You have to spend some time around Australians to fully appreciate the culture that has been fostered on the ass-end of the world. Having spent more years than I can count competing in sports against Australians, I already had an appreciation for the direct no-bullshit approach to personal communication that comes from the land down under. It is the same trait that gets Casey Stoner in trouble with fans, as when the former (and soon-to-be?) World Champion calls a spade a spade, well…it rubs them the wrong way, especially us Americans (case in point, the 2011 Indianapolis GP asphalt debacle).

You see, Americans in a broad-stroke generality don’t like to be told our babies are ugly, or that the Emperor has no clothes. Similarly, when it comes to our highway safety campaigns, we are coddled with cute public service announcements that do little to speak honestly about the reality of situations. That’s not the case in Australia however, as for the past month I’ve been assaulted with healthy & safety messages concerning motorcycles that do anything but mince words.

MotoGP is coming to Phillip Island this weekend, as the premier motorcycle racing series gets set for the Australian GP. With only three more races left on the 2011 calendar, it is possible that Phillip Island could decide the 2011 MotoGP Championship, and points leader Casey Stoner is keen on winning the title in from of his home crowd. After a bobble at Motegi, Stoner saw Jorge Lorenzo claw back four more points in the Championship, thus leaving some margin for the Spaniard to prolong the Championship run (Lorenzo still has a mathematical chance at winning the Championship, we might add). With that being said though, Stoner is the betting favorite for the title, and could still very well clinch at home in Australia. To do so, one of six outcomes needs to occur.

For the three weeks, Asphalt & Rubber will be coming to you from New Zealand and Australia, as I’ll be taking my first true vacation in nearly six years (booyah!). The high-profile blogging lifestyle is a tough mistress, and so far this year I’ve been on the road nearly 40% of the time (that figure is pure exaggeration, though A&R‘s entire June article coverage came to you from airports, hotels, and the back of my car).

The plan for the coming weeks is for my time down under to be less of a working holiday than my trips have been in the past (like Qatar and the Isle of Man, for example), so A&R’s mix of daily news coverage will come at you in spurts, while longer op-ed pieces will try and fill-in the gaps on days where I’m riding around in Kangaroo pouches, or whatever the hell it is they do for fun around here.

It’s been a while since we had a motorcycle advert to critique, but with the thawing of winter’s ice, we should have a plethora of videos to show in the coming motorcycle friendly months. First up for the new riding season is Honda with this CBR1000RR ad that features MotoGP star Casey Stoner, and what appropriately looks to be Oz’s Repsol Honda Casey Stoner race replica that he is riding.

As far as motorcycle marketing goes, this clip is a pretty good effort by Honda Australia. Star GP rider, good production quality, and a demand generation focus all make for a compelling advert. Honda will need all the help it can get though, as it’s hard to sell the same bike that’s been out for four years, albeit with some fresh paint and some minor tweaks here and there.

In a market segment where dyno graphs and high-tech gizmos rule the sales sheet, here’s to hoping that quality in adverts can make up for quantity on the dynamometer in the Land of Kangaroos. Check it out after the jump and let us know what you think.

According to our friends at Ducati News Today, Ducati Australia has announced that it will begin offering a Ducati Monster 659, a Learner Approved Motorcycle Scheme (LAMS) compliant motorcycle for learning motorcyclists. Something we reported on back in March, the Monster 659 is a repurposed Monster 696 that complies with Australia’s laws and restrictions regarding motorcycle purchases by new riders.

Though with this news the Monster 659 has been official announced, it still is not clear how Ducati arrived to its 659cc displacement for the Ducati Monster 659. Logic would dictate either a reduced bore size, or a shortened stroke, with the latter being our best guess, but Ducati Australia so far has been mums the word about it.

There you are, riding your dirt bike through the grocery store with reckless abandon, and just as you are bout to weave through the aisles and head for the sliding-door exit, the darn thing doesn’t open in time, and you go crashing into it. You’d think in modern society we could make automated sliding glass doors in supermarkets that can pick up punk kids riding their two-wheelers through the market, but we can’t, and the world is the lesser for it.

While we wait for this pressing technological breakthrough to occur, here comes a video of a kid in Australia who had just this very same problem. We don’t really know the “why” but we’ve got a pretty good glimpse at the “how” in this story, and we’re pretty sure he’ll be ground well into his next lifetime.

Dorna and Phillip Island have been embroiled in a debate over moving the Australian GP to an earlier venue — a subject that seems to come up every time the premier series comes to the fabled island circuit. After Phillip Island rebuked the idea of moving its date for the MotoGP Championship, choosing to instead balance the race later in the calendar against other major events that come to Oz, namely Formula 1 (March 27th) and World Superbike (February 27th).

Not one to take rejection lightly, Dorna put Phillip Island on notice, suggesting that while the two parties did have a contract that saw the race pegged to the month of October, that agreement was only valid if Phillip Island kept its FIM homologation. This statement presumably suggested that Dorna would influence the FIM to remove accreditation for PI to run MotoGP events, should the Australians hold their ground. With neither party budging, serious concern began to grow over the Australian track.

With the MotoGP Safety Commission meeting today in Qatar, the issue of moving the Australian GP was broached and decided upon, with the Commission choosing to keep MotoGP’s stop in Phillip Island during the month of October. Glad to see his home race intact, Casey Stoner still had some thoughts on the issues surrounding the Australian GP date. Click after the jump to see his thoughts.

News coming from our good friends at Ducati News Today, tell us that according to one Australian dealer, Ducati is set to debut a small-displacement learner motorcycle that would adhere to Australia’s Learner Approved Motorcycle Scheme (LAMS). Fraiser Motorcycles is stating that Australia will get the new model in the coming months, and good money says that the bike is a modified Monster 696.

Whether that machine will have a smaller bore or shorter stroke is up for debate, but we imagine whichever is cheapest to produce will likely dictate the answer. Also expect to see some sort of deliberate power reduction used in the design, as Australia’s LAMS calls for a 201hp/metric ton horsepower-to-weight ratio.

Sunday dawned a damp Phillip Island for the opening round of World Superbike racing, after a clear week of testing and practices which were all dominated by Carlos Checa. The Spaniard won pole on Saturday, though reigning champion Max Biaggi’s improvement through the weekend brought his qualifying time to within .013s of Checa’s. Sylvain Guintoli and Leon Haslam were next to the veterans on the front row.

Both were also fast in the damp morning warm-up, though Australian Troy Corser was fastest in the changed conditions, with Checa was tenth fastest. It was dry and sunny by race time rolled around for Race 1, though the sky had turned grey for Sunday’s second race. To see how the riders adapted to the changed weather for Race 2, continue reading after the jump.

Alex Briggs, Valentino Rossi’s mechanic and A&R super friend, has put together the ultimate Ducati MotoGP experience auction, with all proceeds going towards the disaster relief efforts for the flooding in Australia. Called the worst flood in Australia in the past 50 years, the waters have hit the states of Queensland and Victoria with devastating affect since December 2010 (damages are being estimated in the 10′s of billions of dollars), causing Briggs to want to do something for his home country (most of Rossi’s crew hails from Australia as well).

Bringing his cause before Ducati MotoGP Project Director Alessandro Cicognani, the Marlboro Ducati team has gotten behind Briggs’ desire to help his home country, and has put together an attractive offer to help bring awareness to the floods, and raise some money for the disaster relief effort in the form of an eBay auction that will help raise money for the flood victims. Check after the jump for a full description of the auction details.