Aside from the motorbikes lapping at 120+ mph around the Snaefell Mountain Course during Race 2 of the Supersport TT, there was a fair bit of drama at the Isle of Man TT pit lane, especially when a race bike caught on fire. Coming in for his one pit stop, in between the second and third laps, Grant Wagstaff found himself subject to an unsuspected fireball, after a gas spill was ignited by his Yamaha R6’s hot exhaust pipes. A terrifying sight, thankfully the incident was taken care of quickly by the fire brigade and everyone else involved. The result was the pit lane being closed for about a minute, leaving the affected riders to have a time credit given to their official times. Last we heard, all involved will live to race another day, though Wagstaff was sent to Noble’s Hospital and treated for burns.
Billed as the toughest single-day enduro in the world, the Erzbergrodeo certainly seems to live up to the hyperbole. Four days of events, the Erzbergrodeo is crowned by the last day’s Red Bull Hare Scramble, where 500 qualifiers (pared down from over 1,000 entries) take to the Austrian quarry, and only a handful find the finish line. The Erzbergrodeo is mildly ridiculous, and completely laborious…so, obviously we like it. Thankfully for the 2014 competitors, the rain wasn’t too big of a factor this year…because you know, it’s not like the hare scramble wasn’t hard enough to begin with.
It was quite a wrench to the leave the Island in the middle of the TT to go to the…
When it comes to historic British motorcycle brands, Ariel ranks as one of the top marquees in the business. Currently lending its name to the insane street-legal go-kart that is the Ariel Atom, which Jeremy Clarkson helped make famous with his big mouth..literally, Ariel boss Simon Saunders has tipped, in a press release about the latest Atom iteration, that the company’s next effort will be of the two-wheeled variety. Caught testing by the lenses of MCN, the British moto-publication says that the new Ariel will be based around the 1,237cc V4 engine found on the Honda VFR1200F, and have a single-sided swingarm, along with a unconventional front-end — possibly of a girder or Hossack design.
Before heading up to the Bungalow for today’s races, the weather looked fairly promising with only cloud cover, and no ominous…
With a packed Wednesday schedule, riders had only moments after the TT Zero celebration to mount their Supersport machines for…