On a day when Nicky Hayden wasn’t far from anyone’s mind, the WorldSBK paddock paid tribute to The Kentucky Kid. With a minute’s silence, tribute videos, and the Stars and Stripes fluttering in the breeze as fans lined Donington Park, it was the racing that truly honored Hayden.

The 2017 Isle of Man TT is finally underway…sort of. The iconic road race had to scratch its opening session, as the fog rolled into the island nation, making the visibility on the lower parts of the course too difficult for motorcycles to run.

This left Clerk of the Course Gary Thompson no option but to cancel the opening qualifying session, leaving Monday to be the true start of the TT sessions, thus delaying our pleasure for proper road racing on the Manx island.

EBR Motorcycles is set for another go at this liquidation thing, with its owners Liquid Asset Partners having put the company and its assets on the auctioning block once again.

Loyal readers will remember that Liquid Asset Partners bought Erik Buell Racing last year, with public plans to restart the brand. That activity never really moved beyond assembling a few motorcycles that were still languishing on the production line, while LAP looked for other investors in the company.

Now confirming what we long expected to be the final outcome, Liquid Asset Partners is chopping up EBR Motorcycles once again – looking to sell the brand’s remaining assets, including the brand itself.

Valentino Rossi has suffered slight injuries to his liver and kidneys after crashing an MX bike while training. The Italian had been practicing at the Cross Park Cavallara, near Pesaro, where he crashed his motocross bike. 

The crash was severe enough to cause chest and abdominal trauma, so Rossi was taken to the emergency room at Rimini hospital, where he currently remains.

Thankfully though, the nine-time world champion appears to have emerged from his motocross accident relatively unscathed.

The untimely passing of Nicky Hayden affected motorcycle fans around the world, the team at Asphalt & Rubber included. To work through the grief, we are going to take this week to celebrate the life of The Kentucky Kid, sharing with you our thoughts and images from the years we worked with Nicky. So, we hope you will enjoy these photos by photographer Brian Nitto, as we all continue to hold Nicky in our thoughts and remember him. – JB

Feeling the effects of international trade, and a future without the TPP, Harley-Davidson is reported by the New York Times to be opening a new factory in Thailand – country that places a 60% tariff on motorcycles in Harley-Davidson’s relevant market.

The news comes at the dismay from Harley-Davidson’s workforce, which has just seen its ranks diminished by 118 jobs at its York plant, in Pennsylvania. Despite this, Harley-Davidson says that the move is about growing sales abroad, not losing jobs in the United States.

“This is absolutely not about taking jobs out of the United States,” said Marc McAllister, the Managing Director of Harley-Davidson’s international sales, while talking to the NY Times. “This is about growing our business in Asia.”

Of course, if Harley-Davidson wasn’t having to side-step a 60% tariff to sell motorcycles in Thailand, one has to wonder if the Bar & Shield brand would be building a factory in Thailand in the first place…

What had originally been planned as a two-day private test for Ducati grew into something rather larger, with Honda and Aprilia also joining the fray.

At the end of two days, it was Marc Marquez who ended the test as fastest, a couple of tenths quicker than Jorge Lorenzo on the Ducati, while Alvaro Bautista was third fastest on the Aspar bike. 

The test at Barcelona gave the riders a chance to test two of the most important changes for the series. First, the new, much shorter chicane being used instead of the F1 chicane, replacing Turn 12 where Luis Salom tragically lost his life during practice last year.

And second, the riders got a chance to test the stiffer front tire (the ’70’) which will be used from Mugello onwards, and will therefore be used in Barcelona during the race.