Record months, quarters, and years are becoming an old hat for BMW Motorrad, and last month continues the trend for the German brand. Selling 14,587 motorcycles in April 2013, BMW Motorrad says that it saw an 11.5% sales increase over April 2012.

The primary contributor for that sales boost is the 2013 BMW R1200GS, which has been completely redesigned from its venerable predecessor, and now includes “strategic” liquid-cooling for the cylinder heads, and a bevy of other enhancements (A&R will be swinging a leg over one shortly).

BMW Motorrad Goldbet SBK’s Chaz Davies had some homework ahead of this weekend’s World Superbike round in Monza, as the Welshman spent time in BMW’s high-speed wind tunnel to work on his aerodynamics with the BMW S1000RR. With Monza being one of the fastest courses on the WSBK calendar, a rider’s ability to have the optimal body position down the the track’s long sections, where speeds can easily exceed 200 mph, is a crucial element to race-day success.

“It was a really interesting afternoon”, said Davies. “When testing on a track, you try new development parts and different settings but you are not working on your body. So it was great to experience in a stable environment with my riding position, to move myself around on the bike, to have elbows and shoulders in different positions and to then see in the data what difference it makes.

Regular readers will know that I am not a big chopper guy, but every now and then one comes along that tugs enough on this sportbiker’s heart strings that I feel compelled to post about it. Such is the case with the Benchmark by Walz Hardcore Cycles, whose close proximity to the F1 course in Hockenheim, Germany certainly must play a factor.

I am fairly confident that the Öhlins superbike suspension, carbon fiber wheels, carbon/ceramic disc brakes, and debadged Akrapovic exhaust can aren’t going to really make the difference on this low-slung S&S-powered motorcycle, but they certainly do add to the bike’s sporty lines.

The streamlined sporty-chopper look has always worked well on me, and the Benchmark is no different with its brushed aluminum metal bodywork and carbon fiber accent pieces. I can’t say that I am a fan of the Ducati Monster headlight though, a design element that kills the donor machine for me.

With pricing that starts at €124,900 (€149,900 for the bike shown here), there is a hefty dose of sticker shock that comes with the Benchmark as well. So, we doubt one will find its way into your garage anytime soon, but for now it is something nice to look at, even if the chopper thing isn’t your bag of two-wheeled fun.

The date of the German round of MotoGP at the Sachsenring is once again surrounded by uncertainty. A minor readjustment of the Formula One calendar means that the German F1 and MotoGP races are once again scheduled for the same date, July 7th, meaning that the Sachsenring race could well be forced to move to the following week, July 14th being an option, according to German-language website Speedweek.

Confirming rumors that Filippo Preziosi would be leaving his role as head of Ducati Corse, the Italian company announces today that the man responsible for BMW Motorrad’s World Superbike program, Bernhard Gobmeier, will be taking over the position at Ducati Corse. Reporting directly to Ducati CEO Gabriele del Torchio, Gobmeier will ultimately be in charge of all the racing projects at Ducati, including MotoGP and World Superbike.

Stepping down from his position, Preziosi will take on the role of Director of Research & Development for Ducati Motor Holding, where he will use his engineering and design talents to help develop Ducati’s next road bikes. He will report directly to Claudio Domenicali, the General Manager of Ducati Motor Holding.

On the Corse side of things, Paolo Ciabatti will oversee Ducati’s MotoGP project, while Ernesto Marinelli will be in charge of Ducati’s WSBK racing efforts with Team Ducati Alstare. Both Ciabatti & Marinelli will report to Gobmeier.

All things considered, it hasn’t taken Horex that long to come to market with its first machine, the Horex VR6 Roadster. Not the supercharged street-standard that we first saw (there’s been no update when that variant will be available), but still a plucky 161hp motorcycle that should attract the discerning buyer.

Featuring a 1,218cc, 15°, VR6 motor, the Horex VR6 Roadster has had a number of delays in its production (here & here), not to mention the set-back with the supercharged model, but bringing a new model to market in less than three years is still quite a feat in this industry, so our hats are off to zie Germans.

Discussion as to whom will be teammate to Marco Melandri has now ceased, as Chaz Davies has been signed by zie Germans for the 2013 World Superbike Championship season. Currently riding for the ParkinGo Aprilia team in WSBK, Davies has been tapped to move into the now consolidated BMW Motorrad racing effort in WSBK.

Riding for the factory squad, which will be run by BMW Motorrad Italia, the 25-year-old Davies displaces his fellow countryman Leon Haslam, who is said to be moving to the factory Honda team that is run by Ten Kate. The news comes on the heels of Davies winning Race 2 at Nürburgring, in what has been an increasingly impressive season for the Welshman.

After its absence at the Moscow round, Effenbert Liberty Racing affirmed earlier this week that it would be participating in World Superbike’s Nürburgring round with all three of its riders. Always keeping things interesting though, the team has followed up that announcement today with the news that it has replaced Jakub Smrz with Italian rider Lorenzo Lanzi. This should surprise no one.

Rumored heavily to be in financial difficulty, after Effenbert reduced its support for the team after the round at Monza, today’s move is just the latest of many strange developments for the Liberty Racing squad, which showed so much promise earlier in the season, but has spiraled out of control ever since.

There was one glaring omission from the post-Sachsenring roundup I wrote on Sunday night. Well, two actually, but the biggest was that I neglected to give Dani Pedrosa the attention he deserved for a fantastic win, his first in over nine months. Pedrosa managed the race brilliantly, starting on a bike which had seen massive changes ahead of the race, and which he took a few laps to get accustomed to.

He did so by dropping behind Stoner, and following in the wake of the reigning World Champion, until he was comfortable enough to make a pass. He accomplished this with ease, and the pair engaged in some synchronized drifting until the end of the race, when Pedrosa upped his pace and forced Stoner into an error. The Australian may have believed that he had the pace and the moves to beat Pedrosa, but the fact that he crashed would suggest that Pedrosa was forcing Stoner much closer to the limit than the champion realized.

The win was important to Pedrosa, not just because he has not yet put pen to paper on the two-year extension of his Repsol Honda deal, but also because he felt he owed it to his team for all the hard work they have put in, he said. This year, he had felt very comfortable on the bike – chatter notwithstanding, from both the rear with the existing tire and from the front with new ’33′ spec tire – and he felt he had the pace to win. But every time there was always someone else who was faster on the day. Until Sunday.

The tire problems experienced by Valentino Rossi and Ben Spies at Assen, where great chunks of rubber came off the right side of the rear of the tire, slowing Spies up severely and affecting Rossi so badly he was forced to pit for a new tire, have been the subject of much speculation and discussion since the event. Spies was particularly shaken after the race, the tire problems bringing back bad memories of the 300 km/h tire failure and monster crash he had at Daytona back in 2003, which he still has the scars to show from.

Nearly a week on, and after examination by Bridgestone technicians back at the factory in Japan, we can start to draw a few preliminary conclusions as to the cause of the problems. Bridgestone have issued a press release and briefed the press directly, and the riders have weighed in with their thoughts and impressions of what happened. Before pointing fingers and apportioning blame, let us first walk through what we know of what actually happened.