PPIHC: Carlin Dunne Sets Outright Best Motorcycle Time at Pikes Peak Tire Test on a Lightning Motorcycle

The competitors for the 91st Pikes Peak International Hill Climb have just concluded a two-day tire test at the Colorado road course, and it should perhaps come as no surprise that our boy Carlin Dunne has posted the outright fastest lap for a motorcycle during the tire test (the Santa Barbara native set the outright two-wheeled course record last year on his Ducati Multistrada 1200 S). What is surprising about Carlin’s result at the tire test is that he was on the Lightning Motorcycles electric superbike. That’s right, the fastest bike so far for 2013′s Race to the Clouds is a 200+ hp electric superbike that is refueled with solar energy. Petrol heads, eat your heart out.

Report: Indianapolis “Opting-Out” of 2014 MotoGP Race?

Talking to the Indy Star, Mark Miles (CEO of Hulman & Co, the parent company to Indianapolis Motor Speedway) has put some doubt into the historic venue’s commitment to host the MotoGP Championship. Having a contract to run the race through the 2014 season, Miles said that IMS might opt-out of the final year in its agreement with Dorna (IMS apparently has this option for a brief window after the 2013 Indianapolis GP). However while the news has focused so far on IMS’s ability to opt-out, both Dorna and Indianapolis Motor Speedway have options in their contract to go through with the 2014 round, and with a bevy of variables in the air, we may or may not see three American GP rounds next year.

2014 Yamaha FZ-09 – Three Cylinders of Naked

Surprise! America will be getting a 847cc three-cylinder naked bike for the 2014 model year, the 2014 Yamaha FZ-09. Replacing the Yamaha FZ8 in the Japanese company’s line-up, the FZ-09 is the first motorcycle from the tuning fork brand to sport the Yamaha’s new line of three-cylinder engines. The Yamaha FZ-09 comes about as the MIC is reporting its second-consecutive year of growth in the 751+cc sport bike segment, as well as increase in commuter riding over short-distance sport riding. With those trends in mind, Yamaha has punched out the displacement on its middleweight naked bike, and focused on giving riders a comfortable, yet stout, motorcycle. Priced at $7,990 MSRP, we think Yamaha hit the nail pretty much on the head with this one.

Trackside Tuesday: The Mind-Killer

In the past few years I’ve come to believe that, while superior physical differences (their reflexes and fine motor skills) are significant, it’s the mental differences that are the most interesting. I suppose anyone who has ridden a motorcycle even a bit beyond one’s comfort zone can appreciate some part of the physical aspect of riding a racing bike. For most of us, even the speed of racers in local events is impressive compared to our street riding. While the skills with throttle, brakes, and balance are on a level similar to the best athletes in other sports, I think that what really sets motorcycle racers apart is their ability to overcome fear.

Video: Still Think Electric Motorcycles Are Slow?

The progress in the last five years on electric motorcycles has been astounding. Taking their first laps around the Isle of Man TT Mountain Course, a 87.434 mph pace was the best an electric motorcycle could do at the prestigious road race in 2009 — a pace that was on par with the 50cc record set in 1971. In just five years after the first laps were taken by electric motorcycles at Snaefell, these machines have grown their average lap speeds by over 20 mph at the TT Zero race, setting a new record of 109.675 mph in 2013, and boasting a rate of improvement of roughly 5 mph each year since 2009. If hitting 142.2 mph down the Sulby Straight speed trap wasn’t further proof of the speeds these bikes are achieving, maybe some visual evidence will help support the notion.

Here’s Your Feel Good Moment of the Week — Now, What’s Your Excuse for Not Riding Today?

Darius Glover is a dirt bike racer. Like you and me, he lives to ride, and when he is on two-wheels he feels the freedom that only other motorcyclists can truly understand. The thing is though, Darius is paralyzed from the waist down. Where others would give up their dreams and this sport, Darius at the age of 15 instead pushed onward. No pity parties, no excuses, just simply a daily example of where there is a will, there is a way, and a reminder that you can achieve anything that you put your mind to. It’s hard not to get a bit choked up listening to Darius tell his story, but you walk away feeling uplifted after feeling his attitude come across the screen.

Erzberg Rodeo – Red Bull’s S&M Playhouse for Motorcycles

Any race where 1,500 riders start, 500 qualify, and only 14 finish, has got to be an epic competition, and considering the fact that the Erzberg Rodeo starts in the excavation pit of an Austrian mine…well, it takes a special rider to be enticed by such an event. One such special rider is Graham Jarvis, who was the first of the fourteen men to reach the 20th and final checkpoint. Taking 2 hours and 52 seconds to complete the course, Jarvis made the 2013 Erzberg Rodeo look downright easy. However, with one look at the race-day conditions from this past weekend, we know it was anything but.

Controlling the Uncontrollable – The Role of Ritual in Racing

While normally, MotoGP fans never get enough of seeing Valentino Rossi on TV, there is one shot they would (for the most part) gladly be spared. As he leaves the pits, Rossi stands on the footpegs, and pulls his leathers from between his buttocks, before sitting back down again and leaving. These rituals – part useful limbering up, part invocation of Lady Luck – are something many riders perform, in their attempt to exert control over themselves, and over their environment. In a fascinating press release – by far the most interesting we have received in many months – the Aspar team today provided a discussion and explanation of what riders are trying to achieve through the use of these rituals.

Up-Close with the 2013 MotoCzysz E1pc

Hoping to make it four wins in a row, it goes without saying that the MotoCzysz crew is working hard to close the gap to the John McGuinness and the Mugen team. However, having Team Principal Michael Czysz stuck back in the US, undergoing cancer treatments, must certainly add another level of motivation for the on-island MotoCzysz crew. Making time in their busy schedule, Asphalt & Rubber got to take some up-close photos of the 2013 MotoCzysz E1pc. The most obvious changes made to the MotoCzysz E1pc for the 2013 TT Zero race are the use conventional suspension pieces. Of course, it’s not a completely standard suspension setup, as MotoCzysz has developed its own adjustable triple clamp that incorporates tunable lateral flex parameters.

MotoGP: Max Biaggi To Test Ben Spies’s Ducati at Mugello, Michele Pirro To Replace Spies at Barcelona

Max Biaggi is to make a surprise return to riding a MotoGP machine. The former 250 and World Superbike champion will take a seat on Ben Spies’ Ignite Pramac Ducati as part of a one-day test at Mugello, as part of Ducati’s testing program, according to Italian site GPOne. Spies was scheduled to stay on at Mugello to take part in a two-day test, but after the first day of practice at last weekend’s Italian Grand Prix, it was clear to both Spies and Ducati that his shoulder was still too weak to ride a MotoGP machine. With work continuing on the Desmosedici, it was important for Ducati to get as much data as possible on their bike, and so Biaggi was offered the chance to ride the machine.

Day One: Who Really Was the Fastest Around Losail?

03/14/2011 @ 10:05 am, by Jensen Beeler7 COMMENTS

Day One: Who Really Was the Fastest Around Losail? Casey Stoner Repsol Honda

As you may have realized already this week, Asphalt & Rubber is coming to you live from Qatar, as MotoGP finishes up its last testing weekend of the pre-season, and gets ready for its first race of the year. Qatar is a strange country, mostly in that it’s not that different from the United States (at least not nearly as different as I was expecting, as this is my first trip to the Middle East). Perhaps even stranger is the laid back atmosphere of the MotoGP paddock during the testing session (maybe 1/4 as many people as a normal GP weekend, sans MotoGP fans). While we sit through Day Two of testing, which is currently underway, here’s something to chew on from Day One.

Now the purpose of MotoGP testing is of course actually testing the motorcycles, new parts, setups, etc., and not the attainment of absolute lap times. Therefore it strikes me funny on how much concern is given over to whom was fastest on a given day of testing, as there’s an obvious disconnect between what the teams are trying to achieve, and what the fans would like to see (with the journalists unsurprisingly pandering to this latter group).

That all being said, some sort of analysis has to come out of the event, and the path of least resistance is in the time sheet stamped out by Dorna, and handed to the assembled press. However if you drill down into the times lap by lap, not only do you get a better idea of the consistency that the MotoGP riders are attaining, but also it provides for another way to sift and sort the riders into some sort of categorical heirarchy, since that seems to be the name of the game at these tests.

Below is the first day of testing at Losail, sorted by best lap time. I’ve added in how many laps each rider did in the 1’57 and 1’56 ranges, along with their total number of laps for good measure. While we see some very quick riders, very few are consistently quick. Most notably, the fastest man of the day was Dani Pedrosa; but while the Spainiard is certainly very quick, he only lapped in the 1’56 range twice, whereas Casey Stoner seemed content to stay there all day long. You may see where I’m headed here…

Pos.No.RiderTeamBest Time1:57′s1:56′sLaps
126Dani PedrosaRepsol Honda1’56.27111241
227Casey StonerRepsol Honda1’56.41471232
37Hiroshi AoyamaSan Carlo Honda Gresini1’56.44417359
411Ben SpiesYamaha Racing1’56.5637138
51Jorge LorenzoYamaha Racing1’56.682211360
65Colin EdwardsMonster Yamaha Tech 31’56.7429242
74Andrea DoviziosoRepsol Honda1’56.78016456
846Valentino RossiDucati Marlboro1’57.03826057
969Nicky HaydenDucati Marlboro1’57.1377057
1014Randy de PunietPramac Racing1’57.1434039
1158Marco SimoncelliSan Carlo Honda Gresini1’57.22626057
1219Alvaro BautistaRizla Suzuki1’57.30218061
138Hector BarberaMapfre Aspar1’57.3258069
1465Loris CapirossiPramac Racing1’57.4371056
1517Karel AbrahamCardion AB Motoracing1’57.4995049
1635Cal CrutchlowMonster Yamaha Tech 31’57.7372051
1724Toni EliasLCR Honda1’58.2500065

It would seem that if we really want to find out who was “fastest” during the first day of testing at Losail, it would be more appropriate then to rank the riders in a way that reflects not only how many top times they achieved, but also in the number of laps they completed in total. While some of the slots could be argued up or down for a couple of the riders, I think the below rank and ordering is more appropriate to see who was “dominating” in the Qatari Desert last night.

Pos.No.RiderTeamBest Time1:57′s1:56′sLaps
127Casey StonerRepsol Honda1’56.41471232
21Jorge LorenzoYamaha Racing1’56.682211360
346Valentino RossiDucati Marlboro1’57.03826057
458Marco SimoncelliSan Carlo Honda Gresini1’57.22626057
54Andrea DoviziosoRepsol Honda1’56.78016456
626Dani PedrosaRepsol Honda1’56.27111241
77Hiroshi AoyamaSan Carlo Honda Gresini1’56.44417359
819Alvaro BautistaRizla Suzuki1’57.30218061
95Colin EdwardsMonster Yamaha Tech 31’56.7429242
1011Ben SpiesYamaha Racing1’56.5637138
1169Nicky HaydenDucati Marlboro1’57.1377057
128Hector BarberaMapfre Aspar1’57.3258069
1314Randy de PunietPramac Racing1’57.1434039
1417Karel AbrahamCardion AB Motoracing1’57.4995049
1535Cal CrutchlowMonster Yamaha Tech 31’57.7372051
1665Loris CapirossiPramac Racing1’57.4371056
1724Toni EliasLCR Honda1’58.2500065

Photo: © 2011 Scott Jones Photography – All Rights Reserved

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Comment:

  1. Odie says:
    March 14, 2011 at 10:34 AM

    At the risk of geeking out, how about doing some basic statistics on the lap times? If you have access to all the lap times for all the riders, you could do some basic stuff like the average lap time, the mean lap time and (I apologize if you already know this) the standard deviation. The SD (standard deviation) will give you an even better picture than counting the number of laps a rider did under 1:56 and 1:57. These functions (mean, average, SD, min max) are all standard function in Excel.

  2. ed says:
    March 14, 2011 at 10:57 AM

    great story. further proof of stoner’s speed around this track. no need to geek out (further). what better picture do you need? the numbers depict an undeniable, statistical fact: stoner was consistently faster than perdrosa. and probably every year since 2007.

  3. Keith says:
    March 14, 2011 at 11:49 AM

    If I didn’t know Valentino was getting his first full test on a relativly new to him motorcycle I’d wonder if he was sandbagging… BUT if he was it was to gain more data and a good base line, remember he is possibly one of if not the best development rider out there. Then again I could be full of beans. Bautista got some decent laps in considering how much trouble Rizla/Suzuki seems to have been having for some time.

  4. ovd says:
    March 14, 2011 at 1:45 PM

    Interesting numbers. Also interesting: http://www.motomatters.com/ had this analysis also… yesterday.

  5. Jensen Beeler says:
    March 14, 2011 at 2:15 PM

    Thanks ovd. Despite the fact I’m sharing a room with the MotoMatters crew out here in Qatar, I wasn’t aware that they had done an analysis like that…or that Victoria does the sort of analysis here on her WSBK coverage…or that there’s a growing voice in motorcycle journalism that some writers are focusing on the wrong aspect of testing sessions.

  6. Asphalt & Rubber says:
    March 14, 2011 at 5:05 PM

    Day One: Who Really Was the Fastest Around Losail? – http://aspha.lt/d3 #motorcycle

  7. Richard Mushet says:
    March 15, 2011 at 2:01 AM

    Excellent write-up, whether another site have covered it in a similar fashion or not. I’m getting fed-up with lazy write-ups of testing/practice sessions by certain so-called journalists that just don’t seem to care.

    Keep it up guys!