Kevin Curtain with the original 1998 Yamaha R1
Kevin Curtain used his 1998 Yamaha YZF-R1 to great effect during the 1998 Australian Superbike Championship season.
The 1998 YZF-R1 was always intended for racing use, but at the time of its release there was no official Australian championship class for it.
Formula Xtreme is not an ‘official’ Australian championship, so Motorcycling Australia has created a race series for this new generation 1000 cc 4-cylinder machine called the Production Superbike.
This new class will be held in the Australian Superbike Championship, still running 750 cc four-cylinder and 1000 cc two-cylinder machines.
Kevin Curtain and Team Yamaha of Radar were the main players in the field and won by a margin in the Production Superbike Championship that season. Here, Curtain walks down memory lane.
“When ’98 R1 came out, it was really a turnaround,” Ren said. “We knew it was going to be a good thing, but didn’t allow much tweaking because the 750 cc people supported us racing a 1000 cc machine. The funny thing is that our bike is under $20,000 and the FIM-spec bikes are all over $100,000!
“We were limited mainly to the exhaust, air filter and some carby tweaks – no special cams or anything. Those R1s are like a light switch in terms of power delivery but with the right injection you can get them running pretty smoothly.”
Legendary Australian tuner Dave ‘Radar’ Cullen teamed up with Kevin Curtain in 1998 and fondly remembers the YZF-R1.
“R1 is truly a breakthrough machine,” Cullen said. “It has outstripped the rest of the herd and outstripped ThunderAce by miles. From memory, we never had any reliability issues.
“The engine benefited from Yamaha’s involvement in Formula 1 at the time with the Tyrell in that it showed how close you can pack the cylinders together. We ran the original airbox and we were allowed to change that in 1999, but we got some great power from the new engine and with Kev driving so well that season, that was a good year.
“We didn’t have any clutch issues that affect standard motorcycles, but that’s because we regularly remove the clutch to check after every race – the engine itself has bulletproof ability. Our bike was sold to Roger Heyes.
“It would be great if this bike was still around – as far as I can remember, it’s second in the production line worldwide. I was offered number one by Yamaha, but it was a red/white machine and back then I ran my racers in blue – I didn’t want to take it because we would have to paint the tank. If it was number one worldwide and we won all those races, then I think it would be worth a bit by now!”
Jamie Stauffer went on to win the Australian Superbike Championship aboard the YZF-R1 in both 2006 and 2007.
Yamaha then went 15 years without winning a championship until Mike Jones lifts the crown in 2022.
