2012 Honda Sabre (vt1300cs) on 2040-motos

Moto blog

Rea and Haslam Re-Sign with Pata Honda for 2014 WSBK Championship

The Pata Honda racing team announced it has re-signed Jonathan Rea and Leon Haslam to compete in the 2014 World Superbike Championship. It’s been a disappointing season for both rider, thanks in large part to injuries. Rea is currently on the shelf with a fractured femur sustained in a crash at Nurburgring while Haslam also missed several rounds earlier in the season because of a broken leg.

Bahrain track days

A few months ago, expat (and ex racer) John Beddall made contact to ask if I fancied doing some track day instruction out in Bahrain.  After thinking about it for two seconds, flights were booked and a plan was put in place to look after around forty riders for a day at the Bahrain International Circuit (BIC).  Young Taylor Mac was also recruited to look after any tasty riders that I couldn’t deal with   The Brits out there love their bikes, however, quite a few locals also turned up plus a few others from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar.  Most were on high end Superbikes, like S1000s, Panigales and RSV4s but there was also a healthy number R6s and new 675Rs.   Although this fabulous Hermann Tilke designed circuit is around ten years old incredibly it has never hosted a bike race.  The highlight of the year there is F1 but being owned by the Bahrainian Royal family, there is no desperate need for the circuit to operate as a profitable business.  The track reminded me of Qatar but much more interesting as some great undulations have been built into its desert location. We shared the track with Supercars on the day (20mins on/20mins off) and as you might imagine it was betty swollocks for seven hours in the 30 plus temperatures.  As usual there was a few offs with poor old RS1000 Aprilia mounted Andy breaking his femur early in the day.  Two other buddies appeared to swap bikes mid air in another incident but fortunately escaped unhurt.In the evening everyone stayed for an al fresco dinner in the paddock with the craic going on for hours as the Fosters kept flowing.   All in all it was a brilliant trip and it has left me thinking there could be cost effective ways of getting Brits out there for track days next winter.  I'll keep you posted.Cape Town next to make my racing comeback at the Killarney 8 hour on a CBR150 Honda.  Hopefully I can manage the beast, I'll post a full report next week.

Bradl prepares for Laguna's Corkscrew

A rookie to Laguna Seca, Stefan Bradl shows one way to prepare for the Corkscrew; by riding his LCR Honda RC213V down the famous Lombard Street in San Francisco. The reigning Moto2 champion may have never raced at the Californian track but earlier this year he used a break between races to learn the circuit on a Honda CBR1000RR, having only had a virtual experience of Laguna before this year. At the time the young German said: "It is downhill, and there are lots of blind corners.