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Every year at the British GP round, a special event is held on the Thursday before the races. It is called the Day of Champions, and it raises money for our favorite charity here at Asphalt & Rubber, Two Wheels for Life.

Now in its 30th year of running, the highlight of the Day of Champions is the rider auction at the end of the day, where special memorabilia and opportunities are sold to the highest bidder to raise money for the charity.

At this year’s Silverstone round, the Day of Champions raised £286,000 at auction, before the weekend’s final tally was made, and well on its way to surpassing the £300,000 that was raised last year.

After several weeks of uncertainty, the future for Silverstone’s Day of Champions has been settled.

Questions started when the UK arm of Riders for Health ceased operations, but thankfully a new organization, Two Wheels for Life, has taken over the running of the Riders for Health, and will continue to support their programs aimed at providing primary health care in Africa.

The handover means good news for MotoGP fans as well. The Day of Champions is to go ahead as usual, on the Thursday before the British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

If you are a regular reader of Asphalt & Rubber, then you surely have seen our banners supporting Riders for Health, one of the great charities to come out of the motorcycle industry.

The non-profit organization, based out of the UK, provides healthcare services to remote locations in Africa, utilizing motorcycles to traverse the uncertain terrain.

Started by Andrea and Barry Coleman, along with Randy Mamola (yes, that Randy Mamola), Riders for Health even had HRH Princess Anne as its patron, with major support from the FIM and the MotoGP Championship as well.

If you attended a MotoGP round in the US or UK, then you may have seen the Riders for Health auctions, or participated in the Day of Stars or Day of Champions events.

Therefore, it is unfortunate for us to report that Riders for Health will be closing its UK offices, effectively ending the charity’s operations.

Thankfully, some of Riders’ operations in a number of African countries will continue on despite this closure, as their operations have already transferred to local actors, governments, or organizations.

Thursdays at MotoGP races usually mean the first chance the media has to talk to riders for the week, both at their debriefs and at the pre-event press conference, but at the British Grand Prix it means something a little bit more special.

Helping raise money for Riders for Health, Silverstone played host to the Day of Champions event, which sees fans able to ride the massive British track, walk the pit lane and see bikes up-close, meet GP stars, and bid on one-of-a-kind GP memorabilia.

All of the money raised from Day of Champions will help Riders for Health ensure health workers in Africa have access to reliable, well maintained motorcycles and ambulances so that they can continue to deliver life-saving health care to 14 million people. The Day of Champions is a great event, and it supports a wonderful charity.

This year accordingly, Riders for Health is proud to announce that the 3,500+ fans in attendance helped raise £193,802 at the Day of Champions event, a figure which the UK government will match. Booyah!

Are you getting into Austin early for the Red Bull Grand Prix of the Americas? Maybe you’re already there, sitting on 6th St. sipping down a cool beverage? May we recommend then that you set aside some time on Thursday, and head to the Circuit of the Americas race track for the Day of Stars, a special event put on by Riders for Health.

The official charity of MotoGP, and a cause near and dear to our A&R hearts, Riders for Health puts on two special events, one in the US and one in the UK, which give fans unprecedented access to the grand prix experience.

It goes without saying then that the Day of Stars event is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet MotoGP stars, see the paddock and team boxes, and of course to hangout and talk motorcycles with Randy Mamola.

You definitely can’t buy happiness (nor love for that matter, *cue violin and post V-day sadness*), but you can buy a behind-the-scenes pass to the Austin, Texas for the Red Bull Grand Prix of the Americas. Riders for Health, the official charity of MotoGP, is bringing its “Day of Stars” event to Austin and giving fans an exclusive view behind the world of MotoGP.

If satisfying your selfish desire to meet MotoGP riders and pit-crews, getting served a catered lunch, and taking your own bike for a spin at the Circuit of the Americas wasn’t existentially appealing to you, you can be rest assured that $375 out of every $500 ticket will go as tax-deductible donation directly to Riders for Health.

Say you and a buddy decide to go to Valencia for the final round of the MotoGP season next month. You’ll need two round-trip flights. You’ll need some place to stay. You’ll need money for food, ground transportation, and of course, tickets for the race. How much do you think all that will cost? If you’re lucky, about $3.

Riders for Health – the official charity of MotoGP, with support from Bridgestone and MCN, is running a contest right now that, if you win, will have you and a friend flown from anywhere in the world to Valencia, put up in a four-star hotel, and given VIP treatment all weekend from November 8th thru 10th.

You would have to be living in a hole not to have heard about the video footage of a Range Rover plowing through a group of motorcyclists, and the chase through New York that ensued afterwards.

I say this not because the video has been the highest trafficked article on Asphalt & Rubber this week so far, though it is; nor do I say this because the video has been posted to virtually every motorcycle forum and blog on the internet, though it has; but instead because the video has elevated itself out of our obscure sport and into the national, if not international, public consciousness.

It is rare that motorcycling finds its way into mass media, and unfortunately it is rarely a good thing when it does so. Motorcycling by and large has an image problem in the United States. Few motorists commute via motorcycle, which means our industry is filled with people who come to motorcycles from either a hobby, sport, or lifestyle perspective, and because of this motorcycles remain on the fringe of mainstream society.

For some, that is the allure. Motorcycling is “something different’ which in turns allows a motorcyclist to express their individuality in an obvious manner. To illustrate this point, I am fairly certain that the vast majority of flame threads that start on forums and blogs can be boiled down to the premise that because your enjoyment of motorcycles is different from my enjoyment of motorcycles, it therefore must be wrong.

If you haven’t heard of Riders for Health, it is the official charity of MotoGP, and also happens to be Asphalt & Rubber‘s favorite cause to support. Last year I had the supreme opportunity to attend Rider’s biggest fundraising event, the Day of Champions, which was held the Thursday before the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. While unfortunately I missed this year’s event (David and Scott got to attend though), I was very pleased to hear that British MotoGP fans raised £216,249 (over $336,000) for the charity.

That money will go towards helping Riders for Health to improve access to healthcare in Africa, where the charity relies on motorcycles to help bring healthcare professionals to remote villages, as well as reliably transporting medical samples, vaccines, etc. to places where four-wheeled drive vehicles cannot reach. I won’t go into a huge spiel about how awesome Riders for Health is, but if you want to read more about the great work these people are doing, you can read about them here.

While many in the MotoGP paddock have given endless amounts of support to Riders for Health, one standout supporter of this great cause is Valentino Rossi. During last Thursday’s rider auction, Rossi helped to raise £13,250 in just 20 minutes with nine items, which included a unique clay hand print, knee sliders, and the baseball hat he wore onto the stage. In total, the auction raised £77,090 for Riders, making Rossi’s star power account for over 17% of the money raised.

For those who haven’t noticed, Riders for Health is our go-to charity here at Asphalt & Rubber, and in case you’re not familiar with Riders (that’s what the hip kids call it), the organization is a registered not-for-profit charity that was started by Andrea and Barry Coleman, along with some guy named Randy Mamola, and provides critical health care services to millions of people in Africa — all on the back of a motorcycle (health care workers on motorcycles can reach six-times as many people as their counterparts in SUVs and cars, booyah).

Also, the official charity of the MotoGP Championship, the two big fundraisers for Riders for Health are the Day of Champions, which is held on the Thursday before the British GP, and the Day of Stars, which is held on the Thursday before the US GP. Whereas the Day of Champions is a massive event held at the Silverstone Circuit that is attended by thousands of two-wheeled enthusiasts, the Day of Stars is a smaller, more intimate, affair that is open to only 50 lucky participants.

A chance to spend time with current GP riders and past GP legends, you really won’t get a better racing experience ahead of the Laguna Seca round (don’t miss the auction too, where you can buy all sorts of rider gear and memorabilia). We highly recommend signing up for the event if you are in town ahead of the Laguna Seca round. A full press release with all the details is after the jump.

Even before I met Max Biaggi in 2011, I had the sense that here was someone who takes himself and his racing pretty seriously. From the immaculately trimmed facial hair, to his manner in the pit box, to his long career as a motorcycle racer, if there is anything he takes lightly, it is certainly not racing.

Some riders are approachable, quick to smile, who naturally put others at ease even on race weekends. Biaggi is not among this group. But I didn’t appreciate just how intense he is when he’s at work until, as one of my contributions to benefit Riders for Health, I decided to ask him to sign a print I was donating at last year’s Miller WSBK round.

I had brought a matted print of Biaggi from 2010 with me, and as I approached the track on Saturday morning I considered that it would likely fetch a higher price, and thus a greater donation to Riders for Health, if it bore Max’s signature. So I set about getting that done with no idea how easy or difficult it might be.

First I approached the Aprilia media officer, a pleasant fellow who worked with me, half in Italian and half in English, to come up with a plan to approach his star rider. He suggested we talk to someone in the pit box, someone who knew Max better than he did in his recently acquired role with the team.

We descended into the Aprilia garage and found someone whose exact role I never understood, but who also liked the idea of doing something for Riders for Health. He did not, however, care to be the one to bring it directly to Max. The three of us considered the situation and appealed to one of the senior mechanics, who gave us a sympathetic look and said in gestures instead of words that he wanted no part of the business.

We stood to the side of the box, waiting for inspiration, and I wondered if the plan were doomed. Max spoke to mechanics as if discussing matters of life and death. Team members approached him respectfully, presented their concerns for his comment, and left him alone. In some garages the guys joke and there is music in the business of racing motorbikes. In Max’s garage, it’s more like a war room, its business deadly serious.