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August 2013

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Ducati, Sometimes It’s Like I Don’t Even Know You

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I had a good chuckle last week, you see one of my Facebook groups posted up some rumors they heard about the upcoming Ducati middleweight sport bike — namely that it would have a double-sided swingarm. “That’s ludicrous,” I said to myself, as I posted an even snarkier reply to the Facebook (oh sweet internet, how you bring the asshole out in all of us).

Hrmm…well, it appears I was wrong, as spy photos of the “Ducati 899 Panigale” surfaced just days later, and sure enough, there is a double-sided swinger bolted onto the Babigale™.

While it surely gets my goat that I was pie-in-the-face wrong on this rumor (on Facebook no less), what really grinds my gears was that the new model from Borgo Panigale flies in the face of my basic understanding of how Italy’s iconic motorcycle brand even thinks.

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Racing

MotoGP: Ben Spies Has Double Shoulder Surgery, Not Expected to Return in the Short-Term

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Ben Spies has undergone surgery on both his shoulders in Dallas yesterday. The Ignite Pramac rider had surgery to fix the acromioclavicular joint in his left shoulder he dislocated in a practice crash at Indianapolis.

Spies also had a minor procedure already scheduled for his previously injured right shoulder, to clean out scar tissue, according to a report in US publication Cycle News. The Texan posted a picture of himself after surgery on his Twitter page, announcing his surgery, but no official word has come from Ducati or Pramac just yet.

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Racing

Preview of Brno: Looking Forward & Looking Back

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One race down, two more to go in the first of MotoGP’s two triple-headers in 2013, and this is the most brutal transition. After a draining race in the humidity of the Midwest, the teams and riders pack up, head east and face a wall of jet lag before getting ready to race at Brno, one of the most physically demanding circuits on the calendar.

After that, they get to pack up again and head back west, just a short hop this time to the UK, its one-hour time difference from Brno small enough not to cause jet lag, but just enough to throw your body clock just out of kilter.

Whether Brno will produce the same flashes of excitement, which Indianapolis did, remains to be seen. At Indy, the riders encountered what they described as the best surface they’d ever seen at the track – relative, of course, to previous visits – and that helped in some small way to spice the racing up a little.

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Racing

Takaaki Nakagami into MotoGP on a Production Honda?

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The number of riders moving up to MotoGP from Moto2 continues to grow. Pol Espargaro is confirmed at Tech 3, while Scott Redding is expected to announce a move at Silverstone, almost certainly to the Gresini team aboard a Honda production racer. And now, the championship-leading duo looks set to be joined next year by Takaaki Nakagami, the Japanese rider currently riding for the Italtrans Moto2 team.

According to respected Spanish magazine Motociclismo, Nakagami will move up with Tady Okada’s Honda Team Asia structure. Okada’s ties to Honda mean that Nakagami will be riding a Honda production racer, the same bike to be fielded by both the Cardion AB team for Karel Abraham, and at Gresini for Scott Redding.

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News

Harley-Davidson Debuts Liquid-Cooled Engines for Tourers

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Harley-Davidson has debuted its 2014 touring and trike motorcycles, which would normally be an event that we’d forgo even mentioning here at Asphalt & Rubber, after all “brand new” to Harley typically means new paint and chrome pieces to bikes that already exist in the line-up — that’s not entirely the case this year though.

Rolling out eight “new” motorcycles for enthusiasts, Harley-Davidson has listened to customer feedback and made changes to the following models in its line-up: Road King, Street Glide, Street Glide Special, Electra Glide Ultra Classic, Ultra Limited, Tri Glide Ultra, CVO Ultra Limited, and CVO Road King. Nothing crazy there, right?

However what was called “Project Rushmore” inside the motorcycle company, we now know refers to the company’s effort to bring more technology to its two-wheeled midlife crisis machines… the most drastic change being a liquid-cooled engine design. We’ve got your attention now, don’t we?

Debuting two liquid-cooling engine configurations, the Twin-Cooled High Output Twin Cam 103 motor will be used on the 2014 Harley-Davidson Ultra Limited and the Tri-Glide Ultra trike, while the Screamin’ Eagle Twin-Cooled Twin Cam 110 will be featured on the 2014 Harley-Davidson CVO Limited.

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Racing

2014 MotoGP Calendar: Brazil In, Laguna Seca Out?

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The 2014 MotoGP calendar could see the first steps in a long process to transform Grand Prix motorcycle racing from a Eurocentric series to a truly international world championship. Today, Dorna CEO held a press conference in Brazil to announce that MotoGP could make a return to that South American country as early as late 2014.

The event would be held at the Autodromo Nelson Piquet de Brasilia, the motorcycle circuit in the capital city of Brazil, and has been scheduled to take place in the second half of the 2014 season. That date is still very far from certain, however, as the track is still subject to safety homologation by the FIM for Grand Prix motorcycle racing.

If the race goes ahead – and the facilities at the circuit are believed to need a lot of work to bring them up to MotoGP standard, though there appear to be few physical obstacles to moving walls back and creating the necessary runoff required – then it will join the Termas de Rio Hondo circuit in Argentina as the second South American race on the calendar, giving a much more international feel to the MotoGP series.

The expansion into Central and South America is seen as crucial to the future of the sport, as all forms of motor sport are extremely popular in the region. The inclusion of Colombian rider Yonny Hernandez in the premier class provided a boost for the visibility of the series in the region, and the hope is that by adding Argentina and Brazil to the calendar, more local talent can be cultivated. The region is also a key market for the Japanese motorcycle manufacturers.

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MotoGP Silly Season Update: Forward’s Privateer Yamaha M1s, Hayden’s Future, & Honda’s Production Racers

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With all of the prototype seats occupied for 2014 – barring a contractual bust up between Ducati and Ben Spies, which is only an expensive theoretical possibility at the moment – battle has commenced for the rest of the MotoGP seats regarded as being most competitive. While the factory bikes – the bikes in the factory and satellite teams being raced as MSMA entries – are all taken, the privateer machines – using Dorna spec-ECU software and extra fuel – are still mostly up for grabs.

The three most highly sought after machines are the 2013 Yamaha M1s to be leased by the NGM Forward squad, Honda’s production racer (a modified RC213V with a standard gearbox and metal spring instead of pneumatic valves) and the Aprilia ART bikes, which are a heavily modified version of Aprilia’s RSV4 superbike.

Of the three, only the ART machine is a known quantity, with Aleix Espargaro and Randy de Puniet having raced the bikes with some success in 2012 and 2013, joined by Yonny Hernandez and Karel Abraham this year. Teams and riders will have to guess about the performance of the Yamahas and Hondas, though given the basis of the two machines, it is a safe bet they will be relatively competitive.

The most popular machine among riders is the Yamaha M1, naturally enough. The bike is a near complete 2013 machine, with a few parts excluded, such as the fuel tank, and will utilize the spec-ECU software from Dorna, being developed by the current CRT teams.

Given just how good the 2013 M1 is – Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi have won races on it, Cal Crutchlow has scored regular podiums – it is expected to be the best privateer machine on the grid next season, and anyone hoping to advance in the series is angling for a ride on it.

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Rumors

Are You the Ducati 899 Panigale?

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With the 2013 EICMA show just a couple months away, it is unsurprising to see next year’s bikes cropping up on the internet — case in point, this photo of the Ducati 899 Panigale.

Rumored since the Ducati 1199 Panigale broke cover two years ago, the Bologna Brand’s supersport-class sport bike appears to be mostly as expected, though it is surprising to see Ducati fitting a standard-style swingarm to the machine instead of continuing its iconic single-sided design.

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Kenny Roberts Sr. Working on Possible GP Team Entry

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Talking to MotoGP.com this weekend at the Indianapolis GP, Kenny Roberts Sr. admitted to the website that he is working on putting together a new GP program for the 2014 or 2015 season — though was quick to caution against the project’s full-fruition.

“We’re working on it. And we’re working on something quite big – it’s going to happen or it’s not going to happen. It’s not going to be almost there. When we come back we’ll come back in a big way! And if you don’t see me, you’ll know we didn’t get it done,” said King Kenny.

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