2009 Honda Xr650l on 2040-motos

Moto blog

San Carlo Gresini To Field CRT Entry with Honda CBR1000RR Engine

The San Carlo Gresini race team announced it will compete in the 2012 MotoGP World Championship as a Claiming Rules Team with a Honda CBR1000RR engine in an FTR prototype chassis. The move is a late, but unfortunately necessary change from the team’s original plan to run the factory-level Honda RC213V racebike. The late Marco Simoncelli was tabbed to ride the newest version of Honda’s MotoGP machine next season, but after his tragic death, Gresini had to find another option if it wanted to continue racing.

Motorcycles at the 2009 Frankfurt Auto Show

Two weeks ago, I took a break from my regular duties gathering news for Motorcycle.com to fly to Germany to cover the 2009 Frankfurt Auto Show for our sister site AutoGuide.com. For two hectic days, AutoGuide editor Colum Wood and I scrambled across the massive 6.2 million square foot Messe Frankfurt trade fair compound, running from press conference to press conference to get the latest on exotic sport cars, futuristic concept models and international unveilings from the automotive world. It was heaven for car lovers, but for me, it meant fighting my way through hordes of photogs, auto-journalists and car show models to get the first photos of four-wheeled goodies from MINI, Ferrari and Lotus.

Rossi Makes Progress but Hayden Suffers Shoulder Setback

Ducati continues to develop its Desmosedici GP12 MotoGP race bike, setting modest goals while trying to establish a good setup. Already trailing the other factory teams in development time for its race prototypes, Ducati continued to try to find good base settings for the GP12. Valentino Rossi achieved the team’s goal of lapping under two minutes and two seconds with a time of 2:01.886 while completing 44 laps on the second day of testing at Malaysia’s Sepang circuit.