh flood of talent could easily afford these simple bikes.

Two strokes, air-cooled Suzuki 500 “Titan”-based twins or Kawasaki H1Rs, began to show they could go the distance in 500; in 1970 New Zealander Ginger Molloy was second to Agostini and MV in 500. In 1973 Kim Newcombe was second, sandwiched between Read and Agostini, on a semi-homebuilt with a König engine adapted from outboard racing.

Then it happened. Yamaha and Suzuki built proper 500 GP bikes and learned to manage the novel problems that came with them—Tires! Suspension! Handling! MV momentum, in the form of Agostini and Read on four-stroke triples and new higher-revving fours, managed to squeak out a few more championships. But the two-strokes were coming. The MVs still had the highest top speeds but were slowed by engine-braking problems. Two-stroke acceleration just kept increasing. By 1975 they dominated every class: 125, 250, 350, 500, and even sidecar.

The stage was set for a new golden age as top riders Barry Sheene on Suzuki, Kenny Roberts on Yamaha, and from 1982, Freddie Spencer on Honda waged unforgettable battles—against each other, but also against unrideable powerbands, handling quirks, and short-lived tires.

Bias-ply tires had reached their limit after 1980, and greater durability soon arrived with more flexible, cooler-running radials in 1984. Chassis evolved from traditional Norton-Featherbed-style steel-tube construction to stiffer, lighter aluminum twin-beam designs.

In the next era the principal players were Americans, Wayne Rainey, Kevin Schwantz, and Eddie Lawson. Theorists proposed that the Americans’ dirt-track experience taught them a throttle-steering style that worked with two-strokes. Attempts to ride with wheels in line, feeding throttle progressively, were broken on the immovable rock of the two-stroke engine’s explosive powerband; nothing happened below about 30 percent throttle. The only workable way to corner was to get stopped, get turned early, then lift the bike to lay down enough rubber to take the hit as the engine came on the pipe.

As tires slipped and gripped, violent acceleration could in an instant become a violent highside, tossing the rider into the air. Race organizers had given little thought to rider safety for decades, but Roberts and other activists forced the adoption of more responsible management. New tech rules were tried; at first a minimum weight, with threats of intake restrictors if the highsides did not abate.

Abate they did, but from an entirely new trend—electronic engine management. At Laguna in 1990 I went to turn 11 to watch bottom-gear acceleration. To my surprise the hectic jumping and jerking were gone, replaced by stronger, smoother drives. Engine torque was being limited in lower gears, and could be reduced instantly by electronic spark retard. This was the beginning of electronic rider aids.

More change was coming. In the early ’90s, rules limited the use of lead anti-knock compounds in fuel, and Honda created the “Big Bang” firing order. Compression ratios had to be reduced, and engine torque with them, to work with this less knock-resistant fuel; the Big Bang increased tire grip. Electronic controls gained sophistication. After Rainey’s tragic 1993 accident the new master was Australian Mick Doohan, 500 champion for five straight years from 1993-97. Fans accustomed to intense rider-versus-rider duels were reduced to plaintively suggesting Doohan “make a race of it” by slowing down.

Lap times in the 500 class stagnated, and adoption of zero-lead fuel in the late ’90s cut horsepower even more. American riders lost their importance in 500 to Europeans who had forged their riding styles in 250 racing. Tire design serves the needs of the front row of the grid, so emphasis changed. Kenny Roberts had needed tires that could take his sideways, tire-spinning style, but when that became history, the abuse tolerance of racing rubber was traded away for extreme grip.

In the marketplace, meanwhile, four-stroke sportbikes in the three iconic displacements 600, 750, and 1,000/1,100cc had fostered intense competition in showrooms and in production racing. In the opinions expressed by pundits, the 500 two-strokes had become…almost irrelevant.

Motorcycle GP racing had evolved from an arcane specialty sport, rich in tradition, run by older Swiss gents in blue blazers, to become a major force in European sports television. TV rights for FIM roadracing had come into the hands of the Spanish sports marketing firm Dorna, who would challenge Formula 1 on the small screen. They saw strong manufacturer competition in the sportbike sector as a force that could drive GP bike racing even higher.