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Paddock Pass Podcast – Episode 14 – Season Review

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Our last podcast for 2015, Episode 14 of the Paddock Pass Podcast is a review of this year’s MotoGP Championship season. Steve English joins us again – though apparently he is calling in from 2000 leagues under the sea, apologies – and you will recognize the lovely tones of David Emmett and Tony Goldsmith on the mics as well.

The guys share their favorite moments from 2015, and give a good summation for the year’s events. Everyone involved in the show is extremely grateful for all of the listeners we’ve reached this year. We hope you will join us in 2016 for the new season, and the shows we have planned through this off-season.

As always, be sure to follow the Paddock Pass Podcast on Facebook, Twitter 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!

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Bikes

Honda RC213V-S Delivered to First Customer

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Look at the smile on this guy’s face! That’s the smile of the first person on planet Earth to take deliver of their new Honda RC213V-S street bike.

The first example of the €188,000 “MotoGP bike with lights” goes to Mr. John Brown, a Brit who owns and runs a Honda motorcycle dealership in Manchester, and is also an avid collector of Honda motorcycles.

Honda says that other customers will begin to take receipt of their RC213V-S motorcycles after the New Year.

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News

Dealernews Closes Its Doors

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One thing we won’t be taking with us into the New Year will be Dealernews, as the business-focused publication closed its doors on December 23rd.

Owner UBM Advanstar announced the closure of the publication earlier this month, saying that print, web, and social media parts of the publication would cease, and while the website remains online, no new content has been posted.

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MotoGP

Rating the Riders: Dani Pedrosa

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Dani Pedrosa, Honda, 4th, 206 points – Score: 8

If you wanted the very definition of a roller coaster career, look no further than Dani Pedrosa. Three world championships in the junior classes, and one of the most successful riders in the premier class.

He has never won a championship, but he has come within a whisker in 2012, winning more races than the eventual champion Jorge Lorenzo. Injury has dogged him, breaking most of the bones in his body, and fracturing his collarbone so often there is hardly a piece left intact.

His collarbone nearly ended his MotoGP career once, the plate fitted after his practice crash in Motegi in 2010 causing Thoracic Outlet Syndrome, causing numbness and weakness in his left arm, making it almost impossible to last a race.

He suffered through 2011, until the removal of the plate on his collarbone fixed the problem. He was back with a vengeance in 2012, winning seven races and getting close to beating Jorge Lorenzo. That experience stood him in good stead in 2015.

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MotoGP

Rating the Riders: Marc Marquez

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Marc Márquez, Repsol Honda, 3rd, 242 points – Score: 8

This was Marc Márquez’s worst season in Grand Prix racing since 2009. From 2010 onwards, in 125s, Moto2, or MotoGP, Márquez has finished as either champion or runner-up.

Not only did Márquez finish outside the top two for the first time since finishing eighth in 2009, but this was also his worst championship points total since that year. You could say this was a very bad year for the Repsol Honda rider.

Yet it was also undoubtedly the year in which Márquez learned the most in his Grand Prix career. This was the year in which Márquez changed his approach, and gained a deeper understanding of how to win a championship, rather than just races.

Márquez crashed out six times in 2015, fully one third of the races. Four of those crashes were entirely on his own, and completely his own fault.

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Recall

Officially Official: 2015 Yamaha YZF-R1 Recall

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We have known that Yamaha USA is recalling all of the 2015 Yamaha YZF-R1 superbikes it sold this year, for quite some time, and hopefully today we can end our coverage of that situation, as NHTSA has finally published the recall for the R1 on its website.

As expected, the recall touches roughly 3,000 units (2,921 to be precise), and will involve Yamaha dealers dropping the four-cylinder engine from the motorcycle, and replacing the entire gearbox – a roughly 16-hour job for the service technician.

The recall affects all 2015 YZF-R1, YFZ-R1C, YZF-R1MF, and YZF-R1MFC models, which were made between August 1, 2014 and June 1, 2015. This recall of course does not affect any 2016 models, which will have the issue address while still at the factory.

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News

Dainese Responds to Alpinestars Regarding Airbag Lawsuit

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Roughly two weeks ago, we broke the story that Alpinestars and Dainese were headed to court over the alleged patent infringement that was occurring between the two brands’ airbag technologies. That report has since spurred a pair of press releases from the two brands on the subject.

First to respond was Alpinestars, which released a statement that clarified that the lawsuit in Italy centered around the material of the airbag. Alpinestars also offered correction to our report, saying instead that that no legal action had occurred in the German market.

Dainese has now released its own statement on the matter, which insists that legal action was indeed taken in the German market – the Court of Munich ultimately granting an injunction on the sale of Tech-Air products in Germany – and Dainese restates that legal action is underway in Italy.

You can read Dainese’s full statement after the jump. We’ll reiterate what we first said when all this started: the outcome of this legal battle will have big consequences in the motorcycle industry. Stay tuned, we doubt this is far from over.

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Bikes

Two Enthusiasts Podcast – Episode 13 – Good Pornography

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Apologies, apologies, apologies for our tardiness in keeping your Two Enthusiasts Podcast addiction flowing, but never fear…Episode 13 is here, and it’s a good one.

In it, we run through some of the upcoming events in the moto-industry, one of which we will cover at length in Episode 14. We also tackle the looming sale of Deus Ex Machina to Louis Vuitton, and what it means for the beard and flannel crowd in the two-wheeled space.

And lastly, we give an update on the R1 recall and discuss the intricacies of US lemon law – though listeners should note that some of what we talk about regarding the recall has already been addressed by Yamaha, in the time it took us to get this show posted (we will wrap-up our R1 recall coverage in the next show as well).

All-in-all, we think Episode 13 is a pretty good show from the Two Enthusiasts Podcast crew.

As always, you can listen to the show via the embedded SoundCloud player, after the jump, or you can find the show on iTunes (please leave a review) or this RSS feed. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter as well. Enjoy the show!

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MotoGP

Rating the Riders: Valentino Rossi

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Valentino Rossi, Movistar Yamaha, 2nd, 325 points – Score: 9.5

British MotoGP commentator Julian Ryder has one cliché he uses about Valentino Rossi all the time. “Never write Valentino Rossi off.” It may be a cliché, but in 2015, Rossi showed once again why clichés exist.

At the age of 36, he was past his physical prime, and not capable of keeping up at the front. Twenty seasons of top level racing had dulled his desire to compete.

Two seasons at Ducati and a poor return to Yamaha proved he was past his prime. With more money than he will ever need for the rest of his life and a fashion model girlfriend (who rides motorcycles), there was nothing to fire his motivation.

The VR46 racing team was proof Rossi was looking to his retirement, not another championship.

There was at least some truth in all of those statements, voiced by pundits and fans across the world. But they overlooked one crucial fact: you can never, ever, write Valentino Rossi off.

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MotoGP

Rating the Riders: Jorge Lorenzo

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Jorge Lorenzo, Movistar Yamaha, 1st, 330 points – Score: 9.5

All year long, everyone – engineers, journalists, pundits, other riders (with the possible exception of Valentino Rossi, for obvious reasons) – said the same thing over and over again: “Jorge is faster, but Valentino is more consistent.”

The statistics bear that out: Jorge Lorenzo led for 274 of the 448 laps raced this year, a fraction over 61%. He also had five poles and six fastest race laps, second only to Marc Márquez. Jorge Lorenzo was just plain fast in 2015.

This should be no surprise. After a difficult 2014, Jorge Lorenzo took this season deadly seriously. Last year taught Lorenzo that the cost of not being fit at the start of the season was defeat, and he has no taste for that.

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MotoGP

Rating the Riders – The 2015 MotoGP Season in Review

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As the year winds to a conclusion, now is a good time to look back at the 2015 MotoGP season, and assess how the riders have done this year. It has been a fantastic season for MotoGP.

The fans have been treated to some of the best and closest racing in years. Several races became instant classics, such as the tight battle at Assen decided in the final chicane, the bizarre rain-hit and incident-packed race at Misano, the scintillating four-way fight at Phillip Island.

The championship went all the way down to the final race, decided in the end by just five points.

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