2009 Honda Shadow on 2040-motos

Moto blog

How about Edwards at Repsol Honda?

Casey Stoner's decision to retire at the end of the season has had a real shake-up for the Repsol Honda line-up along with the discussion, rumour and speculation of who will take his vacated seat for next season. With silly season occurring much earlier following Stoner's announcement at the French GP in May, rumours and speculation have been banded around with three candidates leading the way: Jorge Lorenzo, Valentino Rossi and Marc Marquez. Lorenzo, until he was confirmed to stick with Yamaha for another two seasons, was the most plausible of the trio as both himself and Casey are the top two riders in the world right now, making him the obvious choice after the Australian departs.

Like Father Like Son

According to Honda's Australian YouTube channel the child riding the Honda CRF50F in this ad is following in his dad's footsteps, as he also rode a Funbike as a child. In the very same back yard that was used for the shoot. After seeing the film crew in action, the child's grandmother announced she had old Super8 footage from 30 years ago which was subsequently used for the opening scene.

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.