YAMAHA R S500 PROBLEMS PLUS

For 1983, now with ELF sponsorship, Didier was joined in the 250GP Chevallier team by Jean-FranГ§ois BaldГ©, and the dream result of the first race at Kyalami saw victory on his Chevallier debut for the Frenchman, with de RadiguГЁs second.Д¬old-drawn steel, being 20 per cent stronger than hot-rolled, offers an increased stiffness to weight ratioД«ut BaldГ© broke his leg at Assen, and despite pleasing his local Johnson cigarette sponsors with victory in the Belgian GP at Spa, Didier could only finish third in the World Championship, behind Yamaha factory riders Carlos Lavado and Christian Sarron. Teammate Eric Saul won the Austrian GP and finished the championship in fourth. In 1982, BelgiumвЂ™s Didier de RadiguГЁs rode a Chevallier Yamaha to victory in the 350cc Yugoslavian GP, to wind up second in the World Championship. вЂњWe had an excellent season with lots of pole positions and fewer crashes, but we just didnвЂ™t quite have enough to win the title,вЂќ Alain Chevallier.Дespite his brotherвЂ™s death, Alain Chevallier continued to build and race motorcycles. Just six weeks after OlivierвЂ™s passing, Saul put a Chevallier Yamaha on the rostrum for the first time in the 350cc French GP at Ricard, repeating that third place finish at Silverstone later that year to finish sixth in the final points table. The distraught Alain was set to turn his back on racing, before his friend Eric Saul persuaded him otherwise. By 1980 heвЂ™d started making his own Yamaha TZ250/350-powered bikes for Olivier to race вЂ“ but that April Olivier was tragically killed at Paul Ricard on a TZ750. The first to fit carbon disc brakes to a 500GP and the first to feature ram air inductionДЄlain ChevallierвЂ™s younger brother Olivier had become a top bike racer, winning the 1976 350cc Yugoslavian GP with a bike prepared by Alain as chief mechanic for the Pernod-funded team. The Chevallier workshop was a hotbed of innovation. He was a pioneer in developing fully adjustable suspension, too, making his own forks and shocks, as well as in telemetry. As part of his drive to save weight to compensate for the less powerful customer engines in his bikes, he was the first to fit carbon disc brakes to a 500GP motorcycle, and the first to feature ram air induction and a still air box on his GP bikes. Ducati would follow in his tyre tracks later that decade en route to successive World Superbike titles with its tube-framed racers, and eventually of course to the 2007 MotoGP World title.Д«ut Alain Chevallier didnвЂ™t stop there.

YAMAHA R S500 PROBLEMS PLUS

While the Japanese were following Antonio Cobas in building aluminium chassis, Chevallier maintained his allegiance to tubular steel frames вЂ“ but using cold-drawn steel which, being 20 per cent stronger than hot-rolled, offers an increased stiffness to weight ratio, plus improved rider feedback. When as powerful a figure as HRC boss Youichi Oguma lent factory engines to Alain ChevallierвЂ™s small team, it was a mark of respect for what his bikes had achieved against all odds, on a limited budget. What an achievement.Д«ut in the early 1980s thatвЂ™s exactly what French engineer Alain Chevallier succeeded in doing, and his death from cancer in October 2016 aged 68 saw us losing one of the great chassis designers of modern day GP history. Alain Chevallier, in his Vendome workshop with frame parts for his Chevallier 500 GP racer.

Yamaha r s500 problems