Days after the release of the reigning AMA Daytona Sportbike champion from his contract, the Geico Motorcycle race team announced it will field Dane Westby with the backing of Team Hammer on a Honda CBR600RR season.

Westby rode last season for Team Hammer on the M4 Suzuki GSX-R600 to finish second overall behind fellow Team Hammer rider Martin Cardenas who raced on a Geico-sponsored Suzuki GSX-R600. Last week, Team Hammer released Cardenas from his contract option for the 2013 season so he could pursue opportunities in the Superbike class. That opened up the Geico-backed ride for Westby for the coming season.

Along with that change comes the switch from the Suzuki to the Honda CBR600RR, marking the Japanese manufacturer’s return to AMA Pro Road Racing. American Honda pulled its support of AMA road racing in 2009 after first two turmultuous years of Daytona Motorsports Group running the series. It is unclear at this point how much support, if any, American Honda is providing Team Hammer. Continue Reading »

During the eighth annual Roadracing World Action Fund (RWAF) at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California, Team M4 Hammer GEICO Suzuki rider Chris Ulrich felled every existing record for a two-up track riding charity event

During the course of the two-day event Ulrich, on his GEICO Suzuki GSX-R1000,  carried 71 passengers around the Speedway 213 times for a total of 489.9 miles. This beats previous RWAF records for most two-up rides and also sets new fund-raiser records for most laps completed in one day with a passenger (114) and over two days (213), plus the most miles ridden in one day with a passenger (262.2 vs. 248.4) and over two days (489.9 vs. 432.2 miles).

The most important record Ulrich broke is for most money raised in the history of the event: $6,314, surpassing last year’s total by $1,499. Since beginning eight years ago, Ulrich has raised a total of $27,069. The money is used to deploy Airfence soft barriers at AMA race events. The Roadracing World Action Fund has provided AMA Pro Racing with more than 130 30′-sections of inflatable Airfence-brand soft barriers for deployment at road races and dirt track events.

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