The return of MV Agusta to racing in America is a reality. Using the F41000R in Superstock trim, Eraldo Ferracci brought the rudiments of his team and a pair of young riders to Jennings GP for a private two-day test using Pirelli tires on November 8 and 9, 2006.
Italian Superstock champion Luca Scassa (age 23) and American Matt Lynn (age 22) turned laps under mostly favorable conditions at the Florida track looking for basic setup information and a shakedown for the nearly stock motorcycles.
Scassa is well acquainted with the MV Agusta motorcycle and brought his suspension settings with him to an unfamiliar track. Lynn has raced at Jennings GP but started from scratch on a bike he had never seen or ridden. Both worked through the challenges diligently to arrive at a point where they could begin fine-tuning and offering feedback to keep the MV Agusta technicians heading in the direction of fielding a competitive machine for the US Superbike series.
By afternoon on the first day, both riders were already tantalizingly close to the track record of 1:15:444 of Canadian champion Pascal Picotte set earlier this spring at a joint test of all the Canadian Superbike teams. Just before lunch on day two, Scassa went 1:15.448 and Lynn 1:15.545 hand-timed.
Under sunny skies and with track temperatures climbing nicely, Scassa smashed the record in the mid-afternoon with a 1:14:81 and backed it up a lap later with a 1:14:85 on spec Pirelli tires identical to those used in the Canadian Superbike Championship. Lynn's best of 1:15.2 was also under the old track record and two seconds faster than he had ever been at Jennings GP.
Scassa said, "It's cool being in America, but for sure I came here to do a job and we did some good work. We have much more to do to make the MV Agusta into a superbike but the bike is good and work is OK for me. I'm excited to do this."
"I'm really excited," Lynn added. "We came here with a blank sheet of paper and went to work. It was a lot different from what I have been riding, but once we got the MV basically set up it was really fun. Eraldo knows what he's doing and what he wants. We just kept at it and that's what we need to do. I can't wait to ride it some more. It's fast!"
Ferracci will now travel to Italy to consult with the factory again, delivering information from the test and input from the riders and technicians. The next outing for the Fast by Ferracci MV Agusta F4 1000R will be at the Daytona tire test in December, after which the team will prepare in earnest for the 2007 AMA Superbike Championship.
For sponsorship inquiries, please e-mail mvracing@cagivausa.com.
This is a site dedicated to the 1970-72 Yamaha 350 R5 two-strokes. These bikes are surprisingly fast for their size and age, lifting the front wheel in the first two gears and keeping up with modern bikes twice their size. It's also extremely flickable and great fun around the city or carving up canyon roads. It was the direct descendant of the Yamaha factory TR production racers. Dirty, loud, crazy quick and relatively affordable when new (and more so now!), it was, and still is, a giant-killer.
I picked up an R5C for my first motorcycle a few years ago, and was frustrated with the lack of information on these bikes available on the web. The original purpose of this site was to document the process of bringing the R5 back to life. But as I spent time gathering as much relevant and entertaining information as possible into one place for my own reference, I thought it would be helpful to share it with people who are also interested in these bikes, as well as other Yamahas, vintage bikes, and cool motorcycles in general.