Latest Posts:
Asphalt & Rubber
Author

Jensen Beeler

Browsing
Racing

Melandri Officially Signs with Hayate

By No Comments

melandri-kawasaki-pits

Today Marco Melandri confirmed that he has signed a one-year contract with Hayate Racing to race in this year’s MotoGP championship that will replace his previous two-year contract with Kawasaki.

The deal is a costly one for Melandri, both financially and in terms of his ability to compete. “I had to make a big financial sacrifice, but the most important thing that I wanted was to find trust,” he told MotoGP. Throughout the last test at Qatar, Melandri complained of issues with rear grip, a similar complaint he had with the Kawasaki, and he expressed his hope that these problems could be fixed quickly.

“I have nothing to lose. One month ago I had one foot outside the World Championship, and now I have a team that is working solely for me. My motivation is this, and to show Kawasaki that they made a mistake in choosing to pull out their factory support.”

In another month’s time, at the season opener at Qatar, we shall see whether Melandri’s hope as justified.

Source:

Keep Reading
By
News

Aprilia RSV4 Coming to the US in Q4

By 1 Comment

aprilia-rsv4-usa-5

There’s lot’s of news surrounding the Aprilia RSV4 this week. Those wishing to reserve an RSV4 in the UK can login to   and register to take first delivery of the V4 monster, but must then pay a deposit at their local Aprilia dealer. Also Piaggio Group USA President and CEO Paolo Timoni has revealed that future RSV4 owners can expect to see the bike go officially on sale in the US in the last quarter of 2009. 

aprilia-rsv4-usa-1.jpg
aprilia-rsv4-usa-2.jpg
aprilia-rsv4-usa-3.jpg
aprilia-rsv4-usa-4.jpg
aprilia-rsv4-usa-5.jpg

If that wasn’t enough to wet your appetite, spy shots have found the RSV4 on the streets in production trim around Italy’s Lake Garda.

aprilia-spy-shots-street-1.jpg
aprilia-spy-shots-street-2.jpg
aprilia-spy-shots-street-3.jpg

Source: Two Wheel Blog, Visordown & Hell for Leather

Keep Reading
By
News

Texas Considering Allowing Lane Splitting

By 8 Comments

Senator John Carona of Dallas, Texas has introduced Senate Bill 506 to the Texas State Senate that would allow motorcyclists to lane-split through traffic. This would make Texas the only other state besides California to allow lane-splitting.

The bill proposes some strict guidelines to balance the public safety and traffic flow advantages:

The operator and the passenger have to be wearing helmets. The operator has to operate the motorcycle not more than 5 miles-an-hour faster than the rest of traffic is going. Traffic can’t be going over 20 miles-an-hour and it can’t be done in a school crossing zone or somewhere where the speed limit is less than 20 miles-an-hour.

These regulations are more clear and precise than the California legislations which states that a motorcyclist must simply be riding prudently and safely (something that is often left to the discretion of the police officer). If you live and ride in Texas and have an opinion on this bill, now is the time to let your legislators know.

Source: The Kneeslidder; Photo: eschipul / Creative Commons – Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic

Keep Reading
By
Racing

Glitch Leads to a Confusing AMA Daytona 200

By No Comments

d200-6341

Confusion in Daytona, Florida lead many race fans, and racers with some doubt as to who won, and whether not a full race had in fact occurred for this year’s Daytona 200. In a press release issued by the AMA, the sequence of events that led to the 6-lap sprint to the finish are as follows:

The lighting system that illuminated the chicane that leads into NASCAR turn 3 experienced a failure on or about lap 36, which brought out the “safety” (AKA pace) car. During this caution an unnamed rider collided with Graves Yamaha’s Tommy Aquino, causing Aquino to go down, which brought out the red flag, idling the field for nearly a half-hour. After a few warm-up laps behind the safety car, racing resumed only to to go back under caution when M4 Suzuki’s Kris Turner went down in the Horseshoe. Racing resumed in earnest on lap 49 and did not go back to yellow for the remainder of the race.

Godwin Kelly, Motorsports Editor of the Daytona News Journal, reports that the the reason that the scoring tower read two laps shy of the 57 required for a full race distance, was that the warmup laps between the red flag and the last caution should have been counted as race laps but weren’t, resulting in confusion amongst the front-runners, not the least of whom was Jason DiSalvo, who thought that his GSXR-600 Daytona Sportbike had the oomph necessary on the top-end to make a bid for the lead. 

AMA race director Colin Fraser said that the discrepancy was a mistake and would not make excuses for the foul-up. 

Lastly, Paradigm Racing’s Barrett Long, after a post-race protest, was given credit for a lap that was not counted during the red flag period which elevated him to 6th place ahead of Chaz Davies. Continue reading for the racing results.

 

Keep Reading
By
Racing

AMA Superbike Daytona Results

By No Comments

mladin-ama-superbike-daytona-2009

AMA Superbike kicked off this weekend to substantially less fanfare than WSBK did last week. AMA Superbike has become the bastard-child of road-racing for a variety of reason. One, Mat Mladin has already been forecasted to win all the races this year now that Ben Spies has moved on to World Superbikes. Two, the bikes being raced aren’t really superbikes. Three, AMA Superbike has been boring for the past 5 years or so. While we do not attempt to make excuses, or even argue these valid criticisms of AMA Superbike, you’d be wrong if you thought the first race of the AMA season was boring.  It’s true that Mladin took over on the 7th lap and  won by over a second but the actual racing was a lot more entertaining than that.

 

Keep Reading
By
Banter

Forbes Lists America’s 100 Worst Intersections

By 1 Comment

2008_01_30baybloor1

We all have an intersection or two that we absolutely despise in our home town. Hearing our ire and road rage, Forbes has compiled a list of the 100 worst intersections in the United States. As one would expect, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago keep popping up, though other areas like New Haven, Austin and even Honolulu have traffic nightmares to offer. Forbes relied on data from Inrix, a company whose traffic data, culled from commercial vehicle GPS units and state departments of transportation, is facilitating traffic avoidance functionality in GPS units. Ford will be using the predictive routing to keep its new vehicles out of traffic jams, and Garmin and TomTom also rely on Inrix. Source: Forbes via Autoblog

Keep Reading
By
Racing

Dani Pedrosa to Miss Three to Four Weeks After Surgery

By No Comments

dani-pedrosa-track

Dani Pedrosa was operated on by a team of doctors at the USP Institut Universitari Dexeus yesterday evening. The medical staff placed a titanium screw in Pedrosa’s left wrist and a skin graft on his left knee. The two doctors carried out  both of the three-hour operation at the same time, with the left knee skin graft taking the most time. At the press conference the doctors spoke about each procedure and the likely recovery time.

“Dani Pedrosa received a graft on the open wound using a rotation graft, a graft of skin and fat taken from the inside of his left thigh to cover the affected area,” stated Dr. Ferreira. “We must now wait for scar tissue to form; the patient will be able to start moving a little within three weeks and within a minimum of four he can begin to bend the leg.”

“The fracture on the left distal radius, which was affecting the joint, has been repaired, it was then fixed with a titanium screw. The functioning of the affected zone will begin within ten days, in the meantime Dani Pedrosa will stay in hospital for the next 72 hours” said Dr. Mir.

With doctors saying that it will be four weeks before Pedrosa can even bend his knee, it is very likely that Dani will be unable to test at Jerez, which is in three weeks.

Source:

Keep Reading
By
News

California Proposes Motorcycle Smog Checks

By No Comments

CLH1.CA.0e.0623.Terminator5.0.1

For those of you living and riding in the State of California, you should be aware of a proposed senate bill that will require smog checks for motorcycles. Senate Bill 435, introduced by California State Senator Pavley on February 26, proposes smog checks on motorcycles, beginning January 1st, 2012, for all motorcycles model year 2000 or newer. California until now has had the wisdom to exclude motorcycles from smog tests.

SB 435, as introduced, Pavley. Smog check program: motorcycles. Existing law establishes a motor vehicle inspection and maintenance program (smog check), administered by the Department of Consumer Affairs, that provides for the inspection of motor vehicles upon registration, biennially upon renewal of registration, upon transfer of ownership, and in certain other circumstances. Existing law exempts from biennial inspection all motorcycles until the department implements test procedures applicable to motorcycles. Violations of smog check requirements are a crime. This bill would require the department to include model-year 2000 and newer motorcycles in the smog check program beginning January 1, 2012.

If you live in the State of California, the time to contact your state legislators is now.

Source: 

Keep Reading
By