After a whole lot
of foot dragging, and about two years behind schedule, Kawasaki finally let the public have a peek at their all-new big four stroke racer.
It's about time. Yamaha was first out of the chute with their YZF line,
followed by KTM and then Honda with the CRF 450. KTM aside, most of the manufacturers
seemed settle on 450 ccs as optimum.
For way too many
years now, Kawasaki has relied on the KX 500 two stroke for cross
country/Baja style racing. While they have some good results to show
with this bike over the years, it's widely known that the competitive KX 500s have huge
amounts of work done to them, including complete combustion chamber
re-shaping. Harshly put, a stock KX 500 is wrong, out of the box.
Engine is compact and is rumored to very powerful. |
However, word has
it that the new KX 450 four stroke is correct. To prove this, the bike
is scheduled to be raced in Japan at the All-Japan series, with the
first race starting April 11. Being conservative, the Kawasaki engineers
must be very sure that the bike will not screw up at this series. They
utilized a very fast rider for the debut of the bike: Tetsuya Mizoguchi,
the 2003 125 All-Japan champion, will be at the controls and he's a
fast, proven rider/racer.
The new machine
has a 449cc DOHC 4-valve engine, semi-double cradle frame with a unique
tapered box-section backbone tube. It's using Kayaba forks, but word has
it, they experimented with WP and Ohlins rear suspension before being
pressured to settle for a more or less conventional KYB unit built at
home.
Two key questions
remain:
- How will the
bike work? Since Kawasaki has a reputation for making horsepower
over the years, we feel they'll have no problem in that department.
However, rumors abounded that the bike wanted to "stand
up" in the corners unless under heavy power.
- Will it run
hot? Since the 250 four strokes from Kawasaki run hot (it's a real
problem), one can assume that the big bore bike will run even
hotter.
One last thing to
consider: Will this bike appear as a Suzuki, like they did with the 250
four stroke racers? For those who are not aware, the Suzuki and Kawasaki
250 four stroke race bikes are identical, except for color and graphics.
Slap on yellow plastic and call it an RMF 450? We'll know by this fall,
for sure, as it's scheduled for a release as a 2005 model.
Stay tuned, as
things are getting interesting.
