14/06/2011
Stoner has to roll off the throttle to stop wheelies
By David Miller
Image by Repsol Media
Repsol Honda’s Casey Stoner has no use for HRC’s wheelie control on his RC212V MotoGP bike, saying the way it works halts acceleration and he has to manually deal with the wheelie problems the new HRC gearbox causes.
Stoner explained that although the new ‘box keeps the bike more stable between gearshifts, and that those shifts are very fast and very smooth, the front wheel no longer has time to come back down to earth so he has to back off the throttle to calm it down before getting back on the power.
Much has been made of the new gearbox but Stoner, and five-times world champion Mick Doohan, say they can hardly notice any difference. Stoner also says he switches off the anti-wheelie to increase acceleration and likens it too crap car traction control systems.
“I rode the bike in 2006 and the gearbox from then till now, other than that shorter shift time, is not any different. That reduced shift time does help the bike slightly in keeping in settled but also it’s worse for wheelying,” said the 2007 world champion
“When you’re going up the box and the bike starts to wheelie you want to short shift to get the bike back down but because it’s so quick, it keeps the front wheel up so you have to close the gas which can actually be a pain in the butt. It’s quite difficult sometimes.
“Electronic wheelie control is the same as traction control for me. It’s the same as having TC in car, you sit on the traction control and it goes nowhere. It’s getting better but it’s not advanced enough to help you get every ounce of traction out and it’s the same for me with wheelie control. It takes too long to bring it back down, it cuts the engine and it takes all your acceleration. When we take it off, we get more speed.”
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