You don’t often see the top brass of the biggest motorcyle company of the world don leathers, a helmet and hit a race track to personally compete in a race, but HRC Vice President Shuhei Nakamoto did just that yesterday at Motegi.

Nakamoto, HRC directors Seiki Ishii and Tomoaki Nagayama suited up alongside former GP riders Tady Okada and Shinichi Ito for the final and special four hour endurance race of the NSF100 HRC Trophy mini bike series.

86 teams and 420 riders took part in this one-off race, all on Honda mini-bikes and the HRC team completed 105 laps and finished as the press release says a ‘respectably’ 57th out of 80 finishers. We think that the HRC team got their butts kicked by younger and lighter kids. Anyone ever notice how heavy these guys are, including Okada, the official MotoGP RC212V test rider?

Continue reading: HRC Honda Boss Nakamoto races in mini bike endurance race

All of today’s rumors regarding Livio Suppo have been confirmed. The Italian manager will be in Honda HRC next season as their Marketing Director for HRC’s MotoGP activities.

Livio Suppo:

“It’s been a very good relationship for me; eleven years working with Ducati has been a dream, and I think together we have achieved something good. I think sometimes in life you need new motivation. I must thank Ducati of course for all the opportunities they gave me, and also HRC for being interested in me. It’s a new challenge, it won’t be easy but we will do our best. Eleven years at Ducati has been magic. Of course the 2007 World Championship was the highest hope at the beginning. Since then it has also been good to work together with Filippo (Preziosi, Ducati Corse General Manager) and Claudio (Domenicali, General Director of Ducati) and all the team, and I’ll leave a piece of my heart in this company. But again, I think Honda is something difficult to resist. Next year I will be a kind of Marketing Director for the MotoGP activities and I hope to start on the right foot.”

Source | motogp.com

Continue reading: Livio Suppo confirms Honda Move

Yamaha may have mathematically won the 2009 MotoGP Constructors’ Championship, with Jorge Lorenzo’s win at Estoril, but the factory can’t celebrate due to the five engine limit rule that was implemented at the Brno round.

Using more than five engines could potentially mean that a manufacturer could lose points before the end of the season, but Yamaha is pretty safe because they’ve got a 167 point lead on second place Honda.

Initially it was to be the rider, who used more than the alloted engines would be punished with a 10 point penalty on his championship standings, but the rule was modified at Estoril and rider will now have to start at the back of the grid, while it will be the manufacturer who’ll have 10 points deducted from the constructors championship classification and you can imagine they’re not happy at all and have already starting bitching about it.

Continue reading: MotoGP - Yamaha waiting before celebrating Constructors Championship

Honda celebrated fifty years at the Tourist Trophy and Honda South Africa to commemorate the event has released this CBR600RR 2009 limited edition of this year’s Supersport TT winner Ian Hutchinson racing livery.

Each bike is serialized No. 1 through No. 50, and comes with a Shark RSF3 helmet personalized with the same livery colours and and a personalised certificate of authenticity will be supplied with each and every bike purchased with the buyers name.

The bikes will be selling for R 109.999.00 (10.185 euros) while the C-ABS version will sell for R 118.999 (11.018 euros)

Source | motoring

Continue reading: Honda CBR600RR Ian Hutchinson TT livery Replica

Richard Hammond pre-Top Gear days with a Honda Fireblade (CBR 1000 RR) in this ridiculous video races a rocket and a golf ball to see who goes fastest. Hardly a surprising result from the Brainiac series, but a very nice bike all the same.

Source | Faster and Faster via Autoblog

Continue reading: Richard Hammond's Honda Fireblade

Check out our photo gallery from this weekend’s MotoGP Gran Premio d’Italia Alice, that saw Ducati factory rider Casey Stoner put an end to Valentino Rossi’s seven year reign at Mugello.

Images from Mugello Weekend

Continue reading: Images from the MotoGP Mugello Weekend

Last year while Marco Simoncelli was racing to win the 250cc World Championship, the Italian rider was already being courted by Ducati who wanted him to join their stable in 2009. Simoncelli reported he even refused $ 1.000.000 to ride for them stating that he wanted to try to win a second World Championship title.

On Sunday, during Italia 1 show Fuori Giri that airs right after the MotoGP race and has in-depth interviews and guests, Ducati team manager Livio Suppo, without beating around the bush asked outright Simoncelli to ride for them.

“SuperSic was great, he rode like a God. Marco wouldn’t you like to ride our bike next year? You’re always in our hearts, we have to talk …” declared an almost adoring Suppo to Simoncelli who was sitting in the studio.

Simoncelli is ready to move to MotGP next year as is Spanish rider Alvaro Bautista and both riders are receiving various offers. One of these is from Yamaha Tech 3, who seem ready to put out to pasture Colin Edwards and send James Toseland back to WSBK and sign Simoncelli and maybe Superbike sensation Ben Spies.

Other rumors say that Honda is extremely interested in Simoncelli and that is even ready to line up a seventh bike on the grid, with no distinction between factory and satellite bikes. Speculation has it that they could even set up a one rider team for the Italian just like the Scot Racing team with Takahashi.

Silly season has already begun.

Source | sportmediaset

Continue reading: Livio Suppo wants Marco Simoncelli

Check out some pics from the Le Mans race.

Pics from MotoGP Le Mans

Continue reading: MotoGP Le Mans Images

The initial engine supplier for the Moto2 class, the 600cc prototype World Championship series which will run for the first time in 2010, has been confirmed as Japanese manufacturer Honda. After receiving offers from various potential suppliers, the Permanent Bureau of FIM President Mr Vito Ippolito and Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta made the unanimous decision to give the tender to the company.

The first Moto2 engine will run at over 150hp, housed inside chassis of the teams’ choosing. The prototype bikes will make their entrance to the World Championship against the current crop of 250cc machinery, which will run alongside the class in an arrangement similar to that made for the 500cc/MotoGP switch in 2002.

When Dorna decided to change the 250cc class to Moto2 and the one make engine regulation, did anyone really have any doubts that Honda wouldn’t be the engine supplier?

Source | motogp

Continue reading: Honda to Supply Engines to Moto2

Nicky Hayden and Yuki Takahashi crash at Motegi 2009. Thankfully both riders weren’t injured.

Continue reading: Hayden-Takahashi Crash Pic

Even more images from the MotoGP Motegi weekend.

More Images from Motegi

Continue reading: More Images from Motegi

The WSBK PR is also revving up for this weekend’s double header in Assen:

Hannspree Ten Kate Honda

Jonathan Rea:

“After what’s been a sluggish start to the season, we needed to look at making some changes to the bike to improve the feeling. The guys have found some pretty positive developments back at base and I was able to try them out last week. The feeling with the throttle is much better now and that was the main area of concern. Assen is a great place, for a number of reasons, and I got my first podium with the team there last year. The circuit should suit the bike better than Valencia anyway, and we’re all in a really positive frame of mind, so I’m really looking forward to the weekend.”

Carlos Checa:

!I wasn’t able to test the improvements to the bike but we have had some detailed discussions and I’m happy with the developments that the team has made. There are one or two other additions to the bike for this weekend and I’m confident that what we have planned should work well at Assen. Like a lot of other riders, I prefer the old layout of the circuit, but it’s still a nice track and I was on the podium twice last year, so it’s a great place to have the team’s home round. I was at the workshop for an open day last weekend and, if the weather is as good as it was then, it should be a great event.”

Ryuichi Kiyonari:

“After the last race I went back to Japan for a week for the wedding of Mamoru Moriwaki’s daughter, so it was good to spend a short time relaxing with friends. I must admit it was a little bit frustrating to ride with the problems we had at Valencia. But the team has been working really hard to prepare for Assen and I am confident that they have found some improvements for me to try. Last year was not such a good result, but we know what the problem was there – basically, rider too aggressive on throttle! I like the circuit at Assen, though, so I will try very hard this weekend to get some good results for the team.”

Continue reading: WSBK Assen Preview