Yosh Suzukis in the dog house *again*.....

[Speeddog]

http://roadracingworld.com/news/article/?article=33916

http://www.superbikeplanet.com/2008/Aug/080829d6.htm

Holy crap, batman. 

[derby]

daryl and i have been talkin' about this offline.

this whole thing doesn't make sense to me. for starters, each guy has their own engine builder, but you'd expect them to be pulling from the same parts bin.

now it seems that they pulled the side covers off each of the three yosh bikes and then decided that tommy and mat's were different enough to have 'em drop the motor at tech.

the necessary distribution of questionable parts just doesn't make sense to me. tommy and mat? ben has the only legal bike? 

now, i've heard some of the talk that suzuki uses different OEM suppliers, so it's possible that the crank, a part that hasn't changed in 5 years or so, was "as homologated" but (allegedly) looked different due to sourcing.

i've seen corroboration from respected engine builders that, indeed, some cranks look different.

but, on top of all that, why would yosh cheat to beat their own team? it makes no sense.

[Speeddog]

Even under the (to me, ludicrous) assumption that Yosh was cheating at VIR, surely they're smart enough to bring the bikes to the next race in totally legal condition.

Does Yosh build the engines here in the states, or do they come from the homeland in a box?

[derby]

Even under the (to me, ludicrous) assumption that Yosh was cheating at VIR, surely they're smart enough to bring the bikes to the next race in totally legal condition.

or... they think they're completely legal so why change anything for the next round?

Does Yosh build the engines here in the states, or do they come from the homeland in a box?

they're built in-house in the states.

[ducpainter]

daryl and i have been talkin' about this offline.

this whole thing doesn't make sense to me. for starters, each guy has their own engine builder, but you'd expect them to be pulling from the same parts bin.

now it seems that they pulled the side covers off each of the three yosh bikes and then decided that tommy and mat's were different enough to have 'em drop the motor at tech.

the necessary distribution of questionable parts just doesn't make sense to me. tommy and mat? ben has the only legal bike? 

now, i've heard some of the talk that suzuki uses different OEM suppliers, so it's possible that the crank, a part that hasn't changed in 5 years or so, was "as homologated" but (allegedly) looked different due to sourcing.

i've seen corroboration from respected engine builders that, indeed, some cranks look different.

but, on top of all that, why would yosh cheat to beat their own team? it makes no sense.

having worked in manufacturing...

there are blueprints.

[darylbowden]

or... they think they're completely legal so why change anything for the next round?

or... they knew they'd get torn down at RA and it would look awful suspicious if they had a totally different crank in there than the one they are appealing as "legal."

[derby]

having worked in manufacturing...

there are blueprints.

..and different methods of manufacture that could produce a functionally identical, yet visually different (read: color) part.

again, engine builders have corroborated visually different parts on various, random store-bought street-bikes.

of course, all of this just guessing since nobody has really revealed what the issue with the crank was. from the news today, it appears that the ama/dmg is still in the process if detailing exactly what their issues are and hasn't even presented that to yosh, yet.

either way, the lack of transparency is troubling.

[derby]

or... they knew they'd get torn down at RA and it would look awful suspicious if they had a totally different crank in there than the one they are appealing as "legal."

yup... i can see that coloring their "we were legal all along" position...

"if you were legal the whole time, why did you show up with different parts at ra?"

[Speeddog]

they're built in-house in the states.

OK.

or... they think they're completely legal so why change anything for the next round?

That's what's got me puzzled, Yosh knows what cranks were in there last time, and knows what the sample cranks look like.... why would they possibly show up with cranks that don't look like the samples?

having worked in manufacturing...

there are blueprints.

I've seen a few Japanese blueprints, long ago and at Yamaha, not Suzuki, but....
They're quite specific on dimensions, and they are very near 'net', so not a lot of metal gets machined off.
AFAIK, these cranks are forged, so there may be some slight differences in surface finish and fillet radii and such in the unmachined areas, if there's several different vendors making the cranks.
Forging dies do 'wear' a bit over their life, so the first crank won't look *exactly* the same as the 5000th crank.

In any case, it's a F'n mess.
Still looks like 'payback' to me.

[ducpainter]

so what did Yosh do to piss off DMG?\

...not participate in Nasbike?

[derby]

looks like ben's not completely off the hook:

http://www.cyclenews.com/ShowStory.asp?HeadlineID=12862

The engines in the Suzuki GSX-R1000’s of second fastest Mat Mladin and third fastest Tommy Hayden were stripped completely and the crankshafts taken away by AMA officials. The engine in Ben Spies’ machine wasn’t torn down. Instead the engine was sealed and Spies will race that machine in tomorrow’s 17th round of the AMA Superbike Championship.

[derby]

so what did Yosh do to piss off DMG?\

...not participate in Nasbike?

from the same article above:

That the machines were torn down at all was unprecedented. No one at the track could ever remember a machine being torn down to the crankshaft after qualifying, let alone Friday provisional qualifying. To more than one observer it seemed like the Rockstar Makita Suzuki team was being targeted by race officials. Mladin has been vocal about his displeasure with the proposed path of the DMG-run AMA Superbike Championship, as has American Suzuki vice president Mel Harris. When the issue about Suzuki being targeted was first raised after VIR, DMG director of competition Colin Fraser denied it.

[ducpainter]

from the same article above:

That the machines were torn down at all was unprecedented. No one at the track could ever remember a machine being torn down to the crankshaft after qualifying, let alone Friday provisional qualifying. To more than one observer it seemed like the Rockstar Makita Suzuki team was being targeted by race officials. Mladin has been vocal about his displeasure with the proposed path of the DMG-run AMA Superbike Championship, as has American Suzuki vice president Mel Harris. When the issue about Suzuki being targeted was first raised after VIR, DMG director of competition Colin Fraser denied it.

...so that's a yes?   

[derby]

looks like the rrw article has been updated w/ pics:

http://roadracingworld.com/news/article/?article=33916

[darylbowden]

ruh-roh

http://www.roadracingworld.com/news/article/?article=33920