Miguel Duhamel can put another victory on his already-impressive resume after winning his first ever electric motorcycle race, taking the checkered flag in the FIM e-Power/TTXGP race at France’s Le Mans circuit.

Riding for Lightning-Barracuda, Duhamel took the checkered flag by edging Muench Racing’s Mattias Himmelmann in the eight-lap race by 1.929 seconds.

Duhamel started on the pole but it was Himmelmann who took the early lead. Duhamel was second followed by Zongshen Racing‘s Tang Yu. Himmelmann led the first two laps but Duhamel was not far behind, trailing by just 0.180 seconds on Lap One and 0.212 seconds on Lap Two. Continue Reading »

Miguel Duhamel is returning to action to race in the FIM e-Power International Championship for Lightning Motorcycles. The five-time Daytona 200 winner will ride the Lightning Barracuda electric motorcycle for the joint FIM and TTXGP race at Le Mans , and Motorcycle.com had a role in setting up the connection.

The topic of a rider for Le Mans came up during the preparations for Associate Editor Troy Siahaan‘s exclusive test of the Lightning race bike last month. Lightning normally competes in the TTXGP’s North American series but decided to enter the Sept. 7-8 round in France to take advantage of the high profile of sharing the stage with the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

The problem was Lightning needed a rider and most North American riders, including Lightning regular Michael Barnes, were occupied with the AMA Pro Racing round at New Jersey Motorsports Park taking place the same weekend. Continue Reading »

Reality show star, socialite and racing team owner Paris Hilton made an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno last week to promote some of her projects including her 125cc Grand Prix Blusens by Paris Hilton Racing Team.

Hilton arrived on the Tonight Show set riding pillion on a GSX-R painted white, pink and blue.

The celebutante’s appearance comes on the (pink) heels of racer Maverick Viñales winning his first 125cc GP race at Le Mans. Viñales sits sixth in the championship standings. Beside the win in Le Mans, Viñales missed out on the final podium position at the Estoril round by just 0.002 seconds. With the next round taking place at the Catalunya Circuit, a track Viñales knows from his time in the Spanish CEV series, there’s a good chance he’ll put up another strong result.

“Maverick won. He’s 16 and incredibly talented,” Hilton told Leno. “Racing is so exciting. It’s such an amazing sport.”

When news of Hilton’s new racing team first broke earlier this year, the reaction from racing fans was pretty mixed, with some welcoming any mainstream attention to the sport while other decrying Hilton for her reputation and lack of any real motorcycle knowledge. Watching her trying to dismount the Gixxer showed the latter argument has some merit, but as we wrote back in February, Paris’ race team might actually be good.

Watch video of Hilton’s Tonight Show appearance after the jump (at least, until NBC pulls the plug).

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Paris Hilton Starting 125GP Team
Paris Hilton’s Race Team Might Actually Be Good

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Read the Le Mans MotoGP race preview now!

Update: Le Mans Results

As Motorcycle.com continues to cover all the 2009 MotoGP racing news, The Sidecar stays focused on all of the tracks from this years GrandPrix season, get all the Le Mans track details after the jump. Continue Reading »

When the Gurney Alligator A6 made its debut in 2002, the world saw a glimpse of a new concept in sport motorcycles. Long, low, quick and efficient like its namesake, the ’Gator was like nothing we’d seen before.

The bike was the brainchild of Dan Gurney, the legendary F1 and Le Mans winning driver and championship-winning sports car builder. It was the fruit of a 25 year exploration of the low-CG concept applied to a motorcycle.

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