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Moto blog

Bahrain track days

A few months ago, expat (and ex racer) John Beddall made contact to ask if I fancied doing some track day instruction out in Bahrain.  After thinking about it for two seconds, flights were booked and a plan was put in place to look after around forty riders for a day at the Bahrain International Circuit (BIC).  Young Taylor Mac was also recruited to look after any tasty riders that I couldn’t deal with   The Brits out there love their bikes, however, quite a few locals also turned up plus a few others from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar.  Most were on high end Superbikes, like S1000s, Panigales and RSV4s but there was also a healthy number R6s and new 675Rs.   Although this fabulous Hermann Tilke designed circuit is around ten years old incredibly it has never hosted a bike race.  The highlight of the year there is F1 but being owned by the Bahrainian Royal family, there is no desperate need for the circuit to operate as a profitable business.  The track reminded me of Qatar but much more interesting as some great undulations have been built into its desert location. We shared the track with Supercars on the day (20mins on/20mins off) and as you might imagine it was betty swollocks for seven hours in the 30 plus temperatures.  As usual there was a few offs with poor old RS1000 Aprilia mounted Andy breaking his femur early in the day.  Two other buddies appeared to swap bikes mid air in another incident but fortunately escaped unhurt.In the evening everyone stayed for an al fresco dinner in the paddock with the craic going on for hours as the Fosters kept flowing.   All in all it was a brilliant trip and it has left me thinking there could be cost effective ways of getting Brits out there for track days next winter.  I'll keep you posted.Cape Town next to make my racing comeback at the Killarney 8 hour on a CBR150 Honda.  Hopefully I can manage the beast, I'll post a full report next week.

EICMA 2013: Aprilia To Enter MotoGP In 2016

Amidst all of the uncertainty with the future of Aprilia’s racing plans, Roberto Colaninno, chairman of the Piaggio Group, which owns Aprilia, confirmed Tuesday at EICMA that the brand was in fact making a full-fledged return to MotoGP in 2016 as a factory team. Colaninno was quoted as saying, “In 2016 Aprilia will return to MotoGP to win and match the success it had in [World] Superbikes.” Aprilia has been going through some turmoil of late when it was announced that technical director Luigi Dall’Igna was jumping ship to rival Ducati. This announcement aims to quell the turmoil and refocus the racing team’s attention.

WSBK 2013: Donington Park Race Report

Tom Sykes had an outstanding weekend in front of his home fans, scoring a pair of wins at the World Superbike Championship round at the United Kingdom’s Donington Park. The Kawasaki racer led every session from first qualifying onwards, before leading all 23 laps in both races for the double. The double victory brings Sykes to within 4 points of series leader Sylvain Guintoli who had a decent weekend himself with a pair of podium finishes.