MORONEY
The sound which screams out of Suzuki ’ s MotoGP machine is certainly not noise ...
THE ART OF NOISE
Words : Roger Moroney
W hen I once ( in hindsight rather foolishly ) remarked to the legendary Giacomo Agostini that the MV Agusta 500 at full tweak made a most wonderful noise he delivered a frown ... with a slight grin of bemusement . “ Is not noise ,” he said in the tone of a schoolteacher trying to put a wrong right . “ Is a sound .” I nodded and said “ of course ” and later walked away slightly chastened , but educated for the better . For the MV Agusta delivers delicious sound ... even when the trackside decibel readers would have surged alarmingly as he showed Alberto Pagini the way back in those glory days . And the MotoGP fleet of today also create a great sound ... and , as I discovered at Phillip Island a few years back , a diversity of sound . You could close your eyes during practice sessions and pinpoint that a Ducati was entering the main straight ... followed by a Honda . Because the Ducatis had a more thunderous roar and the Honda emitted a clearly fast revving screaming tone . And the Yamahas had their own beautiful and busy sounds . And the Suzukis . The only
bikes that made a “ noise ” that day were some of those which arrived carrying fellow audience members . Unrestrained exhaust systems ... unrestrained and modified ... put it that way . But that ’ s okay . So long as they didn ’ t surge back through their distant neighbourhoods just after midnight as the audio results of that escapade would not have been classified as a “ sound ” but a noise . I hear them today from time to time . Riders whose apparent belief is that excessive noise means excessive horsepower ( it certainly is not ) and that making a noise is making some sort of statement . All it really does is wind people up and give the landscape of motorcycles a rather sour taste for some . But hey , it seems this is the era for noise as half the cars I hear after 10 at night traversing a nearby main artery sound like they have emerged from some aftermarket or butcherthe-baffle factory . It seems we are also living in the era of what appears to be a reduced police presence on the streets because I see , and hear , some outrageous visual and audio behaviour pretty
82 KIWI RIDER