Last night, while laying in bed, I was watching MotoGP qualifying previously saved on my laptop. I like watching qualifying because it is easy to focus on just one rider at a time, and observe riding in its pure form - not distorted by the desire to pass the next guy. I started dosing off, and eventually fell asleep. I woke up in the morning and couldn't shake off the bad dream I just had...
...Suzuki Japan made a leap jump into 2015 MotoGP racing by introducing their newly developed Suzuki Universal Continuous Killer Electronic Rider System (SUCKERS). This new system was developed with the help of their MotoGP riders, and can be easily adopted for mass produced motorcycles. Equipped with 6-axis accelerometer sensors, and GPS, the system can easily figure out the exact position of a motorcycle on a given racetrack. Thanks to the inputs from many other sensors, the SUCKERS ECU knows the lean angle, tire slip, and other vital data. But the most amazing part of SUCKERS are the newly introduced step motors controlling motorcycle's steering, throttle, and brakes. Developed with the help of top MotoGP riders signed up by Suzuki - Aleix Espargaro and Maverick Viñales - SUCKERS can now control all aspects of riding a motorcycle - including acceleration, braking, and turning. The system has three distincs modes.
MAN SUCKERS is the manual mode where a rider has full control.
HALF MAN SUCKERS is Help Assisted Low Force (HALF) manual mode where a rider has partial control of throttle, steering, and brakes. The system allows a rider to control a motorcycle, but quickly overrides incorrect inputs. This mode is useful when a rider wants to learn how to ride a motorcycle at its top performance range.
ALL SUCKERS is Automated Live Lockout (ALL) mode where a rider does not provide any inputs to a motorcycle. In this mode, SUCKERS ECU fully controls all motorcycle inputs, and provides maximum performance.
As part of the development, SUZUKI selected a number of average street riders who never rode on a racetrack, but wanted to become a part of SUCKERS test team. "The results of such experiment were simply amazing", says current test team manager Davide Brivio. "As street riders go out on the track for the first time, we set their motorcycles to MAN SUCKERS mode. In this mode, street riders realize how slow they are. Trying to ride faster causes a few excursions off the track, and a few crashes. Then, we switched motorcycles to HALF MAN SUCKERS mode. The improvements were simply amazing - riders dropped 40 sec. or more off their lap times and without a single crash, although some of them needed more frequent bathroom breaks" - David Brivio explains. His most exciting impressions: "For a few selected street riders, we set their motorcycles to ALL SUCKERS mode, and to their amazement, their lap times were about the same as for top MotoGP racers. Unfortunately, they learned about their achievements at a later time because of unpredictable distractions. During those fast laps they were continuously screaming something inaudible; once back in the pits, their hands and knees were shaking; and their race suites were all wet around the crotch area - perhaps because of excessive perspiration".
Later in the day, Suzuki invited journalists, street test riders, and of course MotoGP test riders Aleix Espargaro and Maverick Viñales to attend an official ceremony devoted to SUCKERS. SUZUKI representative thanked everyone for their participation. His most notable comments were focused on MotoGP riders: "We want to thank Aleix Espargaro and Maverick Viñales for their enormous contribution to this project. We've grown to work with these top riders side by side, an that is why it will be especially difficult for us to continue our journey without them. We found lighter riders who will reduce the combined motorcycle-rider weight by another 20 lb, while still achieving the same or better lap times. The $2.5 million saved on salaries to Aleix Espargaro and Maverick Viñales will be used to hire 10 software developers needed to fine tune SUCKERS for even faster lap times. Suzuki feels this would be a more effective use of funds". A sudden silence became awkward after a few seconds. It was interrupted by an angry voice of Aleix Espargaro, clearly cursing, and then storming out of the room. Maverick Viñales silently left the room while shaking his head in disbelief. "Party on!", said Suzuki representative. "We live in a great time!"
