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If you had an A&R Pro membership, the photo and headline of this post would be different, so as to avoid race spoilers. Instead, your race results would look like this post.
Suzuki has finally gotten into the quarter-liter sport bike game, debuting the 2017 Suzuki GSX-250R in China this month. Before you get too excited, you should know that the GSX-250R is really just the Suzuki Inazuma in new clothing.
This means that the twin-cylinder six-speed street bike makes 25hp, 17 lbs•ft of torque, and weighs 392 lbs at the curb.
Not exactly mind-blowing stats, but Suzuki’s goal with the GSX-250R is to build a more practical and affordable machine, rather than a race bike as seen with the KTM RC390 and Honda CBR250RR. To that end, we’d say they accomplished that goal.
Peter Hickman on his way to victory. He crashed on his debut at last year’s Macau Grand Prix, and didn’t make the race as the bike sustained too much damage. That makes his victory in this year’s event even more impressive.
The start of the race and Martin Jessop leads the field into the tight Lisboa turn on the opening lap.
Ian Hutchinson leaves pit lane to start Thursday afternoon’s qualifying session. The Macau race was Hutchy’s last appearance on the Kawasaki before he moves to the Tyco BMW squad for the 2016 season.
Absent now for more years than we can remember, the historic Italian brand of Benelli is returning to the United States. While it Is always the more brands the better, when it comes to consumer choices, this news is perhaps a mixed bag for motorcycle enthusiasts.
SSR Motorsports will be the official importer and distributer for the Qinjiang Group, bringing Benelli motorcycles and Keeway scooters to the USA. This part we like.
The caveat though is that our favorite machines from Benelli are not going to be making it stateside for now, as SSR will initially only bring the Benelli BN302 and Benelli BN600i, with MSRPs of $3,999, and $6,999 respectively.
In Inner Mongolia, Ordos City is known better to the Western world as “China’s Ghost City” – a name that came about after a report by Al Jazeera and an article by Time magazine, both of which featured the newly built Chinese prefecture-level city, in all its failure.
The name comes about because of the massive construction projects taking place in Ordos, and the essentially non-existent population that lives in them.
This situation even more true in the Kangbashi New Area, where there is a goal to house one million residents (the actual current capacity is 300,000), though only 50,000 to 100,000 people claim the city as their home.
Many words have been written about Ordos, its buildings, its failures, and its future, though little has been said about the Ordos International Circuit.
In an interview with Cycle World’s Bruno de Prato, Yan Haimei, the CEO OF Benelli, announced that the historic Italian brand will be returning to American soil.
Haimei says that Benelli will make its US return by the end of 2015, though she was not clear on what models the Chinese-owned brand would make available.
“Returning to a market as competitive and selective as the American one will require that we further refine and increase our efforts, adding more personalized models and looking back to our history,” explained Haimei to Cycle World.
China National Chemical Corp (ChemChina) is set to buy into tire-maker Pirelli, with what is currently a €7.1 billion deal. The move would put the 143-year-old Italian company in Chinese ownership, with ChemChina being the majority and controlling shareholder.
ChemChina had planned to offer €15/share to existing Pirelli stock owners, but that number may have to be lifted after a recent rally in the stock’s price. Once the deal concludes though, it is expected that ChemChina will take Pirelli private once the buyout is complete.
The impetus for the buyout is that Pirelli’s knowledge making tires would be a huge asset to ChemChina’s current tire production, not to mention that Pirelli’s free production inventory could be used to make other ChemChina products.
The deal would also give Pirelli a strong footing in the massive Chinese tire market, a significant leg-up in Asia for the Italian brand over its other European competitors.
The 48th annual Macau Grand Prix was underway this past weekend, rounding out the 2014 road racing season, all the way on the other side of the world from the normal Irish and Manx roadways.
As much of a spectacle as its European counterparts, the Macau GP is set in the downtown area of the Special Administrative Region of Macu, and is proper elbow-to-elbow motorcycle racing.
A spectacle to see with the tight corners and dense cityscape, we regrettably didn’t cover the race this year due to a communication error on my part with our correspondent (my pay has been docked accordingly).
To try and at least make up for that error, we have for you the video highlights of the race, which Stuart Easton won quite comfortably, bringing his tally of Macau GP wins up to four now.