The Losing Battle RC45 Vs 916

Both Honda and Ducati debuted new WSB bikes in 1994, igniting a superbike development battle that Honda could never win...

- Rupert Paul

IN 1994, Ducati replaced their 888 with the 916, on which Carl Fogarty promptly took the first of his four WSB titles. Although Honda unleashed their RC45 at the same time, its development road was rockier. Aaron Slight, whose job it was to beat Foggy, talks PB through the challenges they faced.

1994 Back then I held the lap record at Phillip Island, on the Kawasaki ZXR750. I signed with Honda, we did a three or five-day test there and I finished 2.4s off the pace. My team-mate Doug Polen was, I think, 4s off the pace. This was February, and the championship started at Donington in April, so were in big doo-doos.

We took the bikes apart back in England and nobody had put any effort into the piston design and stuff. The piston shape was bad. Tony Scott and Steve Mellor were building the engines, and once they starting fiddling around the speed came. I got two second places at Donington. But once the speed came the handling got worse. The more power, the less it turned and the more it spun. And that was just the start of it.

Donington was the first time we’d had a quickshifter in a race. You could gear the bike shorter because you could change gear on a lean angle. If you shifted normally you’d get the bike upright first. Other riders used quickshifters but they were more like cutting a spark. We were just cutting injection on a cylinder.

1995 Doug opted out of his contract and we changed to Michelin, so 1994 – when we rode on Dunlops – became a whole year of wasted data. I loved Dunlops: when they spun they went forward. When a Michelin spun it overheated and you couldn’t get drive.