Ducati will join
forces with Feel
Racing for the 2014
World Superbike
Championship.
Ernesto Marinelli
will still serve as the
Ducati Superbike
Project Manager.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY GOLD & GOOSE
VOL. 50 ISSUE 46 NOVEMBER 19, 2013
DUCATI FEELS GOOD
T
he confirmation came through recently that Feel Racing would
join Ducati Corse as its partner in the 2014 World Superbike
Championship - just like old times for both of them. Feel Racing was
Ducati's partner during most of their glory years at the head of the
World Superbike pack, until the official team was disbanded and
Feel Racing went off to race BMWs in a satellite team.
Serafino Foti is the new Ducati team manager, under existing
Ducati Superbike Project Manager Ernesto Marinelli. Higher up the
tree, Paolo Ciabatti now has some responsibility for the World Superbike project as well as the MotoGP version.
Chaz Davies has his own crew chief and electronics guy in place
already, but the full meshing of the new Ducati/Feel partnership was
not in evidence at the Aragon tests.
Gordon Ritchie
FLAT TRACK: RUN WHAT
YOU BRUNG?
T
he rule changes for the 2014 AMA Grand National Championship
were released last week and the series is now basically a case of
run what you brung with even the restrictor rule being dropped from
the Twins class technical package.
According to AMA Pro Racing Technical Director of Competition Al
Ludington, AMA Pro Racing gathered input from the players in the series – team owners, riders, etc. and then sat down and hammered out
the new rules. The biggest change in the Twins class: No restrictors
continued on page 30
P27
BIG SALES
FOR BMW
W
orldwide demand for
BMW vehicles – whether
with two or four wheels - continues to set new records. The
German manufacturer's BMW
Motorrad
motorcycle
division has reported its best-ever
monthly sales for October 2013,
with 8376 motorcycles and maxi
scooters sold – vs. 7596 the
previous year.
A total of 101,530 units were
delivered to customers between January and October this
year, an 8.5 percent increase
on the 93,540 sold in the first
10 months of 2012, in a year in
which it registered its best-ever
annual sales of 106,358 motorcycles and maxi-scooters,
two percent up on 2011. BMW
seems curtain to beat that figure in this, its 90th anniversary
year, and perhaps even to do
so with one month to spare.
A similar, though less spectacular increase in deliveries,
has also been registered by
BMW's car division, with the
total of BMW, MINI and RollsRoyce vehicles delivered worldwide in October 2013 up 5.2
percent over the same month
last year. Between January and
October 2013, sales increased
by 7.3 percent to reach a new
all-time high of 1,602,018 vehicles, against 1,493,154 the
previous year.
Alan Cathcart
