Corona Suzuki TL1000R: Problem Child

First and only track test ever made by any journalist of the 1998 works Suzuki TL1000R V-twin Superbike, a project terminated by the factory after just a single year of competition

- Adam Wheeler

It’s not often that a Japanese manufacturer gets it wrong, and especially rare that it should withdraw a factory-developed road racer after just a single season of competition. But that’s what happened exactly 20 years ago with the problem child of World Superbike racing, the Suzuki TL1000R.

Indeed, the short shelf life of Suzuki’s first V-twin Superbike must set some kind of record for brevity in world-class four-stroke racing. Announced with a fanfare at the ‘97 Milan Show as the company’s double-up each-way bet for Superbike supremacy, just in case the new fuel-injected version of its four-cylinder GSX-R750 revealed alongside it didn’t do the business, the TL1000R was presented as the Superbike version of Suzuki’s year-old TL1000S 90º V-twin. No question about it: talking to Hidetoshi Tadokoro, the boss of Suzuki’s motorcycle division, it was clear he intended the voluptuous R-model to become a key player in Superbike racing around the world, starting in the USA, where the factory-backed Yoshimura team structured a two-man V-twin race squad for 1998, with riders Steve Crevier and Larry Pegram, that was entirely separate from their Mat Mladin/Aaron Yates GSX-R750 squad. The TL1000R was obviously aimed at being the first V-twin from another manufacturer, and especially a Japanese one, to challenge Ducati’s desmo dominance - complete with wind tunnel-developed aerodynamic bodywork, GP-derived aluminium twin-spar chassis offering greater stiffness than the half-faired TL1000S’s tubular alloy spaceframe, and a comprehensive race kit that in keeping with Suzuki’s praiseworthy established policy, allowed privateers full access to factory-level performance - albeit it at a steep price. World Superbike, here we come....