Phillip Island served up another nail-biter for WSBK fans this Sunday. With the race winner making a last lap pass, no one could have guessed the top four finishers in this race. With a few familiar faces, along with a few new hopefuls, wrapping up the first stop on the World Superbike Championship only wets the appetite further for the rest of the WSBK season. Rider quotes, video highlights, and race standings after the jump.
The wait is over, World Superbike racing action is back as Race 1 was underway at Phillip Island today. Perhaps a glimpse into the racing year, the action from down under did not disappoint race fans, and sets up WSBK to have a excitingly close season. Click past the jump for all the racing news of Race 1 at Phillip Island, including rider quotes, video highlights, and race standings.
“Greed, for lack of a better word…is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms: greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge, has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save motorcycling, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.”
Those words were first uttered in 1987 by capitalism’s very own Gordon Gekko, and now 23 years later Michael Douglas’ character will once again take to the silver screen to espouse not only more of his economic viewpoints, but also ride a motorcycle or two.
The bikes in question are of course only the best, and the only two MotoGP spec machines available to mortal man: the Ducati Desmosedici and MotoCzysz C1. Check past the jump for a brief trailer that teases a scene featuring both motorcycles, and click here for Michael Czysz’s own account of the filming process. Yes, he does all of his own stunts.
Moto2 testing was underway in Catalunya this week, but rain sidelined a substantial portion of that testing event. For the Moto2 teams, this meant a rare opporunity to get familiar with thier machinery was lost, but for the roving eye of Italian site GPone.com, it was an opportunity to take a gander at some very beautiful race motorcycles.
Despite all the teams having the same Honda-sourced, 600cc, four-cylinder, four-stroke motor, there is a large variety in body styling and chassis approach. Check the RSV, Moriwaki, BQR, Kalex, Tech3 Mistal, and Suter MMX bikes out after the jump.
Fresh from it’s unveiling in Milan, DailyMotos has posted a video to YouTube on the Official presentation of the FB Corse MotoGP team and FB01 race bike. Garry McCoy was on hand to help take the wraps off the MotoGP contender, which has a three-cylinder 800cc motor that was originally intended for a BMW MotoGP entry. Check the unveiling after the jump.
Asphalt & Rubber has been out of the office for most of this President’s Day weekend, but we’re back now and eager to make it up to you. We’ve got some great stories that we’ll roll out this week, but while we put them together we thought we’d tide you over with this video that showcases the development process of the 2010 BMW S1000RR superbike. The video highlights the planning, designing, and testing of BMW’s first true sportbike, which gives an interesting perspective into the bike’s creation. Click past the break to watch the video, and go ahead and queue up your own music because this soundtrack is el horriblé.
The 2010 World Superbike Championship series is only two weeks away from its season opener at Phillip Island, and to help get the Superbike juices flowing for race fans, WSBK has put together a video that highlights moments from the 2009 season and an update on riders and teams for the 2010 season.
If only we could get coverage of WSBK this good on the television back here in the States. At 22 minutes long, this is a video well worth watching with beverage and food within arms’ reach. Enjoy the season preview after the jump.
Here’s a little something to help you get the weekend going, a video put together by the folks from Fischer Motorcycles. Forgiving the shameless Motorcyclist (at least it wasn’t SportRider) plug at the beginning, we’ll take one in black Dan. Video after the jump.
In conjunction with the unveiling of the 2010 Fiat-Yamaha MotoGP team, a series of interviews with Valentino Rossi, Jorge Lorenzo, and Lin Jarvis have been released for public consumption. Despite being released from the team’s PR firm, with cooperation from Fiat, the questions strike at the heart of many the issues that surround the Lorenzo/Rossi battle for supremacy. They’re quite long, but worth a watch, check them out after the jump.
MotoGP teams have flocked to Sepang this week to test their bikes on the Malaysian track in preparation for the 2010 season. Fiat-Yamaha was on hand to unveil their 2010 YZR-M1, along with riders Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo. Despite Yamaha’s shuddering sales figures, there doesn’t seem to be too many drastic changes in the factory team’s camp, but perhaps the lack of change is indicative of Yamaha’s financial position.
Speaking at the unveiling, Managing Director for Yamaha Racing, Lin Jarvis said, “The MotoGP program is a very important brand image promotion activity and the racing requires us to demonstrate all of our company’s power in engineering, organizational and passion if we are to be successful at the top level. He continued with, “we are extremely fortunate to have retained all of our existing loyal sponsors and even to have added a few more to the team.” Enough of that, video and photos after the jump.