Tag

imola

Browsing

Episode 141 of the Paddock Pass Podcast is out, and this one takes down a trip on memory lane in the WorldSBK paddock, as Steve EnglishGordon Ritchie, and Jensen Beeler talk about the 2002 World Superbike Championship.

One of the most memorable WorldSBK seasons, 2002 saw a battle for the championship between Colin Edwards and Troy Bayliss, which went down to the very last race of the season: the Showdown at Imola.

An iconic battle, the final race at Imola is considered by many to be the best motorcycle race of modern times, and it is certainly worth a discussion while we are all stuck at home because of the coronavirus.

We know that the Aprilia RS 660 will debut as a production bike at EICMA next week, and we know that the Italian brand plans to make a few different machines off its middleweight twin platform.

So, they leaves us making some very obvious guesses about what will come next from Noale, and an Aprilia Tuono 660 is perhaps the most logical of those thought processes.

Confirming that suspicion, it seems that Aprilia was showing off its smaller Tuono model at an Imola track day, with the above spy shot getting snapped by the folks at ApriliaCup.

Episode 102 of the Paddock Pass Podcast is out, and this one is a WorldSBK show. As such, this means that we see Steve English joined by Gordon Ritchie on the mics, as they are now our WorldSBK reporting duo for the 2019 season.

Recording straight from Italy, the guys talk about the on-track action at Imola, where we saw a surprising turn of events.

First there is the race result from Saturday to discuss, and unbeknownst to the fellas, racing for Sunday would be canceled (we remind our listeners that our WorldSBK shows are recorded mid-race weekend).

“I’ve had to pinch myself leaving Imola in the past." That's how Chaz Davies sums up his relationship with the Italian circuit and the Ducatisti in a few short words.

Winning four races in a row at an Italian circuit on an Italian bike will make for some great memories. Unfortunately for the Welshman, he hasn’t looked like adding to those memories this season.

To continue reading this story, you need to have an A&R Pro subscriber account. If you have an A&R Pro account, you can login here.

Following his double victory at Imola, Jonathan Rea has laid the foundation for his fourth consecutive WorldSBK title.

Jonathan Rea’s 59th WorldSBK victory saw the Northern Irishman join Carl Fogarty as the most successful rider in WorldSBK history. The triple champion was however quick to point out that winning races is good, but winning championships is better.

Still trailing Foggy by one title there is now a sense of inevitability that Rea will add to his title haul. The previous two years had seen Chaz Davies do the double at Imola, but he had no answers for Rea over the weekend.

The Kawasakis were the class of the field, but it was Rea who came out on top following a tough weekend for the Ducati rider, and with a 47-point advantage the title race is now firmly in Rea’s hands.

An exhibition of Nicky Hayden photographs, by the Italian photographer Mirco Lazzari, opened during the Imola WorldSBK round, aptly named “A Million Dollar Smile”.

With 69 photographs depicting the American’s international career, it provided a reminder to fans of what made the Kentucky Kid so popular.

For Lazzari, the challenge of finding the correct pictures was a trying time ,with weeks spent to ensure he struck the right chord, as the first anniversary of Hayden’s death approaches.

“I wanted to create an exhibition for Nicky, and it was very emotional because Nicky was a rider that gave all of us a lot of emotions,” said Lazzari. “He meant a lot to so many fans and to the sport, so I wanted to do this exhibition because he is missed by so many people.”

Imola is one of the most historic circuits in the world. Tamburello, Acque Minerali, and Rivazza are corner names etched into the fiber of the sport, and with the circuit named after Enzo Ferrari’s son, the emotion of Imola is always bubbling away just under the surface.

For a long time, Eugene Laverty didn’t feel at home at this twisting and technical circuit, but over the last ten years he has been able to scratch at the surface and unlock the key to a fast time around this 4.936km circuit.

“Imola is a very technical circuit and it’s a real challenge to learn it,” said Laverty. “It took me a long time to figure out some of the secrets of it, and even when I was racing here on the Yamaha Superbike, after a few years of Supersport, I was still struggling.”

“The most important thing is to be white line to white line because there’s no ‘natural corners.’ The straights are so short that everything leads into one another and it’s a real challenge to learn the details of Imola.”

With two Supersport podiums and a WorldSBK rostrum, Laverty understands what’s needed, but for this weekend, recovering from an injury, he’ll face an uphill task.

The Italian round of the WorldSBK season marks the end of the opening third of the season, but it’s hard to see how it marks the end of Chaz Davies’ dominance at the Imola circuit.

The Welshman has been a wizard around the technical circuit in recent years, and been unbeatable. Having fallen 30 points adrift of Jonathan Rea in the standings, he will know that this weekend it is crucial to chip into the Northern Irishman’s title lead.

In the World Supersport Championship, one name has dominated the results list for the past decade: Kenan Sofuo?lu. This is because the Turkish rider has posted five championship titles since he entered the class, along with 43 race wins in the WorldSSP class.

And now, the Kawasaki rider is ready to hang up his spurs, announcing that he will retire from motorcycle racing, after the WorldSBK paddock races in Imola this coming weekend.

Never fully recovering from a crash he sustained at Phillip Island during the 2015 season, Sofuo?lu broke his hip during a crash at Magny-Cours last season, and as a result the 33-year-old narrowly missed out on his sixth WorldSSP title.

Sofuo?lu has talked many times about his retirement from racing, and now with his family, he decided it was time to move on from racing motorcycles.

Episode 52 of the Paddock Pass Podcast sees David Emmett  and Steve English covering the World Superbike Championship’s stop in Imola, Italy.

The boys get us caught up on what is happening in the WorldSBK paddock, which includes some silly season speculation, as well as a discussion about the possibility of WorldSBK seeing a spec-ECU or rule concessions to balance the team entries.

There is a great deal of discussion about the rivalry brewing between Jonathan Rea and Chaz Davies, as well as the future involvement of factory teams, as manufacturers tease new motorcycles and look to improve their WorldSBK results.

Before the show ends, the guys also give a quick briefing on the World Supersport and Supersport 300 classes.

We should preface that this episode was recorded before we heard the news about Nicky Hayden’s cycling accident in Italy, and the entire Paddock Pass Podcast teams is hoping for Nicky’s full and speedy recovering. He and his family are in our thoughts, and we hope to see him back in the racing paddock very soon.

As always, be sure to follow the Paddock Pass Podcast on FacebookTwitter and subscribe to the show on iTunes and SoundCloud – we even have an RSS feed for you. If you like the show, we would really appreciate you giving it a review on iTunes. Thanks for listening!