This past weekend, Brammo arrived to Sonoma Raceway in Central California ready to do battle. Only this time the electric sportbike manufacturer would be trading blows not with other electric bikes, but with their ICE counterparts at the second round of the American Federation of Motorcyclists series — one of the oldest club racing organizations in the country. Continue Reading »
The economic downturn hit the motorcycle world particularly hard, as many factory-backed road racing efforts closed shop. The decision, while unfortunate, isn’t hard to understand, as racing at the highest levels isn’t cheap, and a factory involvement means added pressure to succeed, which ultimately means spending more money to do so.
Through it all, however, Yamaha has remained involved with the sport, fielding factory teams and sponsoring various riding schools and even racetracks. Now, on the heels of the second round of the AMA Pro Road Racing Championship, May 31 – June 2, at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, the track has announced a multi-year agreement that will make Yamaha its official motorcycle. Continue Reading »
Three-time and defending AMA Pro National Guard SuperBike Champion, Josh Hayes (above right), and 2012 AMA Pro National Guard SuperBike Rookie of the Year, Josh Herrin, are ready to debut new livery on their Monster Energy/Graves/Yamaha YZF-R1 next week in Daytona. Joining them are 2012 AMA Pro GoPro Daytona SportBike race winner, Cameron Beaubier, and 2012 AMA Pro Motorcycle-Superstore.com SuperSport race winner, Garrett Gerloff, on their Yamaha Extended Service/Monster Energy/Graves/Yamaha Daytona SportBike YZF-R6s.
The four riders and their machines recently completed a photo session at Yamaha’s U.S. headquarters in Cypress, California, where they were joined by a quartet of Monster Energy and Yamaha Extended Service Umbrella Girls. It was a “tough day” for Josh, Josh, Cameron, and Garrett under those hot lights, but nobody said professional motorcycle road racing is easy. Continue Reading »
Today, Yamaha Motor Corporation, USA, has announced its U.S. road racing teams to compete in the 2013 GEICO Motorcycle AMA Pro Racing season, which kicks off in March at the famed Daytona International Speedway. Continue Reading »
News from Varese, Italy, has MV Agusta making a return to racing, choosing the British Superbike Championship as the series where it will campaign two factory-backed entries. Continue Reading »
The last time we assembled the superbike offerings from the Big Four Japanese manufacturers to determine the alpha male model was 2009. The CBR won that confrontation, but a lot’s changed since then. For 2012 Honda revamped the CBR1000RR, Yamaha added traction control to the R1, the GSX-R1000 lost a muffler and last year Kawasaki introduced an all-new ZX-10R.
We have, of course, reviewed these models and pitted them against various other rivals, (2012 Honda CBR1000RR Review [Video], 2012 Yamaha YZF-R1 vs. 2011 Aprilia RSV4 R APRC [Video], 2010 Literbike Shootout: RSV4 R vs S1000RR vs CBR1000RR vs ZX-10R,) to name a few, but the time is nigh to once again determine the dominant Japanese superbike.
The 2012 Ducati 1199 Panigale made its worldwide racing debut this past weekend, winning a race in Spain and scoring a pole position and a pair of podium finishes in South Africa.
Ducati‘s latest sportbike isn’t due to make its international racing debut until the Superstock 1000 Cup race, April 1 at Italy’s Imola circuit, but the 1199 has already found success in domestic racing.
Ismael Bonilla (pictured above) of EMS Competicion scored the Panigale’s first win in the opening race of the Castellano-Manchego Championship in Spain at the Albacete circuit last weekend. Bonilla started from the third row but made his way to the front and taking the lead late in the race for the win.
A couple of days ago, we shared a fun video featuring three-time World Superbike Champ Troy Bayliss and Ernesto Marinelli, head of Ducati’s superbike program talking about the new 1199 Panigale. While that video was cute with some entertaining interaction between the two long-time collaborators, it was rather light on information about Ducati’s latest superbike.
Today, we have a second, lengthier video featuring Marinelli and Bayless offering a more technical look at the Ducati 1199 Panigale. The second video goes into more detail into some of the bike’s features and the reasoning behind them without being overly technical.
Yamaha released a video looking back at Josh Hayes’ 2011 AMA Superbike season culminating with his second consecutive championship.
The video takes a round-by-round look back at the season as Hayes and his Yamaha R1 duked it out with essentially a phalanx of Suzuki GSX-R1000 riders led by seven-race winner Blake Young.
Highlights include the hard-fought duel between Hayes and Young at Mid-Ohio, Hayes and Tommy Hayden swapping the lead on the final lap at Laguna Seca and the title-clinching finale at New Jersey Motorsports Park.
Continue Reading »
Three-time World Superbike Champion Troy Bayliss and Ducati Superbike Project Director Ernesto Marinelli sat down together to talk about the new Ducati 1199 Panigale in a new video released by the Bologna manufacturer.
The video was shot in a split screen format with the two men answering questions about Ducati‘s new superbike.
Of course, the video feature the two lauding superlatives on the 1199, but it does offer some amusing moments such as Bayliss’ “Superquadro” face pictured above and the two men doing their impressions of how the Panigale sounds rocketing down the straight of the Mugello circuit.
