VOL. 53 ISSUE 17 MAY 3, 2016 P37
HASLAM,
COOPER BAG
OULTON PARK WINS
F
ormer WorldSBK star Leon Haslam
(JG Speedfit Kawasaki) bagged his
first win in the British Superbike Cham-
pionship since 2008 when he took an
ultra-close race one at Oulton Park over
Christian Iddon (Tyco BMW) by 0.103
seconds.
But the "Pocket Rocket" couldn't
make it a double in trying conditions
around the classic venue, with Buildbase
BMW's Richard Cooper notching his first win of
the year in race two, again from Iddon, this time
the margin a scant 0.135 seconds. Haslam would
take the final podium position in third.
"This is something that I have strived for since
starting racing, especially now that I have had
some podium finishes and it feels amazing," said
Cooper. "I knew I would have a day when I could
win with Buildbase BMW and we seized that op-
portunity today."
Former champion Shane Byrne (Be Wiser
Ducati) had a weekend to forget, carding 8-6
results after a crash in qualifying.
U.S. riders John Hopkins and James Rispoli
ended the day with 11-DNF and 19-17 finishes,
respectively, for a frustrating round.
The championship now sees Iddon clear in the
lead with 72 points from Byrne on 58 and Michael
Laverty (Tyco BMW) third on 56. CN
YAMAHA DISSOLVING
THE STAR BRAND
Y
amaha will be dissolving its Star brand and
bring all cruiser machines in house. Spot-
ted by our colleagues at Motorcycle.com,
Yamaha will no longer promote the Star lineup
that began in 1996 as a bespoke cruiser brand
separate from the Yamaha brand itself, much
like Lexus is to Toyota in the four-wheel world.
The Star brand is already very much a part of
the Yamaha family in other markets around the
world, most notably Australia, where the Yama-
ha cruisers have always been branded Yamaha Star machines, rather than just Star.
Yamaha believes that as the cruiser market continues to evolve, it's best to re-absorb the machines
under one roof, so it's going to be curtains for the Star lineup from 2017 onwards. The machines will
obviously still be in production as the cruiser segment, especially here in the U.S., but they will now be
known as Yamaha cruisers. CN
No more Stars in their eyes!
From next year it'll just be
Yamaha branded cruisers from
the Tuning Fork house.
Haslam holds off teammate James Ellison (77) and Honda's
Dan Linfoot, who crashed out of both races.
