With the MotoGP season about to begin, all eyes are on Rossi and what he and Jeremy Burgess have been able to accomplish with the Ducati GP11. Will Valentino be thinking of his glory days under the lights on his beloved Yamaha M1? This image, from 2009, shows Valentino in peak form as he began his final championship season with Yamaha. Though Casey Stoner won by almost eight seconds, Rossi began his title chase with a strong second in the first ever Monday night race after a rare desert rain storm ruined the Sunday night schedule.
In this photo Rossi’s bike wears the Forza Abruzzo logo on its tail section, representing Rossi’s contribution to the relief effort to help L’Aquila recover from a devastating earthquake that struck the city on April 6th, 2009. Of all the bikes braking for Turn 1 after Losail’s long front straight, Rossi’s showed the brightest brake discs, glowing hot like fire in the desert.
As the Ducati Cup, also know as World Superbike, enters the 2011 season, the grid looks odd without a presence many have taken for granted for several decades, a factory Ducati team. While Ducati does have Valentino Rossi on its prototype GP11 this year, the Xerox WSBK team is no more, leaving others to defend Ducati’s honor in the series. This weekend at Philip Island, Carlos Checa rode his Althea Ducati to pole and a double victory, dominating the weekend. Though the Bologna factory may not be present as an official team entry, Ducati’s racing heritage appears well represented in World Superbike for 2011.
2010 World Superbike Champion Max Biaggi will be adding a fifth star to his leathers in 2011, the existing four representing his previous world titles. Coincidentally, or perhaps not, four of his five titles have been on Aprilia machines, the first four being consecutive 250cc GP Championships between 1994 and 1997.
Max has re-signed with Aprilia for another two years and will begin his title defense next weekend when the WSBK season kicks off at Philip Island. The above photo is from the Miller Motorsports Park round in 2010, where Max won twice after Carlos Checa’s Ducati quit while in comfortable leads in both races.
Taking over Valentino Rossi’s factory Yamaha seat, multiple AMA Superbike Champion, 2010 WSBK Champion, and 2011 MotoGP Rookie of the Year Ben Spies will have the same equipment as reigning World Champion Jorge Lorenzo. Given how well Spies did on the satellite Tech3 Yamaha in 2010, the factory bike and a year of experience could mean the difference between being the “Best of the Rest” and the “Big Four” becoming the Big Five.
With the 2011 MotoGP season right around the corner, there are several big questions waiting to be answered. The biggest is how Valentino Rossi will manage with the Ducati GP11. Last year Rossi won the season opener at Losail after Stoner crashed out of the lead, and was pleased to have what would become his final year with Yamaha off to a good start.
But his broken leg at Mugello put him out of the Championship running as rival Jorge Lorenzo rode the bike Rossi had developed to the title. Rossi’s challenge in 2011 is formidable if he is going to reclaim the premiere class championship, and go down in the record books as having done so with three different factories. He has a lot to think about before the lights come on in Qatar.
We here at Asphalt & Rubber love Leslie Porterfield. She’s the Queen of Speed, Maven of Two Wheels, and Temptress of the Salts. OK, ok, she’s also blonde and leggy, and while the prior titles are important it’s this latter quality that photographer Markus Hofmann was after when he took Porterfield to BMW’s wind testing facility outside of Munich, Germany. You may remember Hofmann from such other confusing couture meets motorcycle Bavarian ad campaigns as cheetahs with models, helicopters with…well…more models that feature the 2010 BMW S1000RR.
Photo journalist Sandeep “Sunny” Gajjar recently took a six day, 2,000km (1,240 mile) trip around the eastern coast of Australia on Can-Am Spyder. Taking his camera along, Gajjar captured some spectacular HDR photos of his trip and journey down under, and even proved the Spyder has some chops even when not on the asphalt. A self-described motoGrapher, Gajjar is a man of few words, so we’ll let his photos do the talking. Check them out after the jump.
The Boston Globe is running a series of photos from the Dakar Rally, which we think are some of the best shots we’ve seen of the race to date. A mixture of octane and gorgeous landscape, we think you’ll enjoy these shots as much as we did. You can find the rest of them here at boston.com.
Rally racers are currently on their 12th stage of the race, heading from in San Juan, Argentina to San Rafael. After today, the riders will have to complete two more stages before the rally concludes where it began in Buenos Aires.
Photo: GABRIEL BOUYS/AFP/Getty Images
Employing time-lapse photography, the folks at Vyrus show how 750 parts come together to make one finished bad-ass hub-center steered motorcycle in just 3 minutes. Check-out the video after the jump to see how it comes together, and check here to learn more about the Vyrus 987 C3.
Here’s one to help you pass the final minutes before the weekend: a stop-action video of a GSX-R seemingly building itself up from a bucket of parts. Created by what appears to be a father/son duo in their garage, the video is really well done. Things get insane at the 3:30 mark, and is a testament to the 30+ hours it took to film the video. Check it out after the jump.