Mick Doohan and the Honda NSR
Just as the cars we drive every day on the road have a lot of tech and features that have been derived from Formula One over the years, it's very much the same situation when it comes to bikes. Honda celebrated 60 years of racing in 2019, and no other company has such a rich history of being involved with racing on both two and four wheels.
There have been some truly memorable machines produced and developed by the Honda Racing Corporation over the last six decades, and the two-stroke Honda NSR Grand Prix motorcycles are right up there with the most legendary of all. The V4 NSR500 made its debut back in 1984 as the replacement for the triple-cylinder NS500, and the NSR went on to deliver World Championships for a veritable who's who of riders that included Freddie Spencer, Wayne Gardner, Eddie Lawson, Mick Doohan, and Valentino Rossi.
Why the NSR was special
Obviously, for any bike to end up being ridden to a whole slew of World Championships it has to be fast, and the NSR500 that arrived in 1984 was certainly that. However, it takes more than just raw speed for a bike to be successful at the very highest level, and there was much more in the armoury of the NSR500 than just ferocious acceleration and massive top speed.
While the NSR was undeniably very, very fast, it was also light, agile, responsive to the throttle, and had close to 200bhp to play with. Although the eventual greatness of the NSR500 is now written large in racing history, and the bike is now rightly regarded as a true legend, the initial version for the 1984 season wasn't perfect by any means.
The engine in the first NSR500 was extremely powerful, but the unorthodox chassis wasn't anywhere near as good as the engine, so a good deal of development work needed to be done by Honda to bring the chassis up to speed and turn the NSR500 into the full package for its riders. For example, the exhaust pipes were initially located in the upper part and the fuel tank underneath the bike's engine, and there was a cross between a twin-spar and trellis frame, which effectively turned the bike upside-down compared to more traditional chassis design.
A big part of the problem with the first incarnation of the NSR500 was that the bike was designed in a way that kept the bulk of its weight low, but once it became apparent that Suzuki's idea of putting weight higher was the way to go, the NSR500 quickly began to fulfill its potential.
The V4 engine employed a single crankshaft, instead of the dual-crankshaft arrangement of the three-cylinder unit in the previous NS500, and this meant it was now lighter and more compact than its predecessor, and the Honda's rivals of the time. Once the issues posed by the somewhat unorthodox chassis technology were overcome after the first season, the NSR500 went in to secure Honda's second 500cc Grand Prix title in 1985.
Further development saw the engine's V-angle opened wider to 112 degrees in 1987, and this then made space for accommodating four 36 mm Keihin carburetors between the engine's cylinders so they could be fed with an extra dose of cool air. The new design also allowed the engine to exhale more efficiently through its four artfully intertwined expansion chambers, and by the end of the year, Australian Wayne Gardner rode the NSR500 to Honda's third 500 World Championship title.
NSR roll of honour
It's not an exaggeration to say the NSR500 went on to define an entire era of Grand Prix motorcycle racing, and some of the biggest names in the history of the sport owe the legendary Honda a big debt of gratitude. In the 17 seasons between 1985 and 2001, the NSR500 was ridden to the World Championship in no less than 10 of those seasons.
Freddie Spencer took the first of the NSR's titles in 1985, and two years later it was the turn of Wayne Garner in 1987. In 1989 it was the turn of Eddie Lawson, but the next Championship for the NSR had to wait five years until 1994. Although there was a five-year gap between Lawson's win and Mick Doohan's first World Championship title in 1994, that 1994 victory was the start of a truly remarkable run of success and dominance for both Doohan and the NSR.
Doohan and the NSR500 took the 500cc title in '94, '95, '96, '97 and 1998, but the NSR was finished there. A year later, the NSR was ridden to World Championship glory by Alex Criville. Valentino Rossi took the runner-up spot in the championship a year later in 2000, before securing the last of the NSR's titles a year later in 2001.
The domination of the NSR was quite staggering at times, especially during the Doohan years. In 1996, 13 of that season's 15 races were won by the NSR, and in 1998 the Honda claimed 13 out of 14 races. However, the most notable season of all has to have been 1997, which is when the NSR achieved total domination by taking all 15 races that year, 12 of them for Doohan.
By the time the 500cc era came to an end, with the NSR appropriately taking the final one before MotoGP took over, the Honda had won more 500cc GPs than any other bike with an incredible 132 race wins cementing its place in bike racing history.
Models inspired by the NSR500
Although the glory and achievement of race wins and world titles are superb for the team and the riders, companies like Honda are about selling bikes, and race success sells bikes. The NSR500 (along with the NSR250 and privateer-dedicated NSR500V) spawned a race-replica series of bikes that ordinary bikers could go out and buy. The NSR race-replica series included the NSR50, NSR125, NSR150 and the NSR250R.
NSR500 features and specifications
The engine that powered the NSR500 was a liquid-cooled, 499.27cc, two-stroke V4 that developed a maximum output in excess of 177bhp (180PS/132kW) at 12,200rpm. The bike utilised a six-speed transmission, but the whole package weighed little more than 130kg.
To take the greatest possible advantage of the four-cylinder engine's increased power over its three-cylinder predecessor, the V4 was fitted with a single crankshaft instead of dual counter-rotating crankshafts which minimised losses due to friction. Another innovation was the engine's reed valve input system which was introduced to replace the rotary valves that had been used up until then.
After the first year of the NSR500 with that "upside-down" chassis design, Honda's engineers decided to return to a more conventional configuration with twin beams, and where the exhaust pipes and the fuel tank were once again situated where you’d expect them to be. An Auto-controlled Torque Amplification Chamber (ATAC), which is a valve system in the exhaust designed to optimise gas flow, was also introduced to further improve the engine's performance.
A reinforced chassis and special swingarm, which were introduced to accommodate the expansion chambers in the exhausts, boosted the Honda's performance to the point where no other bike could match its acceleration rate or velocity by 1989.
Although the bike became more and more powerful over the years, there was so much power that the bike was notoriously difficult for a rider to control. In 1990, engineers went yet another step further by deciding to change the engine's ignition timing to allow the pistons to deliver power all at once or in a distributed manner. They achieved this by coming up with an engine design where the two sets of two pistons were at 180-degree angles, and because of the unique sound it made, this engine became known as the "Screamer."
Eventually, due to the implementation of unleaded petrol that meant less power, all bikes were forced to switch to the Screamer engine design, but it didn’t prevent the NSR500 taking three more titles after the switch before the 500cc era came to an end in 2002.
Mick Doohan
Even though nothing should be taken away from the achievements of the other riders who won 500cc World Championship titles on the Honda NSR500, the bike will forever be intrinsically linked to the mighty Mick Doohan. Although there have been other great names and great achievements in all types of motorsports over the years, Doohan's five successive titles will always stand out, especially for the year when he won 12 out of 15 races and the other three were also won by the NSR.
To date, only Giacomo Agostini, Valentino Rossi, and Marc Marquez have won more premier class titles, and only Agostini has won more consecutive titles.
Doohan made his Grand Prix debut for Honda on the NSR500 in 1989, and his first victory for the team came about late in the 1990 season in Hungary where he went on to secure third place in that year's championship. He looked to be heading for his first world title in 1992 until he had a crash during practice for the 1992 Dutch TT race.
Due to medical complications, Doohan ended up suffering permanent and severe damage to his right leg, and at one stage, amputation was a serious possibility. At the point in the season where the accident happened, Doohan was 65 points ahead in the championship, but the crash and subsequent medical complications kept him out of racing for some eight weeks.
Mick was back on the NSR for the final two races of the 1992 season, but by that point, it was too late to overhaul Wayne Rainey and Doohan missed out on his first title by an excruciating four points.
Although he was back racing, Mick was still struggling with the healing of his leg in 1993 and his ability to race the Honda at the elite level was in question. In fact, it was eventually admitted later that it was all he could do to keep his place in the Honda team at that time. During this period, Doohan also made the switch to a left thumb-operated rear brake because he was unable to perform this function with his right foot, due to his injury.
Doohan's post-crash riding style became almost as much of a talking point as the incredible success he went on to achieve, and it was largely down to the use of that thumb-operated rear brake he developed as a result of the reduced range of motion he had in his ankle. The brake was operated by a "nudge" bar, a lot like a personal watercraft throttle, but on Doohan's NSR it was mounted on the left handlebar.
Mick was involved in another accident in 1999, which happened during a particularly wet qualifying session for that year's Spanish Grand Prix. The Aussie once again broke his leg in numerous places, and this time it let to Doohan announcing his retirement.
As well as all his race wins and world titles, Doohan was further honoured later by being made a Member of the Order of Australia in 1996, and he also gained an Australian Sports Medal in 2000. In 2009 he was then inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame, and the first turn at the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit has now been named after the legendary Aussie rider.
Doohan's achievements as a rider may be phenomenal but the Aussie legend is also quick to point out just how much he owes to his relationship with Honda, and the talent and dedication of the team.
Speaking during an interview at the 2019 Goodwood Festival of Speed, Doohan said, "A lot of it [his success] has to do with Honda and the commitment and dedication of the team behind me, because they believed in what we felt – we being myself and my direct team – we could achieve."
Doohan went on to add, "I think that legacy from there on in has stayed with Honda and some of the key people. It's about winning, you know, you see some of the other manufacturers are more up and down, and they get a little too over-confident when they're doing well, and then they drop off. Honda's always pushing, pushing, pushing, so there's a lot to be said for that."
Built with Shorthand