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After an impressive first outing at
Le Mans last weekend, followed by a full day of successful testing at
the French circuit, the V5 four-stroke Proton KR racer is scheduled to
make a full racing debut at next weekend´s Gran Premio Cinzano d´Italia.
The machines now have over 100 miles on the clock, and team manager
Chuck Aksland claims they did not run into any of the teething problems
that had been tackled step by step during bench testing. The team will
have three units available in Italy – with a bike each for Jeremy
McWilliams and Nobuatsu Aoki, and one spare.
`We had a few little hiccups, but
nothing serious,´ commented Aksland on the French tests. `The engines
held together the whole time, and we were able to make a good start at
improving our base settings and getting some track miles done to build
up data on the new machine.
Both riders asked for more power
after the bike´s first outing, but team owner Kenny Roberts insisted
patience was the key. `The bike is not running to its potential yet, and
unfortunately there´s not much time to do anything about it,´ said the
triple World Champion.
`As I said at Le Mans, it´ll be
three months before we´re ready to do battle. It´s not going to be a
rocket ship at Mugello, and it´s not going to handle as well as we´d
like. We don´t have enough parts for that yet.
`Le Mans was basically a shakedown
tests, and the good news is that the engines held together. We´re
letting everybody see what we´re doing in the early stages of
development. We could be wrong in our direction, but I think it´s
interesting for people to see. We have a very broad power band at the
moment, and our first target will be to take some of the mid-range power
and move it higher up the rev range.´
While the race team continues
race-testing, still establishing base settings for chassis and the
all-important slipper clutch system, engine development work is
continuing at Banbury and in the USA, where Rob Muzzy is dyno-testing to
develop the next stage of tuning parts. `We know we need a lot more
development,´ concluded Roberts. `But this bike is just the match we´re
using to light the fire.´ |
