The last time we met up with Michael Czysz, he gave us the lowdown on why allowing dustbin fairings for use in road racing events was a poor decision for sanctioning bodies to make. Thankfully, Czysz has put his words to paper (computer screen?), and explained his thoughts on the subject more deeply in a blog post.
Making comparison to the salt flats of Bonneville, where streamlining is the name of the game, and close-circuit road course races like the Isle of Man, Czysz drives home the point that this is not a technology that transcends racing venues, saying “if Bonneville was 24’ wide and lined with stone walls streamlining would be banned- and so it should be at the IOM.” You can read his full post here for more of his analysis, and click past the jump to see what all the fuss is about.
For those who aren’t that familiar with the debate surrounding dustbin or streamliner fairings, there’s been some talk in the electric motorcycle crowd about bringing this sort of technology back in favor for road racing use. Electric motorcycle’s can greatly benefit from the added efficiency streamlining brings to motorcycle design, and is considered part of the “rethink how we do things” mentality electric racers have included in their raison d’être. However as Czysz points out, these benefits come with various risks that Czysz believes are too great to chance on a road based circuit, and the move to an electric platform does not warrant such a back-step from the industry-wide notion that true streamlining has no place in road racing.
With TTXGP holding its rules open in a wiki format, the push for streamliner fairings has come back into public scrutiny, and is currently allowed in the series’ rule book. Part of this push comes from the added participation of Craig Vetter in forming the TTXGP rules in regards to streamlining. Vetter has been a long-time proponent of dustbin fairings, and has been the central rallying point for the pro-streamlining camp. In response to this, Czysz calls for support from his fellow manufacturers, it’ll be interesting to see who joins the anti-dustbin bandwagon, and even more interesting to see if anyone shows up with a dustbin fairing at any of the scheduled electric motorcycle racing events this year.
Source: MotoCzysz Club
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