With Honda long believed to be pulling the strings on Dorna’s marionette, and Dorna having an obvious interest in helping cultivate a badly needed new star/personality in its sport, it was announced at the tail-end of the British GP that MotoGP would do away with the Rookie Rule for 2013. While much can be said on the subject, perhaps the most succinct and accurate appraisal of the situation comes from the rule’s first intended target: Ben Spies. One of three Americans in “the Spanish Championship that travels around the world”, the factory Yamaha rider, whose future placement for the 2013 season could now be affected by “the Marquez Rule”, had no problem telling his fans on Twitter exactly what he thought of Dorna’s latest decision.
You know what they say about first-generation Italian motorcycles…Yes folks, the superbike of 2012, the Ducati 1199 Panigale, is having its first technical recall. Ducati North America is recalling 375 units of the Panigale because of an incorrect screw was used to attach the rear swingarm to the rear suspension linkage. The faulty screw could cause the swingarm to detach from the linkage, which would in-turn could cause a catastrophic suspension collapse. Such an occurrence has obvious dire consequences for the bike’s rider, and as such Ducati North America will be contacting at-risk Ducati 1199 Panigale owners.
Now that three races have passed, giving the paddock time to digest the news of Casey Stoner’s shock decision to…
For the first quarter of the British Grand Prix, there was a Ducati racing at the front in a dry race, something we’ve not seen for some time. Almost as soon as Nicky Hayden crossed the line with 15 of 20 laps to go, his GP12 changed from something that could match the pace of the leaders into something else entirely. Earlier, when I’d walked onto pit lane and headed for the grid, we felt sprinkles in the air and wondered if the volatile weather was about to change from cool-but-dry to wet-and-even-colder, as it had several times over the weekend. It seemed unlikely that it would start raining hard enough to begin the race on wet tires, but up and down pit lane crew chiefs appeared from their boxes, looking up at the skies, wondering what to do.
Lately it seems Bezzi’s imagination has gone to a world where Bimota uses more than Ducati’s v-twin lumps in its exclusive street bikes, with his most recent sketches envisioning a BMW/Bimota collaboration. Inking the Bimota BB-2 superbike, and it’s naked sibling the Bimota BB-3 “Paura”, the usual Bezzi lines and style are present in the designs. Oberdan’s thought-process on the Bimota BB-3 seems to be well-timed though, as the Bavarian company has recently been caught testing a naked version of the well-selling BMW S1000RR at its facility. Set to be a true Germans streetfighter, BMW could very well succeed in a motorcycle segment that the Japanese have historically struggled with here in the US.
John McGuinees, the King of the Mountain, could quit road racing today and go down in history as a legend of the sport. The thing is though, Mr. McPint is showing no signs of slowing down, and in reality McGuinness is at the top of his game — adding two more race wins from the 2012 Isle of Man TT to his impressive total. On that Saturday’s Senior TT, no one wanted to make more history than McGuinness — of course he wanted to do so in an entirely different way than what occurred. It will now be a long wait before he can lay claim to that twentieth IOMTT victory trophy, but John McGuinness isn’t too worried about that I suspect, and I reckon he has his eyes leveled firmly on the horizon, staring at what would seem to be an impossible an impossible number that starts with three.