MotoGP World Champion Nicky Hayden is set to be inducted in the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America, along with eight other legends of American motorsport.
The Motorsports Hall of Fame of America says that it singled-out Hayden for his 2006 MotoGP World Championship title, and other feats while rising in the world of motorcycle road racing:
Former AMA Pro Superbike champion Miguel Duhamel got more than a surprise while cycling near Red Rock Canyon outside of Las Vegas, as he was struck in the head with what is suspected to be a BB gun pellet as a car passed by him.
“A car came behind me like they always do but this one came up and I heard a shot, like air disperse, it went pow!” said Miguel Duhamel, talking to FOX5 Las Vegas.
The incident left Duhamel bloodied, as the BB pellet passed through a vent on his bicycle helmet, penetrated a sweat cap, and punctured his skin.
Some shocking news from down under, as former AMA Pro Superbike champion Mat Mladin has been arrested and charged for a variety of sex crimes with a child.
The news comes from Australia’s Daily Telegraph – which we feel obligated to say is considered the least trustworthy major news outlet in Australia – and outlines several different crimes that Mladin is accused of committing.
It is with a heavy heart that we report the passing of Nicky Hayden today, the American motorcycle racer finally succumbing to the injuries he sustained on Wednesday, at 7:09 PM CEST.
The former-MotoGP Champion was struck by a car, while he was training on his bicycle near the Rimini coast. After the incident, Hayden was ultimately treated at the trauma center at the Bufalini Hospital in Cesena, where he later passed away.
While motorcycle fans around the world have been hoping for good news throughout this past weekend, and looking for signs that Nicky’s condition would improve, today Nicky’s race ended, with his family and friends at his side.
In literature there are basic themes that stories follow, and commonly used literary devices that authors build their stories upon – one of which is called the “hero’s journey”.
In stories that follow a monomyth or hero’s journey format, a hero with superhuman strength falls from grace and is sent upon a great task to earn their redemption.
The story then follows their trials and tribulations, which forge and transform the hero into something stronger than what they once were, before the hero then returns home and accomplishes more than he or she was capable at the beginning of the tale.
There can perhaps be no matter telling of this story in the motorcycle racing community than Josh Herrin.
AMA Pro Racing has announced that the series’ premier race, the Daytona 200, will once again feature 1,000cc Superbikes, starting in the 2015 season. A bit of an oddity on the AMA Pro Road Racing calendar, the Daytona 200 is America’s longest-running motorcycle endurance racing event, and historically it has kicked off the road racing season in America.
With Daytona International Speedway’s high speeds and long stints, riding the Daytona 200 has been a challenge for riders, for a variety of reasons. This lead to Superbikes being replaced by the strangely formatted Formula Xtreme class for the Daytona 200 race class in 2005 thru 2008. As tire and safety concerns continued, the modified 600cc Daytona SportBike class took over in 2009, and has run the race ever since.
While it has always been seen as an oddity by fans that AMA Pro Road Racing’s premier class didn’t run the series’ headline event, the safety concerns regarding 200+ horsepower bikes chewing through tires on the road course has been a paramount issue — even the Daytona SportBike bikes have had their fair share of tire woes at Daytona.
In order to get the Superbikes through the 69-lap endurance race, the folks at DMG say that the new upcoming rules package, which will reduce the cost of racing in AMA Pro Road Racing, is largely to be thanked.
AMA Pro Racing announced today that by 2015 it will overhaul the racing class structure and rules for the AMA Pro Road Racing series. The changes are designed to make America’s premier road racing series more cost-effective, and to bring AMA Pro Road Racing inline with other national and international racing divisions.
Perhaps the most important change to the racing structure, AMA Pro Racing says that the Superbike class will see incremental changes made to the technical rules package over the next two seasons “in the interest of rule commonality, performance parity, and cost containment.”
This likely means that AMA Pro Superbike will adopt rules similar to the rules progression seen in World Superbike, with EVO-spec bikes that more akin to Superstock series motorcycles being the mode du jour from 2015 and onward.
After sewing up the AMA Pro National Guard SuperBike Championship, Monster Energy Graves Yamaha rider Josh Herrin is now headed to greener pastures, as the 23-year-old will make the trek across the pond, and join the Moto2 Championship for the 2014 season.
Announcing the move at the AMA awards banquet, Herrin was tight-lipped on who he would be racing for, but Asphalt & Rubber sources have confirmed that the American will be racing with Caterham Racing for the next two seasons. Replacing Herrin at Monster Energy Graves Yamaha is Cameron Beaubier, who will be Yamaha’s investment in the future, as he races alongside Josh Hayes.
Time-lapse build videos are always fascinating, and since it’s well into Friday afternoon now, we are of course padding the post count here at A&R with this installment from the Monster Energy Graves Yamaha AMA Pro Superbike team.
In five hours the Graves crew built this Yamaha YZF-R1 race bike from the ground up, but you can see them put it together in just over a minute’s time. If you look close enough, you can even spot the reasons why Josh Herrin & Josh Hayes are running away with the 2013 AMA Pro National Guard Superbike Championship.
Another installment in the life of AMA Pro Superbike’s Chris Fillmore, and we see the KTM rider head down to Deus Ex Machina for some “coffee and café racers” as he calls it in this episode of Following Fillmore. Checking out the work of Michael “Woolie” Woolaway, Chris sheds some insight into his failed career in retails sales, as well as the early period of his motorcycle racing career.
Getting his first AMA Pro Superbike victory right-off-the-bat at Race 1 of the season-opener in Daytona, Josh Herrin got his 2013 season off to a solid start. A coming out party of sorts for the other Josh in the Monster Energy Graves Yamaha team, Herrin is showing himself to be a real talent in the AMA paddock, and at only 22-years-old, the Yamaha rider has quite the promising career ahead of him.
Our buddy John Shofner at Shofner Films got to follow Herrin around the Daytona paddock for the Daytona race weekend, and has produced an excellent video that captures Josh’s first win. We think you will enjoy it, and who knows, maybe we will get some more AMA Pro Superbike goodness on the site in the coming months. God knows the sport needs get productions like this one.