Last week I was at the Dunlop tests in Almeria and Albacete (South of Spain) circuits. Every year, at the beginning of the season, Dunlop organizes this kind of tests to allow their racing teams to know and test the new tyres that Dunlop creates every year. There were several teams of the Spanish Championship (from Formula Extreme and Supersport classes) and also some European teams plus some World Endurance Teams like Yamaha Austria or Yamaha Phase One. For me it was my first contact with the team I’m going to work with in 2008 as telemetrist, the Kawasaki PL Racing, that this year will race in theh Spanish Championship, in Formula Extreme with riders Victor Carrasco and Julian Mazuecos and in Supersport with Jonathan Alabarce.
I saw a lot of motorbikes in Almería, but there was one that catched my attention: the METISS.
I think this was the first time I have seen a FFE (funny front end) motorbike running on a track on live. I didn’t had too much free time to watch the bike on the track, but I found some time to visit their box, take some photos and chat with Emmanuel Cheron (one of the riders) and Jean Bertrand Bruneau, the bike’s designer, a dentist who has been designing and building FFE bikes for 20 years. Some examples are the Atomo (the link only works with the French version), after that the “JBB” prototype and now the METISS.
Currently the French team is racing the WEC (World Endurance Championship) with great resoults (they were 8th in the last Bol d’Or). Endurance is one of the last championships that allow prototypes (at least here in Europe).
The METISS team had two motorbikes in Almería. One unit was the model they used in 2007:
The other one, was the new bike they built for 2008:
As you can see in the photos, the bike has a front swingarm, and a big selfventilated front brake disc with a huge AP Racing brake caliper.
Donor bikes are Suzuki GSXR, they kept even the original chassis, which is properly modified in the headstock area to adapt the special front end designed by Jean Bertrand Bruneau.
To keep the original chassis has it’s pros and cons. The main advantage is that it makes easier, faster and cheaper to build a new bike. This allows the team to update their bikes every season. If they had to design and build a completely new bike, it would be very difficult for them to be able to be training at the beginning of the season with the new bike, like they were doing in Almería.
The disadvantage is that using the Suzuki original chassis means that they are not taking profit of the weight reduction that this front end allows. For example, some years ago, when they built the Atomo, they used the engine as main structural element: they built a motorbike without chassis. To do it, they had to mill new crankcases that included the housings for the front end mounting points. That meant time and money.
I found comforting to see that there are still persons like Jean Bertrand Bruneau and his team, that design and build their own motorbikes, with their own ideas. People capable of racing those motorbikes and beat a lot of conventional ones, designed by powerful multinationals.
During 2008 I will keep an eye to the METISS resoults in the WEC.
You can see these photos in a bigger size in the bottpower flickr gallery.
[tags]metiss, prototype, FFE, funny front end, endurance, almeria[/tags]