At the fifth round of the World Superbike Championship being held at Monza this weekend, Ben Spies shattered the lap record with a time of 1:44:073 to take his 5th consecutive Superpole victory, making the young American 5 for 5 so far this season in the qualifying event.
At Monza this week, Pirelli will be debuting a new qualifying tire solution for the World Superbike Championship. Taking a page from what the 200mm qualifying tire will include markers that will help indicate what tires are being selected during the Superpole competition. Pirelli tires will sport non-permanent white “long P” markings and yellow lines, which have been imprinted on to the tire’s surface. These markings will offer spectators and presenters a way of identifying what is happening during the Superpole in regards to tire choices.
When one talks about Milan, Italy, it envokes the idea of high fashion, models, runway exhibtions, and the yearly EICMA motorcycle expo. OK, that last one may only occur for the die-hard motorcyclists, but the rest hold fairly true for just about everyone else. The Milan Design Week is a celebration of both artistic and technical design, and this year, Bimota made some waves with its carbon clade DB7 Nerocaronio. But, these days.
BMW is making a limited edition version of the HP2 Megamoto that was raced at last year’s Pikes Peak hill climb event. Unfortunatly, the Pikes Peak edition HP2 Megamoto will only be available in the Japanese market, and while a considered a “replica” of the Megamoto which BMW Motorrad / BMW USA Sierra raced at the Pikes Peak, it will mimic the race bike in form only. Read: the replica will will feature a race-replica paintjob and stickers, but will remain stock mechanically. Cue hisses and booos.
Take one British stunt rider (Craig Jones), one American sport bike (Buell 1125R), and one frozen Swedish lake bed (Lake Dellen), and what do you have? A 148 mph PR stunt that would be a record if there was a category for such a thing.
For the second time in recent months, the US Government is having a major motorcycle racer talk to US servicemen about safely operating motorcycles. A few months ago it was , and today it is Kevin Schwantz, the 500cc GP World Champion, who will speak at a number of road safety seminars.
Trying to find a common theme with his subjects, Schwantz refers to his races as battles (rightfully so), but emphasises there is a time and a place for riding fast:
“They were battles fought on the racetrack. It may look intense but it’s actually a very controlled environment. And that’s nothing like the battles our brave service personnel are fighting. For the military sportbike riders we’re talking about today, the real battleground is right here at home – on the streets.”
Back in October, CNN ran an interesting story about how motorcycle related deaths have killed more Marines in the past 12 months than enemy fire in Iraq. Similarly, the US Navy is finding a similar rise in motorcycle accidents by military personnel. In 2008, 25 Marines died on motorcycles, compare that to the 22 killed in hostile action in Iraq. Pentagon sources say a rising trend started in 2004, when seven Marines died on bikes.
Source: Visordown
AMA Pro Road Racing officials dyno tested the 10 motorcycles that qualified for Friday’s Superpole session at Barber Motorsports Park, in an effort to maintain a more competitive balance among the hodgepodge of bikes competing in the series. In their study, they found that the bikes range in power-to-weight ratios from 2.65lbs/hp to 3.14lbs/hp, with a .28lbs/hp gap between first and second ranked bikes. What is interesting about the report from the AMA is that they never named which bikes were making how much horsepower, thus leaving it a mystery who had the supreme power-to-weight advantage. Never fear, math and common sense are here. We crunched the numbers to figure out what the likely results are in this report. Our conclusions may astound you, and/or confirm your suspcions about the series, and maybe AMA road racing as a whole.
The new Moriwaki MD600 bike was presented to the media while gathered at the Polini Grand Prix of Japan, with the Japanese firm announcing plans to participate in the first running of the Moto2 class in 2010. The 600cc 4-stroke bike that was presented is the third evolution of the prototype machine developed by Moriwaki Racing and built by Moriwaki Engineering, and is a part of a larger initiative by Moriwaki to make purpose-built road racing machines.
Source Interlink, publisher of such motorcycle magazines as: Motorcyclist, Sport Rider, Dirt Rider, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The company, which is owned by billionaire Ron Burkle’s Yucaipa Cos., is expected to privatize after the bankruptcy, with debtors losing nearly $1 billion in outstanding loans.
It’s expected that heavy restructuring and cost cutting will now take place within the company’s publications, but it’s too early to determine which, if any, titles will be closed or sold.
On the potential chopping block is the following motorcycle titles: ATV Rider, Baggers, Dirt Rider, Hot Bike, Motorcycle Cruiser, Motorcyclist, Sport Rider, Street Chopper, & Super Street Bike
Stiggy Racing Honda has confirmed that Jake Zemke will replace injured rider John Hopkins for the Monza round of the World Superbike Championship. , although that goal seems lofty. In the interim, Zemke will have to fill his shoes.
The street going version of the the BMW S 1000RR made a surprise visit during the Jerez MotoGP this past weekend, and luckily someone took some pictures of it. The new superbike was being used as the race safety bike for the GP races. These photos come about a week before the at Monza’s World Superbike round, May 8th -10th, where we hope to finally see the bike in its full street form, although these photos are pretty close to showing us that. Continue reading for the photos, and more details.