During the planet’s toughest race you can expect virtually anything to happen, including risking falling with your bike into a tomb. This is almost what happened to Swedish Dakar competitor Annie See, who was trying to avoid dust and cut from right over to the left side of the track while traversing a track split. She suddenly found herself riding into a 16-foot deep vertical tomb, so she applied the “abandon ship” procedure and left the bike to rest in piece at the bottom of the tomb. But not for long as it was later recovered using a helicopter and the rider was able to continue the race. Watch the video after the jump.
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After Nicky Hayden leaked a shot of the Ducati GP10 just before Christmas, Ducati went on and officially unveiled their MotoGP racing motorcycle this week in Italy. As a result of the bike’s new big-bang firing order, more traction and wheelie-control electronics, Casey Stoner says it is "a lot smoother on the throttle, it’s got a lot more bottom end. It’ll wheelie a lot less and just have so much more traction."
Although other details aren’t mentioned, we’re happy to see the two Ducati riders so enthusiastic about their new bike and the upcoming 2010 MotoGP season. Please watch the Ducati GP10 launch videos after the jump.
At the 14th snow sculpture competition held in Selva di Val Gardena, Italy, visitors got the chance to see “The Doctor” doing what it knows best despite the freezing temperatures outside.
This Valentino Rossi snow sculpture was created by snow artist Samuel Perathoner and brought him first place as the theme was "International Sports Personalities". The best part is that second place went to the creator of another Rossi sculpture, Matthias Kostner, which really shows how much Italians love their MotoGP star.
After almost 10 years away from racing, Bimota has turned plans into facts and came up with the Moto2 racer. This follows last February’s announcement that they’ll be joining Moto2 series as a racing team or at least as a chassis designer. The thing is that we are weeks away from the racing bike’s official unveiling and yet we have the opportunity to see the thing being tested on the Binetto race track near Bari, Italy in this leaked video that came to clear things for us. Goooo Bimooootaaa!
Here at Top Speed we can’t get enough of watching car vs motorcycle videos and after seeing a few, this particular one in which a Ducati 1098S challenges Nissan Skyline GTR around Cadwell Park circuit caught our attention. I put my money on the bike.
The word is out that in 2010 Mavizen could join TTXGP with their TTX02 electric motorcycle unveiled at the SEMA show in Las Vegas and with the bike’s RC8 chassis and approximately 100 hp Agni 95 electric motors, the team should stand a chance against the stiffer and stiffer competition. The 130 mph electric supersport motorcycle’s low speed battery management system was recently tested, so we got our hands on the detailed pictures and video made there. Enjoy!
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World Supercross Champion James ‘Bubba’ Stewart has recently presented his house and several garages at MTV’s Cribs. Yamaha’s rider may be a lot of time away for the races, but when he’s home, he sure doesn’t lack comfort and bikes to ride. James even has his own track to practice on and a Segway to help him cover the immense yard. Hmm, I wonder what he expects Santa to bring him…
There’s a reason why manufacturers usually ban all cellphones from their R&D facilities and Ducati may have just learned their lesson after Marlboro Ducati rider Nicky Hayden took an iPhone shot of the 2010 Desmosedici GP10 MotoGP bike when recently visiting the Ducati factory.
Ouch, that surely ruined someone’s day, but not entirely as the photo only reveals larger vents in the side fairing. The change enhances engine cooling and helps Ducati meet MotoGP regulations, which for 2010 say that no more than 6 engines must last all 18 races. That apart, the bike doesn’t look much different from its predecessor, but we still have to wait long for the official unveiling and thank Nicky Hayden for this unexpected preamble.
We usually don’t like rumors, but when we heard that Derbi has most likely built an all electric race version of their GPR 125, we dug more into the subject and came to find that the so-called rumor is actually supported by a video posted on Youtube by Sevcon, a UK based manufacturer of electrical equipment. According to the source of the video, this is Derbi’s all-new electric bike which uses a controller supplied by Sevcon.
Seen in the mysterious video is the full bike called the Derbi GPR EV being unveiled and tested at Parc Motor De Castelloli in Barcelona, Spain. To us, this looks like the latest open class TTXGP competitor, but there’s no official word about it yet, so we’re only left with seeing the bike in action until new information. The video is attached after the break.
