Ducati Q1 2013 Sales Drop 5% – Audi Dishes the Details

Ducatisti: do you want the good news or the bad news first? The bad news is that the market for motorcycles 500cc and up is down 17% worldwide for the first quarter of this year, which means the “good” news is that Ducati is only down 5% for Q1 2013. Not exactly the start out of the gate that Audi was hoping for its newly acquired two-wheeled brand, but what are you going to do? Western Europe is a mess, with Spain and Italy continuing to go down like a…well, you know. While we don’t enjoy the misery of motorcycle brands, the fact that Ducati Motor Holding is now under the Audi AG umbrella means that we get far more detailed quarterly and yearly reports from the two-wheeled marque, and we’ve got the digits after the jump.

Mission Motorcycles: The Mission R Lives??!

Mission Motors tweeted out something interesting just a moment ago, a link to a new website for Mission Motorcycles. Teasing there a photo of the Mission R, it would seem that the electric superbike that does competitive AMA Supersport lap times at Laguna Seca, is finally set to come to production. It seems we won’t know everything about the new Mission Motorcycles project until June 3rd, though we can speculate pretty accurately on what the A&R Bothan spy network has been telling us. Expect to see the Mission R electric superbike in street legal trim, honed even further than when we rode the machine back in August last year.

Goodbye Husqvarna Nuda, We Hardly Knew Thee

Stefan Pierer’s acquisition of Husqvarna continues to baffle me. You will note I say Pierer, and not KTM, bought Husqvarna, since the Austrian CEO used Pierer Industrie AG in the transaction as a means to help side-step European antitrust issues. After all, we can’t have Europe’s largest dirt bike manufacturer, nay largest total motorcycle manufacturer, gobbling up even more brands in the two-wheeled world. But, I digress. Developing three road bikes (Husqvarna Nuda 900, Husqvarna Strada 650, & Husqvarna Terra 650), with three more concepts waiting in the wings (Husqvarna Moab, Husqvarna Baja, & Husqvarna E-G0), it is with even more confusion that we learn that Pierer & Co. intend to kill the Husqvarna Nuda project and its other street siblings.

Q&A: Yukio Kagayama Talks About the Upcoming Suzuka 8-Hour with Kevin Schwantz & Noriyuki Haga

In case you missed the story last week, Kevin Schwantz is preparing to race in this year’s Suzuka 8-Hour endurance race. For the race, Schwantz will be riding on a team formed by Yukio Kagayama, who in addition to having raced in the MotoGP, World Superbike, and British Superbike Championships, is also a previous Suzuka 8-Hour winner with the Suzuki Endurance Race Team (also joining the three-rider team Noriyuki “Nitro” Haga). Releasing a Q&A about his team’s Suzuka 8-Hour entry, Kagayama-san walks us through how the team came together, what equipment the riders will use, and his outlook on the team’s competitiveness.

KTM RC4 Concept by Luca Bar Design

A single-cylinder hooligan-maker, the KTM 690 Duke is 330 lbs (curbside without fuel) and 67hp of two-wheeled fun, and we hope that the Austrians bring the KTM 690 Duke R our way as well. While we are on the topic of things missing from KTM’s American line-up, a decent supersport is painfully obvious, yet we can’t see the folks at KTM following the paths of other brands. That’s where our friend Luca Bar comes to mind with his latest concept: the KTM RC4. Using the KTM 690 Duke platform and its LC4 engine, Bar has designed a super-single full-fairing sport bike that takes the Austrian company’s “Ready to Race” DNA and applies it to an idea that is not all that disimilar to the Ducati Supermono.

Q&A: Claudio Domenicali Talks Frameless Chassis, Sacred Cows, & The Future for Ducati

When I sat down with Claudio Domenicali at the Ducati 1199 Panigale R launch, the now-CEO of Ducati Motor Holding was still just the General Manager of the Italian motorcycle company. Four weeks after our interview though, Gabriele del Torchio would leave Ducati for Alitalia; and Domenicali, a 21-year veteran of both the racing and production departments of Ducati, would take his place at the top of Italy’s most prestigious motorcycle brand. After reading our interview from Austin, Texas after the jump, I think you will agree too.

Is Yamaha Using A Seamless Gearbox? The Data Says No

That Yamaha is working on a seamless gearbox is no secret, with Yamaha’s test riders currently racking up the kilometers around tracks in Japan. Recently, however, Spanish magazine SoloMoto published an article suggesting that Yamaha has already been using its new seamless gearbox since the beginning of the season. My own enquiries to check whether Yamaha was using a seamless gearbox or not always received the same answer: no, Yamaha is not using the seamless gearbox. To test this denial, I went out to the side of the track on Friday morning at Jerez to record the bikes as they went by.

OCC Coming Back to TV? — Universe Collapses in on Self

After a very public father/son break-up between Paul Teutul Sr. and Paul Teutul Jr., a steroid-ring scandal involving Paul Sr., and finally a bankruptcy proceeding, it appears that Orange County Choppers is the impossible to kill multi-headed hydra of doom that we all knew it was, as the custom chopper shop is once again headed to the small screen and recruiting some talent, on and off the show. Looking for “someone who will work alongside Paul Senior, running the shop and helping build some of the best custom motorcycles in the world,” OCC says it will be back on television with a new show later this month. Please for the love of god, will someone give this man the attention he craves so dearly??! Or, just shoot us in the face.

Alstare Superbike Concept by Team Alstare

We love us some concept bikes here at Asphalt & Rubber, and we have featured more than a few pieces of stunning design and imagination on our pages. Though, we can’t remember the last time one of these works of art were brought to us by a legitimate racing team, but that is what we have here with the Team Alstare Superbike Concept. A nod to the former Suzuki team’s return to the World Superbike Championship as the Ducati factory squad with Carlos Checa and Ayrton Badovini, Alstare has enlisted the help of designer Serge Rusak of Rusak Kreaktive Designworks to ink the shape of its futuristic Superbike concept, while Tryptik Studios handled the 3D modeling prowess.

Transcript: The Gay Question at Jerez

If you didn’t watch Thursday’s pre-event press conference for MotoGP at Jerez, it is worth a viewing right to the end (assuming you have a MotoGP.com account). Building off the news about the NBA’s Jason Collins coming out as gay in a self-written feature in Sport Illustrated, my good colleague David Emmett had the courage to inquire about the culture and acceptance of the MotoGP paddock for homosexual riders. For the sake of accuracy, after the jump is a full transcript of David’s question, as put to riders Cal Crutchlow, Jorge Lorenzo, Marc Marquez, Andrea Dovizioso, Stefan Bradl, and Scott Redding, as well as those riders’ responses to David’s inquiry.

Chip Yates Hits 190.6 MPH at the Mojave Mile Shootout

04/11/2011 @ 2:14 pm, by Jensen Beeler2 COMMENTS

Chip Yates Hits 190.6 MPH at the Mojave Mile Shootout Chip Yates Mojave Mile 1 635x423

Chip Yates and his crew might be SOL for the electric motorcycle racing season, after both the FIM and TTXGP lowered their maximum allowable weights for electric race motorcycle, but that hasn’t stopped the Southern Californian engineer from taking on the gasoline-powered bikes on their own turf. Already showing that his SWIGZ.com Pro Racing Electric Superbike can compete with the WERA racers in the Heavyweight Twins class, Yates was out at the Mojave Mile this weekend seeing what sort of top speeds his electric motorcycle could produce. The answer to that question is quite succinct: 190.6 MPH.

While the team is laying claim to the “Fastest Electric Motorcycle in the World” title, the distinction comes with a couple caveats as the Mojave Mile is a single-run event, meaning there’s no return-run the opposite direction that would meet the requirements for a land speed record (the official LSR for an electric motorcycle is 173.388 MPH). Additionally, previous top speed passes from other electric motorcycle makers have been conducted on salt flats, which typically suck 10% off the top speed compared to those run on asphalt. Still as Yates pointed out to us, the purpose of the entry was to prove his technology and see what bike would do, simply stating “it was a really fun weekend event” in his eyes.

No matter how many asterisks you put next to its name, one thing is for certain: the SWIGZ bike is one compelling motorcycle (note the absence of the word “electric”), and that’s sort of the whole point. Yates and his team have consistently been trying to change the perception of electric motorcycles, pitting their bike against ICE bikes wherever and whenever they can to show performance parity, and with a 190+ MPH trap speed, they’ve certainly achieved that goal in this regard.

For Yates the goal of hitting 200 MPH still remains, though the idea of setting an official land speed record seemed far from his mind, as a trip to El Mirage or Bonneville wasn’t on his calendar. According to Yates, the SWIGZ.com Pro Racing Electric Superbike admittedly has a bit further to go in order to break the 200 MPH mark. As he sped past the 170 MPH mark, Yates encountered a wobble from the electric motorcycle, which the team has narrowed down to being an aerodynamic issue because of the pizza box sized battery pack located on the rear of the machine.

Unfortunately for the team, circumstances saw their original generator become unavailable, and its replacement was not up to the task of charging the team’s lithium-ion battery packs. As such Yates ran the mile with only the power the team had charged before the event, and was limited to only two runs for the day. The SWIGZ team wasn’t able to implement some design changes to overcome the bike’s high-speed wobble, but laughing and joking that it’s not the prettiest machine out there, Yates seemed confident that the team could sort out their aerodynamics for a faster run again this season.

As for the team’s next undertaking, the SWIGZ.com race team will compete in the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb later this summer, another venue where electrics can shine, and theoretically should perform better than their gasoline-powered counterparts. Yates also made mention of another return to Fontana, where he hopes to set an AMA qualifying lap time, proving that an electric motorcycle bike can lap quick enough to qualify for an AMA Pro Racing sanctioned Superbike race. More on both those events as we get them.

Source: SWIGZ.com Racing

Top 5 Related Posts:

  1. Chip Yates Retires After Setting Four FIM/AMA Land Speed Records at Bonneville
  2. Video: Chip Yates Practices for Pikes Peak
  3. On-Board Chip Yates’s Electric Superbike at Pikes Peak
  4. PPIHC: Chip Yates Races the Most Powerful Motorcycle Ever on Pikes Peak – Sets New Record for Electric Motorcycles

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Comment:

  1. Mark Gardiner says:
    April 12, 2011 at 7:00 AM

    It’s true that Bonneville “sucks 10%” when compared to land speed record runs on paved surfaces, but that’s not all (maybe not even mainly) a wheelspin problem — Bonneville’s air density is incredibly low, which reduces the power in ICE engines.

    Chip could, I suppose, take his bike back east to the next event at Maxton NC, and record ‘legal’ two-way speeds for official records on that 1.9-mile concrete runway. It seems to be a better (albeit shorter) course for record-setting purposes under about 250mph.

    Judging from that thing’s looks, it’s got the aero package of a dump truck. I think that if he can’t race it as he intended, he should repackage his obviously impressive motor in a streamliner chassis/body, add all the battery he wants (weight’s no penalty in LSR) and try to put the 2-wheel/electric land speed record out of sight.

  2. Other Sean says:
    April 12, 2011 at 7:56 AM

    I’ll say this, and it’s a nice as I can be:

    if that box on the back is as heavy as it looks, I give Mr. Yates a standing ovation for being able to flip flop it from side to side in that heavy weight twins class.