Two Series To Kick Off On Sunday
23.02.10
Voluptuous dirt bike racing action comes thick and fast again this summer, starting with a ring of two separate sets, the North Island and South Island Span-Country Championships, both of this weekend.
The parallel two five-round Suzuki-sponsor of the series back on Sunday at Waipu Caves in the north and around Mosgiel in the south.
With talented riders to rid their only bad result, that means only four laps counted for the championship of each series.
"The screen is really booming right now," said Motorcycling New Zealand country angry Commissioner Murray Searle, of Palmerston North.
"We have not had experience of this magnitude north of Auckland for many years, we thought it would be good to attract new faces. We really work to encourage new young riders to give it a go.
"Looking at the universal success of top riders New Zealand such as Paul Whibley Pahiatua, many riders uninitiated are motivated to participate in races cross-country and we want to give them a try, yet fun and stimulating the environment to do just that.
Source: Voxy
First Ride: 2010 KTM RC8R
11.02.10
With the RC8R, KTM prepares to take its superbike to the mankind stage. Neil Graham writes about what this means for the common man.
With my chairwoman down on the fuel tank I hammer toward the most famous left turn in motorcycling. No goggle-box-watching or video game-playing can suitably prepare you for the first every now you confront Laguna Seca’s corkscrew. It would be a tricky bit of passage on a bicycle. On a motorcycle at racing speed it’s unimaginable.
Near the end of my first seating, I quicken my pace and have a holy-shit feet-off-the-pegs kill to the edge of the curbing. Once my breathing slows I chuckle inside my helmet. I have joined, in my unobtrusive way, a select group of riders from thrashers to world champions who have had a petrifying ride through the corkscrew. And then I remember. I am here to test a motorcycle and not just take the track. Oops.
Forgetting the motorcycle that you’re riding is, in a particular way, the highest of compliments. A machine’s ability to fade to the breeding speaks to an inherent balance in its design (a Boss Hoss, for example, never fades from front-and-centre). The KTM RC8R is, for an open-class supersport made by dirt-bike-mad Austrians, a surprisingly compliant mount.
Source: PassionPerformance.ca