Tag

track

Browsing

When I was a new rider, I cut my teeth on Pirelli Corsa tires (and later on the Pirelli Corsa III), and as I got into doing track days, the Pirelli Diablo Rosso Corsa became my tire of choice, both as a track tire and also as a street tire.

Almost as grippy as “the good stuff” and considerably cheaper than track-focused tires of the time, the Diablo Rosso Corsa hit that sweet spot of performance and price that my relatively unexperienced two-wheeled-self required.

Best of all, after a few track days, I could swap-out the rubber on my track bike for road duty, and thus had a nice supply of new rubber for my street biking needs.

As Asphalt & Rubber became a larger part of my life, this tire strategy had to give way to trying other brands and other tires, but I was recently intrigued when Pirelli told me that they were updating this stalwart in their sport bike tire lineup, as there isn’t a lineage of tire that I am more familiar with on the market.

Creating the Pirelli Diablo Rosso Corse II tire for the 2018 model year, the Italian brand first invited A&R out to South Africa to see if this new incarnation of the Corsa lived up to the high-water mark its predecessor left behind. In short, it did.

But, only a couple days with a new tire can be tough to use to form an opinion. Not content to be so easily swayed, I have since spent a considerable amount of time on this new Pirelli.

Riding three more trackdays (on three different tracks), trying six bikes in total, and plowing down a thousand street miles later, I can honestly say that the Pirelli Pirelli Diablo Rosso Corse II might be the best sport bike tire on the market. Let me explain.

Leon Camier has plenty of experience at Misano. The Red Bull Honda WorldSBK star has ridden at the Italian circuit in Grand Prix and also on a Superbike.

He’s spent time learning the nuances of the Rimini venue, and over that time he’s found out one thing: patience is key.

“Misano is a tricky circuit, but it’s got some interesting quirks,” Leon Camier told us. “The opening sector of the lap is very challenging because if you make a mistake in Turn 1, it affects you for the whole sector.”

The tale of the TT Circuit at Assen is really the tale of Grand Prix motorcycle racing.

That is hardly surprising, given that the race has featured on the calendar since Grand Prix racing was born, or rather, since the FIM Motorcycle Grand Prix Road Racing World Championship was established, back in 1949. And like Grand Prix racing, it has roots which go back a long way before that.

The first race took place in 1925, a year after the Dutch government passed a law permitting racing on public roads. It ran over cobbled roads and sand tracks between three villages to the east of Assen: Rolde, Borger, and Schoonlo.

The next year it moved south of Assen, again over public roads, between De Haar, Oude Tol, Hooghalen, Laaghalen, and Laaghalerveen. It stayed there until 1955, when the first sections of what would become the modern circuit were built.

The roads were closed and the circuit was separated from the world, an isolated loop of tarmac, where racing was safer, easier to organize, and, not coincidentally, easier to monetize.

The inaugural Grand Prix season in 1949 took place mainly on circuits set out using public roads, which made for long tracks taken at high speed (Bremgarten in Switzerland and Monza in Italy were the two purpose-built circuits on the calendar, but Bremgarten, in particular, was a spectacularly dangerous circuit which wound through a forest).

It’s always good to come home. That’s how I feel every time I return to Laguna Seca.

Driving off of Boundary Road, and onto the perimeter of the track, then cresting the big downhill that descends behind Turn 2, towards the green parking area, I always get a big smile knowing that a great weekend of racing is about to begin.

This weekend was no different, with bright, sunny skies, a good crowd, and lots of great racing in both the World Superbike and the MotoAmerica series.

The US Round of the World Superbike Championship sees the paddock decamp to the West Coast, and for the Superbike riders this is certainly a favorite round of the campaign.

The challenging Laguna Seca circuit is unique and rightfully regarded as one of the most action-packed and thrilling on the calendar. The laps might be short, but there’s no rest for the wicked in the Northern California hills.

In WorldSBK, gear ratios are fixed for the season, and with the deduction in revs for 2018, this will be even more crucial. We see a lot of variety at Laguna Seca with regards to gear patterns, and this will be even more exaggerated this season.

In the past, some riders were forced to use six gears whereas others were using only five around the 2.2-mile track, but ahead of the action you could expect to see all riders using six gears this weekend.

Laguna Seca snakes its way through the Monterey hills, around a lake, and offers as much of an engineering challenge as a riding challenge.

MotoGP could be headed back to Brazil. That is the news coming out of the Catalan GP, as Dorna and Rio Motorsports have inked a preliminary agreement to add the South American round to the MotoGP calendar.

If the deal is followed through, it could mean a MotoGP race in Rio de Janeiro as early as the 2021 season.

The big “if” in all this is the building of a new race track near Rio de Janeiro, which once it passes homologation, it could “potentially” be added to the MotoGP calendar as the Brazilian GP, according to a press release from Dorna.

“We would be thrilled to see MotoGP return to Brazil and this memorandum of understanding is fantastic news for the Championship and South American fans,” said Carmelo Ezpeleta, CEO of Dorna Sports.

“We have a truly global sport, paddock and grid and to add another country to our calendar – especially one such as Brazil – is always something to aspire to. It would be a pleasure for MotoGP to race in a country and continent known for its passion and incredible atmosphere.”

The rolling hills of Brno have produced one of the most iconic circuits on the MotoGP and WorldSBK calendar, and this 5km circuit has been the home of some classic races. What goes into a fast lap though is a lot of work on your bike settings and not forcing the issue.

Max Biaggi and Marco Melandri, two former 250GP champions, have been hugely successful at the Czech track, and it’s no coincidence that both riders were schooled riding bikes that needed high corner speed.

Former MotoGP rider Michael Laverty is in Brno this weekend, and he sat down with us to talk about what goes into finding speed at the track, and what he’s seen from watching trackside on Friday.

There is no greater challenge than mastering the Mountain Course at the Isle of Man TT. It is 37 miles of mental gymnastics where any hesitation or uncertainty is punished.

Riders spend years learning their trade, and the biggest challenge is not to rush it. If it takes you two, three, or five years to learn the course and feel comfortable pushing to your limit, that’s the time it takes.

Michael Dunlop’s outright lap record of 133.962 mph leaves the 134 mph barrier firmly in sight for the top riders, and don’t be surprised to see that shattered this year.

The top riders all have a photographic memories when it comes to the course and can recall the tiniest of details that go into making a perfect lap.

Jonathan Rea was the man that ended Tom Sykes’ winning streak at Donington Park. The reigning WorldSBK champion snapped a nine-race streak for Sykes by winning Race 2 at the British round, and he’s excited ahead of his home round.

“Donington is a circuit of two halves,” said Rea. “Sector 1 and 2 are very flowing, and the final sector is very stop and start.”

“It’s very difficult to find the right setup, and you’re always making a compromise. Sometimes I have had a setting that is great for the first halfm and other times I’ve set the bike up for the final sector.”

“It really depends on what you need to do with the bike you have. You need to find a compromise between stability and agility, but it’s a very satisfying track to get right.

Soon Aprilia dealers in the United States will begin flexing their racing prowess, with a new certification program from Aprilia Racing. 

The certification program hopes to leverage Aprilia’s racing experience on the international stage, and thus turn Aprilia dealerships into performance shops capable of honing Aprilia’s motorcycles for track use.

As such, Aprilia Racing certified dealerships will have access to a host of performance parts that Aprilia Racing has developed back in Italy, during the course of their racing programs in MotoGP and WorldSBK.

Imola is one of the most historic circuits in the world. Tamburello, Acque Minerali, and Rivazza are corner names etched into the fiber of the sport, and with the circuit named after Enzo Ferrari’s son, the emotion of Imola is always bubbling away just under the surface.

For a long time, Eugene Laverty didn’t feel at home at this twisting and technical circuit, but over the last ten years he has been able to scratch at the surface and unlock the key to a fast time around this 4.936km circuit.

“Imola is a very technical circuit and it’s a real challenge to learn it,” said Laverty. “It took me a long time to figure out some of the secrets of it, and even when I was racing here on the Yamaha Superbike, after a few years of Supersport, I was still struggling.”

“The most important thing is to be white line to white line because there’s no ‘natural corners.’ The straights are so short that everything leads into one another and it’s a real challenge to learn the details of Imola.”

With two Supersport podiums and a WorldSBK rostrum, Laverty understands what’s needed, but for this weekend, recovering from an injury, he’ll face an uphill task.