"We dyno-tested all 24 bikes, and they all gave between 128 to 133 horsepower at the rear wheel," KTM events manager Richard Ellis said.
This is his way of eliminating cheating in the KTM Super Duke Battle, the 12-race one-make championship for the naked, high-bar V-twins.
Last year contestants were allowed some engine tuning, including cylinder head work and engine blueprinting. Inevitably, the rules favoured those with the biggest budgets.
So this year, tweaks are out, but it's not a sealed-engine championship, so the dyno-tests are a way of checking for illegal work.
"If a bike gave 138 or 140 horsepower, I would want to have a look at it," Ellis said.
Riders get a race-kitted Supr Duke for £8,500, can cover the whole season for around £15,000, and get to keep the bike afterwards.
They certainly put on a good show at Thruxton, these booming 990cc V-twins. Journalist Alastair Fagan, who writes for
Fast Bikes magazine, won the race, but probably the most astonishing feat was performed by James Edmeades, who rode out the longest tank-slapper of the day and finished third.
Sunday PM: Now Crutchlow will GO for the BSB title
I was too cautious! Four hours ago I wrote in this blog: 'I'll bet that (Cal) Crutchlow scores his first BSB victory within another four races'.
...Then he went out and did in the very next race here at
Thruxton.
That was a cool and savvy ride by the 22-year-old to win the re-started second leg of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship. With 15 of the original 20 laps left, Crutchlow made a drag-race drive from the grid and opened up a two-second gap.
We all expected Shane Byrne, a veteran of around 150 BSB starts, to come driving through on the Airwaves Ducati. But he lagged in fifth place, at the back of a pack containing Tom Sykes, Michael Rutter and Leon Haslam, for too long. But the time he broke clear into second place there were only three laps remaining, and Crutchlow never went a millimetre wrong.
