Innholdsfortegnelse for Vol 66 Issue 22 i Australian Motorcycle News

EARLIER THIS YEAR we revealed the convincing plans from Chinese newcomers Motrac to produce a range of 400cc and 500cc parallel-twin roadsters and adventure bikes (AMCN Vol 66 No 13). While the firm has already launched the MT400 roadster and the MG500 adventure tourer, it also showed a concept bike combining the larger engine with the on-road approach of the MT model, and new design patents reveal the production version is pretty close to what we saw. Changes include a switch from wire wheels to more sensible cast alloys, as well as different forks and brakes. Notably, ABS – vital if the firm hopes to sell the bike in Europe – has made an appearance. The frame is basically the same with a cast-alloy rear section and tubular front end,…

REPSOL HONDA’S DANI Pedrosa was overcome with emotion as he stood on the top step of the podium of what was the 3000th motorcycle Grand Prix. The very first world championship race occurred on Monday 13 June 1949 at the Isle of Man. It was a 350cc GP won by British racer Freddie Frith riding a Velocette. The 1000th Grand Prix was the 50cc race at the West Germany Grand Prix in Hockenheim in 1975; a race won by the legendary Ángel Nieto on board Kreidler machinery. The 2000th Grand Prix was won during the legendary two-stroke Grand Prix era by our very own Mick Doohan. The Aussie crossed the finish line first at Suzuka in the 500cc race during the 1997 Japanese Grand Prix. Pedrosa, who claimed his 53rd…

App: ROAD TRIP Suits: Number-loving nerdy types Price: $10.99 (iOS only) To be clear, the Road Trip app is aimed at passenger vehicles, but it’s comprehensive nonetheless. As well as tracking things like your journey, time, speed and various associated statistics, it will keep a record of your fuel consumption at specific sections of your ride, breaking down the areas where you use more or less. It’ll keep your bike’s servicing and repair logs, it can track your expenses and break them down into a cost-per-day figure, and even tell you what your trip is costing per kilometre. App: TRACKADDICT Suits: Trackday junkies Price: $13.99 (Pro) What was once a printed photograph of Eastern Creek’s Turn 2 or Phillip Island’s Lukey Heights is now a full-colour Point of View video…

AceBK What an excellent event! I rode up from Melbourne to Glenrowan by a circuitous route on Saturday and spent all day at the Winton Raceway on Sunday. The program was full and the racing was excellent in all classes, either as display of speed and skill or because it was tightly fought. Some of the highlights for me were: Wayne Maxwell. What a performance. He was unbeatable, but gave us the pleasure of seeing him work for it. Mark Chiodo. The Triumph 675 on the throttle at full lean through Turn 3 and 4 sounded and looked awesome. GP Junior Cup. Close racing and constant position changing. One rider was so small he looked like he was riding a Boss Hoss racer. Chris, I’m sorry you came a cropper…

The engine produces a guttural growl like a 1950s muscle car Servicing First service 800km Service intervals every 8000km thereafter. Rider comfort is top class, and what Indian Chief wouldn't be happy with those tassles? Big Nissin brakes with ABS had great feel but could do with more bite up front Not for the ‘warp speed’ tourer, this is a cruising bike with endless style, from the swept-back bars to the 16-inch white-walls IF EVER A bike deserved to have a movie made about it, it’s the Indian Chief Vintage. ‘Epic’ is my one-word description. This bike features tasteful old-school design cues, beautifully matched colours and faultless workmanship. I don’t think I have ever had so many photo requests from complete strangers in a two-week period. While the 2017 Chief…

On a millisecond-by-millisecond basis, the electronic suspension ironed out an uneven road surface WE LIKE TO CALL it a supernaked, but BMW prefers the term ‘roadster’. Either way, it’s a fantastic stripped-down adaptation of the fully faired S1000RR sportsbike that can be ridden daily. For 2017, there are two models of the S1000R: Standard ($19,390 +ORC) and Sport ($21,690 +ORC). Distinguishing the two models is as easy as looking at the fork legs. The Sport model has the electronic Dynamic Damping Control (DDC) suspension, while the standard model has fully adjustable Sachs suspension with a good old manual clicker. But the full list of differences goes much deeper than that. The 2017 Standard R has two riding modes, Rain and Road, as well as Race ABS and Automatic Stability Control…

YOU KNOW THE old saying, when you’re on a good thing? Well, the S1000XR is a great thing, and that’s why the 2017 version remains relatively unchanged from the model first released in 2015. Like the rest of BMW’s 2017 range, its four-cylinder S1000R-derived 999cc engine is now Euro 4 compliant. Reversing the trend of recent Euro 4 upgrades, however, the XR has gained power, with output increased by 3kW to 121kW at 11,000rpm. Torque remains unchanged at 114Nm. New colour schemes are also available, including the pictured Ocean Blue metallic matte. Additionally, BMW has altered the fuel mapping on its entire range of 2017 models, which will now happily run on 91 octane unleaded fuel. The S1000XR will retail for $22,190 (+ORC). specs BMW S1000XR ENGINE Configuration In-line four…

Cheap racing – now there’s an oxymoron. Committing to a year’s racing is anything but cheap, and the wallet stress is not limited to those chasing a national championship. Racing at a base level, purely for enjoyment and in the hope of winning a small trophy, requires a decent injection of cash, followed by equally frightening running costs – and then there’s the inevitable crash damage. Many a promising racing career has been cut short by lack of funds. There are plenty of options available in Australia, from club racing through to the ASBK national championships, and in my own on-track adventures I have found a series – and one category in particular – that offers a surprising amount of bang for your buck. It’s the PCRA Championship run by…

A resounding double victory for Wayne Maxwell (Yamaha Racing Team) in round three of the ASBK series has resulted in a momentum change in the 2017 title chase, the Melbourne -based rider moving up to equal second in the standings with Troy Herfoss (Crankt Protein Honda Racing / Pirelli / Alpinestars / Western Freight Management). Maxwell fired the first ominous shot in qualifying with a 1m20.290s flyer and carried his form into race day. After a red flag caused a restart to Race 1 after only one lap, a duel began between the two championship heavyweights with Maxwell and Herfoss ahead of championship leader Daniel Falzon (JD Racing / Caterpillar / YRT / Slime Aust. / Mainline Dynolog). Herfoss was able to lead early on and forged good defensive lines…

The start of five-time champion Kenan Sofuoglu’s season had been a tale of injury and bad luck, but at Assen the greatest WSS rider of all time bounced back with a superb win. Sofuoglu hit the front and led all the way, easing up to win by 2.6sec. His 39th win extended his all-time record. He’s still well behind on points, but nobody is running away with it up front, and only one has made consistent progress in his absence. Sofuoglu says it’s now about winning races from here to the final round in Qatar. “Finally this year I took a win in a race, so from now I can be more relaxed,” he said. “I have zero idea about the championship and am going out to win as much…

THE ENCOURAGING DEBUT of a new big-bang engine has reset KTM’s agenda to accelerate chassis development of the increasingly impressive RC16. The new motor has only added to KTM’s belief that it is heading in the right direction in its debut MotoGP season. Recognising the need for the more docile character of an engine with a big-bang firing order, KTM switched from the screamer version after just three races. Pol Espargaró showed a glimpse of the potential, qualifying just one second slower than pole man and eventual winner Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda). KTM’s vice-president of motorsport Mike Leitner says the engine will set the direction for development of the steel tube chassis that is a trademark of the RC16. “If someone had told me we would be one second off…

Ducati’s 2007 world champion and test rider Casey Stoner will provide an early-season assessment of the GP17 in a three-day test in Barcelona, starting Monday 22 May. Ducati Sporting Director Paolo Ciabatti says it will be “very valuable” to get Stoner’s feedback on the Desmosedici as well as “suggestions for the future”. Stoner has also been confirmed for a test at Misano at the end of August, a further signal of the effort being made by Ducati to boost its MotoGP fortunes.…

AUSSIE WORLD SUPERSPORT rider Aiden Wagner split from his Honda Lorini World Supersport team during the Assen weekend, citing “irreconcilable differences” as the reason behind the move. The 22-year-old Queenslander is now without a ride for the rest of the season unless he can secure an alternative. “It is very disappointing to end like this but I have found it very hard with the lack of communication and because of language differences to get my point across,” Wagner said. “The team’s lack of belief in me and my crew became a constant battle.” Wagner had a positive start to the season with top-10 finishes in the two opening rounds, but was only 17th in Aragon before quitting the team at Assen.…

YAMAHA DUO DEAN Ferris (CDR Yamaha) and Mitch Evans (Serco Yamaha) continued their successful start to the 2017 season, both finishing on top in MX1 and MX2 respectively. In the MX1 class, Kirk Gibbs (KTM Australia) was never far behind with a 2-2 result on the day. Consistent finishes would decide the bottom step of the podium, and Todd Waters’ (Crankt Honda) 3-4 scorecard was enough to secure the spot, although Nathan Crawford (Mega Fuels Kawasaki) showed positive signs of what he can achieve, spending much of Race 2 in second place before Gibbs eventually made his move. The results sheet for MX2 might suggest that Mitch Evans had a dream day, but it was far from that. The opening moto was an early fight between Jackson Richardson (Serco Yamaha)…

THE OPENING ROUND of the Speedway Grand Prix series confirmed how hard the battle to become world champion in 2017 will be, as the two Aussies experienced different fortunes. The Slovenian Speedway GP staged at Krsko on 29 April produced a surprise top three, with Slovakian Martin Vaculik (back in the SGP series after a three-year absence) winning the final from Fredrik Lindgren and newcomer Patryk Dudek. Aussie Jason Doyle qualified for the final, but finished last, while Chris Holder was one of three former champions who languished in the bottom half of the score chart. After rain washed out practice, the outside gate position was a graveyard on a racetrack that threw up plenty of wet shale at all riders who couldn’t make the perfect start. Another rider back…

RECAP The original Recursion was powered by a 588cc parallel twin, with a single overhead camshaft and a turbo blowing through an under-seat intercooler. Power was stated as a neat 75kW while torque was an astounding and equally neat 100Nm at just 4500rpm. The motor sat in an alloy beam frame wrapped in retro-modern, café racer-inspired styling. NEW PATENTS FILED in the US reveal the most detail yet of what’s likely to be the showroom-ready descendant of the 2013 Recursion concept bike (pictured). It’s a story that’s been played out through patent filings since the Recursion appeared as the star of the 2013 Tokyo Motor Show, and in the latest ones we see a bike that still resembles the Recursion in its profile, but which has otherwise developed beyond recognition.…

YOU JUST MIGHT be looking at the bike that finally drags electric power into the mainstream – a realistic roadster with a familiar badge and an established dealer network that just happens to be battery operated rather than petrol powered. It’s the electric KTM Duke. Spied on test at the firm’s own facility, it’s clearly in the prototype stage. The hand-me-down 390 Duke bodywork, wheels, brakes and suspension show that it’s still a testbed, but the electric drive unit and transmission look suspiciously like production-ready parts. The use of 390 Duke suspension and brakes suggests that the bike’s performance – and, importantly, weight – are in the same ballpark as that machine, which has 32kW and comes in at just 154kg wet. The electric machine is probably heavier, but could…

WHEELIE?! Japanese rider Masaru Abe broke a 25-year-old world record when he wheelied a Yamaha Jog for a total of 500km on Monday 1 May. It took Abe more than 13 hours to smash the previous record of 310km (making trials legend Dougie Lampkin’s 60.7km effort look slightly lame) using an innovative quick-release dry-coupling fuel dock mounted on the handlebar, which he’d switch out mid-wheelie in order to not run out of fuel. Yes, wheelie and twooly. IMAGINE... Riding a modern big-bore single for almost 1800km over rough gravel roads in one 24-hour period. Then imagine the same ride carrying an extra 50kg on a bike with no suspension on rock-hard tyres inflated to 60psi. That’s what Harold ‘Ranji’ Parsons did almost 100 years ago. REA ON THE RISE Jonathan…

MOTOGP’S SAFETY OFFICER Franco Uncini crashed the BMW Safety Car during the 2017 Spanish Grand Prix. The 1982 500cc world champion lost control of the BMW M5 at the Jerez Circuit’s Turn 5 before slamming into the air fence, causing some hefty (and expensive) damage to the car. It was first reported Uncini escaped with nothing more than a bruised ego, though according to later reports – online comments from his daughter Ludovica – he was taken to hospital due to “broken bones”.…

ASBK adventure G’day Chris Love the mag and creative writing, well done to all. Just had an enjoyable weekend camping at Winton Raceway for Round 3 of the ASBK. Great racing, top venue, so few people?! Gave easy access for good viewing though. Maxwell was awesome, and good to see the juniors going for it. Just like all other motorcycle events I’ve attended everyone was cheerful and chatty. And the weather gods smiled on both days. Tough luck in Race 3 in the R3 Cup mate, but good to see you bounce up and walk away seemingly okay. I was hoping to see you improve on Race 2 as you went reasonably well and actually passed someone. I reckon I’ve spotted one of your main problems: you just have to…

Easy delivery, with no need to punch the roof out of the tacho looking for power Kawasaki has draped the letter ‘Z’ on bikes since the Z1 in 1972, an era when one bike had to do it all: tour, scratch, race, commute, rally and more. Those early Z bikes did ‘engine’ very well, and ‘bullet-proof’ pretty well too. Handling, not so much. But no one cared about handling back then – it was all about tuning them to a standstill and vision-blurring grunt. Kawasaki Z bikes did that well. These days, bikes have gone into niche mode, with a different model for each purpose. There’s a growing number of riders utterly oblivious to bikes sitting outside their perceived domain – a cruiser for cruising, an adventure bike for going…

“Like the scene in Star Wars when all the stars suddenly burst past!” GS SAFARI ENDURO maestro Amy Harburg summed up what BMW’s flagship S1000RR is all about when she relived the first time she held the throttle of an S1000RR open until the tacho needle reached redline – five minutes earlier. “My god! It was like the scene in Star Wars when all the stars suddenly burst past!” An apt analogy for the RR, and it’s even more impressive when you consider that the same bike is just as happy chugging along in city traffic. For 2017 the RR hasn’t changed a great deal, but it is now available in three flavours: the Standard S1000RR for $21,990 (+ ORC), the Sport for $23,990 (+ ORC) and the Race for…

If you think the production bike is stunning, the race model is in another league Imagine the bike ad: 2016 MV F4 RC, one previous owner, low mileage, used only on the weekends, serviced every 100km, comes with plenty of spares … oh, and a bunch of factory mechanics. When businessman Sam Nehme visited the Phillip Island round of the Superbike World Championship in February 2016, little did he know what it would end up costing him. Sam has always worked hard and been a passionate motorcyclist, especially when it comes to the iconic MV brand. He has collected some of the world’s most desirable models over the past 10 years, and this F4 RC could be the most exciting of them all. It was love at first sight for…

Not many riders get to win their debut race in the class of kings: not Marc Márquez, not Giacomo Agostini, not Kenny Roberts, not Valentino Rossi. None of these legends even led their first big-bike GP. But Johann Zarco did. On 26 March the Frenchman scorched away from Márquez, Rossi and the rest at Losail, taking more than half a second a lap out of them. Could he do what 500cc rookie Jarno Saarinen did in April 1973 when the Finnish legend made Agostini look like a slow, old man? For a while, Zarco did just that, risking it all on the dewy desert track, front end juddering precariously as he forced his Tech 3 YZR-M1 into the turns. By one-third distance he was 1.6 seconds ahead; a good victory…

IF YOU WANT to get serious with your P6 Honda CBR250RR and take on some of Australia’s best under 400cc production hotshots, it’s eligible to enter the 400 Supersport class of the Swann Insurance Australasian Superbike Series. At the recent opening round at Sydney Motorsport Park, regular CBR racer Greg Burt (below) loaned his 1990 P6 machine to young hotshot Ryan Young. Despite possessing no prior experience with the bike, Ryan finished in sixth position against a quality field, posting a fastest lap time of 1m54.43s, just three seconds slower than race winner Max Croker riding a KTM RC390, a bike with a 27-year development and 125cc (50 per cent) capacity advantage. For more information about Post Classic racing visit the PCRA web page at www.pcra.com.au.…

DURING THE 1960S Soichiro Honda revealed his fondness for multi-cylinder, ultra-high-revving racebike engines. His four-, five- and even six-cylinder bikes, from 125cc to 350cc, were winners in the hands of riders such as Mike Hailwood. The CBR250 RR MC22 ‘Babyblade’ from the 1990s is a roadgoing tribute to Honda’s multi-cylinder race heritage. The fully faired quarter-litre sportsbike is a potent 158kg (dry) package that showcases sophisticated chassis and powertrain engineering. The twin-spar alloy frame with a 1345mm wheelbase is complemented by a gullwing swingarm with Pro-link pre-load adjustable monoshock and effective, if nonadjustable, conventional 37mm forks. Braking is by twin floating discs up front with powerful twin-pot calipers, and a single rear disc. The little liquid-cooled ‘Swiss watch’ MC14-type engine packs four cylinders across the frame, with four-valves per cylinder,…

After reading the Tech Talk article on brakes last issue (Vol 66 No 21), I felt inspired to fix a niggling problem on my 2011 Ducati Monster. If you’ve ever experienced pulsing in your brakes, chances are the discs are warped and need replacing. This might appear to be a simple bolt-on job, but a few handy insights and useful tools can help make this procedure (and many others) much easier. Anyone who has had the heart-stopper of brake failure knows how important it is to get this right. If you’re not confident tackling it yourself, it might at least give you an idea of the process mechanics go through to keep you safe. Start here 1 Find a suitable work area and an appropriate way to jack your front…

“Winton is quite possibly the most challenging track that we’ll visit on the ASBK calendar to ensure that the tyres work for the entire race distance. “Fast, sweeping corners, hard braking areas, and with an aggressive new surface, laps times are fast but tyre degradation is very heavy over the 12 turns of the 3km circuit. “It’s not unusual to see significant wear after 5 or 6 laps on the right-side of the tyre (since most corners turn right), but strangely enough also considerable wear on the left-side of the tyre too. “Moving from Wakefield, the bike tends to want to lift the front wheel at Winton. To counter this we make it longer by changing the gearing and moving the rear wheel as far back in the swingarm as…

MILD-MANNERED BRITISH WSBK rivals Jonathan Rea and Chas Davies were anything but compatriots after the Assen Superpole session, the two facing off in a parc ferme blue that ended with a penalty for championship leader Rea. The Irish rider had set a last-minute flyer to snatch pole position but stayed on the racing line, preventing his Ducati-mounted Welsh challenger from completing his hot lap. Davies slapped Rea’s arm on the way past, then there was swearing and disagreement in parc ferme, in full view of the TV cameras. “You were in the way midway and on the exit – I had to pick it up,” Davies said. “I was on the outside of the track,” replied a defensive Rea. “Well next time I’ll smash you from the inside and we’ll…

LEON HASLAM LOOKED to have the pace to run away with another double win for the dominant JG Speedfit Kawasaki team in the third round of the MCE Insurance British Superbike Championship at Oulton Park. But after celebrating a flag-to-flag victory in the opening race he crashed out of the second. That allowed Shane Byrne (Be Wiser Ducati) to take a victory and some much-needed points, though he still languishes seventh in the standings. “We have had the speed all season, we have just been really, really unlucky and hopefully our bad luck’s out of the way now,” Byrne said. Australian Jason O’Halloran (Honda Racing) had a great weekend, battling for podium positions in both races. He finished Race 1 fourth and, after snatching the lead in the early part…

AFTER A RUN of bridesmaid finishes, Northern Territorian Chris Warwick (Sherco) finally celebrated on the top step of a Kamfari podium at the 2017 event held on the outskirts of Darwin on Sunday 30 April. Warwick didn’t have it all his own way, spending the first half of the four-hour enduro battling with Extreme Enduro champ Kye Anderson (KTM) and 2014 winner Daniel McInnes (Honda). The flood plains claimed many victims, with soft sinkholes swallowing front wheels and sending riders over the ’bars, but Warwick held it pinned across the rutted mud flats. As usual there was plenty of drama – two crashes early reshaped Warwick’s rear brake and gear lever, requiring trackside adjustments. Just prior to halfway, the thick mud claimed the clutch of McInnes’ Honda and shortly after,…

THESE ARE THE first pictures of the next generation of Benelli’s four-cylinder and they show that it’s transforming into a full-on tourer. The existing Benelli 600 is sold under a variety of names – BN600, BJ600, TNT600 and various other monikers in different parts of the world. Whatever the badge, though, it’s a four-cylinder 600 that comes as a naked bike or a half-faired GT, both sharing the same part-aluminium, part-steel frame. Now we can reveal there’s a new version on the way, and it’s a fully fledged tourer. These (unofficial) pictures show a prototype that’s clearly very close to being ready for production. The frame and 60kW engine are from the existing 600cc model and the fork appears to be the same homegrown 50mm upside-downer offered on the current…

AUSTRALIAN TECH COMPANY Motorcycle Innovation has received further financial assistance, giving the firm the resources to not only send its innovative Motoinno TS3 Shockwave machine into limited production, but to also forge ahead with the planned build of its TS3 Moto2 racebike. Buoyed by a recent $250,000 cash injection from private Australian angel investor ACAC Innovation, Motorcycle Innovation has now received confirmation of a matching $250,000 manufacturing grant from the Queensland Government through its Ignite Ideas Fund. Both machines employ the patented TS3 Triangulated Steering and Suspension System chassis technology which, according to the firm’s Colin Oddy, creates a bike with superior inline stability that can brake later and harder into corners, and turn tighter but with less lean angle than a conventional machine, giving the rider the ability to…

As was the practice prior to World War II, testing road racing machinery was often conducted on public roads. This as much for the convenience of the participants as the delight of incidental bystanders. So when Rhodes Motors, the Australian Indian motorcycle agent, imported a pair of Power Plus ‘works’ engines from the US in May 1921, their ace racer and spannerman, Harold ‘Ranji’ Parsons, was keen to get some immediate seat time. But the bloody things wouldn’t kick over. A tow behind the company Cleveland sorted the problem and soon the crew were on their regular ‘test track’ – a measured quarter-mile section of Epping Rd just north of Melbourne. Parsons made several flying passes, but the powerplant was not firing to his satisfaction. The six-man crew, including John…

The growl from the twin pipes is like six fat, angry wasps all buzzing simultaneously LOOKING AT OUR four Tassie test bikes lined up on the roadside, those who don’t know better would be forgiven for thinking the K1600GT was the odd one out. It’s huge! It’s more than 2.3m long, has a Duolever front end (the last surviving BMW with this system) and a Paralever rear end with shaft drive. But it’s also swift on its feet and incredibly agile. Think the Jonah Lomu of motorcycles. One of the journalists on the ride made a comment about a slow and comfortable touring ride ahead on the big K. He had never ridden one, but quickly learned what this bike is capable of. One giveaway was the Bridgestone Battlax BT021…

There’s another category of PCRA racing that’s even better value: commuterlites. It’s contested by single-cylinder four-stoke commuters of no more than 150cc and you can purchase a race-ready bike for as little as $1200. As well as being a perfect nursery for young talent, bigger and more experienced riders also take part purely for the fun factor, which this class delivers by the truck load. Adding to the enjoyment is a yearly one-hour, two-rider enduro that sees plenty of parents and offspring join forces to see if they can slipstream their way to victory.…

JUST AFTER 8AM on a glorious Sunday morning I pulled our long-term 650NK into the Yarra Ranges Council carpark. The reason for my visit? No, it wasn’t a citizen’s protest against parking fines, or a composting workshop – it was a supervised ride day, part of an initiative the council has been running for over a decade now with help from a dedicated team of volunteers and Honda Australia Rider Training (HART). While the hot water urn boiled and the carpark filled up with bikes, I chatted with the council’s Community Safety Coordinator, Luke Roy. The Yarra Ranges municipality is a scratchers’ mecca with famous roads like the Reefton and Black Spurs, but as Luke pointed out, this has had an unwanted side-effect: for around 20 years, the region has…

MOTOGP COULD BE going electric in just over two years, with a series planned to run alongside the established three classes at selected events from 2019. Plans are still at a formative stage, and the current outline is for something of a novelty series – but Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta has now confirmed talks are already in progress with more than one interested supplier. Some reports suggest as many as four manufacturers are interested, but Ezpeleta has confirmed that it will be a one-make series with identical machines. One aspect of the plan that has filled the paddock with doubt is Ezpeleta’s assertion that the riders will be drawn from MotoGP and Moto2 classes. Teams reacted with surprise at the notion that they would be prepared to release contracted riders…

THE PROSPECT OF a nakedbike class to replace the Supersport World Championship has been mooted as inevitable in some quarters, but WSBK director Daniel Carrera says no future plan is set and there is still life in the current Supersport class. “The problem with a nakedbike class is that, from a sporting side, the 600s are a perfect middle step,” he said. “So we would like to continue. “We need to see what is the near future in terms of which manufacturers want to continue producing these 600s or not. We are asking them and they do not give us precise details of what they would like to have, so I cannot give you now ‘We are going to 600 naked’ or something like that, no. In the short-term we…

KTM’S RYAN DUNGEY has won his third consecutive Monster Energy Supercross championship, ahead of Kawasaki’s Eli Tomac in a dramatic series finale on Saturday 6 May in Las Vegas. Dungey went into the finale with a nine-point lead over Tomac and had to finish fourth or better to claim the trophy. The pair traded the race lead until the very last lap when Tomac slowed to make Dungey get caught up among following riders. Jason Anderson (Husqvarna) passed them both for the race win and Dungey was forced back to fourth. Tomac’s teammate Josh Grant rounded out the podium. “That was a season of never give up,” said Dungey. “It was tough from the get-go, but we did it. I didn’t expect it to be like that. I expected it…

THE BEST OF THE REST THE DAROOBALGIE PARK Raceway burst back into life on the last weekend in April, and you can expect bigger things from it in the future. The dirt track facility is run by the Forbes Auto Sports Club and is situated just north of the town in the central west of New South Wales. A series of break-ins last year rocked the club, but this ‘comeback’ meeting marked a welcome return to racing. Although run as a club day, the meeting attracted more than 100 senior and junior riders from as far afield as Brisbane, Melbourne, Mildura and Cobar. Many of the riders and their families travelled long distances to support the club and help it get back on its feet. Saturday featured dirt track racing…

 IF YOU WANT to step into the arena of international racing, there are few individuals who can get you noticed more effectively than Rob Vennegoor. Born and bred in the Netherlands, he has been heavily involved in racing since he did his first sponsorship deal for fellow Dutchman Barry Veneman in 2001. “Young riders must think about their future and plan... First make a name for yourself” Rob’s ambition was always to manage his own team so he joined Ten Kate Racing (TKR) in 2002 to learn the ropes and add technical know-how to his uncanny marketing abilities. After coming across hardworking racers Karl Muggeridge and Chris Vermeulen in 2003 he became an advocate for Australian riders. “I liked Karl and Chris, and one of my current sponsors Huvema still…

THE CELEBRATIONS WERE long and hard on the Queen’s Birthday weekend in 1997 when Stephen Greenfield took his first Finke Desert Race victory. He’d previously made the podium on several occasions, but now it was finally time to celebrate a win. “I was 16 years old when I got my rookie run in 1986,” he recalls, “and on the return to Alice Springs I’d just moved up to 10th place when a rock holed the radiator. The DNF was a disappointment, but even at that age it proved that winning was possible – it just didn’t come for 12 years. When it did it was a major night. And I still remember bits of it.” ‘Greeny’ went on to take a back-to-back win in the two-leg race the following year…