SuperBike Magazine July 2020

CLASSIC RACER TESTS MICK DOOHAN’S 1996
HONDA NSR500
Of all the trips a veteran bike journo might have had, this has to be the
big ‘un. Mick Doohan’s HRC 500GP 2-stroke. We’re not worthy...
Keep the revs above 10,000,” said Mick Doohan
as I prepared to ride the NSR500 on which he’d
just won a third straight world championship.
“If it spins at 8,000rpm you’ll be over the bars
for sure.”
Er, thanks Mick. It’s a Monday
morning in Sydney, a day after the
last GP of 1996, and I’m feeling
slightly far from home as I contemplate
the Eastern Creek circuit
I’ve never ridden before, from the
barely-padded seat of a factory
V4 two-stroke that makes roughly
200bhp and weighs 130kgs (so,
slightly less than a CBR125R).
Jerry Burgess points out the
rear brake lever alongside the
clutch lever, invented by Doohan a
few years earlier after the Assen
crash that almost cost him his
right leg. That’s a first for me,
obviously, though I’m not planning
“MY FIRST EVER RIDE ON THE LEGENDARY NSR
WAS INTIMIDATING TO START WITH BUT MOSTLY
IT WAS JUST FANTASTIC FUN.”
on touching the thing. There’s quite enough
Words: Roland Brown Pics: Gold & Goose
unfamiliar stuff on this bike already, thanks very
much. Like the carbon brake discs, and the
then novelty of a quick-shifter for the already
confusing down-for-up raceshift
gearchange.
“Keep the throttle open
and tread down to change,”
Burgess yells above the
cacophonous crackle of
four expansion pipes. “And
if you crash it, get up and
run!”
My first ever ride on
the legendary NSR was intimidating
to start with but
mostly it was just fantastic
fun. Over the years, Honda’s
single-crank V4 always was
the horsepower nutter bastard
even among that fiendishly elite
group of factory 500cc strokers.
After I’d paid my way half-way
round the world for five laps on one,
it didn’t disappoint.