Motorcycle Classics – September-October 2019

each successive version up until the V4
Superbike was replaced by the RC51
(aka VTR1000 SP-01 V-twin) in 2000.
This meant I’d experienced its
strung-out development curve, as it
won Australian Superbike titles with
Anthony Gobert and Kirk McCarthy, plus

the AMA championship and Daytona

200 with Miguel Duhamel, but con-

tinued to struggle at World Superbike

level. But riding the 1997 Castrol

Hondas of both Kocinski and teammate

Slight, who finished third overall in the

title chase, revealed a reinvented RC45.

Whereas each successive version had

felt like the powered-up progeny of

the previous year, the World cham-

pion Honda had a character all its own.

Riding Kocinski’s RC45 first underlined

this. To make this bike motor, I had to

ride it like the 4-stroke GP racer it had

The RC45 uses a twin-spar aluminum frame, with a single-sided swingarm and a Showa monoshock at the rear.

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