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Our sources close to the development of the Ducati Superbike 1199 Superquadrata have confirmed the rumors that the new Bologna bullet will do away with the tradition belt-driven camshaft and instead feature a gear-driven cam configuration. The same type of technology that Aprilia used to cheat win the 2010 World Superbike Championship title, a gear-driven camshaft configuration should help increase power by 3-5hp throughout the rev range on the Superquadrata motor, as compared to Ducati’s traditional belt configuration.

While Ducati might not be getting a two-wheel drive system in MotoGP anytime soon, the Italians are apparently in the process of running a parallel program to its MotoGP racing effort that explores the concept of Ducati Corse switching to an aluminum twin-spar frame. Uncovered by French journalist Thomas Baujard of the French magazine Moto Journal (yes, we really wanted to make sure you knew the French were involved with this), Ducati Corse has apparently enlisted the help of a third-party chassis manufacturing and engineering firm to construct a prototype aluminum chassis.

This news plays into the fact that Ducati has absolutely no experience in making an aluminum twin-spar frame, having dropped the steel trellis design for an all carbon fiber version back in 2009. Not wanting to start from zero, like Corse did with the carbon chassis in 2009, and with the “frameless” chassis in 2010, Ducati hopes that with aid from a third party, the Italian company can come up to speed on the twin-spar design, and begin to make improvements for the GP11/GP12 for Valentino Rossi and Nicky Hayden.

Naw…we’re just having some fun today, but not as much fun as Nicky Hayden’s pit crew during the Brno test. Staging this photo of the team supposedly starting up the Desmosedici’s new two-wheel drive system, the photo plays right into the rumors that Ducati is literally trying anything under the sun to make the GP11 work for Valentino Rossi and Nicky Hayden. With Filippo Preziosi essentially saying there are no sacred cows at the Italian racing effort, we honestly wouldn’t put it past Ducati Corse to give the two-wheel drive system a go…too bad its banned by MotoGP rules.

Source: GPone (whose post is far funnier than ours)

These images appear to be the first shots of the 2012 Honda CBR1000RR, and judging from our initial analysis, it looks like Honda is putting out only a cosmetically different version of the Fireblade for next year (*sigh*). Showing off the HRC tri-color paint scheme (that surely won’t be coming to the United States), the majority of the new Blade looks quite familiar. Obviously the wheels, headlights, and air intake ducts have clearly been worked over, and we see some big-piston forks on the front suspension, but otherwise the mechanical bits and and the rear of the motorcycle look like the current model (jump in the comments if you see something new).

Considering that the current-spec CBR1000RR has been around since 2008, we imagine CBR fans are going to be disappointed by this updated, though mechanically identical Fireblade (we can’t see inside the motor casings obviously). Though there have been rumors that the 2012 Honda CBR1000RR would receive a dual-clutch transmission (we suppose it technically still could, since these photos don’t exclude that option), or that the 2012 Fireblade would use a V4 motor inspired from the RC212V, it appears we’ll have to wait at least another year for the Japanese brand to truly re-work its opus of a superbike.

Maybe if we are really lucky, these shots from one of Honda’s international offices (that’s the only hint we’ll give other publications looking to copy this story) are of the Fireblade only going to that market (yes, we’re having a hard believing Honda hasn’t brought a new CBR to the table as well). Scrutineer all 29 photos of the new CBR1000RR, and a video of its dash startup screen after the jump. Thanks for the tip John, Tony, Djefri, and Asaph!

Lightning Motorcycles is still on the salt flats at Bonneville, looking for the ultimate in speed on an electric motorcycle.

After already on Sunday setting the fastest speed recorded for any electric motorcycle, the Lightning crew set back to work on crushing its own 206.079 mph land speed record.

Posting a 214.209 mph speed yesterday, Paul Thede had to once again back up the team’s accomplishment with another wicked fast run today, in order to get into the record books.

Battling gusty cross-breezes, Thede put in an astonishing palindromic 217.712 mph time to set another LSR for Lightning, which officially comes in at 215.907 mph in the APS-? class.

Claudio Castiglioni, President of MV Agusta, passed away this morning in Varese, Italy at the age of 64. In a statement from MV Agusta, the company says that Castiglioni succumed from an unnamed illness while attending a clinic in Varese. Over the course of his career, Castiglioni touched such esteemed brands as Ducati, Cagiva, Husqvarna, and of course MV Agusta. His most recent accomplishment was bringing MV back into Italian ownership, in an act of business acumen that saw Harley-Davidson actually pay Castiglioni €20 million to take back the recent refurbished company.

Head of Ducati Corse, Filippo Preziosi is a busy man under regular circumstances, and with the shenanigans going on in Ducati Corse’s MotoGP team right now, the former motorcycle racer is a hard man to get a word with, let alone on a race weekend in Brno. Somehow catching up with Preziosi during MotoGP’s Brno test, our friend David Emmett at MotoMatters, along with several other journalists, sat down with Ducati’s Maestro of MotoGP to ask him about where the Italian team was headed, and the challenges it is currently facing.

There is of course a tremendous amount of chatter going on in the MotoGP paddock about Ducati’s “frameless” carbon fiber chassis, a switch to an aluminum twin-spar frame, the Bridgestone tires, and Valentino Rossi’s psyche, all of which Emmett has already summarized for us in his detailed analysis of Ducati Corse’s situation. Taking on all of these issues, Preziosi sheds some insight on what is going on behind the scenes at Ducati, and is candid about what issues they are and are not facing.

Dismissing out right that the “L” engine configuration is at least partially to blame for Desmosedici’s lack of front-end feel, one of the more interesting points Preziosi makes is his preference for the v-twin motor. Acknowledging that the package will perhaps make less power/torque than a four-cylinder, Preziosi opts for instead the two-cylinder’s rideability, and if the rules allowed it, the motor’s weight advantage over the inlines (this of course coming from a man who has figured out how to make a v-twin without the weight of a traditional frame).

His comments raise some interesting thoughts about the way rules are constructed in motorcycle racing classes, and perhaps speaks to the central issue occurring MotoGP: that the rules are pigeonholing the development of GP motorcycles into one particular slot, that just happens to be a four-cylinder motorcycle with a conventional frame that reacts to a prescribed tire construction methodology. Preziosi makes some other interesting comments that read well between the lines, check them out in transcribed interview after the jump.

According to the Dow Jones Newswire, Investindustrial, the private equity firm behind Ducati Motor Holding SpA, is considering putting the Italian motorcycle company’s stock up for sale in a private offering next year. Investindustrial bought the Texas Pacific Group’s 45% share in Ducati back in 2006, becoming the company’s largest single investor. Later in June 2008, the private equity firm lead by Carlo and Andrea Bonomi increased its stake in Ducati, controlling 84.6% of the company’s stock.

If today’s rumors are true, Investindustrial would be dumping some, if not all, of its shares in Ducati, likely into other investment groups. Though other motorcycles news sites are quick to call this an IPO, there is no indication at this time that Investindustrial plans on making the stock offering public (the Dow Jones Newswire in fact specifically says that the offering is private), meaning that Ducati’s stock will not be available to regular stock purchasers, but will instead be bid on by banks, investment groups, and other large corporations.

News from the salt flats is that Lightning Motorcycles was successful in achieving a land speed record for electric motorcycles. Making a pass of 206.981 mph during Sunday’s sessions, the speed averaged from Saturday’s pass of 205.238 mph creates a land speed record of 206.079 mph for electric motorcycles (class APS-?). As a capper to the weekend, the Lightning team posted a top speed of 208.386 mph through the speed trap on its record run, showing that the “Flying Banana Mk. II” (as we like to call it) had a bit more pep left in it during its run.

Husqvarna’s foray into true-blue street bikes has unsurprisingly taken a two-pronged approach (for an “R” version to exist, a base model must exist as well, right?), as the Swedish brand has unceremoniously dropped photos of the base model Husqvarna Nuda 900. Sporting lower-spec components, and having a noticeably absent “R” missing from its nomenclature (that’s called product differentiation), the Husqvarna Nuda 900 is no doubt going to be Husqvarna’s more affordable version of the Nuda 900R.

Though we can only discern the differences that are skin deep at this point in time, it would look like the base model sees the R’s Öhlins rear-suspension, Brembo monoblocs, and carbon-accented exhaust exchanged for lesser models. The base model’s rear shock is now a Sachs unit (matching the fully-adjustable Sachs forks Husqvarna says it will be using on the Nudas), while the exhaust can is aluminum stem-to-stern. Noticeably still present though is the Nuda’s anti-lock brake pick-up discs (in fact, the entire wheel/fork package looks to be the same), which could also suggest that a traction control system is available on the base model.

It will be interesting to see how Husqvarna prices the Nuda 900 against the higher-spec Husqvarna Nuda 900R. Unless there is significant differences between the two bikes’ motors, the R-variant will have a hard time commanding more price tag for a shock and carbon fiber-tipped exhaust, especially considering the latter will be one of the first things owners will be replacing. 21 photos of the Nuda 900 base model after the jump, including the mysteriously really bad ones where you can see the photographer’s turntable in every photo…go fig.

Rumors are swelling around the Kawasaki Ninja ZX-14 (the Kawasaki ZZR1400 for friends on the other side of the pond). First up is that a new updated Kawasaki ZX-14 is set to debut by the end of the month. Expected to be only a cosmetic makeover, the 2012 Kawasaki ZX-14 will mechanically be the same as the current model.

Looking farther down the pipe though, it would seem from reports and patents that Kawasaki has been eyeing putting a supercharger on the hypersport machine, presumably to better position the ZX-14 against the increasingly more powerful 1,000 superbikes, like the company’s on 2011 Kawasaki ZX-10R.