It's nice to hear again one of the sounds that many had thought they'd never hear again. I refer, of course, to the sound of works engines going bang. The sound of tortured pistons and snapping con-rods is almost drowned out, though, by team PR men shouting of a magic phrase: 'electrical problem' or even simply 'ignition'.

This strategy has the dual benefit of duping the credulous and probably being true. After all, your ignition would stop working if the power to it had been cut off by bits of shrapnel slicing through the wiring.

Face it, when did your digital watch last malfunction? Or your TV? On average, electrical goods last for a year or two either side of a decade. Good stuff can last twice as long. And the average ignition system is a damn sight simpler than your stereo system. And when did that last break down?

The finest example of this new trend came at Albacete when Colin Edwards ended Race One careering through the sandpit. First news from the Honda pit said it was rider error, but this was later revised to 'electrical problems'. At the sound of that almost forgotten phrase, aged paddock cynics started crawling around trying to look under the fairing of Colin's RC45. I myself was taken back to a GP at Jarama over ten years ago where after the 500 race I was standing beside an NSR with a great pool of oil underneath it and being told that the reason the bike didn't get to the chequered flag was 'the ignition'. You see, factory Hondas do not break, they can be broken by their riders or by a minor subsystem supplied by someone else but just as works Hondas have to be the fastest thing through any given speedtrap they mustn't break. It's a matter of corporate pride that, as usual, goes back to Soichiro Himself who reckoned that no-one wanted a slow bike or one that broke down. His successors agree and this has become such an article of faith that works Hondas simply aren't allowed to fail. And can you remember the last time an NSR500 failed to complete a race because of mechanical problems? Difficult, isn't it. The old maxim that to finish first you must first finish is engraved on the hearts of HRC design engineers.

But four-strokes are easier to break than two-strokes thanks to all those reciprocating bits of metal going round and round and up and down at the top end of the motor, and that Albacete meeting also featured Noriyuki Haga's R7 going bang (not an uncommon sound this year) as well as Iain MacPherson's Supersport Kawasaki lunching its valve gear. Maybe competition is so stiff this year that motor's are being tuned even closer to their limits, or maybe budgets are forcing some components to be used for longer than is ideal. Remember that in an ideal racing machine every component would break as it crossed the line in first place.



Back with the RC45, I can only remember one other mechanical failure in Superbike. Do you recall Aaron Slight crashing at Hockenheim's first turn back in the early days of the RC45? He had to take the blame at the time but the truth was that a con-rod had made a break for freedom. But what about last year's Monza conflagration, an obvious engine failure surely? Up to a point Lord Copper. Works Honda riders are told they can exceed the red line for a precisely specified period of time in emergencies, and Aaron obviously thought the prospect of Colin Edwards scoring a double win was an emergency... The same thing goes for Michael Rutter's TT blow-up last year. HRC specifies exact lifetimes for components like pistons, and when they say 500 miles they mean 500 miles, not 505 or 510 as Rutter's team discovered. So Honda took the blame for two blow-ups that really weren't their fault and avoided the blame for the one that was. Funny old World innit?

Mind you, that old electrical failure excuse can cut both ways. I seem to recall someone called Keith Huewen citing a mystery electrical fault as his reason for pulling out of the Senior TT. He was later seen heading towards Ronaldsway Airport at high speed clutching his appearance money ...