Kawasaki presents a whole new range of ‘Special Edition’ versions of its 2012 line up. The models that received this ‘Special Edition’ treatment are the Versys 1000 Grand Tourer, City and Tourer, the VN1700 and VN900 Light Tourer, Ninja ZX-6R Performance, W800 SE, 1400 GTR Grand Tourer, Z1000SX Tourer, Z750R Black Edition and Z1000 Black Edition. At the moment, all we know about this new series is what we can make out of the pictures released by the Japanese manufacturer, but no information about technical details or pricing is currently available.

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Even taking an ad out in a newspaper hasn’t helped Anthony West find the sponsors he needed to ride for CRT team Speed Master.

The popular Australian rider has announced via his Facebook page that his search turned up zilch and that he even tried put up his house, car and bike as collateral but it wasn’t enough, so he’ll no longer be able to ride this season also bitterly adding that his racing career (he’s only 30) is now likely over.

“I (ANTHONY WEST) will not race in moto gp this year or any other race because I can not find sponsorship to pay the SPEED MASTER team, Because all teams are asking for money from the riders only the rich can race in motogp / moto2 / moto3, I can not even afford to ride a year for free, As i have YET to be payed from my former team MZ Germany Moto2 team. I had my car mx bike and my house for sale trying to keep the ride and even gave the house as a guarantee if I did not find the money but was not enough. I will most likely not race any more and will [return] to australia to find a normal job. Sorry to my fans.”

Except for veterans Colin Edwards and Randy de Puniet, the CRT riders entry list is looking more like an auction sale to the highest bidder; you’ve got the money, you get the ride. Period. Experience, podiums, wins and making a name for yourself based on merits alone no longer counts … and they have the gall to continue calling it the premier racing class with the best racers in the world.

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The partnership between Mercedes AMG and Ducati is going full speed ahead after the Ducati Diavel AMG Special Edition, the SLK 55 AMG in Ducati Streefighter Yellow this is latest advert gives us a behind the scenes look of another of their commercials featuring once again the C63 AMG Coupé and the Ducati 848 Evo.

Two blinding white hot machines that compliment one another and the same two sexy models, what more could one ask for in a commercial and we can’t wait to see if they’ll also come up with something for the 1199 Panigale.

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BMW Motorrad World Superbike team, with Leon Haslam and Marco Melandri spent two days at Valencia testing preparing for the start of the 2012 season after the long test ban, verifying the latest version of the BMW S 1000RR engine and updated electronics software package and new parts which will now allow them to fine tuning the chassis and electronics.

Despite the very cool air and track temperatures (15°c -18°C) the team completed a total of 950 kilometres of testing on the 2012 race version of the RR and both riders seemed positive about the outcome of the test.

“We got through everything that we needed to go through, so I am very positive. These two days were important. We have a lot of new things for this year and it was good to test before we go to Phillip Island. In addition, it was good to get a few laps under our belts and get up to speed again. We definitely made big steps and are much further ahead compared to last year. It really is a stronger package and we still have five more days to test in Australia to dial it all in.” said Leon Haslam.

Continue reading: BMW Motorrad Superbike team concludes two day test at Valencia

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Before the start of any MotoGP racing season, pit crews are sent to the manufacturers to learn about the inner workings of the new season’s bikes, that included assembling, set-up and maintenance.

During the Wrooom event, Ducati’s MotoGP mechanics led by Jeremy Burgess were in Bologna getting their schooling on the 90% new GP12, while Cardion AB’s crewchief Marco Grana and his technical team spent two weeks at Ducati, and all Honda teams also get the same schooling regarding their prototype machines.

LCR Honda MotoGP team who will be field reigning Moto2 champion Stefan Bradl this season, spent 10 days in Japan earlier this month at Honda’s R&D center located in the Saitama Prefecture (around 30 minutes from Tokyo city centre) where crew members learned about the new technical features of the RC213V bikes and checking out every single component studying the assembly schemes, checking the maintenance procedures to fine tune the RC213V prototypes ready for next week’s Sepang tests.

Bradl will be riding the RC213V for the first time in Malaysia, as during the post Valencia race tests he rode LCR’s 800cc machine.

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After the rumor that MotoGP could be heading to Chile in the near future, we now get the news that former world champion Kevin Schwantz has attended the official presentation of new circuit that is going to be built in the South American country.

Schwantz is one the people behind the Austin, Texas track and helped the promoters get it on the MotoGP calendar in 2013, and he’s now consulting on this proposed Chilean circuit that will be built by the famed Hermann Tilke, who has given us not only the new Circuit of the Americas, but also the Sepang and Motorland Aragon venues, but also Istanbul Park and the Shanghai International Circuit.

Called Motorpark, this new site is about 30km from the city of Santiago de Chile and will be 180 hectare development that will be designed to meet FIA and FIM homologation standards and not only include a race track but also a motocross and kart track and will take about 18 months to complete.

Source | crash.net

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If you’ve ordered an Italian motorcycle or some special part that comes Italy, you’ll have to wait a little longer. Italy is undergoing a massive trucker strike in the last week and a half protesting against record fuel prices after massive tax hikes and government austerity reforms.

The protest called the Pitchfork movement started in Sicily (where 50% of Italian fuel is refined) and has rapidly moved up the pennisula with numerous blockades at ports, highways and major roads that are literally paralyzing production activities across the country.

The protest is causing gas and food shortages and major manufacturers like Fiat have been forced to temporarily shut down operations because they aren’t receiving delivery of components.

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Here is the third and final part of our massive photo gallery dedicated to the beautiful girls who attended the recent 2012 Motor Bike Expo in Verona, Italy. Our most loyal readers might have noticed that in the last couple of weeks we made a few changes in our galleries, and for that reason the high-res pictures have not been available for a while, but now we are done with the testing and they are back. We just could not think of a better way to christen the new system than giving these 32 images picturing some nice and hot Italian lady. We are pretty sure that most of you would have loved to see the previous two parts of this gallery in high resolution too, so here are the direct links:

View the full The girls of the Motor Bike Expo 2012 - Part 3 photo gallery
View the full The girls of the Motor Bike Expo 2012 - Part 2 photo gallery
View the full The girls of the Motor Bike Expo 2012 - Part 1 photo gallery

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This motorcycle wreck was caught on tape in California the other week. The suspect and his female companion were fleeing from police in a high speed chase, when the rider collided with the back of a car and flipped over sending the both of them onto the highway and into oncoming traffic.

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When we announced that Elena Rosell would be riding the 2012 Moto2 championship with QMFF, we also mentioned that the Qatari Motorcycle Federation has promoted an all female team during the 2011 Losail round of the QTEL FIM Endurance championship, the 8 Hours of Doha.

Paola Cazzola, Nina Prinz and Nikolett Kovacs raced in the Superstock category with a Suzuki GSX-R run by Qatar Endurance Racing Team (QERT) and finished 6th in their category and a respectable 17th overall, which isn’t bad as Cazzola earlier in the year had to undergo emergency surgery for a very large abdominal tumor.

The FIM has added this video of the three females riders talking about how they got into racing on their website as part of their admirable promotion Women Ride.

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