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Edited Date/Time
3/5/2013 11:44am
Great video that MXGeoff exhumed...
2003 GP in Valkenswaard, when 2 & 4-strokes were still decently equal...
Watch World Champs Everts, Pichon and Smets (that's 18 titles right there !), each on different machinery (both Belgians ride 4-smokes but you can tell Smets' KTM is still very old style, almost a different kind of bike !), their different choice of lines, the sounds their bikes make... quite fascinating !
The whole race is really worth watching but give at least the start / first laps +, of course, after the 25mn mark, one of the greatest battles I've witnessed in MX (any side of the ocean)...
Enjoy. (right link next message)
2003 GP in Valkenswaard, when 2 & 4-strokes were still decently equal...
Watch World Champs Everts, Pichon and Smets (that's 18 titles right there !), each on different machinery (both Belgians ride 4-smokes but you can tell Smets' KTM is still very old style, almost a different kind of bike !), their different choice of lines, the sounds their bikes make... quite fascinating !
The whole race is really worth watching but give at least the start / first laps +, of course, after the 25mn mark, one of the greatest battles I've witnessed in MX (any side of the ocean)...
Enjoy. (right link next message)
Let's see if this works
https://youtu.be/7Ja8DWk0fSE
When 4T didn't have a huge power advantage over 2T.
Just a thought.
Nice clip tho
The Shop
Flame suit on.
Aside from the Henry championship year, 4-strokes weren't 'equal' here until they put RC on one.
The race above, what is missing (I remember this race well) was that Everts lost tons of sprockets in his front wheel after they collided, that's the reason why the gap was build so fast, you can see there's something strange with his front wheel, and he loses gyro effect short after in that jump, and he let off the gas.
Man, I still think Pichon has the best riding style ever, like JMB, Pourcel they all represent a style few can mimic.
I remember this year was the time when the 250 class became the main thing, while the year before Everts and Smets was doing the 500 class
(which I think was the main series at that point)? This meant the death of smokers. Pichon was pretty pissed realizing Zook was a few years behind as they didn't have a banger to offer. This ended his deal with him moving over to Honda the year after?
This era, Pichons riding, listening to his bike made me come out of my hibernation, ended me bying a CR250. Smokers made me come back, and now smokers keeps my interested alive (as a rider at least).
Invite 20 of the top guys and have them draw chips, 10 ride smokers and 10 ride fart boxes. 3 moto's 100k to the winner. On a track that would favor both if thats possible. Oh 3rd moto they switch to the opposite bike, kinda wild card round.
Pichon has always had a rep as a difficult rider to work with and maybe suzuki had had enough.
Although he had a lot of respect for Sylvain (and vice-versa), Pichon confessed that he was a pain to work with, even more maybe when he was at the very top of his game, and that he had, indeed, been bad with the team that year...
How about letting down factory engineers who travelled from Japan for some testing ?
That one must have sealed his let-down by the team, later on...
Yes, Mickael thought he had one more year with them, while it was only an option.
Later in the season, he blew his knee and found out only at the last GP in Ernee that Sylvain was exercising his option out.
Smets needed a ride, he was Flemish, close from the workshop, and an experienced 4-stroke rider, when Suzuki was coming out with that new RMZ...
Still, this video shows how good Pichon really was during these two years... Who else have you seen ridicule the great SE72 that way, especially on inferior machinery ??!!
Even more impressive is the fact that Pichon dislocated his shoulder 3 WEEKS before the first GP of 2003 (Spain... that he won) !
This GP in Valkenswaard was the second of the season and Pichon won again, as he won the following GP in Germany...
Everts swung back and won ALL of the remaining 9 GP's (while MP hurt himself, trying to stay on par with that mighty 4-stroke) !!
After that point, it was obvious that 2-strokes could no longer be competitive in GP racing.
Mickael came back the following year on a 4-stroke Honda and was highly competitive with stefan (7 GP wins for the Belgian to 6 GP wins for the Frenchman).
Pichon won his first GP (125) in 1994.
His last (MX3) in 2010 (that's a 16-year range !).
Got 2 SX125 East titles and 2 MX1 titles in between.
A total of 39 GP wins (1 more than Torsten Hallman and 2 more than Roger DeCoster !), which puts in 5th all-time position behind Everts, Robert, Smets and Cairoli.
While Tortelli is a serious contender, behind JMB, Pichon is to be considered the second best French MX-er ever (DV being arguably the second best French SX-er).
It's so hard with your riders, because you've had an amazing streak of guys who are seemingly full of so much talent that on their day they could just smoke people...
I remember Yves Demaria just mopping the floor at the end of the 94 season, I thought he would make Albee and Everts look silly the next year... Never got there I don't think?
Pichon won two 125 east titles but didn't beat KW a lot I don't think... But as you say won a lot of GPs... He was probably at his best then...
I would kinda like to say it's DV in SX and Tortelli outdoors... DV took down MC and RC on his best day and Tortelli smashed the 125 GPs, Lammy at the MXDN, then Stefan then was probably the fastest outdoor guy in the world through 99-2001 but couldn't stay healthy...
So many guys who just had their special days... Let alone Bolley, Thain, The Pourcel Bros, Roncada, Musquin and way before all of that Vimond...
Amazing amount of Talent!
I really miss having him around, but I'm glad he could retire in one pice and lot's of cash in the banc. He wasn't easy with media, but I felt he said what was on his mind, and he wasn't afraid to critizise. I remember that both he and SE72 really pissed of YS when the delayed the start at south africas GP when it was supposed to go live on tv. YS finally shut them up too, but they were the last topriders trying to raise some resistens.
Off topic...wow what a strong lineup it was back in 2003. Both in numbers and in quality.
That said, they should open up the displacement and allow 350, 2 strokes to race in the 450 class. Personally, I think the big class should just be an "open", run what you brung class but we all know that won't happen anytime soon.
Disagree. I know this has turned into basically a Euro thread, but 2-strokes are still very competitive, even in the GPs. Maybe you should have said "After that point, it was obvious that 2-strokes' displacement could no longer be competitive in GP racing."
Since the sports been dominated in the past by the Japanese manufacturers the structure of the sports been bent to satisfy their wishes. Apparently the Japanese want to go "green" and not pursue the two stroke design. Thats their perogative but at the time I'm not sure KTM was of the same opinion. The Austrians seem to be strong supporters of two stroke design and development as KTM and ROTAX are still designing/selling them. But KTM was only one voice out of the five factories competing and had a smallest presence at the time (at least in the AMA series). Four of them are Japanese with a common supplier base to support so their gonna want the same thing. The FIM/AMA accomodated their needs and did nothing to stop the advancing performance of the four stroke engines created by the nearly double displacement advantage they were allowed.
I don't see anything changing though unless KTM's influence continues to grow with their winning ways. Maybe then they'll have enough of a voice to recommend changes be made to create competitive rules for both engine designs.
Pit Row
But the thread intended to be historical, not polemical.
Watching Pichon ride this 2-stroke to the limit and beat Everts should, by itself, please the 2-stroke fans !
It is obvious that Pichon is much more at work with the 250 than Everts on his 450 and that his exceptional riding, that day, brought him the victory (not his machinery).
Sure, Everts is the master of making it look easy, but Pichon is a very smooth rider too, the difference in style (and lines) comes from the bikes.
The following GP season, everyone was on 4-strokes (including Pichon) and this is (I think) the last 2-stroke MX1 win (and what a win !).
With this video we always have the 2-stroke's sound, but I would like the smell, too.....
Good luck with that, Xavier.
We get it. You like the ring-a-dings and bikes that burn oil. I own a YZ125 and 250 and yes, they are great bikes. Do I get ultra defensive about them when faced with the reality that 4-strokes, from a performance perspective, are better in every way? No.
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