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After a last-minute appointment to replace the injured Marc Coma in KTM’s factory rally team for the 2013 Dakar Rally, American Kurt Caselli impressed many with his stellar rookie performance on the South American course. Taking two stage wins, Caselli will join Marc Coma and Ruben Faria on KTM’s factory-backed rally team, which will go by the “Red Bull KTM Factory Racing” name.

With Chilean rider Francesco ‘Chaleco’ Lopez also getting full-factory equipment, noticeably absent from KTM’s announcement is five-time Dakar Rally winner Cyril Despres, who is leaving the KTM squad “to move on and face new challenges.”

Winning the most recent edition of The Dakar in a comfortable fashion with his support rider, Faria, finishing second, Despres’s probable move to another team is a huge shock to the sport, and could make KTM’s dominance in motorcycle rally racing questionable for the future.

A video we should probably save for a Throwback Thursday, we bring you this short film by Tim Buys, which features last year’s Belgian TT Classic. A race open to any motorcycle of 40 years age or older, the Clas­sic Racing Motor­cycles Bel­gium (CRMB) holds the Classic TT in Gedinne, Belgium on a short road course that measures 3.15 miles in length.

With 22 proper turns and one chicane, it is interesting that the longest straight on the course is only 200 meters long, still the road course is considered to be quite fast for the vintage bikes that race on it. If you like your race bike older than their racers, and your race courses on public roads then we’ve got a special treat for you after the jump. Happy Monday.

It has been a while since we posted about those crazy Spaniards at Radical Ducati, but long-time readers will remember fondly the exquisite custom motorcycles that Pepo and Reyes have created from the various pieces of Ducati’s finest.

It is hard to pick a favorite from machines like the Radical Ducati RAD02 Imola Cafe Racer, Radical Ducati Café Veloce, Radical Ducati Mikaracer, Radical Ducati Raceric, and Radical Ducati RAD 02 Corsa EVO, but our moto-lust keeps bringing us back to the Radical Ducati 9½ – a café racer styled motorcycle that uses an ST2 motor, a Monster 900 frame, and a 916 fuel tank and swingarm.

Getting its name from the ST2’s 944cc engine displacement, the 9½’s designation should tip-off where the Spanish firm has gone in its creation with the Radical Ducati 7½ Sportiva. Another water-cooled machine, the 7½ Sportiva ups the ante with the Ducati Superbike 749R taking the honor as its donor bike, while still remaining true to its predecessor’s café racer look and feel.

Ok, so we here at Asphalt & Rubber may sort of have a growing crush on the Pierobon X60R, an Italian-made sport bike that features an 1,078cc air-cooled Ducati v-twin motor that is wrapped around the company’s custom aluminum tube frame.

Your answer to a light air-cooled track weapon, the Pierobon X60R is quite the looker too, and given its power plant pedigree, sight and touch aren’t the only senses it pleases. Check the exhaust note (powered by Termignoni) after the jump.

AMA Pro Racing continues to show that it’s homolo-flexible when it comes to supersport regulations, as America’s premier road racing series has homologated the 2013 Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6R and its 636cc engine displacement to compete in the supersport class (the new ZX-6R is also homologated for the Daytona Sport Bike class as well).

“Kawasaki has a strong racing heritage,” said Kawasaki Racing Senior Manager Reid Nordin. “Our Ninja brand is synonymous with success on the track. When we brought back the 636cc engine we knew there would be interest in racing and we have taken the steps necessary to have the new Ninja ZX-6R on the track and out front in 2013.”

The first OEM to show a near-production electric motorcycle to consumers, KTM touted at the 2011 EICMA show that as an industry leader in the dirt bike sector, it could ill-afford to stand idly by while other companies explored the development of electric two-wheelers.

Then unveiling the KTM Freeride E concept, KTM said it would trial the machine with a select number of European consumers, before rolling out the electric dirt bike to the masses later in 2013.

With nary an update since then, it would seem that the Austrian company is rethinking its position on electric motorcycles. Talking to Italy’s Motorciclismo, KTM CEO Stefan Pierer spoke of the safety and cost concerns surrounding electrics, and concluded that the timing is still too soon for EV’s to replace petrol-powered machines in the two-wheeled sector.

The NGM Forward racing team was a pioneer of the CRT concept. It was the NGM Forward team who was the first to present its plans to race the bikes presented as an alternative to the cripplingly expensive factory prototypes, launching their 2012 campaign with Colin Edwards at Misano in 2011 — though Edwards had an excruciating year aboard the Suter BMW, jumping ship to the Kawasaki-powered FTR for the 2013 season.

Now, Forward is preparing the ground for its 2014 campaign even earlier. In an interview with GPOne, NGM Forward boss Giovanni Cuzari revealed that the team is already in talks with several manufacturers for the season after this one.

Cuzari said he had had a recent meeting with Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta to discuss 2014, when major changes will take place in MotoGP, with the dropping of the CRT category and the introduction of a new division, between the MSMA entries and the non-MSMA entries. Cuzari told GPOne that he had discussed the projects proposed by Honda (the production version of the RC213V) and Yamaha (leasing M1 engines for use in custom-built chassis), but he also said he had had contacts with both Suzuki and Kawasaki.

A factory-supported MV Agusta team will be present at the 2013 Isle of Man TT, as Jack Valentine (former Team Manager of the Crescent Suzuki World Superbike team) has lined up TT race-winner Gary Johnson to race the MV Agusta F3 675 in the TT’s two Supersport races.

A well-respected team operator, Valentine’s ValMoto team was responsible for the successful return of the Triumph’s presence in the Supersport class at the Isle of Man, and the Brit has the same designs in store for MV Agusta — with Gary Johnson tapped to ride the F3, ValMoto comes to the Isle of Man TT as a potent entry.

Suffering falling outs with both the Isle of Man TT and the FIM, the TTXGP electric motorcycle series has had to reinvent itself since its first event in back in 2009. A massive collision of three parties all trying to control the next big thing in motorcycle racing, fans of the electric motorcycle racing eventually saw it split over three competing series: the TT Zero race at the Isle of Man TT, the FIM’s e-Power Championship, and of course the TTXGP series.

The resulting fracture created a lack of cohesion in the sport, and created a situation where the heavy-hitters in the electric motorcycle industry would cherry-pick the events they attended, often with no formidable competition alongside them at the starting grid. This not only created a disparity in performance between competitors on any given race day, but also denied enthusiasts the chance to see real head-to-head racing amongst the brands that were dominating the newswires.

A major division in these different electric motorcycle racing series is about to heal itself though, as the FIM and TTXGP have finally come to an agreement on a future joint electric motorcycle racing series.

From the desk of the Honorable Scott C. Clarkson of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California in Santa Ana, American Suzuki Motor Corporation’s plan for Chapter 11 bankruptcy has been approved. Overwhelmingly supported by the company’s creditors, American Suzuki can begin restructuring its business operations in the United States, which will include shutting down the company’s automotive endeavors.

In turn, American Suzuki’s new business focuses on the company’s motorcycle, ATV, marine, automotive parts divisions, and will consist of a new wholy-owned subsidiary of Suzuki Motor Corporation. This new company will operate under in the United States under the new name: Suzuki Motor of America.

If the American motorcycle brand was still in business, this year would have been the Buell Motorcycle Company’s 30th birthday. Treated more like a line on the cash flow sheet to its parent company Harley-Davidson than a true self-supporting motorcycle brand, Buell motorcycles suffered from not being “Harley enough” for the Bar & Shield devout, and conversely wasn’t adopted by the non-believers because of its extensive compromises with the Milwaukee brand.

Still, in its 27 years, Buell Motorcycles managed to build a cult following of riders, though the numbers in its ranks were never enough to make the brand truly profitable. With Harley-Davidson facing dire straights during the recent economic depression, the company circled the wagons around its core assets, and closed the doors to Buell Motorcycles in the process.

The ethos of the brand continues with Erik Buell Racing though, which soon after its creation released the EBR 1190RS superbike — a race-ready motorcycle that isn’t too dissimilar from the Buell 1125R sport bike. We still don’t know what the future holds for Erik Buell’s new company, though a bevy of models are on his company’s product road map. We think if you polled a few former Buell owners, they would want to see this poster (full-size after the jump) updated.