Hodgson's Corona Honda CBR1000RR Review Page 3

The FMF exhaust barks to life like an angry beast – hissing, spitting and backfiring. It’s raspy and loud, but in an inspiring way. My heart starts pumping fast and it’s simply at idle. I can tell what lies beneath that audacious bodywork is something menacing, mean. I click it into gear, cruise out of the pits and look over my shoulder to make sure I’m not going to mess up Tommy Hayden or Josh Hayes in the middle of a flying lap. Had it been Mat Mladin, I may have accidently floated into the racing line, but it’s clear and I’m off.

'They’re not kidding when they say this is still a Superbike. Holy sh…'

Twist the right grip, clicking through gears with a tap of my left foot, the CBR accelerates with an extreme sense of urgency. Not wildly, though, or uncontrollable – just lightning fast and razor sharp. Full-throttle up-shifts are effortless as the ignition cut-out is perfectly timed. While not at liberty to divulge an exact number, our seat-of-the-pants dyno would put it in the neighborhood of 200 bhp at the rear Dunlop slick, maybe slightly under. The engine internals may be closer to stock than years prior but it hasn’t slowed them down nearly as much as we expected. In fact, at this test they were experimenting with different fuel injection stacks to reduce top-end power in an attempt to make it more rideable.

Acceleration, on a track as tight as Infineon, literally feels endless. With that much useable power the Superbike is rarely ever straight up and down around the technical and twisting 2.52-mile Infineon track. Though barely getting out of third gear, the Superbike melts straights, shrinking them to what feels like mere blips, long transitions at best.

It’s for this very reason the HRC kit traction control system quickly becomes one’s friend. The track was a bit slick and once the rear tire started to wear I was glad to have the added assistance of TC. But if you think TC is an end-all, slam-the-throttle-wide-open, any-idiot-with-balls-can-do-it type of technology, you’d be sorely mistaken the first time you tried to twist the Superbike’s right grip hastily to the stop at lean. In fact, you’d probably be very sore, very quick.

“Think of traction control as a motocross berm,” explains Hodgson’s data engineer Sander Donkers. “It will stop you to an extent, but go too fast, too quickly, and you’ll blow right over the berm. With how aggressive we have it set-up, the berm is fairly small. It’s really only there as an aid. You can make the berm bigger, but Neil tends to run it pretty small as too much and it will actually cut some of the machine’s power down the straights.”

The nice thing about the system is that when it works, it does so extremely well, something I know the team has worked very hard to perfect the last two seasons. As long as I was smooth on the throttle it would allow the rear end to pivot roughly 10 degrees or so, before running up on the aforementioned virtual-berm and holding the rear tire there – spinning and slightly sideways, but still always driving me forward. This allowed me to steer the motorcycle using the throttle with a bit more aggression than I would have without the safety net.

'This is awesome! Stand the bike up, twist the throttle, and slide all the way down the hill coming out of Turn 2. Now, if I could only get Honda’s press department to fit one of these on our CBR1000RR...'

Would it have been cool to try the Corona Superbike somewhere faster, say a Miller Motorsports Park type of facility, where we could have really explored its loads of power? Sure. But on the other hand, the tight and technical Infineon showed just how much potential the CBR chassis really has. For a bike using a stock frame and swingarm and making this kind of horsepower, to be that agile, sharp and light on its feet is impressive.

My previous experience with high-horsepower 1000s typically involved point, shoot and pull the trigger as the quickest approach. And while the CBR1000RR Superbike isn’t as agile as a well-race-prepped 600, it’s much closer than I had expected.

'She sure turns quickly for a literbike, but it’s about as hard as a rigid-framed chopper…'

Said light-footedness, compliance and confidence at full-lean took a bit of tweaking from where it was when it rolled out of the truck. You could say it was a tad stiff for my smaller frame. Corona Honda’s CBR1000RR Superbike started the day set up for Holden and his added heft and slightly unorthodox riding preferences, most of which simply didn’t match mine, so a few changes were in order.

A couple different shocks, a host of fork adjustments and several engine maps later, things started to really work well for me. Most of the suspension changes were aimed at softening the bike up; I’m nearly 40 pounds less than Holden and accustomed to spongy street bikes.

As for the engine mapping changes, they focused on adjusting the amount of engine braking. Holden likes a good deal of back torque, more than a stock CBR1000RR actually, while Hodgson prefers the bike to freewheel into the corner. I had some issues with the back of the bike coming around and backing-in under braking, a good deal of which was easily remedied by switching to Hodgson’s fuel mapping settings.

'Compliant, nimble, quick, supple; amazing how much better things work when the suspension actually moves! In fact, it’s downright impressive how well this thing works: Period. Now I just need to drop about three more seconds and get myself a gym membership…'

As for said lap times, we started the day somewhere near the 1:46s or higher, which wasn’t terrible for how far off the bike’s initial set-up was for me, but I wasn’t exactly getting factory offers at that pace. Once we got on the right track with the suspension and I took my skirt off I was easily into the lower 1:42 range by the afternoon, and was quickly shedding off time when a mechanical issue ended my day a bit early. Even so, compared to where we started I was happy. I think with some more time to dial in the set-up and Heben giving me the OK to not worry about crashing it, I could get close to the 1:39s. By comparison Holden was in the 1:37-1:38-range with Ben Bostrom the fastest of the test at a mid-1:36.

For a lot of us who love road racing, being a Superbike or MotoGP racer is a dream. There’s a reason Honda makes a Repsol-replica CBR1000RR or Ducati has a Troy Bayliss-edition 1098R. Ducati even made a 999R Fila-replica of Hodgson’s own 2003 World Superbike Championship-winning machine that they sold in ’04 (we doubt they sold many of those though…). Point is, people buy the bikes and people love the idea of being a Superbike star!












Although we doubt Honda will make a replica of the flamboyant Corona Honda CBR1000RR, underneath that insanely-busy bodywork is one of the quickest and best race bikes I’ve ever ridden, not to mention being supported by the best team I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. And while my day of Superbike life may have been hard work, I loved every last second of it. What’s not to love about flying around Infineon on a well-tuned Superbike, tearing up hundreds of dollars worth of brand-new Dunlop rubber with the likes of Ben Bostrom and Tommy Hayden while trying not to destroy my buddy Neil Hodgson’s factory-built racebike?

Now, if I can only convince them to let me race it…