With the recent news of the 2010 BMW S1000RR making 183hp at the rear-wheel, the Bavarian Superbike is looking like quite the potent potable. With its liter-bike class leading performance, the bike doesn’t break the wallet much either with its $13,800 price tag. With such a great bike hitting US soil soon, it’s hard to imagine how to make it better…but that’s what the Dutch did with their BMW S1000RR Carbon Edition. More after the jump.
It’s been a good year for Yamaha Motors in racing, with riders James Stewart, Valentino Rossi, and Ben Spies all taking championship titles home for the tuning-fork brand. As a holiday gift to race enthusisats, Yamaha has put together a quick documentary on another rider that took the checkered flag home for Yamaha…in 1975. At the Indy GP this year, Kenny Roberts re-lived his 1975 flat track victory on the 125bhp, 750cc two-stroke Yamaha TZ750 flat-tracker of death. Video after the jump.
After taking the wraps off the Mavizen TTX02 at SEMA this year (we of course spoiled the fun a little bit earlier than that), there was a bit of chatter in the EV community as to why the TTX02 was consistently pictured without its Agni motors hooked up to the battery packs and controllers, and why in the bike’s various public showings it was never fired up for the audience (jump to 4:18).
To us and many others, this meant that the TTX02 had yet to be fully developed before it’s unveiling to the public at SEMA. With claims of a 130mph top speed, and specifications that matched or exceeded the TTXGP winning Team Agni motorcycle, we began to wonder how exactly those figures came to be on a motorcycle that wasn’t actually tested drawing table spec-sheets.
Clearly since that time, Mavizen has been busy in the lab making the TTX02 work. At their UK launch in the Bloomberg building this week, the TTX02 for the first time showed up with its motors connected to leads going underneath the bodywork, along with scrub marks on the tires. Now a couple days after that event the company brings us this video of the bike testing at low-speeds. Video and photos after the jump.
Fiat-Yamaha recently did a series of interviews with various members of their MotoGP team. Of course riders Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo were present for the camera, but the pieces done on the support staff are probably the more interesting aspects of the series, shedding true insight into the inner-workings of MotoGP. Videos after the jump.
Because of our good friends at SoCal Buell Riders, we have to spend the rest of the day replacing the A&R office keyboards, which are now soaked with this morning’s coffee. You have to admit though, the headlight on the new VFR does borrow heavily from the Centurion’s jaw-line…enough to make one wonder if it’s from the 13th colony of Kobol. If you have no idea what we’re talking, you need to watch more Battlestar Galactica.
Spanish moto manufacturer Derbi appears to have built an all electric race bike based on their GPR 125 (shown above). A mysterious YouTube user uploaded a grainy video of a red cloth being ceremoniously pulled from a Derbi sportbike in front of a Derbi branded backdrop. The bike was then shown not-so-silently navigating the tight switchbacks of Parc Motor De Castelloli in Barcelona, Spain and doing it fairly quickly. Video and more after the jump.
A reliable source in the AMA has just tipped us off to the fact that Ben Bostrom has signed with Pat Clark Motorsports (PCM) for the 2010 season. PCM, which has been linked to Bostrom since the beginning of the month, is keeping the deal under wraps though as they try to sign both Jake Zemeke and John “Hopper” Hopkins to the team as well. If successful, this would mean PCM is building the Deathstar of AMA Superbike teams for the 2010 AMA season.
UPDATE: Andrew Pitt has confirmed that he has signed with Reitwagen Racing for the 2010 WSBK season.
After BMW added a satellite team to World Superbike, the German team, Reitwagen Racing, was expected to have Austrian Roland Resch at the helm of one of the team’s S1000RR bikes, with a second bike rumored to be still open.
A week later, Mat Mladin shook things up in WSBK, after he tweeted that he was contemplating an offer to ride in the World Superbike Championship. After this news, links began to be made between Mladin and Reitwagen Racing program.
Any hopes of the Australian AMA champion riding the Bavarian machine though seem to be dashed now though, as fellow Australian Andrew Pitt is expected to take up the second seat on the satellite squad instead of Mladin.
In a candid perspective on the current rule changes to MotoGP, Michael Czysz detailed his thoughts on the switch to the 1000cc format for 2012, and what it means to MotoCzysz and it’s racing goals.
After Czysz’s hopes of racing in the pinnacle motorcycle racing series were dashed by the switch to the current 800cc format, the new rules adopted for 2012, which will bring the racing format back to 1000cc’s, may not only breathe life back into the company’s ICE racing hopes, but also give MotoCzysz some advantages as they consider another MotoGP entry.
Someone in the Yamaha North America Marketing Department is clearly bucking for a promotion.
After producing the extremely funny videos of the Yamaha MotoGP squad working at Yamaha HQ, and the in-depth explanation of the Ben Spies’ Method of motorcycle racing, the coming holidays have inspired Yamaha to make a Christmas card.
Seen in the photo is soon-to-be MotoGP racer Ben Spies, Motocross phenom James “Bubba” Stewart, and the Doctor, Valentino Rossi…along with some of the worst holiday sweaters we’ve seen to date.
Wishing us some holiday cheer, we see the trio bringing their holiday knits to some undisclosed cabin in the woods, complete with Rossi’s “Phillip Island kitten” in-tow.
After having five strong years, Stiggy Honda has announced that it will be withdrawing from the 2010 World Superbike and World Supersport Championships. Despite the team’s successes, their financial situation is the cause of their undoing, with Stiggy squarely pointing the finger at partner S2 Racing.