Ducati 996R

Forgive me father, for I have sinned. I left work early father, when I should have been behind my desk tapping on the computer keyboard.

But I had been seduced, father. By a red temptress - Latin, lithe, sexy and with expensive tastes.

For over three hours, father, she had me mesmorised as we continued on our journey of discovery. I'll never be able to work a full day ever again...

BALMY DETOUR
Leaving Horror HQ 'early' for me means 5.30pm, and my ride home doesn't normally involve a 300km detour through the hills. But with a balmy summer evening beckoning, daylight saving helping the cause, and a Ducati 996R at my disposal, it seemed like the right thing to do.

There aren't many bikes that have that effect on me at the end of the working day. Yeah sure, we're somewhat spoilt at Horror HQ with a steady flow of the latest and greatest testbikes, and there's always a mad scramble for the 'best' key come Friday afternoon. And sometimes I'll go via a mate's place to flaunt the latest piece of weaponry.

But heading off on a long-ish ride at the end of a long-ish day during the working week? Unheard of.

SHEEPISH ADMISSION
But the 996R is one such bike. In fact when I returned the testbike to Moto One's dealer principal Tony Barton he sheepishly admitted the same thing had happened to him. Except in Tony's case he found himself still riding around at two in the morning!

So what's so special. Well, for a start there's the price. You'll need over $50K if you want to own a 996R. Yikes!

Then there's the exclusivity. Only 500 Testastretta-powered 996Rs were built by Ducati at the beginning of 2001, with the sole purpose of meeting homologation requirements for the 2001 Superbike World Championship.

All 350 customer versions of the 996R sold out within six hours on launch day via the internet, at a common worldwide price of 26,000 Euros. On current exchange rates that makes the 996R a heady $A52,000 Down Under (including Australia's 10 percent GST).

Another 150 bikes in 2001's total production run of 500 were held back by the Italian factory for special allocation (eg Australian market), competition (eg Troy Bayliss, Ben Bostrom and Ruben Xaus), development and promotional use.

Amazingly, despite Australia's small market relative to the rest of the motorcycle world, 40 of those 150 996Rs made it Down Under, with only a handful remaining unsold.

THE OBVIOUS!
What else is special? Refer to the previous paragraph if you missed the obvious - the name Bayliss should give you a clue.

The Ducati 996R is in effect a road-legal version of the bike which won the 2001 Superbike World Championship. It's not just a cosmetic replica, or an up-spec'd base-model 996. It is a factory racer with lights, and the closest thing to a full-on works racer that money can buy - or that Ducati has yet built.

It comes standard with top-shelf Ohlins race suspension, super-powerful Brembo stoppers and the same lightweight Marchesini race wheels as on the works racers.

It also comes with Ducati's new short-stroke Testastretta powerplant, complete with sandcast crankcases as found on the factory racebikes.

Throw in a satin bike cover, rear stand, race-kit carbon-fibre Termignoni mufflers and ECU for trackday use (valued at approx $5000) and you can see where some of that $50K goes.

FIRST DATE
My first sampling of the 996R was in peak-hour traffic - not an ideal introduction for the first date, especially when it was a 35-degree day.

The race clutch, with its sintered plates, was a real on/off affair until I got the hang of just how far to release the lever for a smooth take-off. And it would occasionally squeal like a startled cat if I didn't get it right.

Likewise the brakes, which nearly had me doing an unintentional stoppie at the first set of traffic lights. Bordering on vicious, the new Brembos are the most powerful anchors I've ever sampled on a roadbike.

And the heat! Oh, the heat. I wasn't sure whether to grab a couple of steaks for dinner and throw 'em on to the R's sidepanels - or just take to my inner thighs with a carving knife and toss up a quick side salad.

With the engine temperature up over 100 degrees C, the 996R is not at home in the urban jungle. Pity those poor sods who have bough an R simply because they want to pose with the cafe latte set. (At least the temp is a more reasonable 80 degrees on the open road.)

RADAR FREE
But the 996R was never intended for town use. The seating position and low clip-ons should have sent warning signals to an intending purchaser on that score.

No siree, the 996R belongs on the racetrack, or a radar-free open road if you can find one. So that's exactly what I did. Well, in the case of the former at least.

A last-minute 'entry' in the opening round of the Shell Advance Australian Superbike Championship at Phillip Island saw yours truly take to the track on the 996R during the Saturday lunchbreak for my own private 'qualifying' session. And what a session it was, followed by another one on Sunday.

Now, I've done a fair few laps around the Island in my time. And quite a few on Dukes, including Steve Martin's championship-winning 996RS of 1999. But the 996R had me confused. You see, I wasn't sure if I was on a roadbike - or a full-on factory racebike. The line of demarcation became blurred the more I rode it.

DISTINCTIVE BOOM
It sure as hell sounded like, and went like, a racebike - although it had lights, a sidestand and a rego plate. The distinctive boom from the carbon cans was unlike any other Duke at the Island that weekend - and that included Craig McMartin's 996SPS and Roger Wallis's ex-DDT 996RS.

That probably explains why people lined the pit wall and the spectator fences when the 996R was out on the track - including a very envious McMartin.

"I helped run it in before you guys got it, and it's better out of the box than my sorted SPS racebike," said McMartin, a top A-grade Superbike privateer.

"I don't suppose I could borrow it for the rest of the weekend..."

The short-stroke Testastretta engine has a note all of its own - shared of course with the bikes of Bayliss, Bostrom and Xaus. Spinning up through the close-ratio six-speed box to just short of the 10,800 limiter (okay, so I hit it a couple of times) was just like being in my own private SBK race.

There's plenty of poke from 7500rpm upwards, and that's where I kept the engine spinning for best effect. The charge out of Southern Loop down the hill and under the bridge towards Honda Corner was particularly exhilarating, as was the run from Siberia up through the Hayshed to Lukey Heights, something replicated in the real world when I headed off on my dusk adventure a few days later.

POWER PLAY
The 996R's peak output in homologated guise is a claimed 135ps at 10,200rpm at the crankshaft - 13ps more at 200rpm less than the 996SPS.

AMCN got around 130ps at the R's rear wheel on the PTR dyno, which may not seem much compared to some of the 1000cc Jap fours which have 10ps more and are also some $30K cheaper! Yes, that much.

But ultimate power is not the be-all and end-all. If that was the case, then the Jap 750 fours would have been stomping on the Dukes in World SBK racing for the past decade. After all, the ZX-7RR and GSX-R750 Superbikes have more horsepower than the Ducati.

And when was the last time you saw a Hayabusa or a ZX-12R lap faster than a R1 or GSX-R1000?

Usable power is what it's all about, and on that score the 996R wins hands down. It may give 10 ponies away to the GSX-R1000, but that sure doesn't mean it's slower around a racetrack.

LESS TEETH
Short-shifting at around 7500rpm underlines how excellent the spread of power is. For street use though I'd be inclined to swap the 15-tooth countershaft sprocket for a 14T item. Standard gearing sees an indicated 3200rpm at 100kmh, meaning the R is geared for well over 320kmh out of the box.

The smaller sprocket would make the bike smoother around town (the R is already substantially smoother than the longer-stroke SPS) as well as boost acceleration.

In fact, I found it better to leave the R in fifth on the open road, as the lower revs in sixth would creep up to a licence-losing speed of 140kmh, or around 4500rpm. Whereas if I kept the engine around those revs in fifth I was less likely to end up talking to Mr Plod.

Although the chassis stats are similar to the SPS, I reckon the R steered better, both around the Island and on the open road. Whether it was due to a slightly higher rear ride height or the lighter front wheel (less gyroscopic effect) I'm not sure. Maybe we need to get a SPS and 996R together...

UNBELIEVABLY EFFECTIVE
The brakes that had bordered on savage around town were unbelievably effective on the track, and I had to be careful heading into Turn One that my 'caress' of the front lever didn't cause a sudden dive in the front end.

It was something McMartin had also noticed, and he was itching to get his own 996R on the track.

"I love brakes like that - the sort where as soon as you touch the lever they're on," he said. "It's one of the first things I noticed when I rode the R."

The all-new Brembo braking system retains four-piston calipers at the front, but now features four separate pads per caliper rather than two. Ducati reckons this is for improved compensation as the pads wear, and less roll-back upon release. I'm not going to argue.

The discs are 320mm stainless-steel, but with the bite and feel of the old cast-iron rotors.

There's a 400g weight saving per disc (so, 0.8kg in all) delivered by the 0.5mm thinner rotors used on the 996R compared to the SPS, and the reduced number of floating fasteners holding them to the Ergal aircraft alloy flanges. Top stuff.

ENGINE FOCUS
To create the 996R, Ducati focused most attention on the new engine, and slotted it into the same tubular-steel spaceframe as the SPS - itself derived from Foggy's racebike.

Fully-adjustable 43mm Ohlins race forks as used on the Ducati Superbikes are fitted, with gold titanium-nitride coated stanchions to reduce stiction, and a race-quality, multi-adjustable Ohlins shock.

A pair of ultra-lightweight Marchesini five-spoke race wheels are fitted, shod on the testbike with excellent Pirelli Dragon Evo Corsa rubber. No complaints there - on track or road.

Carbon-fibre bodywork (rather than the injection-moulded plastic of the base model) helps contribute to a notable weight reduction, plus there's a claimed 5kmh improvement in top speed due solely to better aerodynamics.

The major chassis change is the adoption of 2mm-thicker 12mm engine mounts, to create a stiffer engine/chassis package.

PARTS SPECIAL?
But the 996R is one of those bikes which is much more than just the sum of its parts.

Yeah, I can hear the cries now: "Not another bloody Ducati test"; or "No bike is worth that much"; and so on...

What can't be denied though is that a model that was introduced back in 1994, eight years ago, still sets the standard for sportsbike design.

It's also worth rembering that three years ago Yamaha's YZF-R7 (of which 500 were built) was priced $10,000 higher than the 996R. And rumour has it that quite a few R7s are still sitting in European warehouses.

And if you want to buy a road-going race-kitted replica of Colin Edwards' VTR SP-2 or Troy Corser's RSV1000SP or Frankie Chili's GSX-R750, you'd be paying substantially more than the 996R's $52,000 asking price.

No, I can't justify paying $52K for a 996R - or any motorcycle for that matter. But then, I don't earn big bucks either.

In the case of the 996R the only accessories you need to add are the Bayliss-replica Dainese leathers and a Bayliss-replica Suomy lid. And 40 such people will be able to live that dream in Australia.

As for me, I'm knocking off early again. Enough said.