The DUCONDA 1000
Text e photos: Fran Aguilar Cano
On the Simplemente Motos Facebook page we made many references to the "Battle Of Twins" (BOTT) championship, a category that was included in the American AMA national championship that had its heyday in the 80s and 90s.
This category had its most relevant race at Daytona, a race that became famous over time for being the race where the DUCATI saga in SBK began with the triumph of the first DUCATI 851 prototype.
This championship was divided into two categories, "Pro Twins GP" with free preparation, where authentic racing prototypes competed, and "Modifield" based on production bikes with a much more restrained preparation and very popular among amateur riders, a common rule for In both categories, any type of engine was valid as long as it was twin-cylinder.
Our protagonist today, DUCONDA debuted in the "Pro Twins GP" at Daytona in 1988, its builders, the Erion brothers, from Racing Team Erion, would become the official HONDA team in AMA known as Team HONDA Erion Road Racing , where several notables, such as Nicky Hayden or Kurtis Roberts, raced.
Erion put a DUCATI F1 750cc on the starting grid with very original changes:
- they replaced the original cylinder heads with others from HONDA RVFC (in a later version, they also changed the cylinders);
- forged pistons of HRC origin were also fitted as well as a few more engine parts of the same origin.
All this thanks to the knowledge they had with the people who, at the time, controlled HONDA Racing in the USA, for this reason, rumors arose that indicated that HONDA "sponsored" this experience to accumulate knowledge in case it deemed it necessary to create a generation of engines, 2 cylinders, anti-DUCATI.
The motorcycle's displacement grew to 1,038cc and the frame was modified to accommodate HONDA heads, wider than the original DUCATI ones.
In the power system, the original carburetors were replaced by a BOSCH injection system with two injectors per cylinder, the crankshaft was changed to a single piece and titanium connecting rods and valves were also fitted, the engine was said to reach a measured 135 hp on the crankshaft.
In practice, the DUCONDA reached a maximum speed of over 275 km/h, but broke a connecting rod and the crankshaft and, for that reason, did not compete in the race.
They later tried to return on several occasions, but various injection problems and, mainly, broken connecting rods always left it out of the race, all these problems undoubtedly due to the youth of the project and the fact that HONDA did not want to get officially involved.
Finally the project was shelved and the bike was never heard from again, it was probably kept by HONDA, although it appears that in 2003 it appeared for sale on Ebay, and the Erion brothers to this day continue to be the most successful HONDA team in racing competitions. speed under the auspices of the AMA.
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