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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Aprilia means business this year!!! As usual…
How is it Chaz Davies and Marco’s performances from Races 1 and 2 are such polar opposites? Come on BMW Riders… get your heads in the game. Would love to see a 1-2 punch in some more races this year, similar to last year.
Don’t blame Marco for his race 1 nonresult. He was taken down and out by Checa.
Good racing. Personally hope Sykes and the Pata Hondas mount a challenge this year, but it’ll be hard against factory supported teams.
Am I the only one that hates those faux headlights on all the bikes?!
Former World Superbike Champion Carlos Checa has been taken to hospital in Melbourne after he was knocked out in a race-one tangle with Marco Melandri.
The Alstare Ducati man clipped the rear of Melandri’s Goldbet BMW on the brakes going into Honda Corner and was knocked unconscious. Trackside officials report that Checa suffered no serious injuries but obviously won’t take part in race two
Great opening round the Aprilia’s, BMW, and the Pinagale looked real good and fast .. Speedy recovery Checa you are one stand up RACER!!!
Hey Jensen, why don’t you make the winners a little more obvious by using their picture as the image for the article?
pictures? a la nascar? if you don’t know the faces of the race winners by now then you haven’t watched wsbk for the past few years.
Looks a lot like MotoGp racing.
One factory running top 3 with one factory trying to stay close.
All the other bikes 11+ seconds back.
frod, I think Will was alluding to the fact that Jenson was giving away the winner of the races (even if you didn’t click on the story) by using a picture of them on the bike therefore spoiling the races for anyone that comes onto the site and hadn’t seen the races yet.
I think that’s what Will was implying, though I could be wrong.
how the hell can we get to see WSBK here in the states ???
my terrorist Bein sports channel only loves soccer and not bikes !!!
can someone please direct me to visual bliss …
Hey Will, if you don’t already know the results, don’t go to sites that talk about them until you do.
This is my first season watching World Superbike, so I’m still in that awkward phase wherein one must constantly put names and teams to faces and liveries. That said, the racing this weekend was pretty good. Here’s hoping Checa comes out alright.
hey cvgsp75, the race was streaming online on http://www.beinsport.tv/.
btw, I guess your beIn sport channel is half terrorist because the other half is own by Time Warner.
I’m with Will, I am being encouraged to NOT visit your website if you insist on giving away the results in the pic. We can’t all watch live, and it sometimes takes a day or 3 to download and watch the races. The good news is, it’s not like it’s the superbowl, and everybody in the supermarket is talking about who won, but if I have to avoid any moto-blogs because of in your face spoilers, you are doing yourself a dis-service.
now I see the hate starting to brew against Jensen who does a great job on this site.
My question to you guys is when you go to WSBK.com or gaySpeed channel or any other site per that matter don’t you see the same spoiler alert?
I’ve seem many times when Jensen writes (Spoiler alert) on the result, and this time the race was on Saturday in USA, this time I don’t think he spoiled anything.
@Frod thanks for the info… and all these peolple complaining about race results are not using common sense if didnt watch the race 99.999999 % of the time results are gonna be posted. If you dont have the will power to wait till you see the race dont complain !!! these website which ever they maybe are doing a great job informing us (pics & intereveiws) dont be ……well u know were im going with this
@Balzac, I don’t think your life is going to be to severely affected by not visiting this site for a few days. Do you really think there will be much of any other info on here besides the race results of the weekend? I think you’ll live for a few more days without going to ANY motorcycle racing website for “a day or 3.”
So you come to a motorcycle news site, and expect not to get the news???
If I had my way, we wouldn’t bother with spoiler warnings, and we would just publish the race-winner in the article headline (along with everything that happened above-the-fold). Coming to a website that reports industry news and happenings, and expecting them not report on a race is sort of ludicrous in my mind, yet somehow people feel justified in petitioning for this very action.
Luckily cooler heads prevail around here. Our headlines are generic, our RSS feed is devoid of any details, as is our Twitter feed and Facebook account, and we publish the race results below the fold (meaning you have to click “Continue Reading” to view them. We go to get efforts to sanitize our media from unintended results spoilage, but I’m afraid there’s not much we can do if you PRO-ACTIVELY COME AND VISIT the front page of the site knowing that a race just took place.
If your expectation is that the world will wait a day or three before discussing the results of a race, then you are sorely mistaken — the internet/mass media/civilization isn’t going to change for you my friend. I would also probably add that this reality also unfortunately that means you might have to sequester yourself from Facebook, Twitter, and racing websites, if you want to avoid spoilers before you sit down and view the race several days later.
You see, my personal response to your complaint would be “deal with it,” or more likely something a little bit more colorful, because I have no patience on this issue. But again, cooler heads prevail at A&R HQ.
So I say to you, dear readers, our sincere apologies for posting a photo that may or not spoil the race results (we don’t actually always post the race-winners in the photo, but did this time). We hear your complaints, and as much as I personally disagree with them, we are investing some resources in developing a very clever solution to this problem. Stay tuned…but in the meantime, try avoiding the site on race-weekends if you haven’t seen the race(s).
I don’t get the beef. News networks broadcast sports results the very same day and immediately following the final results. Internet media outlets do the same. Shhhh…be quiet, you’re not making any sense. Just skip A&R until after you’ve watched the races, that will solve your problems. You can always catch up on the other stuff later.
Anyway, I love that these early Phillip Island races were given the MotoGP treatment camera-wise. The coverage was very exciting to watch. Especially compared to the few races that I saw last year, which gave the impression of Biaggi and Co. racing in quicksand or some other equally slow medium.
If these latest examples of SBK/WSS represent Dorna’s production focus that will last throughout the rest of the season, count me in as a full-time fan. I couldn’t be happier with what I saw this weekend.
I’m not sure what you mean by MotoGP treatment. The production was pretty much the same as it’s always been. The only difference was instead of having a 10-12 bike freight train to the finish line it was only the top 4. That is very much like MotoGP. I’m hoping it’s not like that all year.
guys, just one more thing. To those that don’t want to see the race results early and to those of us who love this site let’s keep coming to this website so we can keep the traffic and site alive.
You all very well know that you’ll see the race results every bike site you would go but the kind of article that we all enjoy can find it just here.
I not a hippie but love everyone that likes bikes, races, and riding on two wheels.
@Tony
Yep, you aren’t sure what I meant. Feel free to read my post again to get the fine details.
But as for the rest of your comment, there seems to be quite a few capable riders dealing with injuries in WSBK early this season, and that may have something to do with three or four riders, instead of more, competing at the front. This could reasonably change for the better by the time Aragon rolls around in the middle of April, as those riders have a lot more time to heal without tests, qualifiers and more races to impede their recovery. At least that’s what I gathered from the TV commentators and various articles posted on the net. At the very least, Tom Sykes could be in much better condition in six weeks time – and by some estimates he should definitely be in contention for the championship. Plus, Checa will also be back by then.