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LCR Honda’s Stefan Bradl Rides thru San Francisco

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LCR Honda and team rider Stefan Bradl are in town early this week, doing a little promo work for US GP title sponsor Red Bull. Before heading down to Laguna Seca tomorrow (a track Bradl already scouted out with a local track day earlier this year), Bradl was in San Francisco yesterday, popping wheelies on Treasure Island and trying not to crash while going down Lombard Street (any SF motorcyclist could have told you the treachery of the iconic San Franciscan street).

MotoGP.com’s video of the event might be a little less than inspiring, but let us all just be thankful that the folks are Dorna actually made one of their YouTube videos web-embeddable for a change. Meanwhile, the photos from Red Bull are quite a treat. 23 of them await you after the jump.

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Racing

Leon Haslam Strips Down to Promote WSBK at Silverstone

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World Superbike’s next stop is Silverstone, and BMW Motorrad’s resident Brit was willing enough to bear all to help promote WSBK’s stop at his home round. Stripping his leathers down to his waist, Leon Haslam got his torso and arms painted by by double World Body Painting Champion Carolyn Roper. Taking three hours to complete the effect, Roper’s work is pretty phenomenal, as was Leon’s patience.

“It was frustrating having to stand in one place for three hours and not see what was going on, but I couldn’t believe it when Carolyn had finished applying the paint and I was finally allowed to look in the mirror,” said Haslam. “The body paint was unbelievably realistic and the attention to detail, right down to the sponsors’ badges, was incredible. Carolyn is amazingly talented.”

Check after the jump for the superb photos by the UK’s renowned photographer Gary Prior, along with a time-lapse video of the whole process. Don’t worry ladies, we have embedded the full-resolution photos in the post, while the “smaller” 2000px photos are in the gallery.

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Racing

Video: Valentino Rossi’s Mugello Helmets, Part 3

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You’d be hard pressed to know that Part 3 of Monster’s little video series on the Mugello helmets of Valentino Rossi featured The Doctor at all (Part 1 & Part 2), as the short video clip watches more like a highlight reel of all of MotoGP’s Monster-sponsored riders. Maybe that’s because Rossi wasn’t fighting for the front at the Italian GP (though it was his best dry-weather outing thus far with the GP12), while Monster Yamaha Tech 3’s Andrea Dovizioso found himself sipping the bubbly after the race.

The truth is probably more along the lines of the fact that the energy drink manufacturer had to shell out big bucks for the video rights from Dorna, and a marketing manager at the company needed something to justify that huge expense to his boss. Anyhoo, our big takeaway from this final installment: the view of fans rushing the track post-race is something worth experiencing first-hand, especially when it involves Teletubbies riding pit-bikes. Video after the jump.

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Bikes

Momoto MM1 – Bringing the Petronas FP1 Dream Back

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Remember the Petronas FP1? Sure you do. It was the fire-breathing three-cylinder rolling piece of sex-on-wheels whose teal livery rode to the podium twice in the 2004 World Superbike Championship.

Though the 900cc triple was campaigned by Carl Fogarty and ridden by Troy Corser with some early success, the move to 1,000cc for all motors in WSBK diminished the team’s chance of winning with its homologation special. Spearheaded by the Malaysian petroleum company Petronas, the project was ultimately abandoned in 2006.

Said to have built 150 units to meet homologation requirements (100 of which were available for purchase), the actuality of that number varies depending on whether or not you believe the rumors about shipping containers from England to Malaysia and double-counting.

With the project scrapped long ago, it seemed the Petronas FP1 dream was resting six-feet-under, until now. Rebranded under the name Momoto, the Momoto MM1 is the Petronas FP1 in new clothing. Said to be once again available for public consumption, our details and information on the bike are sadly very sparse. Though we do have a bevy of media waiting for you after the jump. Thanks for the tip Zaini!

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Racing

Video: Racing in Slow-Motion IV – How to Make Motorsport Enthusiasts Cry

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The title of the post sort of implies what you are getting into here: slow-motion racing footage from Formula One, MotoGP, World Rally, 24 Hours of Le Mans, Isle of Man TT, and various GT Racing series. If you have watched any of the television coverage from MotoGP or the TT (and we’re sure you have), then you know how dramatic watching a motorcycle at 1,000+ frames per second can be, and apparently the same can be said about our four-wheeled compatriots.

What the title of this work doesn’t reveal is how with some masterful editing and a powerful soundtrack, 16 minutes of video footage about bikes and cars can feel more like poetry than racing. We bring you Racing in Slow Motion IV (as well as I-III ). Grab some kleenex before watching, and then share it with your buddies. If they don’t amid to getting a little bit emotional while viewing, they are probably lying. Group hug after the jump.

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Racing

Video: Valentino Rossi’s Mugello Helmets, Part 2

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Monster’s series on Valentino Rossi’s Mugello helmets continues (Part 1 here), with this second installment just teasing out the nine-time World Champion’s signature special Mugello helmet. The video is certainly less wordy than the first, and from what we can gather, Rossi will have a ring of flowers on his head for the Italian GP.

With MotoGP to take to the historic Italian track for FP3 and Qualifying in just a few hours, we shouldn’t have too long to wait to see the final product from Aldo Drudi. Until then, this video will have to suffice. Check it out after the jump.

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Banter

Video: When Winning a Race Isn’t Winning a Race

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Premature Celebration: hands down, there is not a more embarrassing act for a motorcycle racer than finishing too early. Such is the case of Italian CIV 600 Superstock rider Riccardo Russo, who climaxed his race far too early during a recent event at Mugello.

Pulling out of the competition with jubilation, it took several pumps of the fist for the Italian to realize that he was not done with the task at hand, as he watched a train of other riders come right by him with still an eager pace. A lesson on holding out until the checkered flag, Russo joins an elite group of riders who have been publicly embarrassed for their problems with premature celebration. Thanks for the tip Jason!

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Racing

Video: Valentino Rossi’s Mugello Helmets, Part 1

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It looks like Monster Energy has a nice video series cooking with Valentino Rossi, just ahead of the nine-time World Champion racing in front of his home crowd this weekend at the Italian GP. Of course, Rossi is known for his special helmets at the Mugello round, and 2012 will be no different, as The Doctor once again has trusted Aldo Drudi to paint him a special AGV lid for the race.

Usually a surprise to race fans, the last few years we have been getting peeks of the Drudi’s work on Twitter, usually from Rossi’s mechanics Alex Briggs. But for this year, Monster and Rossi have teamed up to make a special multi-part promo video to promote the helmet, and the race.

Yeah sure it’s a promotional work for Monster (a personal sponsor of Rossi), but it is actually pretty interesting to hear Valentino, in his own words, explain the significance and meaning behind his and Drudi’s collaborations.

If this first part is any indication of what is to come, we should be in for a nice little web series this race-weekend, though no one is expecting a miracle from Rossi and the Ducati Corse team in their results. Check the video out after the jump.

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Racing

San Carlo Gresini Honda Returns to White Livery

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With MotoGP returning to Mugello for the Italian GP, the San Carlo Gresini Honda team is reverting back to its customary white livery scheme, a decision made by both Fausto Gresini and the Simoncelli family. Hoping to invoke some memories of Marco Simoncelli lapping around that famous Italian track, Gresini Racing’s time of mourning for its fallen Italian rider appears to be over as it retires its all-black livery, and has painted Alvaro Bautista’s Honda RC213V in the team’s customary all-while livery for this weekend.

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Banter

Video: Ken Block Gymkhanas San Francisco — Awesomeness Tenuously Linked to Motorcycles

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Asphalt & Rubber readers are an eclectic group of men and woman, and I am not going sully the romance we have going on here by lying to you guys with some sort of convoluted web of reasoning as to how a nearly team minuted Ken Block / DC Shoes / Ford Focus video is related to motorcycles — because well frankly, it’s not. Yeah sure, there is a 12 second Travis Pastrana cameo tucked-away in there somewhere, and that might be enough material to spin-doctor the snot out of this puppy, but here’s the deal:

First, the video is awesome in that 12-year-old boy discovering bottle rockets sort of way. Second, the video is set in my home town, and we all know how militant I can be about the Golden State, whose border I draw somewhere just south of Ojai. And third, the video is an example of great marketing, and it is such an easy example of what can crossover into motorcycles, it pains me that we here in the two-wheeled world haven’t answered back with something even better. Enjoy after the jump.

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Banter

Video: 11 Months, 3000 Pictures, & A Lot of Coffee

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This may not be strictly motorcycle-related, though we are pretty sure most motorcyclists can relate to the time and effort it takes to take apart a four-cylinder motor and put it back together again. As if refurbishing a motor bought off eBay, and swapping it out for a junked one that is still in the car wasn’t hard enough, our protagonist decided to document the whole process with thousands of photos. Originally only intending to use the snaps to ensure all the pieces went back together in the right spots, a short animated movie clip was born from his efforts. Enjoy it after the jump, and thanks for the tip Chris!

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