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COVER PHOTO OF JORGE LORENZO BY MARTIN HEATH. ELENA MYERS INSET BY RILES/NELSON; LEON HASLAM INSET BY WHEELER/BROWN
Valentino Rossi started the 2010
season with an unexpected win
in Qatar, but he was bested by
teammate Jorge Lorenzo at the
next to rounds. The Doctor’s tribe
hopes Father Time hasn’t fi nally
caught up to #46. Let us pray....PHOTO BY GIGI SOLDANO/MONSTER ENERGY
worldmags & avaxhomeworldmags & avaxhome
FEATURES
REGULARS
ALUMNI DAY
Former World Superbike Champion Scott Russell sounds off
on the Miller Motorsports Park SBK round.
RISE AGAIN
With the signing of Leon Haslam, Alstare Suzuki has returned
to the top of the World SBK fi eld and now hopes to retake
the crown.
38 60
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THE PRINCE OF ENGLAND
The once-proud UK’s Grand Prix hopes could rest on the
shoulders of skinny, speedy 125cc ace Bradley Smith.
54
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8 GRID
10 MASTHEAD
14 IGNITION
16 PIT PASS
20 MAILROOM
22 CHATTER
25 ROAD RACERHEAD
36 MAMOLA
76 THE POINT
78 HERITAGE
80 AV ROOM
82 2 TRIBES
84 5 MINUTES WITH…
88 DELUXE
97 SPEED OF LIFE
ELENA MYERS CAN KICK YOUR ASS
Elena Myers is as friendly as any high-school girl you’ll fi nd—
until you put her on a racetrack.
THE BIKES OF LAGUNA
Experts agree that Laguna Seca is a rider’s track, but the
motorcycles that have won there are impressive nonetheless.
46 66
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8
DUCK TRACKER
The early part of the 2010 racing
season was uncharacteristically
rough for Ducati, as the Italian man-
ufacturer encountered problems in
both World Superbike and MotoGP.
Relief came at an unlikely venue
when Joe Kopp rode his Lloyd
Brothers-prepared, Ducati-powered
fl at tracker to victory at Arizona’s
Yavapai Downs Mile. It was the fi rst
time a non-Harley-Davidson had
won an AMA Pro Grand National
Twins race since 1998.
PHOTO BY BRIAN J. NELSON
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CHRIS FILLMOREPEACE AND WHEELIES | WWW.TROYLEEDESIGNS.COM
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EDITORIAL DIRECTOR: DAVEY COOMBS
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WILSON, BARRY ZEEK
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When people ask how I got my job,
I like to say I tried racing but was
short on talent, so magazine work
was my backup. Though that’s true, I suspect
that what I lacked even more than skills was
bravery. Maybe my sense of self-preservation
is just too developed, but I’ve always been
hesitant to fl irt too closely with the edge of
control. I’ve had a few shoulder injuries, but
despite the fact that I’ve ridden motorcycles
for over three decades, I’ve never worn a cast
in my life.
Obviously, that attitude wouldn’t cut it at
the sport’s professional level, where it’s rou-
tine to sacrifi ce one’s body to the racing gods.
It’s easy to envy the top pros’ paychecks and
fame, but few would actually be willing to
submit to the requisite abuse.
Perhaps no rider epitomizes this more than
John Hopkins. When I recently asked him to
list the injuries he’s suffered in his career, he
went on for four minutes. Among the “high-
lights” are breaking seven bones (including a
femur) during his childhood motocross career;
breaking a collarbone during his AMA days;
mangling his left hand during his rookie Grand
Prix season; breaking both ankles while par-
ticipating in the Crossover Supercross Chal-
lenge; cracking ribs, breaking his left foot,
and blowing out his teeth at the Sachsenring;
breaking three ribs and having a footpeg go up
his anus at Motegi; breaking a scaphoid and
severing a tendon at Qatar; blowing out a knee
and breaking his left ankle and tibia at As-
sen; dislocating his hip and tearing ligaments
around his femur at the same track a year later;
and, in a horrifi c crash last year at the Nur-
burgring, suffering a massive brain contusion
and cartilage damage to his wrist and shoulder.
All in all, Hopper has undergone surgery an
incredible twenty-two times.
John’s ’07 Qatar crash continues to haunt
him. It happened early in the year, and because
Suzuki fi nally had a competitive bike, he con-
tinued racing rather than taking time to have
his wrist repaired. He rode that season and the
next, but his ’09 Nurburgring crash aggravated
the problem, and this time he elected to have it
fi xed. One of the pins installed during the pro-
cedure went through a nerve, causing intense
pain. After not sleeping well for a week despite
painkillers, Hopkins had the pin pulled, leav-
ing him worse off than pre-operation, as the
trauma created massive amounts of scar tissue.
He had almost no wrist movement through the
early part of this year.
After the second race, John had the scar
tissue removed, but it didn’t really help. Dr.
Ting saw him after Road Atlanta and
reported that the lunate bone was so
discolored in the MRI that it was unfi x-
able, a diagnosis that was confi rmed by
two other surgeons. When Dr. Ting says
to retire, most people pay attention, but
John eventually found a doctor in San
Diego who would operate. “I’m not
done racing by any means,” Hopkins
told me. “That’s why we searched so
long and hard for the surgeon—I wasn’t
ready to quit racing. Retirement was
just not an option.”
This doctor completely recon-
structed Hopkins’ wrist, re-breaking the
radius bone in his forearm and shorten-
ing it by 3mm, then plating that and in-
stalling eight screws and three external
pins. Cartilage and a donor tendon were
added as well. In early June, John said
the recovery was going well. He ex-
pected to have his cast removed around
the time this issue hits, after which he’ll
start a six-week rehabilitation period.
Realistically, that means his best hope is
to return in time for the VIR AMA Pro
round in mid-August.
I asked Hopkins if it’s possible that
he’s just avoiding the inevitable—re-
tirement—but he insisted that’s not the
case. “I’d be able to accept it,” he said.
“It would be disappointing, for sure, but
it is what it is. More important to me in
my life is the relationship with my wife.
We want to have kids in the future, and I want
to be able to play with them and take them mo-
tocross riding. I don’t want to jeopardize my
quality time with my family.”
Nonetheless, he’s determined to give it
another try this summer. I almost always re-
sist the cliched crutch of comparing sport to
armed confl ict, because I doubt that anything
can hold a light to the horror of war, but it’s
hard not to see parallels in situations like this.
There’s a line about war being the only thing
we have left to determine whether or not we’re
courageous, but I’d say professional motor-
cycle racing might also handle that task.
Whatever the case, I don’t care how much
money or fame Hopper and his cohorts get; I’m
glad I make my living as a journalist. X
A Road Racer X column by CHRIS JONNUM
14
BODY OF EVIDENCE
MO
RT
ON
John Hopkins has endured
more than his share of injuries.
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16
Getting Current
Considering the role nearby Silicon Valley has
played in technology’s march, it was only appro-
priate that Infi neon Raceway host America’s fi rst
electric motorcycle road race. The opening round
of the TTXGP North American Championship—
organized by Azhar Hussein, the man behind last
year’s historic electric race on the Isle of Man—
was part of AMA Pro’s weekend, and Zero-spon-
sored Shawn Higbee won on the same Agni bike
that topped the TT. Shown here are Spencer Smith
(19) and Zoe Rem (18).
Other North American rounds include Wis-
consin’s Elkhart Lake, Canada’s Mosport, and
Virginia International Raceway, while the rival FIM
e-Power series may add a U.S. round too.
World Superbike meets World Cup.
WH
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Blusen’s chief red-shoelace tester.
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Ah, to be Tom Sykes….
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CJ crushed grapes in Sonoma with an 1198.
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17
How’s the bouquet on that merlot, Danny?
EJ hitched a ride with CU!
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Now that’s hardcore!
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De Puniet to self: “Should I try a Sykes?”
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Reunited?
With all of the top MotoGP riders’ contracts
up at year’s end, this was bound to be a silly
season for the ages, and it didn’t take long to get
started. After Round 2, a strong rumor surfaced
that Casey Stoner would follow former team
manager Livio Suppo from Ducati Corse to HRC.
Both sides denied it, but insiders insist it’s true.
Almost simultaneously, stories circulated that
Ducati had extended an offer to Valentino Rossi
that included not just fi nancial considerations
but “philosophical” aspects. Italian fans would
love such a scenario, and though it might seem
unlikely, one doubts that both Vale and Jorge
Lorenzo will remain at Fiat Yamaha. With gossip
like this, who needs racing?
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With every MotoGP race victory, we learn more about tires and how they
perform on and off the race track. That’s good for racing and it’s even better
for you. Ride on Bridgestones. And start setting your own records.
bridgestonemotorcycletires.com
The BT-016, featuring Bridgestone’s “3LC” (Dual Compound) for the front and “5LC” (Triple Compound) for the rear, delivers the grip performance demanded in every aspect — braking, side grip cornering, and traction at the exit of a corner.
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mailroom
HOG CALLWho cares that Harley-Davidson returned to
racing? They don’t make a competitive bike
that can challenge the rest of the industry
(Japanese or Italian) and need a special class
of their own. They had a great opportunity to
challenge in the AMA with Buell and took
a championship with Danny Eslick piloting
it, only to drop the brand. Why would I be
interested in watching, riding, or racing a
substandard product that would never be
televised in the fi rst place? I welcome the
return of Eric Buell Racing and the real chance
that America will once again begin the long
journey to the top of the racing podium.
KEN RYDER
Dallas, TX
Ken is referring to AMA Pro’s new Vance &
Hines XR1200 series…CJ
JOINING JUMPMANGreat cover on your May/June issue. I’m
happy to see Jake Zemke landed on his feet
this season with National Guard/Jordan
Suzuki, and he’s certainly making the most of
the opportunity. Sometimes it seems that the
sport doesn’t realize how fortunate it is to have
Michael Jordan involved. I guarantee you he’s
not getting any richer through his racing efforts,
yet he’s continuing while many efforts that one
would’ve presumed are more passionate have
fallen by the wayside. Not only that, but his
celebrity power is drawing outside interest,
with ESPN’s recent E:60 being one good
example. Now that he’s winning at the top
level, I hope MJ stays around for a long time.
JIM MASON
Atlanta, GA
HIGHRISEAdmitting you’re a dirt bike guy while editing
a road racing magazine is pretty funny. Your
article on the Ducati Hypermotard [“The
Bridge” May/June] was nice, but there are
lots of nice standard bikes out there with
high bars (FZ1, Z1000, Tuono, et al). If one
wants to do the high-bar thing and save about
$14,500 while keeping high performance,
you can just add a Spiegler LSL Superbike
bar kit (or any of the adjustable, raising clip-
on kits like Heli, etc.) to your existing sport
bike to get the feel of a motocrosser or old-
school 1970s superbike. They make them
for most bikes, and aside from changing
the weight distribution and geometry a tad,
they’re quite nice and relatively cheap. I did
my Gixxer 750 with a Spiegler kit because I
have a broken neck with titanium Herrington
rods down the cervical and thoracic spine, so
I can’t bend down in the classic racer pose
anymore. It was either that or a rocking chair
for me. (I’d probably fall and hurt myself
in a damn rocker, so road racing is still the
safest option.)
These kits can be changed to any size,
and if you crash, it’s only anywhere from
$25-1,000 to switch out the 7/8” standard
bars. The motocross/dirt bike guys and
gals love ’em. Wherever I go, I always
attract a big crowd (unfortunately not from
the ladies, but from the dirt bike crowd
marveling at my “motocross Gixxer”). The
race guys in the pits now call me Captain
America, Easy Rider, or Chopper Dude, due
to the high bars (which are really only about
5” from stock clip-ons).
Just an FYI. Keep up the good work
(and get a monthly going—tired of waiting
two months to go to the bathroom!).
STEVEN HOLT
Fallbrook, CA
Good letter, Steven. For what it’s worth,
my point in that story is that our roots stay
with us, so despite the fact that I’m now
completely into road racing and mainly ride
sport bikes, I still feel more natural when I
get on a Supermoto-style bike. I also love
standard bikes and think they’re actually
more versatile than Supermoto machines,
but the geometry differences between sport
bikes and SuMo bikes go beyond handlebar
position. That said, those riser kits make sense
in many ways (especially economically!),
and I appreciate you pointing them out. Now
go to the bathroom already!… CJ
I’m looking to get some exposure for my
artwork. I’m getting a website constructed
as we speak. I’m a big fan of MotoGP and
superbike. This pen-and-ink is of the “Kool-
Aid Kid,” and it’s called “Rossi’s Ninth!”
Your magazine and web site are terrifi c;
maybe someday I can contribute to the mag.
SAM BARRESE
Pittston, PA
Sam, you just did. By the way, nice reference
to that old Kool-Aid letter! CJ
MAD HATTERAfter noticing the Monster Energy hat John
Hopkins is wearing in some of the recent
RRX issues, I really want that hat. After
searching on Amazon and eBay with no
luck, I fi gured I’d ask you people. Maybe
you can point me in the right direction?
CHRIS HARDIN
Grand Island, FL
Chris, we checked with Monster, and
I’m sorry to report that those hats are for
sponsored athletes only and aren’t for sale.
Maybe you can send in a resume!…CJ
If you have comments or questions, send
them to us at:
Road Racer X Mailroom
122 Vista del Rio Dr.
Morgantown, WV 26508
Be sure to include your full name and
hometown. Letters may be edited for
clarity and length.
Write Now
20
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“Ben needs to win and challenge for the podium in his
fi rst season.”
Wayne Rainey, on Ben Spies’ debut season in MotoGP/GP
Week (UK)
“When the pavement tries to persuade your bones to move
beyond their comfort zone, the Handroid answers no.”
From a review of the Knox Handroid motorcycled glove/Wired
“Don’t push me too hard!”
Valentino Rossi, joking during a press briefi ng while wearing his Dai-
nese D-Tech “airbag” leathers
“You don’t despoil the American fl ag, do you?”
Jim Allen, on why he didn’t discard his Dunlop shirts upon retiring/
Superbike Planet
“I like to think that he’ll be the reigning 250 World Cham-
pion forever!”
Announcer Toby Moody, on Hiroshi Aoyama, who won the class’
fi nal title last year/Eurosport
“Well, they’ve gone green for the environment; they haven’t
used a lot of fuel tonight.”
Steve Parrish, on the supposedly environmentally friendly Pramac
Racing team, after both riders dropped out of the Qatar Grand Prix
in the early laps/BBC
“Riding around on his motorcycle with no helmet…. That
pretty much defi nes him.”
Former NASCAR great Darrel Waltrip, on NFL player Ben Roethlis-
berger, who was injured in a 2006 bike crash and has been accused
of sexual assault/Sports Illustrated
“Holy s--t, Mat Mladin’s following me!”
Laurel Allen, on her new Twitter fan
“He is a very quick rider who also rarely falls, which is very
important to a lean team like ours!”
Erik Buell Racing’s Facebook status, in reference to hiring Geoff May
to their American Superbike team
22
“There’s Leon Camier, who’s got the
most decorous pair of elongated side-
burns that we’ve ever seen on a young
fellow since the heyday of the 1960s.”Jack Burnicle, during the broadcast of the Portimao World
SBK race/Eurosport
NO
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“Solid race, but really wanted to be up on that podium
poppin bottles, with them monster girl models!”
@NickyHayden69, after the Monster-sponsored Le Mans
MotoGP, where he fi nished fourth for the third time in a row
“Almost forgot how good I am at making latte’s until I
knocked up two stunners this evening ;-)”
@chazdavies
“By all the comments I should have defi nitely chose
my words more wisely. How’s about ‘I created two
beautiful, delicious latte’s’!!”
@chazdavies, shortly after the previous comment
“At Phillip Island, the water is too cold, and there may
be sharks.”
Jorge Lorenzo (@lorenzo99), on why he won’t perform his Jerez
lake jump in Australia
“I would
feel like
a traitor
if I left
Yamaha.”Valentino
Rossi, on the
prospect
of going to
Ducati
BR
OW
N/W
HE
EL
ER
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25
Texas Two-Step
Ever wonder what music the Monster
Energy Tech 3 Yamaha team blasts
after hours or before a race? Ben and
Colin have the answer.
Call it a Comeback
Two of road racing’s most popular rid-
ers consider returning to their respec-
tive paddocks—Troy Bayliss to World
SBK and Eric Bostrom to AMA Pro.
Deployed
Road race fans can be found in
some unlikely places, and thanks to
members of the U.S. military, so can
Road Racer X.
Ask Nicky
Ducati’s MotoGP American discusses
his unfinished business in flat track
and why dirt bikes are a valuable
training tool for road racers, despite
the risks.
CJ
NO
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Page 28
Page 30
Cover Me
As fans, we’re lucky to be around
during the reign of Valentino
Rossi. His fellow Grand Prix
racers probably don’t feel so fortunate,
though—how would you like to be the
best non-Doctor racer of this millenni-
um’s fi rst decade? The Italian has taken
seven of nine premier-class titles since
2001, with only Nicky Hayden and Casey
Stoner interrupting his run. Meanwhile,
notable riders like Max Biaggi, Sete Gib-
ernau, Marco Melandri, Dani Pedrosa,
and—last year—Jorge Lorenzo had to
settle for second best.
It has to be a frustrating predicament
for men who would almost certainly be
champions in almost any other era. But
while some can take satisfaction in com-
peting with arguably the greatest of all
time, Lorenzo has consistently challenged
Vale head-on since entering the class in
2008—to the point that he could almost
be accused of impersonating Rossi.
For starters, Lorenzo is on the same
team as Rossi, which means he’s armed
with identical equipment. He has the same
leathers sponsor in Dainese, and his person-
alized graphics are defi nitely comparable,
with Valentino’s blue/white/yellow replaced
by Jorge’s blue/white/red and Rossi’s sun/
moon theme mirrored by Lorenzo’s angel/
devil. During the Spaniard’s rookie season,
he even ran a #48, just two numbers off
of his teammate’s famous #46 (Jorge has
since switched to #99).
The emulation has extended to Loren-
zo’s victory celebrations, which call to
mind Rossi’s famous post-race skits. Vale
celebrated an ’07 Jerez Grand Prix win by
bowling down friends dressed as bowl-
ing pins, and less than three
months later, Jorge’s rock-
star-costumed pals joined
him with guitars in a Barce-
lona gravel trap.
The thing is, Lorenzo’s
imitations of the great rider
don’t end off the track. In
fact, three rounds into this
season, it appeared that
Jorge had the best chance of
knocking his teammate out
of the top slot. Though Vale
topped the season opener in
Qatar, Lorenzo was second,
and he came out on top at
the next two races, in Jerez
and Le Mans. Granted, the
momentum could well have
shifted by the time you read
this, but it seems clear the
Spaniard has taken a step
forward this year. Suffi ce
to say “Por Fuera” should
be fun to watch at Mazda
Raceway Laguna Seca’s
Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix.
It’s tempting to chide Lorenzo for be-
ing derivative, and there’s no arguing that
he’s got a bit of an ego (he released his
fi rst autobiography before he’d complet-
ed a single premier-class race, whereas
Rossi waited until he’d amassed fi ve titles
in the division). That said, rare is the suc-
cessful racer who’s not at least a little
egotistical. And if you have to pick some-
one to emulate, you could do a lot worse
than The Doctor. CJ
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Page 33
Page 34
Jorge Lorenzo
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worldmags & avaxhomeworldmags & avaxhome
26
Call it a Comeback
Farewell, #100
Comebacks are always in
fashion, and despite the
pitfalls that await many
racers unable to give up the ghost,
that’s particularly true in road rac-
ing. At press time, the World Su-
perbike and AMA Pro paddocks
looked set to welcome back two
of their most popular riders, the
most notable being three-time SBK
World Champion Troy Bayliss.
The Australian’s post-2008 re-
tirement was picture-perfect: he clinched the title a round early,
then put a stamp on it with a double victory at the fi nal round;
Bayliss himself called it “the perfect end to my racing career.” By
this May, however, he was lapping Mugello on a factory Ducati
superbike (posting quick times and calling it “an easy return to
CJthe saddle”) and openly contem-
plating a return to racing. That idea
has been greeted with glee by fans,
but perhaps less so by the strug-
gling Ducati Xerox riders.
The U.S. paddock, meanwhile,
has welcomed the return of missing
Boz Bro Eric Bostrom, who took a
break from racing after an unsatis-
factory 2008 season and promptly
disappeared into a Brazilian-based
narrative that encompassed man-
goes, grapes, and shady real-estate deals. (If AMA Pro fans are
glad to have him back, Eric himself is even gladder.) The four-
time AMA champion returns via a three-round Cycle World/At-
tack Performance deal and told RRX that the idea of a future
full-time return does hold some attraction. LCA
The past handful of seasons have been frustrating for
two-time World Superbike champ Neil Hodgson, and it
seems the popular Brit has fi nally had enough. In late
April, while struggling with a shoulder injury aggravated at the
opening British Superbike round, he told Reuters news service
that he’d decided to retire. “It will take time for me to come to
terms with this,” he said, “but it is the right decision.”
Hodgson came to the AMA Pro series after a disappoint-
ing ’04 season in MotoGP, but instead of dominating the U.S.
series—his stated
intention at the
time—he often had
diffi cultly making the
podium, fell afoul
of teams with their
own problems (em-
ployers Ducati and
Honda both left the
series during this
time), and saw his
’09 season derailed
by an MX training
accident. Through-
out it all, though, Neil
remained a fan fa-
vorite, as evidenced
by the outpouring
of support that fol-
lowed his April an-
nouncement.
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(Erik) Buell is Back
If powerhouse OEM Harley-Davidson abruptly discontin-
ued your product line mere months after you’d won an
AMA Pro Daytona SportBike Championship, what would
you do? If you were Erik Buell, you’d take a day or two to
recover from the shock and then use the next six months
to create Erik Buell Racing, begin offering three models of
race-ready motorcycles, and announce the creation of your
own in-house AMA Pro American Superbike team with rider
Geoff May on board. “I love the people in racing,” Erik told
RRX. “It’s always been in my blood, and quite frankly, we
were too far away from it for way, way too long. I’m really
happy to be back, and I don’t ever want to leave again.”
RIL
ES
/NE
LS
ON
RIL
ES
/NE
LS
ON
Could a Bayliss return be as
sweet as his departure?
Neil Hodgson
Geoff May made his fi rst outing on the
Buell at AMA Pro’s Infi neon round.
worldmags & avaxhomeworldmags & avaxhome
RKT201SPEEDMASTERGPXSERIES
worldmags & avaxhomeworldmags & avaxhome
28
NICKY HAYDEN
While fellow Americans Colin Edwards and
Ben Spies struggled at the early MotoGP
rounds, the ’06 champ fi nished fourth in the
fi rst three races. In his words, he hoped to be
“poppin’ bottles” soon.
ELENA MYERS
Proving she deserves her place on the AMA
Pro SuperSport grid, the 16-year old scored
her fi rst win at Infi neon Raceway—a historic
moment in U.S. racing
MOTO2
Several rounds into the series, MotoGP’s
newest class continues to deliver bulging
grids and some of the closest racing we’ve
seen, earning rave reviews from fans and
riders alike.
KENNY NOYES
America’s sole Moto2 rider has been fast in
testing and qualifying—he took pole in Le
Mans—but through the fi rst three rounds,
he’d had bad luck in the races.
BEN SPIES
The Texan fi nished an impressive fi fth in his
rookie MotoGP opener but had to retire from
Round 2 and crashed out of Round 3, proving
that despite his massive talent and now-
legendary rookie WSBK season, he’s still only
human (though less human, it must be said,
than the rest of us).
CASEY STONER
Many had picked the ’07 MotoGP champ for
title number two before the season, but amid
rumors that he’s already signed with Honda,
he crashed his Ducati out of two of the fi rst
three races.
NORIYUKI HAGA
A powerful championship runner-up for years
in World Superbike, Haga was expected to
seal the deal in 2010 with rival Ben Spies out
of the way. Instead, the Ducati Xerox rider
made the podium just twice in the fi rst twelve
races and turned in a string of poor results
that have left Nitro fans confused.
If you plan to attend this year’s Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix
at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, take yourself to the
movies—specifi cally, the inaugural Leo Vince Movie
Night. Back in February, Leo Vince launched a contest for all
motorcycle-loving aspiring fi lmmakers; the winning fi lm (not
yet chosen at press time) garnered its creators airfare, accom-
modations, and tickets to the race, where the fi lm will have
several showings. And unlike your local $17-per-ticket movie
theater, admission to the Leo Vince screenings is free.
The Perfect Date
National Guard/Jordan Suzuki’s Jake Zemke has been
on the gas this season in American Superbike, turning
in a string of podiums and top-fi ve fi nishes that put
him top in points as this issue went to press. Because
Zemke’s no ordinary class leader, Leo Vince etched
him this extraordinary exhaust can, but if you’re jeal-
ous, take heart: custom etching is available even for us
(slow) plebs. Check www.leovinceusa.com for details.
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30
300
Grand Prix rounds Loris Capirossi
had started as of the Qatar season
opener.
41
Entrants on the grid in the debut
Moto2 race, at Qatar.
10%
Decrease in motorcycle deaths in
2009, according to a Governors
Highway Safety Association report.
Among the cited reasons for the
fi rst recorded drop in twelve years
is decreased riding because of the
economy and a harsh winter.
2011
The season in which production-
derived liter engines might debut
in MotoGP—one year earlier than
originally planned, depending on
manufacturers’ leasing prices of
800s for satellite teams.
20
Years since an American had scored
pole position in Grand Prix racing’s
middleweight class when Kenny
Noyes did so at the Le Mans GP. The
previous rider was John Kocinski.
27
Riders qualifying within one second
of pole in the Moto2 class at Le
Mans, a record.
1
Females who have won professional
AMA Pro road races—16-year-old
Elena Myers became the fi rst when
she topped the Race 1 SuperSport
contest at Infi neon Raceway in May.
by NICKY HAYDEN
Nick,
I signed Road Racer X’s petition to get
Ducati Corse to let you ride a Lloyd
Brothers bike at the Indy Mile. Is this
just a pipe dream, or do you think there’s
actually a chance this time?
PAULA JENKINS
Bishop, CA
First, I’d like to say it’s awesome that Joe
Kopp won on a Ducati in Arizona. It would
be a great story for me to try at Indy, but truth-
fully, it’s a pipe dream. As much as I’d love
to go over there that weekend, with what I’ve
got going on right now, something like that
could only happen in the movies. We’ve got
a busy schedule this summer, and it wouldn’t
be any fun to fi nish with MotoGP qualifying,
grab my steel shoe as I head out the door, slide
over there to the fairgrounds, and run around
mid-pack in a semi. Just because Chris Carr
did some road racing in his day doesn’t mean
he’s going to come over and take Rossi and
Lorenzo to school, and those guys are the same
way in dirt track; they’re at the top of their
sport, and trying to win against them would
be just as hard. If I were to do it, I’d want to
do it right, and it’s hard to imagine that be-
ing possible while I’m still
racing MotoGP. That said, I
haven’t put dirt track to bed
yet—not by a long shot.
Nicky,
As someone who can relate
to dirt bike injuries, I’d like
to ask why road racers train
on dirt bikes. How does it
help with road racing? Does
the rear really spin and step
out that much anymore in
MotoGP? Seems everyone
is getting injured in the last
few years, including you,
Lorenzo, Rossi, Bautista,
and Hodgson.
ERIC ZAHLMANN
Las Vegas, NV
It really is a touchy subject.
I’m sure some people at
home think, What are these
clowns doing, going off on
dirt bikes and getting hurt?
It’s not like that; there’s a
reason Rossi was out riding his dirt bike two
days after he got home from winning the Qatar
GP. If he just wanted to have fun, he’d be at the
beach with his buddies, not out in sweaty mo-
tocross gear at a hot track somewhere pound-
ing out laps. There’s a benefi t to it. You can go
to the gym and do curls, ride your bicycle, and
do cross-training, but the truth is that when it
comes to training the mind and muscles how to
push the limits on a motorcycle, there’s really
only one way—riding motorcycles.
I know dirt bikes don’t always carry over
exactly, but it’s surprisingly close. A motor-
cycle’s a motorcycle, and the coordination and
balance needed to ride them are pretty consis-
tent. On the other hand, it can be very risky at
times and cost people races and even seasons.
You have to fi gure out how to take the least
amount of risk possible. Teams know riders do
it, but it’s not something they really talk about
a lot. I’ve never had a team manager ask me
how my TT track is doing, but behind closed
doors, they make sure I’ve got plenty of parts
and everything else I need to ride.
Keep up with Nicky this summer at
www.nickyhayden.com.
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worldmags & avaxhomeworldmags & avaxhome
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Ask Your Dealer To Contact
To find out more about our high-performance product line, visit your local dealer, www.HOTBODIESRACING.com or
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I’d be interested to hear why the Jack & Jones Moto2
team has decided not to run a front fender. I know
front fenders play a very important role in aerodynam-
ics for MotoGP bikes (to the point where regulations
are in place to actually limit the size and shape of
front fenders), and one would think that in a spec-
engine series, each team would go to any length pos-
sible to gain a top-speed advantage.
BRIAN CHILDREE
Salt Lake City, UT
We posed Brian’s question to Jack & Jones by Antonio
Banderas rider Kenny Noyes, who said the team planned
to test a front fender at the series’ Mugello round. “The
problem for the fi rst three races,” Kenny said, “was that
the front fender we had was pretty good for aerodynam-
ics, but it created cooling issues. We gained a little down
the straight, but we lost power and acceleration as the
engine got hot, which, at the end of the day, my crew
chief fi gured would be worse.
ASK US
ANYTHING NO
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“We have an awesome chassis,” he continued, “but
our weak point has been aerodynamics, and we’ve gener-
ally run toward the rear on top-speed charts. So that’s
what the team is working on now, and in addition to the
front fender, they’re working on a complete new faring
and ram-air intakes to get the Jack & Jones Promo Harris
closer to the top of the charts.”
worldmags & avaxhomeworldmags & avaxhome
NAME: David S. Natividad
RANK: Sergeant First Class
BRANCH: U.S. Air Force
JOB DESCRIPTION: Small Arms Master Gunner
HOMETOWN: Laguna Beach, California
I’m currently deployed to Asadabad, Afghani-
stan, as personal security for fi eld grade of-
fi cers of the 40th Infantry Division’s ADT (Agri-
business Development Team). We’re helping get
the country back on its feet through agriculture,
livestock, and watershed improvements—bringing
them out of the 18th century and into the 21st! We
will be completing our year in August (and home
before September) after seeing more combat than
any of the other ADTs combined in this country.
But it’s a rewarding mission, especially seeing the
children who will grow up in the areas where we’re
seeing positive change. Hope to see you around
the circuits this year…. Loyal to RRX, even in the
combat zones of Afghanistan!
CO
UR
TE
SY
NA
TIV
IDA
D
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34
COLIN
I’m at the stage in my life where music
is not very important to me. I don’t have
time to think about it or download stuff.
I might catch a song here and there that
I like, but that’s usually where it ends.
Sure, I’d love to have it on my iPod, but
I just don’t have time.
I do a lot of listening to the radio,
but even then it’s not usually music—
I spend a lot of time on Sirius Patriot,
which is a right-wing station. I’ve got
kids, so I’m more interested in learning
about what’s going to affect their future
than in listening to music. When I do
want some music, I like old-time stuff.
If I had to choose something to listen
to, it would just be anything from the
late ’70s. Sometimes I’ll listen to Sirius
1 Classic Rewind, which plays a lot of
classic vinyl.
At the races, I’ve got an iPod next
to my chair in the garage that I’ll listen
to, but that’s not really to pump my-
self up. In fact, if a good song comes
on—maybe some Eazy-E or something
goofy—I’ll crank it to pump the team up
more than anything. Sometimes they’re
working on the same old stuff day-in
and day-out, so I fi gure it’s a way to
break the monotony.
Ten years ago it was different—I lis-
tened to a lot of music, including before
I went out on the bike. I think it’s natural
that as we get older, music takes a back
seat for some of us. It’s just not some-
thing I need anymore. That said, I’m
not completely out of the loop on cur-
rent music. These days I’m an expert on
Jonas Brothers, Hannah Montana, Pink,
and Taylor Swift—stuff my kids listen to!
BEN
Music is actually pretty important in my
life, and I’m always keeping an eye out
for something new on iTunes. Just with
the amount of training I do, having some-
thing good to listen to helps the time
pass, and that’s also true with the travel
we do. I’m defi nitely really into music.
I’m pretty open-minded when it
comes to types of music. Honestly, I’ll
listen to just about any kind of music
except for techno—which is actually
pretty common in Europe, unfortunate-
ly. What I listen to at a given moment
depends on a lot of things: what hit
songs are coming out, what kind of
weekend I’ve had, what kind of mood
I’m in throughout the weekend, things
like that. Sometimes you’ve got to fi nd
some speed and almost need to get
a little angry, so you listen to harder
music; other times you’ve already got
a good pace and you just sort of need
something to keep you calm.
Typically, though, I’ll listen to some-
thing a little faster before a race, just
to get me in the right frame of mind.
Sometimes, whatever song I listen to at
that point will get stuck inside my head.
In fact, I’m glad there’s no microphone
inside my helmet, because there have
been times I’ve been jamming stuff
out on the straightaway. I’ve looked at
video of myself on the starting line, and
I’ve seen my fi ngers moving on the le-
vers to the beat of the song. Believe it
or not, Kenny Loggins’ “Danger Zone”
from the Top Gun soundtrack is one of
my regulars before a race. It started out
as a joke, but I’m not going to lie: that
song gets me pumped up!
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TEXAS TWO-STEP
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Colin Edwards & Ben Spies On … MUSIC
SCOTT RUSSELL
is a road rac-
ing legend also
known as “Mr.
Daytona” for his
fi ve victories in
the 200, though
his Florida
exploits and ’92
AMA Superbike crown are arguably
matched by his ’93 World Superbike
title with Muzzy Kawasaki. He now
does racing commentary for Speed
TV, and for this issue, he gave us his
thoughts on the Miller Motorsports
Park WSBK race.
MIKE FISHER
began working
for Road Racer X
and Racer X as an
intern fi ve years
ago and has since
joined the crew
as a full-time
designer, assisting
with magazines, event programs, and
websites. A senior at the University
of Colorado, Mike resides at the foot
of the Rocky Mountains and spends
his weekends racing motocross and
enduros. He’s been known to squeeze
in dual-sport adventure rides on his
lunch break, blaming his four-hour dis-
appearances on long lines at Subway.
ALISSA MURPHY
has been work-
ing in the Road
Racer X offi ce
for two years
now, doing just
about every job
possible. Having
moved up from
organizing shelves, she now assists
in managing online advertising for
www.roadracerx.com and www
.racerxonline.com. She’ll bid the RRX
crew farewell this month to spend
her senior year of college in Australia
but says she hopes to be back in the
offi ce soon. (We hope she means it.)
CO
UR
TE
SY
MU
RP
HY
CO
UR
TE
SY
FIS
HE
R
ZE
EK
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When Larry Lawrence contacted
me for this issue’s Heritage col-
umn on the original all-American
Grand Prix rider roster—Kenny Roberts and
Eddie Lawson in 1983—it got me thinking
about my own participation on an all-U.S.
squad. That was the team Roberts started
in ’86, and on which I was paired with Mike
Baldwin. In fact, because Roberts was the
owner, you could make a case that it was
even more American than either that ’83 ef-
fort (which was an Italian operation) or Colin
Edwards and Ben Spies’ current Monster
Yamaha Tech 3 team (which is French).
Prior to ’86, I’d raced Hondas for two
seasons—fi rst privately in ’84 and then on
Rothmans Honda with Freddie Spencer and
Wayne Gardner. Kenny approached me and
said they were putting together a team, that
Lucky Strike was the sponsor, and that he
wanted me on it.
I was happy to be back on a Yamaha, as
I’d had a relationship with them since sign-
ing a two-year deal with the U.S. offi ce in
1975 when I was 14. When I started out in
the world championship in ’79, it was with
a Yamaha 250 in a Bimota chassis. A few
races in, I was running second or third in the
standings with a couple of podiums when I
had a falling-out with Bimota and my man-
agement contacted Serge Zago’s team. At
the time, Baldwin was doing some races on
a private Suzuki 500 that belonged to Zago,
and he had an extra 350 that he was just
using to get extra track time during practice.
Serge took it upon himself to put 250 cylin-
ders on the engine, and that enabled me to
continue racing.
Leading up to the Dutch TT, there was a
non-championship race in Belgium that I was
going to. Zago asked if I could take Baldwin’s
500 engine and run it in for Assen, and I got
a kick out of riding the 500 there. Afterward, I
got a call saying that Mike had broken his fe-
mur in the U.S. and asking if I wanted to also
race the 500 in the Netherlands. That was my
start on 500s; I rode in the last half of the
twelve-race series, got my fi rst premier-class
podium, and fi nished eighth in the world
championship. Eight years later, Baldwin and
I became teammates on Roberts’ team.
Between that and Kenny and I know-
ing each other quite well—I’d raced against
him and trained at his house—we had some
good history even though it was a new team.
I enjoyed being Mike’s teammate. He has
somewhat of a reputation, but we got along
okay—he just marches to his own drummer.
I’ll give you an example: Once, he
was having some jetting problems at Spa
Francorchamps and his bike was popping
and barking. Finally, he stuck his front tire
against a wall and just did a big burnout.
There was smoke everywhere and we were
all looking at each other, puzzled. It was just
his way of getting the point across that it
wasn’t running right! Mike still makes me
laugh to this day, and by the
way, he looks the same at 55
as he did back then.
We raced with that roster
for two years, and it was a pret-
ty good team. I was third on the
year in ’86, with Mike fourth;
in ’87, I was second, while he
missed most of the season with
injuries and fi nished eighteenth.
One race that stands out is the
fi rst round of our second year
together, at Suzuka, where
we should’ve fi nished 1-2. I
took off in the rain and he was
chasing me. I was ahead by
about twenty seconds before
I backed off, and he closed it
down to about twelve seconds
before he fell off.
One interesting footnote is
the Laguna Seca race. Back
then it was a national, but the
executive director, Lee Moselle,
used to invite us international
guys—me, Kenny, Eddie, and Freddie—to
do it on our Grand Prix bikes. Brown & Wil-
liamson, the company that owned Lucky
Strike’s U.S. rights, wanted us to run Kool
livery, and the stuff looked awesome. I still
have a set of the leathers.
Our equipment was so good that there
was no way the series regulars could hang
with us, so we had an agreement that the
majority of those laps were playing around
and we’d put on a show, pulling wheelies.
Of course Mike ignored that, pinned his
ears back, and went for it! Again, he was
just his own guy.
Anyway, riding with that team is a spe-
cial memory, and I’m sure Colin and Ben are
enjoying something similar this year. It’s go-
ing to be a lot of fun to cheer for them at the
Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix—but just watch
out for those burnouts! X
A Road Racer X column by RANDY MAMOLA
ALL AMERICAN
36
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Randy Mamola Mike Baldwin
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38
Seventeen years
after winning the
World Superbike
title, an American
legend analyzes the
series’ visit to his
home country
BY SCOTT RUSSELL
PHOTOS BY
ANDREW WHEELER
eh U.S has a proud tradition in World Super-
bike, both because we’ve won more champi-
onships than any other country and because
we pretty much invented the sport. I r aced as a
card at all three Brainerd SBK rounds from 1989-’9’ 1,
and then I competed at Laguna Seca as a full-timer
in ’97 and ’98. I’ve attended the last two rounds at
Miller Motorsports Park as a Speed TV broadcaster.
Unfortunately, I’ve never won my home race, as
there was no American round when I was at the peak
of my career—my AMA Superbike and World Super-
bike titles came in ’92 and ’93, respectively, between
the series’ stints at Brainerd and Laguna. Still, the
American rounds were always something special, and
I’ve enjoyed seeing the U.S. event evolve over the
years. The only problem with going to it now is that it
makes me want to put my leathers back on!
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39
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(Main) Max Biaggi, a
former Grand Prix rival
of the author, swept the
USA World SBK round.
(Top) Leon Camier was
runner-up in Race 2, giving
Aprilia its fi rst SBK double
podium. (Left) If not for
mechanicals in both races,
Carlos Checa would al-
most surely have repeated
his 2008 double.
40
I really like the people at Miller, and it’s obviously a top-notch
facility—about as good as it can be, really, and the week-
end ran pretty smooth. Compared to last year’s event, they
did a much better job of promoting it, and judging by the
offi cial three-day crowd of 55,000, moving the race to Mon-
day of Memorial Day Weekend was a good idea. Still, I have
to say that times have changed. Coming back to Laguna when I
was racing was a much bigger deal.
Part of that is because Laguna is just a more glamorous place,
and the way Miller is designed, the spectators get sort of spread
out. Also, there aren’t many places that have the character of
Laguna, which was able to build itself into an institution over a
number of years. Miller is doing its best to lay the groundwork
for a new tradition. Salt Lake City is a naturally beautiful area, so
maybe Miller will end up with its own unique vibe. It’s going to be
tough, but I hope they can do it.
Since I was at the race for the last two years, it’s clear to me
that the series could really use another top U.S. rider. Although the
crowd wasn’t as big in ’09, there was so much electricity with Ben
Spies doing well. Now that he’s in MotoGP it’s up to Roger Hayden
to represent, and he’s just not in a position to do that this year.
I’ve been asked if I can relate to Roger, since he’s an American
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41
racing the series on a Kawasaki like I was when I fi rst went over there,
but the situations are different. He’s jumped on a totally different team
where he doesn’t know anyone, whereas I got to take a nice support
group with me—my Muzzy team, my cousin, and my trainer. We also
had as good a Kawasaki as anybody in the world at that time. He
doesn’t have anything close to that. I feel for the kid, but it was either
stay home or go learn the tracks in Europe. He did the right thing.
I wish some top AMA Pro guys would come in as wildcards—
not only to help the race, but for their own sake. I remember when
I did Brainerd, it was really exciting to be able to match up against
the best in the world and use them as a measuring stick. Still,
we really need a top rider in the series full-time on a good team.
Coming back to Laguna as a former world champion was a real
big deal compared to doing Brainerd as a wildcard. It was defi -
nitely one of the biggest races, and one I focused on a lot leading
into it. I wanted to do good in front of the home crowd.
GOING HOME
These days, coming to the U.S. round of World Superbike is
like a family reunion for me. You see a lot of familiar faces in the
paddock, from guys whose names you might not know to good
friends. All the Yamaha guys I used to work for in Europe are still
there, and they worked with Spies last year. Also, a lot of the Ital-
ians from Infront are still the same. When I came on that scene
with Muzzy back in the day, we made a big splash with our wild
team colors—and of course the fact that we kicked everyone’s
ass! The promoters liked that, and we got along well and had a
good time. I’m an outgoing guy, and I like meeting people. Those
are some special memories, and when I see those people now,
we always have a big hug.
Also, some of the riders I used to race against are still out there
going fast. I’m still buddies with Troy Corser, Nori Haga was my team-
mate at Yamaha in ’98, and Ruben Xaus was around. Also, I’ve com-
peted against Carlos Checa and Max Biaggi in Grand Prix racing.
Honestly, it almost hurts seeing those guys still pulling down
good money and doing what they love. The motorcycles are more
rider-friendly than they used to be, and some of those riders say,
“It’s easier now, Scott. The bikes aren’t spitting you off left and
right like they used to, so you can go faster at an older age.” Look
at Biaggi. Watching him get both the wins in Utah, there’s still a
part of me that says if I was still out there, I almost know I could
hang. I’m doing Grand-Am racing now, which is a lot of fun, but
it doesn’t really fi ll that hole. I kick myself now for hanging up my
boots after I got hurt at Daytona, but at the time, it seemed like
(Clockwise from above left)
A classic-rock concert on
Saturday night brought new
locals to the track; with
perfect race-day weather,
the umbrellas were for sun,
not rain; a pre-race press
conference was held at the
state capitol building; crash-
es marred James Toseland’s
fi rst visit to the track.
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the right thing to do. I’m not sure when that feeling will go away.
It’s also nice seeing the young riders challenging the veterans.
I’d say the guy I most identifi ed with at this year’s race was Johnny
Rea. He seems like a tough little guy, the kind you just have to hold
back because he’s always raring to go. I like the enthusiastic, fi re-
breathing young lions, and that’s what I see in him.
TIME MACHINE
I never got to race at Miller during my career, but the week before
this year’s World Superbike event, I did a WERA endurance race
with Dane Westby and Clinton Sellers on Team Zyvax. I really like
the racetrack. It fl ows well in spots, like Turn 1 through 5, and I like
the long straightaway and how it dips into Turn 1, Sunset Bend.
From Turn 5 to 6 is a little weird, and I’d say through Witchcraft and
into the Attitudes is the most challenging part. It’s pretty straight-
forward and not a real physical track, but it’s a joy to ride.
It was a good time, going out there to see if I have anything left,
and it gave me some perspective for calling the World SBK race on
TV the next weekend. You look at these guys and wonder if you could
do it, so it was nice to get my shot. In 2007, I had done a race there
with Jimmy Filice and Andrew Trevitt for a Sport Rider story. I didn’t
go that well, but this time was much better, probably because the
Yamaha YZF-R6 is so good. It’s turnkey—just get on it and go fast.
After being idle for a while, it was fun to be on pace, running re-
ally close times to Westby and Clinton on a 600. I think I surprised
a few people (including myself) being in the ballpark, especially be-
cause I only had a few short sessions to prepare. They were happy
because we won our class and fi nished second overall, so I can go
home and sleep now. It was a good time, and it tempts me to come
out and do the Daytona 200, but there’s no way I could do that on
a 600. At one point, Josh Herrin’s little brother, Zack, was following
me around on an identical bike. I looked over on the straight and
he just went fl ying by me. Those guys can get in that little bubble,
but I’m like a big parachute on a 600.
NOW & THEN
Just like the American round, the World Superbike series itself
has changed a lot. When I was there, there were maybe three or
four guys who could win. There have been six winners already
this year, so the fi eld’s deeper, with a lot of guys out there going
fast. I think that’s also because the bikes are easier to ride, but it’s
always tough to win. I don’t care when you come through what
series—to be the man, you’ve got to be special.
I’m not a big fan of all the engine management and rider aids
they have now. I’d love to see them go back to your right hand being
the only traction control, which would separate the guys some but
make the show more fun to watch. It might bring some more strategy
into it, instead of everyone just being full-blast. We were on 750s, so
they might not have worked the tires as much as these 1000s would
without traction control, but it would be cool to see these guys have
to work harder. It would favor riders who can look after their stuff to
the end, and I think it would make the show ten times better.
(Left) Points eluded Roger
Hayden in his fi rst home race
as a World Superbike rider.
(Above) Utah has now hosted
two World Supersport races,
and Kenan Sofuoglu has
topped them both. (Right)
Miller Motorsports Park
acknowledged Memorial Day
by planting 2,010 American
fl ags on the infi eld.
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From a dicing-for-the-lead perspective, the races
at Miller were pretty uneventful this year—not nearly as
close as I’ve seen from the series leading into this event.
There was some crashing going on, but it was pretty
spread out at the front. More than the actual racing,
what stood out was the big-picture drama, like Checa
dominating both races, only to break down both times
with similar freak problems, or Leon Haslam crashing
out of Race 2 and losing the points lead to Biaggi.
I could relate to both of those situations. In 1984, I
had a 45-point lead by Round 4, when we went into Al-
bacete and I crashed in both races—in oil one time and
by myself in the other one. I lost my big advantage, and
in the end, I lost the championship by fi ve points be-
cause of that. That same year at Mugello, I won Race 1
going away at Ducati’s home, on a Kawi—it was great.
The next race, I was leading by a country mile when I
had electrical problems like Checa.
Anyway, it was pretty cool to see Max pull the dou-
ble at Miller, and to see Aprilia go 1-2 in Race 2, for the
fi rst time in this series. I also like what I saw out of the
BMWs; they keep getting better every weekend.
All in all, it was a good time to be at Miller Motorsports
Park for the World Superbike race. The riders did a great
job, and the track is going the extra mile to reach out
to fans. Like I said, the one thing it really needs is a top
American rider. I wish it could be me. X
Like America itself, World Superbike is fairly young compared to its con-
temporaries. It’s been around for twenty-one years, while the Grand Prix
series got its start in 1949 and AMA Superbike kicked off in ’76. During
that tenure, SBK has hosted sixteen U.S. rounds at three different venues.
YEAR TRACK RACE 1 WINNER RACE 2 WINNER
1989 Brainerd International Raymond Roche (Duc) Raymond Roche (Duc)
Raceway
1990 Brainerd International Stephane Mertens (Hon) Doug Chandler (Kaw)
Raceway
1991 Brainerd International Doug Polen (Duc) Doug Polen (Duc)
Raceway
1995 Laguna Seca Raceway Anthony Gobert (Kaw) Troy Corser (Duc)
1996 Laguna Seca Raceway John Kocinski (Duc) Anthony Gobert (Kaw)
1997 Laguna Seca Raceway John Kocinski (Hon) John Kocinski (Hon)
1998 Laguna Seca Raceway Carl Fogarty (Duc) Noriyuki Haga (Yam)
1999 Laguna Seca Raceway Anthony Gobert (Duc) Ben Bostrom (Duc)
2000 Laguna Seca Raceway Noriyuki Haga (Yam) Troy Corser (Apr)
2001 Mazda Raceway Ben Bostrom (Duc) Ben Bostrom (Duc)
Laguna Seca
2002 Mazda Raceway Troy Bayliss (Duc) Colin Edwards (Hon)
Laguna Seca
2003 Mazda Raceway Pierfrancesco Chili (Duc) Ruben Xaus (Duc)
Laguna Seca
2004 Mazda Raceway Chris Vermeulen (Hon) Chris Vermeulen (Hon)
Laguna Seca
2008 Miller Motorsports Park Carlos Checa (Hon) Carlos Checa (Hon)
2009 Miller Motorsports Park Ben Spies (Yam) Ben Spies (Yam)
2010 Miller Motorsports Park Max Biaggi (Apr) Max Biaggi (Apr)
SBK USA
Biaggi (middle) tallied his
third sweep of the season
and took over the points lead
from Leon Haslam (right).
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She may be a pretty,
blonde 16-year old, but
you don’t want to get
between the fi nish line and
the fi rst female to win a
professional AMA road race
BY MARK GARDINER
O ne never knows in advance when history might
come calling. The best we can hope is that we
acquit ourselves as well as Cameron Beaubier
and Tyler O’Hara did after fi nishing second and
third, respectively, behind the fi rst woman to win a
professional AMA road race. At a moment when the
racers might have made excuses or lacked grace,
both young men smiled, warmly congratulated Elena
Myers, and talked about the signifi cance of what
had just happened in Infi neon Raceway’s Saturday
SuperSport race.
The only semi-awkward moment came early in
the post-race press conference, when third-place
O’Hara referred to his past experience with his
fellow podium fi nishers. “I’ve rode Supermoto with
these guys—” he started, before a funny expression
crossed his face, “—with both of these people over
here, Elena and Cameron.”
Given Myers’ recent progress, some updates will
have to be made to the AMA Pro Road Racing pad-
dock’s lexicon.
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Before this season, no female rider had fi nished in the
top ten or even started on the front row in a profes-
sional AMA road race. It didn’t take Myers long to
change that, leading some to wonder where this girl
came from (and since we’re examining vocabulary,
girl is the accurate term in this case, as Elena is just 16).
Myers has much in common with many of her competitors
(her father, Matt, is an ex-racer who put her on a tiny dirt bike
when she was 7), but there are differences too. Some of her ri-
vals’ parents have spent well into six fi gures on equipment and
specialized coaching; Matt is a motorcycle mechanic at a small
shop in Stockton. He works at a local kart track on the side and
ran a pocket-bike racing series, which meant Elena had almost
limitless track time at an impressionable age.
“When you’re a parent,” Matt explains, “you naturally want to
fi nd things to do with your kids. At fi rst, that’s all it was. We didn’t
have the delusions that a lot of other
parents have. I’d meet them at the track
and their kids were 5 or 6, and they had
their whole lives planned out.”
As a coach for the Red Bull Rookies
Cup and for Suzuki, 1993 500cc World
Champion Kevin Schwantz has plenty
of experience with young racers and their families, and he echoes
the sentiment: “In the last few years, I’ve seen a lot of kids who
were racing because it was what was expected of them. It was
what they’d always done growing up, and it was driven by their
dads. Elena’s not like that; the motivation’s coming from her.”
Although Myers enjoyed herself and was fast enough early
on, those fi rst couple of seasons on pocket bikes and tiny Su-
permoto machines weren’t a revelation. Her initial breakthrough
came when, during an off-season, Matt fi tted her tiny RM85 with
bigger wheels and slick tires and she began to ride it in a road-
race style. “One time, we were on track with Tommy Hayden—he
was on his Supermoto bike training,” Matt recalls. “I watched El-
ena ride right around him on the outside of a turn. That’s when I
thought maybe she could really go somewhere.”
Toward the end of 2004, Elena’s parents took her and her 85 to a
Keigwins track day at Thunderhill Raceway Park, where Lance Keigwin
arranged for her to borrow a 125cc GP bike. Both the bike
and the track were bigger and faster than anything she’d
ridden, and as is generally the case with Elena, her per-
formance took a leap forward. Matt found a used Honda
RS125, and Elena became the youngest rider ever to peti-
tion the AFM for a race license. She was turned down.
In early ’05, Matt convinced OMRRA (an Oregon
club that races at Portland International Raceway) to
allow Elena to take their new-racer course. She did so,
raced, and won—twice—against local experts. After the
weekend, she was given an expert license. “We knew
we couldn’t afford to travel to Portland every race,” Matt
recalls. “We thought that her OMRRA license would be
our ticket to racing in the AFM, because the two clubs
have a reciprocity agreement.” The plan didn’t work, as
the AFM said Myers was still too young.
A LITTLE HELP?
Despite the limited opportunities, Myers continued to
improve, and soon, expert racers began talking about
getting strafed by a young girl at northern California track
days. John Ulrich, who publishes Roadracing World
magazine and runs one of AMA Pro’s longest-standing
and most successful satellite teams, was impressed.
“I’ll never forget meeting her,” says Ulrich, who was
an early supporter of Schwantz, John Hopkins, and Ben
Spies. “She walked right up to me, looked me in the eye,
(Below) Some kids hate
getting hand-me-downs,
but Elena Myers is gelling
with DiSalvo’s old ’09 GSX-
R600. (Bottom) Myers used
the “hang-off” road racing
style right from the start.
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and said, ‘Hi, I’m Elena Myers.’ She had a fi rm grip, and I thought, I
haven’t met many 12-year-olds like this. We had a conversation like
the one I had with John Hopkins when he was 14.”
Based on that fi rst impression, Ulrich was convinced Elena
was the one—the fi rst female with a viable chance of becoming
a truly top-tier road racer. “Having raised two girls myself,” Ulrich
says, “and having always told them, ‘You can be whatever you set
out to be,’ I almost felt there was a moral imperative to help her.”
Ulrich arranged a better 125 for Myers and immediately laid
out a plan that would see her arrive at Daytona as soon as she
turned 16 and was eligible for AMA Pro Racing. Kawasaki PR
manager Jan Plessner, a longtime supporter of women’s motor-
cycling, arranged a backdoor support program for Elena, with
Hypercycle’s Cary Andrew tuning a Team Green-supplied 650cc
twin and then a ZX-6R. Elena’s road racing education continued
as she raced the 125 in the USGPRU series and then the Kawa-
sakis in WERA events. Although she wasn’t utterly
dominant, she usually shared the podium with much
older and more experienced competition.
Cary Andrew attended a few events, but mostly it
was just Elena and Matt going to races. When Myers
went to the WERA Grand National Finals at Road At-
lanta, Ulrich dispatched one of his own team mechan-
ics, Michael Tijon, on a bit of a spy mission to see how well set-up
Elena’s bike had been. Tijon saw a lot of room for improvement.
Elena is pretty much in charge of her own rider-development
program. She sticks to herself at the track, though she’s benefi ted
from some of Jason Pridmore’s coaching. Matt, a mid-pack club
racer in the ’90s who never scraped together the funds to run a
whole season, says he doesn’t really know where his daughter
got her speed. He speaks of his daughter with a measure of pa-
rental pride but also a lot of respect. “She’s a straight-A student
at school and takes a very methodical approach,” he says. “She
just seems to understand how things work.”
SHOWTIME
Myers comes across as a pretty normal 16-year-old girl in conver-
sation, but although she’s more articulate and confi dent than aver-
age, she’s not completely capable of explaining her success either.
Like most young riders, she has lofty goals.
“I’d like to win an AMA championship,” she
says, “and then go to MotoGP.”
Myers acknowledges that her light
weight is an advantage, but she adds
that she’s been lifting weights to close
the strength gap on her middleweight-
bike competitors. She seems more com-
fortable talking about the physical side of
racing than the psychological, or about
her own motivation, but she’s perceptive
enough to add, “Being a girl, I get a lot of
extra media attention, and that helps.”
One of the conversations for this story
took place after Elena had spent an after-
noon doing three back-to-back live radio
and TV interviews. “It’s fun for me,” she says.
“I don’t think about what I’m doing, that it’s
live and all those people are seeing me.”
At the beginning of this season—right
on Ulrich’s schedule—Elena rolled into
Daytona with a newly minted AMA Pro li-
cense and Jason DiSalvo’s GSX-R600 from
last year. To get a little time on the banking,
she did a few CCS races fi rst. “I showed
up on the track on a Thursday and got out
onto the track the next day,” she says. “It
took the fi rst part of the day to get over the
steepness of the banking. I wasn’t scared
but … nothing could’ve prepared me for
that. Then the AMA week was amazing. I’ve
been waiting four years for this to come,
and I was a racer and part of the show.”
Mostly, the “Elena Project” has been
a grassroots effort, with help coming from
sources like a Bay Area lawyer/track-day
addict, who has picked up a few airplane
tickets. This year, though, Richie Morris
Racing has given Myers room under its
awning alongside Danny Eslick, and Ed
Sorbo has signed on as crew chief (Todd
Fenton handled those duties at Daytona).
As a girl in what has histori-
cally been a man’s sport,
Myers is bound to get extra
attention. So far, she’s
happy to be cast in the role
of female ambassador as
well as competitor.
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Although some companies have been leery of sponsoring such
a young racer, Myers has picked up support from Lucas Oil, and
she enjoys working with a real squad. “I love having a teammate,”
she says. “I use a lot of Danny’s settings!” (Jason DiSalvo isn’t
much bigger than Elena, so the team has data for every track.)
Although the SuperSport class is no longer the lion’s den it
was when Miguel Duhamel campaigned it on a factory Honda,
it’s still extremely competitive, with racers like Cameron Beaubier
(a Grand Prix racer last season) and JD Beach (2008 Red Bull
MotoGP Rookies Cup Champion), plus former Red Bull AMA U.S.
Rookies Cup frontrunners Joey Pascarella and Tommy Puerta.
Although her pair of seventh-place Daytona fi nishes weren’t
exactly a disappointment, Myers was caught up in a fi rst-lap melee
at Auto Club Speedway and—worse still—crashed
on spilled fl uids on the warm-up lap of the fi rst race
at Road Atlanta. That crash left her with a purple
foot, but she limped to her bike the next day and
survived two more red-fl ag incidents for a top-
fi ve fi nish. She may be a high-school girl, but her
toughness is not in question. “This year, she’s re-
ally stepped up,” Schwantz observed after the race. “There’s still a
gap to those front three or four guys, but she’s closing it. She’s got
one thing that every great racer has, and that’s a huge heart.”
Though few would have agreed with her, Myers decided after
talking with her dad that she was still lacking aggression. “I need to
charge every single corner,” she said before the Infi neon Raceway
round. “I need to make the bike wiggle on every corner exit and get
more comfortable with it moving around. When I see photos of my-
self from the last couple of races, I look like I’m on a Sunday ride.”
BREAKING THE CEILING
Myers implemented the new approach in Race 1 at Sonoma. After a
fi fth-place start, she moved up a spot when Jake Gagne ran off the
track, only for the race to be red-fl agged.
This time she grabbed a second-place start
and took over the lead when Pascarella ran
wide in a turn. Myers crossed the line with the
lead, and when the red fl ag came out again
at the halfway point, the race was called and
she was awarded the win. The cards had
fallen her way, but Elena took advantage. “I
was pretty surprised that it happened,” she
said afterward. “I’ve had a lot of bad luck the
last few rounds, and I was happy to fi nally
get some good luck. Things went my way.”
Predictions for Elena’s future are var-
ied. Her professional start has certainly
been promising, but like any hot young
racer, whether she’ll achieve her lofty goals
is still unknown. There have been other
women in AMA Pro Racing, of course, but
no female racer has been anywhere near
as fast at such a young age. After seeing
her at Infi neon, that’s something race fans
agree on to a man…. Er, person. X
Myers’ fi rst win came under
a red fl ag, but it was no
fl uke. Later that weekend,
she temporarily led the fast-
est young guns in the series,
including East division points
leader Cameron Beaubier.
When Elena Myers won
the Infi neon Race-
way AMA Pro SuperSport
race, news fl ashed around the world instanta-
neously. Over a quarter-century earlier, Sherry
Friduss won a pair of AMA Battle of the Twins
Modifi ed races aboard a Moto Guzzi, and she
was lucky if people at the track knew about it.
Sherry (whose surname is now Endress)
contested BOTT when four classes raced on
the track at the same time, and while she won
her class, she might’ve been the twelfth rider
to take the checkers. As a result, there wasn’t
much said about Sherry’s accomplishment,
even in the motorcycling press. The AMA
categorized the class as amateur, although
there was a modest purse. (As a result, deter-
mining the fi rst female AMA winner is not
a black-and-white issue.)
“Battle of the Twins fought to get recogni-
tion back in those days,” Endress recalls. “We
had our fans, for sure, but they were a small
group of enthusiasts. I think the most I ever
won was maybe $500, but it was enough in
those days to get us to the next race.”
“What she did was amazing,” Endress, who
won at Daytona in ’84 and Pocono in ’85, says
of Myers’ accomplishment. “That class is so
competitive, and she’s so young and pretty. I
wish her more success. She has the talent to
really make a difference in the sport. Hopefully,
someday I’ll get to meet and congratulate her.”
Endress retired from motorcycle racing af-
ter an unsuccessful ’87 Superbike stint aboard
a Suzuki GSXR750, as she never adapted to
high-revving inline fours. After leaving racing,
she got her master’s degree, divorced and
remarried, and tried competitive cycling and
power lifting. Today she lives in the foothills
of northeast Georgia, and she still rides a twin
(only now it’s a Ducati) with her husband and
attends the occasional race. Larry Lawrence
THE FORGOTTEN LADY
52
RIL
ES
/NE
LS
ON
LA
WR
EN
CE
AR
CH
IVE
S
Sherry Friduss
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54
Once the stomping ground
of dominant British riders,
Grand Prix racing’s premier
class has been inhospitable
to the UK in recent years.
One 117-pound redhead
intends to storm the castle
BY LAUREL C. ALLEN
British riders have an enviable record in world championship premier-class
racing. Since the inaugural 1949 FIM Grand Prix season, Great Britain
has taken seventeen world titles (second only to Italy) and fi nished sec-
ond or third in the points chase more than twenty times, even sweeping
the top three positions on three occasions (and once, the top fi ve slots). “And
yet we’re looked at as a nation that maybe can’t be successful in MotoGP,” says
19-year-old Bradley Smith. “I believe that’s a myth. I believe we can have a British
world champion, a MotoGP rider, without any problems.”
Though it’s likely to be at least three years before Smith gets to test that theory,
he’s one of just a few young riders who have been groomed specifi cally for that
purpose—to return British road racers to a status they haven’t enjoyed in more
than thirty years.
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NORTHCOTT
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FROM WHENCE IT CAME
Back in 2003, 13-year-old Bradley was looking at a promising ca-
reer in motocross. Having ridden bikes since age 4—his father and
grandfather ran a motocross track—Bradley had developed into a
talented Schoolboy racer who’d already won a couple of MX and
SX national championships. And then came that dreaded injury:
the tibia-fi bula fracture. Though he switched to road racing not long
after, Bradley says he’s “defi nitely still a motocrosser, through and
through” who thinks “being able to slide it without worrying about
bike movement so much” has helped his bike handling signifi cantly.
Bradley began road racing in the UK’s Aprilia RS 125-based
Superteens series (the same place Casey Stoner got his start),
and by 2004—his fi rst full season—he was also riding a middle-
weight sport production bike in the same championship and had
participated in a year-end tryout for the MotoGP Academy.
“I think I got on the radar with those three things,” Bradley
says. “The Dorna guys were looking into UK riders and my name
cropped up in a couple of conversations. They did so much home-
work on us—they knew exactly what we were about—and they
decided to take me and grow me into a motorcycle rider instead
of a motocross rider.”
Bradley was called up to the Alberto Puig-run program (which
would later pick up sponsorship from Red Bull and be joined by
the Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup). At 14, he moved to Spain to
test, train for, and contend the seven-round Spanish CEV cham-
pionship. “It was always the most important thing to do, because
if I wanted to get to Grand Prix, I had to do that,” he says. “But it
was tough at a young age to get up and move and have to stand
on your own two feet.”
It was in Spain, according to Bradley, that the fi rst install-
ment of UK-rider-related mythbusting started. “Guys had been to
Spain before and not qualifi ed or had struggled to make points,”
he says, “so it was kind of like, ‘You British guys can’t be com-
petitive over there.’ But we went there and in the fi rst year I won
three races, and the next year [fellow Brits] Danny Webb and
Scott Redding podiumed races and were right there. We kind
of showed the younger generation
that Spain is an option and you don’t
have to move on to Supersport 600s,
which is what a lot of guys have had
to fi nd themselves doing.”
It’s also what Bradley reckons he
would have done—follow that most
traditional path for British riders, which
generally does not lead to GP success.
“We were fortunate,” he says. “We were
shown the way by Dorna. They gave us
the opportunity to ride in their academy
and to ride in their championships, and
that’s defi nitely the way to go to Grand
Prix.” Bradley proceeded to do just
that in 2006, joining the Puig-managed
125cc Repsol Honda team.
RIDE THIS WAY
Bradley spent the next two seasons
with the Repsol team. In 2006, he was
named 125cc Rookie of the Year and
turned in a best fi nish of eighth; in ’07,
he took his fi rst Grand Prix podium—
a third at Mugello, making him the
youngest British rider to stand on a
GP podium. He also turned in a long
string of top-ten fi nishes that put him
tenth overall in the championship.
Clockwise from top: Smith
blossomed after joining the
hard-charging Aspar effort;
Bradley may have gotten
the short end of the stick at
this Monster Energy func-
tion, but he’s tough on the
track; a paddock with Rossi
in it is where any young
rider wants to be.
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In ’08, Bradley signed with Polaris World Aprilia and earned
three poles and four podium fi nishes, fi nishing sixth overall despite
midseason injuries. But it was last year that he really stepped out.
As a member of the powerful Bancaja Aspar effort, he began win-
ning races, fi nishing runner-up in the championship to his older
and more experienced teammate, Julian Simon.
He remains with Aspar’s 125 effort this season despite nearly
moving to the new Moto2 class, and he says he’s happy with that
decision, even if he’s still excited for a possible 2011 class change.
It’s been a tough season so far, however.
“It’s not been easy, to say the least,”
Bradley says. “Sometimes I’ve sat in the
truck thinking, What have I done wrong?
What have I done to deserve the bad luck?
But this is what racing brings, and I’ve been
fortunate in the past few years that I’ve had
very few problems to deal with. This year it
seems that everything that could go wrong,
has gone wrong, from a bike not wanting to
start between practices to being down on
power, seizures, electronic problems…. [But]
the bike seems to be back on form now, and
it’s just down to me to up my game and get
back to the level I was at last year.”
WHAT WILL COME
The pressure is certainly on for this season
and beyond—Bradley knows many are look-
ing to him to someday return the UK to the
premier-class title board. In the meantime,
though, he’s got 125cc competitiveness
to return to and four-stroke motorcycles to
adapt to, beginning next year. The ultimate
goal, however, is rarely far from his mind.
“Look at the UK talent in World Su-
perbike right now,” he says. “Those guys
58
Bradley Smith is fully aware of—and grateful for—the help he’s received
in his career to this point, and he understands just what it’s going to
take to return UK riders to their former Grand Prix glory. All that has led di-
rectly to Team KRP, the British-based effort supported by Bradley and run
by Mark Keen. Says Smith, “I know how lucky I was to be given a chance,
and really, all it takes is for some-
thing to be set up to give people
that chance.”
The team fi elds fi ve young rid-
ers in the British 125 and Spanish
CEV championships, and some of
their names will already be familiar
to road racing fans—Dakota Ma-
mola is the son of GP giant Randy,
and Taylor MacKenzine is the son
of three-time BSB champion and
former GP rider Niall. Teammates
Fraser Rogers, John McFee, and
Wayne Ryan are just as determined to make names for themselves.
“It’s great to see their enthusiasm and to use what I’ve learned the past
four or fi ve years to try to speed up their learning process,” Bradley says.
“Hopefully, in the next couple of years, they’ll be ready to step up to the 125
GP class and start being the next talented riders coming through.”
PAYING IT BACK
haven’t been brought up on race bikes, which means making the
change would probably be a bit diffi cult, but the talent’s right there
in the UK. Unfortunately, it just seems like the [UK] guys who’ve
stepped up to MotoGP haven’t been given the same chance as
other guys, and then their efforts get classed as failures.
“It’s a bit frustrating, really, because it’s this myth that peo-
ple seem to just be accepting. But I’ve been given the chance,”
Smith adds. “It’s up to me to work my way up through the ranks
and carry the fl ag.” X
Though the 2010 season
hasn’t been as smooth as
those previous, Bradley still
feels he’s well on his way
to being the kind of Grand
Prix standard-bearer that UK
race fans have long awaited.
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Smith with KRP rider
Dakota Mamola.
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00 00
BY JESSE CECIL
After four years in the
wilderness, Alstare Suzuki
hopes Leon Haslam can
get the team back on top
in World Superbike
60
The tension is palpable in the Alstare
Suzuki garage, but no higher than
the stakes. It’s the end of the last
practice session at the U.S. World Su-
perbike round and Alstare’s lead rider,
Leon Haslam, has a 15-point advantage over title
rival Max Biaggi. This is the team’s last opportunity to
solve any problems they have before qualifying, and
there are a few. Even so, this is far better than the posi-
tion they were in during their two previous visits here.
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61
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(Left) With Syl-
vain Guintoli and
Leon Haslam,
Alstare Suzuki
has its strongest
lineup in years.
(Above) Guintoli
is still exorcising
the ghost of a
bad leg injury in-
curred last year.
Last year was a diffi cult one for Alstare Suzuki. Pre-
sumed title contender Max Neukirchner missed
much of the season with injuries, and the squad
struggled. Perched on a pit-row concrete barrier and
backlit by the late-day Utah sun, Alstare’s chief tech-
nician, Bruno Bailly, recalls the diffi culty. “The feedback we got from
Yukio [Kagayama, Neukirchner’s then-teammate] and replacement
riders, it was horrible,” he says in French-accented English. “We
completely lost the way.” Further adding to the malaise, Alstare and
Neukirchner underwent a bizarre and ugly split at year’s end.
Alstare last won the World SBK championship in 2005 with Troy
Corser, but the Belgian operation has struggled ever since, fi nish-
ing last year as the lowest-placing factory effort (behind even some
privateer squads). That doesn’t sit well with the team, but its frustra-
tion changed to hope when Haslam signed on for this year.
RECONSTRUCTION
Held back by a largely undeveloped privateer Stiggy Honda,
Haslam hadn’t enjoyed a stellar 2009, fi nishing sixth on the year.
“By the end of the season, when funds were drying up with the
team, just to get in the top fi ve was a big result,” the Brit explains.
“Once you’d been battling for seconds and thirds and fi nishing
there, to accept fi fths and sixths … was quite tough.”
Haslam’s early release from the folded Stiggy team enabled
him to entertain offers from several squads, and he felt Alstare
offered the best package despite the trouble they’d experienced
in the last two seasons. Alstare boss Francis Batta saw enough
potential in Haslam’s extensive resume that they were anxious
to put a deal together.
What a difference half a year makes. Lounging in his rented mo-
tor home in the Miller pits, Leon is now a factory rider, and his de-
meanor resembles that of his predatory namesake: calm, in control,
and powerful. Haslam is king of his tarmac jungle.
“When you’re inside the paddock, you kind of know the
bikes, and the Suzuki always looked like a strong package,” he
explains. “It was a little bit unknown, especially coming into this
team. You never know how you’re going to go, and as it hap-
pened, it went really well.”
To partner with Haslam, Alstare hired Sylvain Guintoli. A for-
mer Grand Prix rider, the Frenchman had ridden a Worx Crescent
Suzuki well in last year’s British Superbike Series until another
racer took him out in an accident that left Guintoli’s leg badly bro-
ken below the knee. “I had twelve operations, and grafts,” Sylvain
says in Utah, grimacing at the memory. “It was not good at all. It
was a disaster. I didn’t know if I could race again.”
Though Sylvain’s confi dence had been down, his early suc-
cesses attracted the attention of Batta, who was looking for some-
one who could handle a GSX-R1000 at speed. Sylvain’s decision
was easier than Haslam’s. Given his situation, he thought it was a
joke when Alstare made contact; only a call from Batta convinced
him, and he accepted without hesitation.
Haslam meshed with the Suzuki machinery almost immediate-
ly. “Literally, at the end of the two-day test, I was less than a tenth
off the quickest time and, I think, 1.8 seconds quicker than Spies’
lap record,” Haslam says. “Straight away, I was quite happy.”
Bailly elaborates: “Now with Leon we get a very good rider.
He’s so good about the feedback. He feels very well the complete
bike—not only the chassis, but also the engine and electronics, so
it was a big help for us to improve the bike.”
Though not quite on Haslam’s pace, Guintoli also adapted
well, and during the season-opening round at Phillip Island, the
team furthered its claim as a series frontrunner. Leon landed both
his fi rst SBK pole position and fi rst victory in Race 1, while Guintoli
led much of the second outing before taking fourth.
REBIRTH
“Biaggi crashed!” Haslam yells. His normally calm voice carries
an excited edge as heads swivel to the team’s closed-circuit
television. Among those in the Alstare garage are Leon’s fi ancée,
Olivia, and his father, former Grand Prix racer Ron Haslam. Both
62
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Available at your local motorcycle parts and accessory dealer. For more information on Autolite, visit www.RKExcelAmerica.com
© 2010 Honeywell International Inc.
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license.
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00
64
attend every race; Ron typically circles
the track on a scooter, fi lming his son
and other riders for later analysis, while
Oli tends to Leon’s personal needs like
hydration and helmets. Leon benefi ts
greatly from their tireless presence.
The fi nal practice session before
qualifying is nearing its end, and Biaggi
(who rode for Alstare in 2007) has made
the fi rst major mistake of the weekend.
Fortunately, the Roman is okay, and al-
though Haslam’s crew has sorted out a
vibration issue, they’re now fi ghting a
problem with heavy mid-corner turn-in.
On the other side of the garage, Sylvain
had struggled early with inconsistency
under hard braking, but he seems to
have progressed through that. Still, nei-
ther rider is exactly where he’d like to be going into Superpole
1, and the team works in silence that’s interrupted only by the
occasional roar of an engine bouncing off its rev-limiter as a
bike exits the pits, reminding everyone of their competition.
Since that early success in Australia, Leon has ridden like a
champion, taking the points lead with two additional wins and six
podiums, then patiently extending it. Biaggi is equipped with the
grid’s fastest bike, the Alitalia Aprilia RSV-4, but although he has
been untouchable at some races, Haslam has remained close,
making Max fi ght for every point.
Sylvain, meanwhile, has struggled to repeat his race-leading
form, and that has been frustrating. “We were very surprised dur-
ing Phillip Island, because he did very beautiful races and now he
struggles a little bit,” Bailly says. “But we have confi dence.”
The team plays it close in the three-round qualifying system,
which rewards strategy, consistency, and outright speed. After a Su-
perpole 3 red fl ag prevents him from completing his best lap, Haslam
earns the fi rst spot on the second row, whereas Guintoli is eliminated
at the end of Superpole 2 when he comes up just .02 seconds short.
His pace is strong, but the class is so competitive that a miniscule
mistake can cost four places, which is exactly what happens. Biaggi
gets his hot lap in and will start from second position.
STUMBLING BLOCKS
Race day is also Haslam’s 27th birthday, and wanting only two
podiums as a gift, he pushes hard when the lights go out. His
Race 1 efforts are hampered when Jakub Smrz’s blown engine
lays down a smoke screen on lap one, but Leon battles forward
to a runner-up fi nish behind Biaggi. Race 2 is disastrous, as
Haslam crashes out while charging up from another bad start,
leaving Biaggi to march to a Utah double. Following a 30-point
turnaround for the day, Max now leads Leon by 15. Guintoli goes
8-6 on the day, retaining eleventh in points.
Miller has dealt a big blow to Alstare Suzuki, but as the team
heads into the season’s second half, members needn’t look far
for inspiration. Every champion faces setbacks during a title
campaign, and as Alstare itself has proven over the past few
months, the team is capable of running with anyone..
A crash at the USA
round proved costly
for Haslam, who lost
the series points
lead, but he’s deter-
mined to get back on
top over the second
half of the season.
ZE
EK
ZE
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EK
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66
There’s no debating that Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca has
a special place in Grand Prix history, particularly among
American racing fans. (Daytona International Speedway
and Indianapolis Motor Speedway have each hosted two
GPs, but when you think “United States Grand Prix,” you think
Laguna.) Since the world championship fi rst visited the track in
1988 (though interrupted in ’92 and by an eleven-year hiatus that
started in 1995), the circuit has seen some of the sport’s greatest
names battle it out on the most iconic motorcycles of their respec-
tive eras. From Eddie Lawson’s domination of the fi rst race aboard
Yamaha’s YZR500 through Nicky Hayden’s triumphant return to
the U.S. on the Honda RC211V and Valentino Rossi’s artful outwit-
ting of Casey Stoner on the Yamaha YZR-M1, Laguna has hosted
victories by the fi nest race bikes on the planet.
Yet even more than at most tracks, the rider plays a huge role
in success at Laguna. “It’s not so much the bike there,” Hayden
says. “Laguna is a real scrapper’s track.” That, coupled with the
backing of the local crowd, partly explains the predominance of
home winners in Monterey. “The place has a magical effect on
Americans,” suggests MotoGP technical guru Neil Spalding, refer-
ring to both the electric atmosphere and the all-important local
knowledge, which combine to create a potent brew.
Still, even scrappers need able machinery, and at Laguna
Seca, that means a motorcycle with agility and decent accelera-
tion. Here’s a guide to the machines that have won at Laguna, and
how those victories came about.
Over the eleven years that Laguna Seca
has hosted a Grand Prix, six motorcycles
have claimed the premier-class win.
Here’s how they did it
BY DAVID EMMETT
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& G
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Y Y
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OU
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Y H
ON
DA
YAMAHA YZR500
CAGIVA GP500
HONDA RC211V
DUCATI DESMOSEDICI
YAMAHA YZR-M1
HONDA RC212V
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67
GOLD & GOOSE
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68
One of two bikes (along with Honda’s NSR500) that heralded
the modern racing era, Yamaha’s YZR500, fi rst introduced in
’73, had attained around 165 horsepower when Eddie Lawson
topped Laguna’s fi rst Grand Prix in ’88. It touched 200 by the time
Luca Cadalora won in ’94 before the race took a long break.
The early models were inline fours, but the basis for the
Laguna-winning YZRs was a crankcase-reed-valve-induction
500cc V4 two-stroke. By ’88, the soon-to-be-iconic exhaust
routing had been introduced, with pipes from the rear cylinders
exiting underneath the tail, while those from the forward bank
went under the engine before exiting on
the right—hence the gull swingarm, with
the right side describing a graceful arc to
accommodate the expansion chambers.
The ’89 bike Wayne Rainey rode to
his first U.S. Grand Prix victory marked
the introduction of data recording. Com-
pared with today’s versions, the system was cumbersome and
delicate, with yards of requisite cables sometimes inadver-
tently acting as an antenna and scrambling data. Even retriev-
ing the information was problematic: “The team used to post
a couple of guys to keep everyone away from the truck,” vet-
eran GP journalist Dennis Noyes recalls. “Any sudden shocks
would cause the disks to crash and they’d lose all the data
There’s an argument to be made that of all the Grand Prix mo-
torcycles ever built, Cagiva’s were the most beautiful. “Like just
about anything built in Italy, they were sweet-looking,” remembers
Randy Mamola, who raced the GP500 from 1988 to ’90, giving
Cagiva its fi rst podium at Spa Francorchamps in ’88. “It just wasn’t
very fast. Like they say, ‘If it doesn’t go, chrome it!’”
Still, thanks in part to Mamola’s work on the C587 version, the
following iterations were better, and the C593 may have been the best
(and best-looking) of the bunch. There were whisperings of secret
support from Yamaha, a rumor strengthened by the fact that many of
the parts were interchangeable with the YZR500. The bike benefi ted
from Cagiva’s pioneering use of on-board diagnostics, and further
improvement came once Eddie Lawson signed on with the marque
in ’91. Lawson brought the motorcycle its fi rst victory, but that was
mainly by gambling on cut slicks in the restart-
ed wet race at the Hungaroring in ’92.
“If it wasn’t a place that needed a lot of
horsepower and it was more to do with the rider, the bike could
do pretty well,” Mamola explains, perfectly describing Laguna,
where the GP500 earned its fi rst dry-weather win in ’93. John
Kocinski had been dropped by Suzuki’s 250cc team earlier in the
season, and he was snapped up by Cagiva.
“Kocinski turned that team on its head,” Dennis Noyes re-
lates. “He came in after he was fi red and turned them around.”
they’d collected from the session.”
Despite the bike’s early reign at La-
guna (it won the fi rst four GPs), it was the
riders who made the difference. “Lawson
and Rainey dominated at the track,” Noy-
es recounts. “It was a lot more dangerous
back then, and the Europeans all turned up and were horrifi ed.”
The sixth-gear Turn 1 kink was bordered by a hillside, while Turn
6 had absolutely no runoff. The Corkscrew was still completely
blind, and fi nding the fast way down required ample practice, giv-
ing the U.S. riders an advantage. Inspired by their home crowds,
and aboard the most agile bike of the time, the American legends
were not to be denied.
Cagiva’s improvement notwithstand-
ing, the victory was down to Kocinski, who
fl ogged the C593 around Laguna like a man possessed, eager
to prove his talent and to exact revenge for a perceived slight
at the track during the previous Grand Prix there two years ear-
lier (John had crashed out of the ’91 250cc race and—infuriated
afterward—was arrested for reckless driving). Kocinski exorcised
many demons in his racing career, and September 12, 1993, at
Laguna was a prime example.
YAMAHA YZR500
CAGIVA GP500
1988: Eddie Lawson – YZR500 OW98
1989: Wayne Rainey – YZR500 OWA8
1990: Wayne Rainey – YZR500 OWC1
1991: Wayne Rainey – YZR500 OWC1
1994: Luca Cadalora – YZR500 OWF9
1993: John Kocinski – GP500 C593
GO
LD
& G
OO
SE
GO
LD
& G
OO
SE
WAYNE RAINEY
JOHN KOCINSKI
worldmags & avaxhomeworldmags & avaxhome
the bike—it just works,” he says.
How different the following year’s race
would be. Having been criticized for leading
the standings without winning races, Hayden was under pressure, and
the bike wasn’t cooperating at the track where his only win had come.
“Whatever we did that weekend, nothing really worked,” he explains.
“I really don’t even know how I won the race. It was one of the hardest
races. I was fi ghting the bike, but I just dug deep and suffered.”
69
Honda’s RC211V dominated and defi ned the 990cc era of
MotoGP. From ’02 through ’06, the bike won forty-eight of
the eighty-two Grand Prix rounds contested, often sweeping the
podium along the way. The bike’s genius was its engine, HRC
shrewdly exploiting the regulations allowing fi ve-cylinder ma-
chines to weigh the same as fours.
The three-forward-two-aft layout gave the bike an exception-
ally narrow waist and the rider great freedom of movement. The
75.5º V angle offered excellent primary balance, a compact pack-
age allowing mass centralization and room to route a straight inlet
tract (a problem with narrower angles).
The motor was almost turbine-like. “It was good off the bottom,
good on top,” Nicky Hayden says of the bike he rode from his ’03
rookie season to his ’06 championship year. “It just worked, for any
rider, any style.” If anything, the motorcycle on which Hayden scored
his debut Grand Prix win at Mazda Race-
way Laguna Seca in ’05 was the best of
the bunch. “The bike was just perfect,”
he recalls. “If I had to list where I had the
perfect bike for a perfect track, it just worked around there.”
Because the ’05 Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix was the MotoGP
platform’s debut at the track, Hayden also had the advantage of
local knowledge, as he used gearing data from his AMA days. “It
was one of them special weekends where you don’t really touch
Honda’s dominance of the 990cc era was expected to con-
tinue into ’07 with the introduction of the 800cc platform HRC
had backed. Those expectations were destroyed in the fi rst race
at Qatar, where Ducati’s fi rst 800cc version of the Desmosedici
blasted past other bikes on the straight, its 90º V4 engine pump-
ing out at least 15 more horsepower than its rivals. Whereas the
Japanese had presumed that the new platform would be about
250-style agility, Ducati engineering genius Filippo Preziosi un-
derstood that horsepower would be king.
Surprisingly, changes between the 990cc GP6 and the new GP7
were minimal, the bikes using the same front end and most of the
rear. The motorcycle featured a revised chassis to house the smaller
engine, but the biggest change was the switch from a tractable “big
bang” fi ring order to a standard “screamer” setup, which produced
more power but required signifi cant electronic
control, despite the fact that the engine was slight-
ly less over-square in order to retain some torque.
When the MotoGP circus alighted in California, Valentino Ros-
si hoped to claw back some of the points he’d lost at horsepower
tracks like Qatar, Shanghai, Istanbul, and Barcelona. Nobody be-
lieved the Ducati would work around Laguna’s tight layout, but
Casey Stoner would prove them wrong, being fastest in every
session and winning the race. “For me, the biggest thing was that
everybody was saying that the Ducati was only winning because
of its speed,” Stoner says. “It was
a nice feeling to win on that circuit,
where you can only get into fi fth gear.”
If anything, Stoner’s victory came despite the Ducati, rather
than because of it. “Our 2007 bike had no acceleration, and La-
guna’s an acceleration track,” the Australian explains. “You need
to be on the ball, because it’s just corner after corner after cor-
ner—there’s no rest, no breaks. It’s more about you being abso-
lutely focused, lap after lap.”
DUCATI DESMOSEDICI
2007: Casey Stoner – Desmosedici GP7
HONDA RC211V
2005: Nicky Hayden – RC211V “Original”
2006: Nicky Hayden – RC211V “Brno bike”N
OR
TH
CO
TT
CO
UR
TE
SY
DU
CA
TI
NICKY HAYDEN
CASEY STONER
worldmags & avaxhomeworldmags & avaxhome
70
“The fastest bike in a circle” is how Colin Edwards described
the 800cc YZR-M1 when it was introduced in ’07, but it
was being beaten on the straights. Yamaha’s 800 was amazingly
similar to its inline-four 990cc predecessor, both visually and
technically, as project leader Masao Furusawa’s focus was on
improving agility. After the humiliation of ’07, including Valentino
Rossi’s veiled threats of retirement, the ’08 M1 had more horse-
power, gained mainly through reduced internal friction.
Rossi had demanded Bridgestones, necessitating major
setup changes. To capitalize on the outstanding grip of the front
tire, crew chief Jerry Burgess moved the center of gravity back to
improve rear traction.
Laguna was one of the few tracks where The Doctor was still
winless, and he arrived having suffered three
straight defeats to Casey Stoner; he and Bur-
gess knew they had to stop the Australian. “It
was clearly a tactical race,” Burgess explains. “After qualifying, Wayne
Rainey and I discussed that Casey’s mindset was to be in the lead, in
control. What Casey hadn’t dealt with was the possibility of someone
being in front of him, so that was my message to Valentino.”
Burgess won’t reveal the setup changes made for the morn-
ing warm-up, saying only that they wanted enough acceleration
down the front straight that Rossi could keep ahead entering
Turn 2. Assuming he did that, the theory went, he could just
From the moment MotoGP switched to 800cc in ’07, HRC has
been a mere shadow of its former self, and Honda has argu-
ably brought it upon itself; as other manufacturers merely adapt-
ed their 990s, shrinking the engines and packaging things more
compactly, Honda introduced a brand-new machine.
Where the RC211V was a V5, its successor is a V4, housed in
a smaller chassis. When ’06 world champ Nicky Hayden saw the
motorcycle with which he was to defend his title, his reaction was
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” The bike was tiny, with a fairing
so minimal that the Repsol graphics had to be extended onto the
frame spars in order to fi t.
By last season, the bike had grown closer to accepted norms.
The fairing was broader and longer and the tail section larger,
providing better aerodynamics but sacrifi cing some agility. The
machine had gained pneumatic valves in ’08,
despite Dani Pedrosa’s protests that they
made throttle response too aggressive.
One characteristic remained, however: the RC212V’s launch
control was superlative, providing an advantage on starts. That
wasn’t all down to the bike, of course. “When you check the data,
Dani’s clutch control and throttle is absolutely spot-on,” Pedrosa
crew chief Mike Leitner says. “It’s perfect.”
Pedrosa’s trademark rocket getaway saw him grab the hole-
shot at Laguna, and as is often the case when the Spaniard starts
block Stoner in the tighter sections!
Vale had fi nished third in ’05 after trail-
ing Nicky Hayden and Edwards through the Corkscrew. “He got
a fi rst-class education by following two Laguna Seca experts
around,” Dennis Noyes says. Vale used that knowledge in ’08—
and added his own fl air, passing Stoner through the dirt in the
famous turn and blocking devastatingly to notch the win.
Despite his role in creating one of recent history’s greatest
races, Burgess is no fan of Laguna, saying, “It’s a nasty little race-
track with low gearing and high rpm, and no rest at all.”
in front, he was never seriously challenged.
“Dani made a big step in his riding during that
race,” Leitner says. “He understood very well that he had to man-
age the bike in the beginning and maintain his rhythm.”
Pedrosa may have been channeling Kocinski by exorcising
a ghost from the previous year’s U.S. Grand Prix, where he’d
shown up badly hurt from a Sachsenring crash and withdrawn
after just one practice session. Says Leitner, “I think it was a very
emotional ride from Dani, to go to Laguna and to do it.” X
YAMAHA YZR-M1
HONDA RC212V
2009: Dani Pedrosa – RC212V
2008: Valentino Rossi – YZR-M1
NO
RT
HC
OT
TN
OR
TH
CO
TT
VALENTINO ROSSI
DANI PEDROSA
worldmags & avaxhomeworldmags & avaxhome
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������;SHHG�+HOPHW��$OO�ULJKWV�UHVHUYHG�
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worldmags & avaxhomeworldmags & avaxhome
74
BY CHRIS JONNUM
PHOTOS COURTESY ALPINESTARS
With its Electronic Airbag Technology, Alpinestars puts a
modern spin on an old concept to improve rider safety
worldmags & avaxhomeworldmags & avaxhome
worldmags & avaxhomeworldmags & avaxhome
76
When you think about it, airbag and technology almost shouldn’t be
combined into one term. After all, using what is essentially a balloon to
cushion the body from impacts isn’t exactly revolutionary. It is effective,
however—air cushions enable stuntmen to avoid injury when falling from
tall buildings, and the National Highway Traffi c Safety Board estimates
that 18,000 drivers are alive today thanks to automobile airbags.
The tricky bit comes in fi tting a defl ated airbag on a motorcycle
rider, in detecting when that rider is about to crash, and in infl ating the
bag before impact—and the equipment that enables that to happen
successfully is defi nitely high-tech. Alpinestars is one company that
has been working hard in this area (Dainese is another), and they re-
cently unveiled their version at their U.S. offi ce in Torrance, California.
Alpinestars’ project started with the new millennium, and by the
2003 German Grand Prix, then-Suzuki-mounted John Hopkins was
wearing data acquisition equipment. Other MotoGP riders who’ve
been involved since include Jeremy McWilliams and Casey Stoner,
and it’s currently worn (not always in an armed state) by Mika Kallio,
Ben Spies, and Dani Pedrosa.
In the past, some companies built relatively crude motorcycle-
airbag prototypes that were triggered via a tether attached to the
bike, but this is impractical, particularly for racing. The current sys-
tem’s bags are deployed electronically.
The new, compact system involves two relatively small bags that are
contained inside the leathers and cover the rider’s shoulders and col-
larbones (a statistically high-injury area). Evolution to more or larger bags
would be straightforward, but in its current form, a racer can continue
in the unlikely event of an accidental deployment. The leathers contain
seven sensors at various points around the body, and the back hump
houses the rest of the system, including the batteries, a GPS, the pro-
cessor, and the nitrogen canisters that are used for infl ation (two canis-
ters are provided—following an initial crash, the system can reset itself
and remain functional in a second accident). The system adds a total of
500 grams to the weight of the otherwise standard Alpinestars suit.
Notwithstanding its impressive hardware, however, the system
earns its technological merit badge with its software. Engineers in-
vested countless hours acquiring data on exactly how the body re-
acts in an impending crash, and this information was eventually used
to create highly complex algorithms so that the system’s sensors
can instantaneously predict falls and deploy the airbags. (Electronic
technology has improved dramatically since the project was started,
enabling improvements in the system; Alpinestars collaborated with
the UK’s Cosworth Electronics.)
Before the system can be armed, it must confi rm that the rider is on
the bike, the bike’s engine is running, and that the bike is moving. Sen-
sors are able to do all of this; the GPS signal is not always guaranteed,
and its role is more to help with post-race analysis of data. Next, a clas-
sifi er begins looking for indicators of a crash, making a search every two
milliseconds. Exactly what these indicators are is proprietary information,
but they amount to a mathematical defi nition of a crash. Despite what
can seem like an impossible assignment (many riders know the sensation
of being so close to a crash it seemed inevitable, only to miraculously pull
off a save), Colin Ballantyne, Alpinestars’ lead engineer on the project,
insists that the system knows an impending fall when it sees it.
Nonetheless, the fi nding must be confi rmed before action is
taken, as the system features no fewer than six effective safety bar-
riers. When all the rechecking is done and the system is satisfi ed, a
post-classifi er gives the approval to fi re, and one of the canisters in-
fl ates the bags. All the data processing happens in only about eight
milliseconds, and the trigger-to-full-infl ation steps take .05 seconds.
Defl ation happens after fi ve seconds, though the bags aren’t fully
empty until about twenty-fi ve seconds have passed.
Though it’s still in prototype form, after a decade of development,
the Alpinestars’ Electronic Airbag Technology is almost ready for the
market. The track version is expected to launch around the middle of
next year, and retail price should be approximately $2,500 higher than a
standard suit. A road version could be ready in a couple of years. X
Jeremy McWilliams is one of the riders
who helped Alpinestars acquire data early on.
Alpinestars engineer Colin Ballantyne test-
deploys the airbag system on Mika Kallio..
The data-acquisition
equipment used in the
system’s development.
worldmags & avaxhomeworldmags & avaxhome
worldmags & avaxhomeworldmags & avaxhome
78
HERITAGE
America’s fi rst Grand Prix
champion, Kenny Roberts, in
action during the 1983 season.
worldmags & avaxhomeworldmags & avaxhome
79
HHERITAGE
This season’s pairing of Texans Colin
Edwards and Ben Spies on the Monster
Energy Yamaha Tech 3 team is a news-
worthy turn of events, but it’s certainly
not the fi rst time the premier Grand Prix class has
seen an all-American squad. Perhaps the most ex-
treme example came just three years ago, when
Kenny Roberts fi elded sons Kenny Jr. and Kurtis
for a single race on his ill-fated KR212s, at the ’07
Mugello Grand Prix (Kurtis rode just three laps on
his brother’s backup bike). In addition, Junior and
John Hopkins rode for Suzuki from ’03 to ’05, and
Roberts Sr. fi elded a longer-lived star-spangled ef-
fort, with Californians Randy Mamola and Mike
Baldwin aboard Lucky Strike-liveried Yamaha
YZR500s, in ’86 (see “Mamola” in this issue).
The class’ original team with an all-American
roster, however, raced in 1983. Once again, Roberts
was involved—this time as a racer, matched with
fellow Californian Eddie Lawson on the factory
Marlboro Yamaha Grand Prix effort. The parallels
between that outfi t and this year’s “Tex 3” team are
many. Like Spies, Lawson came into Grand Prix
racing with mainly superbike experience. Edwards,
meanwhile, is the veteran with the opportunity
to pass on his knowledge, much like Roberts did
twenty-seven years ago.
Like Edwards and Spies, Roberts and Lawson
came from the same state and shared a strong bond.
In fact, Roberts was even willing to put his job on
the line for Lawson. “I told Yamaha if they didn’t
bring Eddie over, then I wasn’t going to race,”
Roberts explains. “They didn’t want to hire him
because they had me and didn’t feel the need to go
to the expense of bringing Eddie over, but I knew
’83 was going to be my fi nal year, and I thought
Eddie had the talent to be world champion.”
Roberts thinks Spies has a lot in common with
Lawson, as both came into Grand Prix racing under
nearly ideal circumstances. “I brought Eddie over
and tried to make his transition to Grand Prix as
painless as possible,” he recalls. “The same thing
is happening with Spies. He’s coming in, obviously
with a lot of speed and talent, and he’ll be able to
bounce ideas off of Edwards and get the benefi t of
Colin’s experience. He’s also on a solid team, and
I think after a relatively short adjustment period,
Spies will make an impact in the series.”
The other similarity Roberts sees is Spies’ fo-
cus and commitment to training. “He’s very much
like Eddie in that regard,” Roberts says. “He seems
to be focused on what he’s doing, and as a result,
he’s not intimidated by going against the top riders
in the world.”
The addition of Lawson to the series brought
on a golden age of Grand Prix racing for American
riders, and that ’83 season was arguably the ze-
nith of U.S. domination. Freddie Spencer won the
world title by just two points over Roberts, with
Mamola and Lawson third and fourth, respectively.
It marked the fi rst sweep of the top four positions
in the premier class by a single country since 1963,
when Mike Hailwood led a fi ve-rider British con-
tingent that ruled the series.
Roberts isn’t sure that the U.S. can ever get
back to that kind of prominence in MotoGP, but
he thinks the next few years may provide the best
shot. “The Europeans saw what we were doing
with producing great riders in the 1970s and ’80s,
and they copied it and perfected it,” he claims.
“We still have the talent in America; it’s just with
the way the series is now, they really don’t get
seen. Even if Spies comes through and does well,
which I think he will, I’m not sure that will create
another mad rush to hire American riders like there
was in the 1980s. [Americans] just aren’t getting
the exposure they need to be in the minds of the
people who hire the talent.”
Roberts is rooting for the Americans in Mo-
toGP, as he’d like nothing better than to see a re-
vival of the domination the U.S. enjoyed twenty-
seven years ago. Whether or not that ever happens,
one thing’s for sure: he’s certainly done his part for
America’s success in Grand Prix racing.
Eddie Lawson (pictured
here in 1986) was teamed
with Roberts during his
rookie GP season.
With Colin Edwards and Ben Spies now teamed
together at Monster Yamaha Tech 3, we look back
at the original all-American Grand Prix squad
BY LARRY LAWRENCE
PHOTOS BY GOLD & GOOSE
worldmags & avaxhomeworldmags & avaxhome
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LE
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MS
The Road Racer X Audiovisual Review
In any country outside of France,
fans of endurance racing occupy
a niche among motorcycle enthu-
siasts, but what they lack in size
they more than make up for in en-
thusiasm—hence our inclusion of
this book produced by David Rey-
gondeau, the FIM World Endurance
Championship’s preeminent photog-
rapher. This overview of last year’s
six-race series includes interviews
with the managers of the champion-
ship-winning teams, profi les of the
Joey Dunlop DVD (Duke)
American ears will have a hard time with the idea that “bikies” can
be as intimidating as “bikers,” but it doesn’t take many pages of
Arthur Veno’s book on Australian outlaw motorcycle culture before
the unfamiliar word starts to shed its cute connotation. Billed as
“the defi nitive account of bikie culture in Australia,” Veno’s book
covers the evolution of outlaw bike clubs and delves into specif-
ics of rules, rituals, badges, violence, hierarchy, and more. There’s
interesting reading about members’ relationships with women—
wives, girlfriends, and otherwise—and in sections that examine
(and often debunk) commonly held views about how racism and
politics manifest in bikie culture. The most interesting parts are
the interview excerpts that appear every few pages, and the book
ROGER LEE HAYDEN
Team Pedercini Kawasaki
“OMG” Usher
“Got to Get It” Topic
“Rude Boy” Rihanna
“Not Afraid” Eminem
“The Climb” Miley Cyrus
LAUREL C. ALLEN
Road Racer X
“Peking Spring” Mission of Burma
“Someday I Will Treat You Good”
Sparklehorse
“North by North” The Bats
“(I Was Born In A) Laundromat”
Camper Van Beethoven
“Plateau” Meat Puppets
ANDREW WHEELER
AutomotoPhoto
“Conscience Killer”
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
“Tha” Aphex Twin
“Vuja De” The Orb
“Vamp” Trentemøller
“Advanced Night Repair”
The Pinker Tones
80
series’ top squads, plus thorough assessments of every round. Said
reviews comprise synopses and results, as well as photos and cap-
tions, and because the images are large and author Valerie Moreno’s
text is provided in both English and French, they’re pretty lengthy—
around fi fteen pages each. Really, though, what makes the 175-page
book are Reygondeau’s photos. Because of its quirky nature, endur-
ance racing affords opportunities for unique photography, including
subjects like headlight-equipped bikes racing at night, racers battling
in the yellow light of sunset and sunrise, dramatic pit stops, examples
of the team component in action, Le Mans starts, and partying fans.
(It also must be said that because of their length, races feature many
crashes.) The book costs 45 euros (about $56) plus shipping, and can
be had by emailing [email protected]. CJ
would be better served if Veno spent
more time letting the bikies speak for
themselves. Instead, he devotes a lot of
words to an apparent effort to establish
himself as a character on par with the
men he interviews—a theme that keeps
up throughout. A strong edit that took
the focus off Veno would’ve made this
a much better book, but for anyone in-
terested in biker/bikie culture, $17.95
will still pack a punch. Available through
www.amazon.com. LCA
What the Industry is Listening To
PLAYLIST
The Isle of Man TT has a hundred-year-
plus history, but it’s doubtful that any-
one will ever eclipse the mark left by
Joey Dunlop. This DVD pays homage
to “yer maun’s” legacy, with footage
from most of his Tourist Trophy ac-
complishments. (Unfortunately, there’s
no known video of Joey’s original vic-
tory at the 1977 Jubilee TT, but just
about everything else—from his sec-
ond win, three years later at the Clas-
sic TT, through his three wins at 48 in
2000—is included.) Jewels include Dunlop-narrated point-of-view
footage from before the days of mini cameras, divers fi shing mo-
torcycles out of the Irish Sea following a trawler shipwreck, and
Joey sneaking a smoke after another win. The various narrators’
British accents add charm, but ironically, soft-spoken Dunlop’s
Irish brogue can be nearly unintelligible to American ears. Such
a project was bound to stretch on, and at 207 minutes, it’s quite
extensive. Still, it’s hard to imagine what could’ve been trimmed.
Joey’s gone now, but this fi lm reminds us that, with twenty-six
victories in twenty-fi ve years and 100 races on the island, the Ul-
sterman will always be King of the Mountain. Available for $29.95
at www.dukevideousa.com. CJ
Endurance 2009: FIM World Championship Book (Editions Reygondeau)
The Brotherhoods: Inside the Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs Book (Allen & Unwin)
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There are two full-time riders on the
World Supersport grid with AMA Pro
backgrounds, and both are members
of the same team—Triumph’s ParkinGo/BE1-
sponsored squad. Both are also
nice guys with a lot of talent
and high aspirations, but that’s
about where the similarities
end, as we were reminded
while compiling this edi-
tion of 2 Tribes.
82
CHAZDAVIES
THRUXTON
JASONDiSALVO
BANTAM CLUB
BEST THING ABOUT HOME?
Chaz Davies: Three things, really:
family, Mom’s cooking, and we’ve got
the kart track there, so there’s always
something to do.
Jason DiSalvo: Probably seeing my
puppies.
YOUR COMPUTER’S DESKTOP?
CD: A computer-created, nice wooden
fl oor with lighting at the top.
JD: A picture of me ice-riding.
FAVORITE FOOD?
CD: Good Italian.
JD: Anything that my wife cooks.
FAVORITE TRACK?
CD: Laguna. It has character, and I
think part of it is whenever I fi rst started
watching Superbikes, you just get
everybody talking about the Corkscrew.
I always wanted to ride at Laguna, and
now that I do, I just get a good feeling
when I go there.
JD: Road Atlanta. I liked it better with
the old Turn 12, but it’s still so fast and
undulating, and the elevation [change] is
cool. It’s defi nitely a rider’s track.
EVER BEEN IN TROUBLE WITH THE
LAW?
CD: No, just speeding tickets.
JD: No, nothing serious outside of
speeding tickets. We’re quite good family
friends with a couple of state troopers, so
that helps.
BEST GIFT YOU EVER RECEIVED?
CD: My Garmin bicycle GPS, and I got
a full data system for my minibike off my
mom and dad for my 21st—a full data log-
ger with GPS and lap timing. I love any
gadgets.
JD: My wedding ring, because my wife
bought it for me. It looks like it’s tungsten
and carbon fi ber, but it’s a $35 special.
I told her to get the cheapest thing she
could fi nd, since it’s the meaning behind
it that matters, but it really is an awesome
ring as well.
TALENT YOU WISH YOU HAD?
CD: To be better at musical instru-
ments—drums. I get on okay at Rock
Band, but that’s about as good as it gets.
JD: I kind of wish I was a little bit more
artistic.
SOMETHING UNIQUE ABOUT YOUR
HOMETOWN?
CD: Apparently there are seven famous
tapestries in the world, and they man-
aged to fi nd four. It just happened that
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one was hanging in a church in Prest-
eigne [in Wales] and it’s hundreds of
years old. It’s priceless.
JD: In Stafford, there’s the best-in-the-
world prime rib steakhouse. People
come from hundreds of miles away just
to eat there. It’s called the Red Oiser.
FAVORITE DRINK?
CD: Monster.
JD: I’ve grown pretty fond of European
coffee. My dad has an espresso machine
I never used to use, but lately I’ve been
fi ring it up every time I come home.
LAST BOOK YOU READ?
CD: Probably Tour de Force, a book on
the Tour de France. That was the second
time I read it.
JD: I usually read a lot of science-
fiction/fantasy, but I started reading
Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy. I
just finished the second one, and it’s
phenomenal.
FAVORITE STORE?
CD: Apple Store.
JD: Probably GameStop.
FAVORITE SPORTS TEAM?
CD: I don’t really have one. There’s a
few cycling teams I like, but I don’t follow
football or sports.
JD: Buffalo Sabres, the professional
hockey team.
LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED
TWICE?
CD: I watched Saving Private Ryan again
the other day.
JD: The Boondock Saints 2.
YOUR HERO?
CD: Lance Armstrong.
JD: Freddie Spencer. Winning both
the 250 and 500 championships in the
same year is unbelievable to this day.
FAVORITE WAY TO TRAIN?
CD: Probably relaxed riding at
home—Supermoto or motocross.
Sometimes I go out with a purpose,
but there’s also days when I go out
just to mess around and I don’t really
care what my lap times are.
JD: I would’ve said cycling if you’d
asked four months ago, but now I’m
going to have to go with running. I
didn’t have a bicycle the fi rst three
months of this season, so I had to
resort to running. The more I did it,
the more I enjoyed it.
83
YOUR BEST TROPHY?
CD: The Daytona one’s pretty special.
JD: From the 600 Supersport race at
Daytona in ’04. The trophy is nice, but there
was a nice bonus tied to that one too!
FAVORITE PLACE IN THE WORLD?
CD: Home.
JD: Wherever I’m currently calling home.
CRAPPIEST CAR YOU’VE OWNED?
CD: The fi rst car. It was a Mercedes A-
Class, and it’s got the Mercedes name, but
whatever’s inside it is fairly Chinese-quality.
The electronics are terrible on it. It’s just
sitting there and the windows are down
because they won’t go back up now.
JD: The car we currently own in Europe.
It’s a Citroen Picasso.
WORST PLACE IN THE WORLD?
CD: Motegi. I got bad food poisoning there,
so all I have is bad memories of Motegi.
JD: Economy class on an airplane during
the fourteenth hour of a fi fteen-hour fl ight.
EVER BEEN IN A FIGHT?
CD: No. I came close in school but never
actually got down to it.
JD: Not since middle school.
WHICH ACTOR WOULD PLAY YOU
IN A MOVIE?
CD: I’ve been told I look like Owen Wil-
son a little bit, so I’ll say him.
JD: Tom Cruise.
EVER HAD A REAL JOB?
CD: No, but I worked on the kart track a
little bit.
JD: No, not yet!
WORDS TO LIVE BY?
CD: You get out of life what you put into it.
JD: Keep moving forward.
CHAZ DAVIES
JASON DiSALVO
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PETERCLIFFORD
Paddock Pundit
By Laurel C. Allen
Peter Clifford cofounded the World Championship Motorsports (WCM)
team with Bob MacLean in 1992. That effort fi elded riders including Luca
Cadalora, Troy Corser, John Hopkins, Noriyuki Haga, and Garry McCoy
and evolved into the Grand Prix-winning Red Bull Yamaha WCM team
in ’97. Clifford’s relationship with Red Bull has continued to this day; he
currently serves as press offi cer for the Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup.
RRX: What are your thoughts on the proposed 2012 liter-bike rule?
Peter Clifford: I think the return to 1000cc is good—or rather, the
change to 800cc made no sense. That was a knee-jerk reaction to Dai-
jiro Kato’s tragic crash, but even for that reason it never made sense.
Was Kato’s crash really caused by too much horsepower? “Cubes” are
the most cost-effective way of making horsepower. If we banned the
electronics, then tire performance and rider skill would restrict its levels
and the liter bikes would be great. Unfortunately, the manufacturers
have no intention of allowing the banning of the electronics. They have
too much invested in it.
WCM was once rapped on the knuckles for using parts derived
from an R1. Is it strange to see organizers actually implementing
those same parts now as a platform?
For the 2003 season, WCM was forced to make its own MotoGP
bike—there simply were no factory bikes available. A race team mak-
ing its own bike is madness, but it was either that or stay home. The
fact that we started the year with an engine that still included a very
few parts of an R1 engine was just a function of the time we had to do
the build…. [Not being allowed to race] had nothing to do with the
sport or the other GP teams, who gave us great support. It was just
politics and money.
The situation has not changed that much. There are even fewer fac-
tory bikes available now, and fi nally it has dawned [on organizers] that
a modifi cation of the regulations to allow the use of production engines
might be a good idea. The only thing that’s changed is that the president
of the FIM is now Vito Ippolito, whereas back when we had trouble the
president was Francesco Zerbi. It remains to be seen if the contract the
World Superbike promoters signed with Zerbi holds up in the same way
under Ippolito, who may wish to see it interpreted differently.
Do you think that platform would be a more tenable model for a
private team than leasing a factory 800?
The most important difference is not the capacity, as the factories will
abandon their gentleman’s agreement and build liter bikes themselves;
the important thing is that if you build your own bike, you own it and
can run it for a number of seasons. With the lease deal, you have nothing
at the end of the year.
A production-engine rule would allow a great many more teams to
get involved in the MotoGP class. In theory, at least, you could have
completely full grids, as there are currently in the Moto2 class—al-
though there’s a very signifi cant difference, in that with a non-factory
engine, you’re not going to be racing for a top-six fi nish. And it will
still not be cheap. MotoGP teams sell their sponsors on the idea that
they’re racing factory bikes so that if the gods favor them with rather
special circumstances—Donington 2009 [a wet race in which satellite
riders Colin Edwards and Randy de Puniet fi nished second and third,
respectively]—they can get on the podium. With a non-factory bike,
that’s going to be a harder sell.
Can satellite teams ever be competitive with the factories?
A private team is never going to be competitive with the factories. The
factories make the rules through the MSMA, and they will make sure no
one challenges their superiority. The non-factory teams are there simply
as support players: the chorus that fi lls the stage, never to take the lime-
light. Keeping them in this background position is fi rstly ensured by the
factories’ domination of the electronics, but even if that’s overcome,
they have the budgets to ensure that no one else comes close either
technically or in the rider market.
Unfortunately, the factory budgets are doubly important because
they so devalue the MotoGP sponsorship market that no one else is
able to raise real-world fi nance to mount a signifi cant effort. When the
factories give away their own team-naming rights for a few hundred
thousand dollars, why should any sponsor stump up the many millions
that it would cost to seriously challenge them with an independent ef-
fort? The factories do have limitations and vulnerabilities, but it takes a
very special, sustained effort to exploit them.
What are your plans for the future?
Hopefully, the Rookies Cup will continue for many years. Apart from
that, I’d be very interested to be involved in almost any aspect of Grand
Prix racing. Despite the fact that the regulations are unfortunately be-
coming more and more restrictive, there’s a lot of engineering to be
done. In some respects, the more restrictive the regulations, the greater
the technical challenge to circumvent those restrictions, so stepping up
to that would be a very welcome proposition. X
84
Peter Clifford with then-WCM rider Garry McCoy in 2000.
CO
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MIKEMURPHY
Murph the “Mechanager”By CJ
Building a career with motorcycles can require fl exibility, and few
people embody that truism more than Mike “Murph” Murphy. The
owner, secretary, and janitor of Syndicate Motorsport Management,
the Californian can be found in road race paddocks all over the
world, from MotoGP to World Superbike to AMA Pro. We ran into him
at Miller Motorsports Park.
RRX: You’ve got a pretty varied background.
Mike Murphy: [Laughs] It’s been a pretty circuitous route to here. I
graduated from UC Santa Cruz in ’95, went to MMI, and fi nished in
’96. I worked in a race shop in Phoenix and dabbled a little bit in CCS
Southwest and realized I had no talent when it came to motorcycles. I
moved back to California and ran a Honda/Ducati dealership in Sunny-
vale for about two and a half years. I was doing really well fi nancially,
but I came to the point where I realized I wanted to do more. Toward
the end of that tenure, Ducati sent me to Valencia for the end-of-year
race. I saw that and was pretty astounded, and on the fl ight home I told
a friend that I was going to fi gure out a way to come back to Europe and
get a job in GPs. Eighteen months later I was driving mo-
tor homes for [Jeremy] McWilliams and IRTA. Then I was
doing hospitality areas for Red Bull and Rizla Suzuki. The
reality is, that was probably the best job I ever had in the
paddock, because I was done working Thursday night—
Friday, Saturday, and Sunday I watched racing. I basically
got to tour around Europe on somebody else’s dime.
How did you transition into rider management?
In ’07, I was supposed to drive McWilliams’ motor home
again and help out Ilmor with their media and PR. We got
to Jerez for the fi rst European round and the team basi-
cally folded. I fl ew back to California and Puma contacted
me and asked about fi nding some AMA road racers to in-
troduce their boot to the U.S. market. I recruited Danny
Eslick and Blake Young and some of the young guys and
kind of reestablished myself in the AMA. Then it just sort
of happened that people started asking me to help out with
this or that or to look at a contract. The guys at Hardcard,
Andy Leisner and John Farris, were starting their manage-
ment business. At the time, they were more negotiating be-
tween tracks and promoters, but they asked me to start up
a rider-management part of it. When the economy started
getting shaky, we came to the mutual agreement that I’d
start Syndicate Motorsport Management, and they focused
more on behind-the-scenes stuff, apart from doing a great
job representing Ashley Fiolek in motocross.
What are the pluses and minuses of the job?
They’re not mutually exclusive. One of the best parts is
traveling and meeting new people and seeing new cultures,
seeing things from a different view. But at the same time,
sixteen hours from San Francisco to Dubai isn’t very fun.
How badly did the economy affect you?
When a rider manager makes a percentage of what a rid-
er’s earning and so many riders really aren’t making any
money—or they’re having to bring money to the deal—10
or 15 percent of nothing is nothing. It’s affected me like
everybody else, but since I kept my overhead low, I’m not
worried about paying my mortgage or anything like that. In
the AMA paddock, three or four years ago, you saw all sorts of people
coming in as rider managers and a lot of them have fallen by the way-
side. They heard about $4 million deals and fi gured they were going to
grab some of that, but those deals are really the exception to the rule.
You’re kind of a one-man show at your company.
The biggest thing with being a rider manager is having the relation-
ship with your rider. I never want to have to call a rider and tell him,
“My secretary screwed this up” or “My partner screwed this up.”
Whatever happens—good or bad—I can look them in the eye and say,
“I did that.” But it’s taken on a whole new meaning this year. With
Anthony West riding for the MZ team in Moto2, maybe a week and a
half before the season, some of the funding that appeared to be a slam-
dunk didn’t come through. They weren’t able to hire some people, so
I volunteered to help out with whatever they needed. I showed up in
Qatar, and we were truly a skeleton crew. I hadn’t turned a wrench on
a race bike in ten or twelve years, and now I’m neck-deep in it, pull-
ing those control motors and putting them back in! Luckily, you don’t
forget how to do that. X
86
CJ
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AXO TOURING JACKETS AND PANTS
What It Is: Already well known in Europe and the motocross industry here, AXO is currently expanding
its street presence in the United States, and its newest stateside offering is the Touring line of pants and
jackets. The TT Zero Jacket and TK Evo Pants represent the pinnacle of that lineup and are equipped
with removable, refl ective-aluminum quilted liners and a locking system that joins pants and jacket.
More affordably priced, yet still handsomely appointed, is the Mistral jacket-pant combination. Both
sets are constructed of high-tenacity polymide fabric and feature a Watertech waterproof membrane.
Details: Offered only in black; jacket sizes M-4XL and pant sizes 30-44.
YOSHIMURA RS-4 EXHAUST
What it is: Supermoto riders, this one’s for you. Made in a wide variety of applications for Suzuki and
Honda 250cc and 450cc dirt bikes, the Yoshimura RS-4 full exhaust system is a prime example
of the effort and expense Yoshimura puts into the testing and development of its products, both
on the test bench and through its extensive and diverse racing endeavors. The RS-4 exhaust
system features a polyresonant Duplex Chamber, a two-stage stepped baffl e, full titanium
construction, and your choice of an aluminum, titanium, or carbon-fi ber muffl er design. All
confi gurations come with a carbon-fi ber tip.
Online: www.yoshimura.com /// Price: $945-$995
LP USA Lightworks IS available TO PURCHASE at your dealer
OR bu y online at WWW.LOCKHARTPHILLIPSUSA.COM
Call for more details 800-221-7291
The Brightest Ideas in Sportbike Lighting!
The Sportbike Connection
Be seen on the street and make a scene at bike night. LightWorks offer over 1,000 lighting applications to customize your sportbike.
From: $39.95
AERO LENS
From: $34.95
BLOCK OFF LED
From: $25.95 From: $39.95
APEX LED
From: $39.95
RAZOR LED
From: $14.95
From: $19.95
FLUSH MOUNTS
From: $39.95
BRACKET LED
From: 21.95
SCOOP
From: $39.95
BLINKER TAIL LIGHTS
From: $79.95
AFTERBURNER TAIL LIGHTS
From: $79.95
SHORT STALK FILAMENT SPIKE LITE FASTENERS08-09 ZX10R FLUSH MOUNT
Online: www.axo.com /// Price: $149.99-$299.99
Details: Go online to view specifi c applications. For noise considerations, 94 and 99 dB inserts are available.
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Valentino Rossi Nicky Hayden2009 Red Bull Indianapolis GP
Log on to: imstix.brickyard.com/promotions
and enter RRX10GP in the package promotional code box or call (866) 221-8775
The Indianapolis Motor Speedway would like to invite
all Road Racer X subscribers and their families to come
experience the 2010 Red Bull Indianapolis GP. As a
subscriber of Road Racer X, the Indianapolis Motor
Speedway is offering you this special ticket package*:
> 3-day ticket in the Southwest Vista
> 1 Red Bull Indianapolis GP official event program
> 1 Indianapolis Motor Speedway cinch bag
> Free motorcycle parking pass
> Track lap on your personal motorcycle (limited time offer)**
> One-time 10% savings at participating IMS retail locations
A $142 value for only $95!
August 27-29, 2010
Attention all Road Racer X subscribers!
*Valid for new purchases only. **Date and time TBD.If you are interested in tickets in other grandstands or a race day ONLY ticket, let us know as we may be able to accommodate your request.
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VENDOR ROW
AD INDEXAkrapovic 21 www.akrapovic-exhaust.com
Alpinestars 2 310-891-0222 www.alpinestars.com
AMA 37 www.ama-cycle.org
American Suzuki Accessories 85 www.suzukicycles.com
Amsoil 24 800-777-8491 www.amsoil.com
Arrow Special Parts 43 www.arrow.it
Athena 77 608-339-9795 www.athenausa.org
Autolite 63 www.rkexcelamerica.com
Bazzaz Performance 89 909-628-8616 www.bazzazperformance.com
Braking 45 937-743-9049 www.brakingusa.com
Bridgestone 18 www.bridgestonemotorcycletires.com
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Catalyst Racing Composites 95 760-510-9799 www.catalystracingcomposites.com
Chickenhawk Racing 94 866-HOT-TIRE www.chickenhawkracing.com
Cycle Parts Nation 94 269-381-5800 www.cyclepartsnation.com
Dainese 100 www.dainese.com
Drive Systems 49 714-379-9040 www.drivesystemsusa.com
Ducati 31 www.ducati.com
Dunlop 12 800-845-8378 www.dunlopmotorcycle.com
EBC Brakes 87 www.ebcbrakes.com
FMF 11 310-631-4FMF www.fmfracing.com
Hot Bodies 32 858-486-3838 www.hotbodiesracing.com
Joe Rocket 27 800-635-6103 www.joerocket.com
K&N Engineering 51 800-858-3333 www.knfi lters.com
KTM 29 www.ktm.com
Leo Vince 53 888-610-4242 www.leovinceusa.com
Lockhart Phillips 90 949-498-9090 www.lockhartphillips.com
Maxima 81 619-449-5000 www.maximausa.com
Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca 97 800-327-SECA www.laguna-seca.com
Motion Pro 45 650-594-9600 www.motionpro.com
Motorex 57 805-658-0900 www.motorex.com
Motosport 72 866-677-7338 www.motosport.com
National Guard 35 www.nationalguard.com
Pilot USA 95 800-299-9651 www.pilotusa.com
Pit Bull 94 877-533-1977 www.pit-bull.com
Pro Grip 59 800-461-1226 www.progrip.com
Racer X Brand 10 304-284-0080 www.racerxbrand.com
Red Bull Indianapolis GP 92 800-822-INDY www.redbullindianapolisgp.com
RK Excel 15 www.rkexcelamerica.com
Road Racer X Subscribe 35 800-406-5420 www.roadracerx.com
Scorpion Sports 98 888-672-6774 www.scorpionusa.com
Silkolene 65 817-581-8616 www.silkoleneusa.com
Suomy 23 800-524-9938 www.suomy-usa.com
Supersprox 95 317-640-2942 www.supersproxusa.com
Troy Lee Designs 9 951-371-5219 www.troyleedesigns.com
VIR International Speedway 95 434-822-7700 www.VIRnow.com
Vortex 75 877-437-2237 www.vortexracing.com
Xpeed 71 714-256-4180 www.xpeedhelmet.com
Yamaha Motor Corp. 6 800-88-YAMAHA www.yamaha-motor.com
Zero Gravity 63 800-345-9791 www.zerogravity-racing.com
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VENDOR ROW
SAVEUP TO 40% OFF
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Quality You Can Afford » Bodywork for Race and Street
AMA Legal in
All Classes
09-10 Suzuki GSXR 1000
09-10 Aprilia RSV4
catalystracingcomposites.com
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96
I made this photograph of Kenny Roberts at the Champion Spark Plug 200 event, and with the Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix coming back
around at the same track, it’s nice to check it out again. The race ended up being between Roberts and Randy Mamola, and it was a
nonstop wheelie contest that’s currently a YouTube classic! At that time, with just a general-admission ticket, you were allowed in the pits,
where you could be standing next to your favorite racer. It was really exciting being in the pits, so close to the riders and listening to the
two-stroke engines!
My goal was to get a great image of Roberts, so I waited until he exited his pit area, and then I stepped forward to fi ll my frame. I
like using a slower shutter speed in order to capture movement. Here, that setting enabled me to show the Yamaha moving slightly and
Roberts’ hand letting the clutch out, yet his face is still sharp because I was panning my camera at the same time. I’m very happy with
this image—I call it a moving portrait of the King. I think it’s a classic, if I may say so myself!
By Eduardo Soler
When: July 14, 1985
Where: Laguna Seca Raceway; Monterey, CA
How: Nikon FM2 body, 50mm macro lens; 1/30 sec. @ f8; Kodak Ektachrome 64 fi lm
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