Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128105
o 8 o Continued from page 3 The th ird annual Midwest Fire and P o lic e Be ne fi t motocross will be held at Bro kenspokes Raceway and Scenic Highlands Raceway in Ohio . June 15-16 . For more information. call 330/325-2403 . o c o o o Malcolm Smith wi ll host two dualsport adven ture rides ca lled Colonial Gems beginning on June 30 and July 14. The six-day rides will take place in cent ral Mexico 's highlands and are open to a maximum of 12 riders . using 2001 Suzuki D RZ400 s. Fo r more informa ti on. c all 909/275-0455. ~ o o o The Petersen Automotive Museum is gearing up for a un ique cros sover exh ibit. schedu led to take place from June 15 through December 31. Dubbed the ' Cars & Guitars of Rock N Roll.' the exhibit will feature the cars. motorcycles and musical instruments of several top rock sta rs . commemo rating the 50 t h anniversary of the musical genre. For more information. visit the museum 's web site . at www.petersen .org. o o o Anti-doping controls were carried o ut at th e se cond round of the Motoc ross World Championship. held in Va lken swaa rd . Netherlands . on April 1. according to the FIM. The tested riders were Er ik Egge ns . Marc de Re uve r . Patrick Caps . Joel Smets. Stefan Everts and M iska Aa ltonen . A ll riders w e r e cleared. o o o o o o o o o o o o o CJ o o P la net H onda recently teamed up with Keith Famie. a cont estant from the CBS show Survivor. to tape a segment entitled • A Day in the Life of a Survivor. - The episode highlighted the persona! lives of the individual contesta nts on the pop ular television show. Famie. who is a resident of W est Bloomfield . M ichigan. and has repo rt edly been riding M X. de sert and street for 27 years . was featured on a Planet Honda CR2 50R. The streets of Las Veg as will come alive to the roar of thou sands of V -twins this O c t o ber as D uc at i enthus iasts from across the nation gather for the inaugural Ducati Revs America (DRA>. M odeled af ter the f am o us World D uc ati Weekend. which is held biennially in Italy. DRA promises to be the largest gathering of Ducat i motorcycles in America. The event, hosted by D ucati North Ameri ca, was conceived after the huge success of the two World Ducati Weekends. Discus sions had t aken place t o expand t he D uc at i celebrat ion beyond it s It alian homeland, and America is the first co untry to run with the idea. Organizers plan to use many of the feat ures tha t make WDW so successful. and then add just t he right amount of A me ric an flavo r. There will be track time available on the 1. I -m ile Las Vegas S pe edw ay road course for riders on their own machines. plus demo rides on the lat est D uc at i • Another F-1 IGP Connection The current upsurge in spinoff synergy between Grand Prix racing on two and four wheels Is nothing new· for the chief engineer in charge of the technical team charged with bringing car gian t Toyota's recently -revealed new F-1 contender to the race track in 2002 is Frenchman Andre de Cortanze, formerly with the rival Prost team and previously designer of the Le Mans 24·Hour .winning AlpineRenault endurance race cars, before helpillg to develop the world's first turbo F· 1 racer for Renault. However, de Cortanze is better known in motorcycle terms as the man respon sible for the avant gard e series of hub -centre ELF Endurance and 500cc GP racers powered by works Honda engines, which competed at world level with some success dur,ing a decade of experimentation in chassis design. which ended with ELF's withdrawal from GP racing at the close of the 1988 season. However, de Cortanze's legacy to two-wheeled design has lived on long after hts retum to car racing, for the ELF was not only the first motorcycle to employ the carbon disc brakes commonplace on today's GP racers. but also a single-sided rear swingarm (as well as a front one!). The patent for the rear swingarm was one of the several eventually sold to Honda by the French petroleum giant - France's then-equivalent models , riding instruction. tech nical workshops. industry displays. stunt-ri ding exhibitions, history sem inars and much more. Some big names fro m the W orld Superbike scene will be in attenda nce. acco rding to Ducati, alongside some of Ameri· ca 's best local heroes. M oto rcycle s will dom inate the thre e days, but there is a smorgasbord of other entertainment for participants, D ucati says. The headlining band will be named soon for the live concert. Richard Petty D riving Experience is giving D RA participants t he chanc e to drive in a NASCAR car, Sotheby' s will auct ion motorcycle memorabilia to raise money f or Ride r s for He alt h and an authentic Italian village will give visitors a fee l of the M ed it erranean. You do n' t need to own a Ducati to att end DRA; the event is open to riders of all makes and model s. You simp ly need a pass ion for t he Italian marq ue, Ducat i says . Ducat i Nort h A mer ica has nego tiated discou nt hotel rates and bike transport fo r DRA participants as well as tours of the Art of the Motorcycle exhibition, direct from the Guggenhei m Mu seum, which will sho w throughout October in Las Vega s. M ost act ivi ties center on the Las Vegas Speedway, but the grand finale will be the group parade on Sunday even ing, down Las Veg as ' main drag, to conclude t he three-day event. The fourth round of the 500 cc World Championship take s the two-stroke sol- of Malaysia's Petronas today! This was duly christened the ProArm. and has appeared on several Honda models over the past 15 years. starting with the World Superbike title-winning RC30. So when Finland's Mika Salo and Scot Allan McNish take to the racetrack in their Toyotas in F· 1 racing next season. it'll be a former bike designer who leads the team which created their cars... DesIgned by Andre de e-nze, the ELF GP - . . of the late '80s pushed the enwelope rio IW single sided ..... Aftng8ftll and hub-steer front end. De e-nze is _ the chief engl_r for Toyota's F-1 eu10 racing effort, which will debut in 2002. C r G ,......, I C o o o o o o o To ca s l yo ur vole, lo g on ID http://www.c clen ew s.cDm. c:yc:lenews.com reader poll question of the week 92 MAY 23 , 2001 ' cue I e n e vv s diers to north-westem France on May 20 to the Buga tti c ircuit a t Le M ans and defending W orld Champion K enny Roberts Jr. will be look ing for the key to the quirky French trac k. The names and the venue are redolent of racing history, but the Bugatt i circuit is anything but a grand, sweeping circuit in the old mannero Instead it is • a series of drag strips and U·turns,· according to reigning World Champion Roberts. Ot her less charitable champions have dubbed it a go·kart track - and that was before a slow tum and a slow er chica ne were added last year. A cc eleratio n is vita lly impo rt ant at Le Mans, and it is not a Suzuki st rong point, acco rding to Roberts , who has scored three seventh places in the firs t th ree races. in spite of leading until almost half distance of t he South Afri can GP. But the track has other int ricacies, and there are places a techni cal rider can regain time, adds t he champio n. So far t his yea r, Valen tino Rossi has run away to three straig ht w ins , bui lding up an impo sing early points lead. Roberts is confident he can hunt Rossi dow n - when the expected improvements to the Suzuki put him on more equal foo ting with the Italian. The team is working flat out to help him and Sete G ibernau make the most of what they have - including staying on at Jerez after the Spanish GP there for two more days of testing. The results were encouraging, according to technical adviser Warren W illing. 'The first day was tire testing , - sa id the A us tralian rac ing guru. ' W e' ve had a lot of d is cussio ns w ith Michelin. and they had some different tire construction s based on th o se discu ssions. The test s were very pos itive - but we won 't see any of that in France, and possibly not the next race either. On the second day we tested suspension. While we we re work ing on chassis details at the start of the season, we reverted to 2000 suspension . There 's not a great diff erence, but it was one less variable in the equation . Now we 're wo rk ing o n t he 200 1 suspension . and that was also positive • especially for Sete in the matter of front forks.· • Le Mans has some diversity , and that is always nice for the riders ," Robert s said. 'There's a lot of low-speed corners w ith drag strips out o f t hem, wh ic h is not a good si gn for us . The Suzuki is better on faster, more flowing circuits , where you keep the speed high. The tests went pretty much as expected . Now we'll have to see how well we can get our bike working for France . I' ll be racing 100 percent, as usual. • CN