Troy Bayliss may be retired but he can’t stay away from two wheels. The 44-year old former three-time world Superbike champion can still hold his own even in a little friendly flat track fun as we’ve previously seen during the inaugural Pixado Troy Bayliss Classic.

Here Bayliss is in Kentucky thanks to Bell Helmets and at AMA ProRacing star JD Beach’s spread to play in the Kentucky mud.

Beach is the 2008 Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup champion and races in the AMA Pro GoPro Daytona SportBike championship where he finished 7th overall last year and with continue to ride the 2013 season with RoadRace Factory/RedBull on a Yamaha YZF-R6.

You can read how the entire Bayliss/Beach thing came together on Beach’s personal blog here.

A crowd of over 5000 turned out to see a spectacle like no other as 23 invited guests of Australia’s triple World Superbike Champion put on a show at the inaugural Pixado Troy Bayliss Classic.

The star-studded field boasted 7 World Championships and hundreds of Australian titles shared by riders past and present from categories including World Superbikes, MotoGP, ASBK, Enduro, Flat Track, Speedway, Supermoto and Motocross.

The 400m Taree/Old Bar oil-based dirt track circuit hosted a series of exciting 12-rider races, drawing acclaim from local and interstate fans who labelled it the “…best racing they had ever seen…” and “…best dirt track event ever…”.

The Legend and All-Star lineup included 24 riders – Stephen Gall, David Armstrong, Chris Vermeulen, Jason Crump, Paul Caslick, Josh Brookes, Anthony Gunter, Randy de Puniet, Josh Waters, Troy Herfoss, Shawn Giles, Garry McCoy, Broc Parkes, Barry Cockle, Jamie Stauffer, Chris Watson, Wayne Maxwell, Chris Hollis, Damian Cudlin, Toby Price, Josh Hook, Vaughan Styles, Phil Lovett and host Troy Bayliss.

Continue reading: Pixado Troy Bayliss Classic - A huge success - updated with video

Former three-time World Superbike champion Troy Bayliss will not only be hosting the Troy Bayliss Classic, an international dirt flat track event next January, the much loved champion will also be taking part in the 2012 InsureMyRide Le Minz 24 Hour Scooterthon charity eventthat will be held on the 8th and 9th of December at the Gold Coast Parklands Showgrouds, Australia.

The Le Minz Scooterthon is renowned for being one of the world’s most gruelling 50cc scooter challenges and these photos are testiment on how serious Troy Bayliss is still about racing as he puts his scooter around the track in a practice session. The Australian will be teaming up with now retired three-time World Speedway champion Jason Crump for the event.

Photo source | TroyBayliss.21-facebook.com

Last January, former three time World Superbike champion Troy Bayliss returned to his roots when he competed at the Old Bar Roadside Circuit during the Taree Motorcycle Club’s twilight meeting, apparently the event was such a hit that it has been decided to inaugurate the Troy Bayliss Classic, International dirt flat track event will be held on Saturday January 19, 2013.

The invitational event will feature a star-studded line-up of past and present motorcycle racing legends. Already confirmed for the historical event is three-time World Speedway Champion Jason Crump, World Supersport Champion Chris Vermeulen and multiple Australian Supercross and Motocross Champion Dan Reardon with more big names to be announced in the coming weeks.

The event is being held in conjunction with the Taree Motorcycle Club’s twilight meeting, which is already an iconic event on the national dirt track calendar and feature events will see 16 special guest riders participate in a range of races and solo super pole shoot outs.

“I hadn’t raced at the Taree Motorcycle Club for over 25 years,” said Bayliss. “I was invited to race at the twilight meeting earlier this year and I had a really good time. “The event was fantastic and the track was so much fun. It was great to be back at my old track seeing so many familiar faces “I can’t wait to return and bring some of Australia’s best motorcycle racers with me.”

“I have an amazing list of riders who I look forward to announcing over the coming weeks.They come from all different styles of motorcycle racing and have all excelled in their chosen disciplines be it motocross, enduro, road racing, super motard, speedway, flat track or supercross. It’s going to be awesome to see the likes of Jason Crump & Chris Vermeulen up against someone equally as skilled in their own discipline, all on a level playing field”

Ever since Troy Bayliss retired at the end of 2008 he has worked for Ducati a image man and test/ development rider especially on the 1199 Panigale, but after last weekend’s World Ducati Week the former three-time World Superbike champion has decided to say good-bye to the Italian manufacturer with this tweet to all his fans, “Home bound tomorrow , pretty happy, let every one know I will not test again, time for a change, don’t want to hang around like bad smell.”

According to some wild rumors floating around Italy, the reason that Bayliss decided to quit was that he is still upset regarding the WSBK Effenbert Liberty wildcard ride that he wanted to do at the opening round of the season at Phillip Island, but was shot down because of “political reasons.”

Whatever the reasons behind his latest decision, the Australian is known to change his mind pretty often so we expect to see him back.

The Ducati Diavel isn’t a very popular bike here in Italy, it was designed more with the bigger American market in mind, but maybe watching this video footage by Motociclismo.it of the Diavel Drag Race during the 2012 World Ducati Week will help boost sales even in its home country.

Like we posted on Sunday, the final heat was won by Troy Bayliss against Valentino Rossi on part of the Misano straight.

Enjoy the video.

One of the highlights of the 2012 four day World Ducati Week that is being held (Sunday is the last day) at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli was the Ducati Diavel Drag Race by Tudor, starring MotoGP riders Valentino Rossi, Nicky Hayden and Ducati World Superbike riders Carlos Checa, Jakub Smrz, Sylvain Guintoli, Niccolò Canepa and Lorenzo Zanetti along with three-time and former World SBK Champion, the unforgetable Troy Bayliss.

Yesterday several of our cousins from Motoblog.it were among the over 60,000 Ducati lovers from over 27 different countries (attendance records have yet to be released) who flocked to Misano to attend the event, and they took this big gallery of the drag race from the straight and pitlane.

The race was done in heats, with Bayliss paired up against Smrz, Guintoli vs Checa, Rossi vs Canepa, Hayden vs Zanetti and the first riders indicated. won their respective races. In the semi finals Rossi beat Checa and Bayliss got the best over Hayden (who wore out his tire thoroughly doing burnouts between the heats) and final showdown went down between Rossi and Bayliss.

Bayliss got the better start and tripped the timing lights at 6.306 seconds to win, while Rossi finished 0.023s adrift that put him in second with Hayden third and Checa fourth. All the riders did spectacular show of burn-outs and wheelies with their Diavels afterwards and accepted their trophies to the applause of all the passionate ‘red’ fans.

Continue reading: Troy Bayliss beats Valentino Rossi in Ducati Diavel drag race

Those big black clouds and rain that helped Valentino Rossi at Le Mans on Sunday has followed Ducati across the border to Italy and all the way to Mugello and instead of helping them is now hindering the Ducati team’s important test activities for the umpteenth time.

Rossi and Hayden were supposed to test a batch of new parts, instead everyone from Troy Bayliss to the mechanics are huddled around the espresso machine waiting to see if the track drys out before venturing outside.

Bayliss attempted to write in Italian on his Facebook page and posted this: “Buongiorno A tutti , soon qui a Mugello, tempo di Merda, ma con mia sqaudra e Caffe , Allora non fretta per andre a pista , TB 21″ which translated means Good morning everyone, I’m here at Mugello. Shitty weather, but with my team and coffee. Not hurrying to get on track.

The former World Champion speaks better Italian than he writes it (like yours truly) and like everyone who picks up a second or third language, cuss words are the first that you learn.

After Sunday’s MotoGP race at Le Mans where Valentino Rossi finished 2nd, Ducati packed up everything and headed to Mugello for a three-day private test that will start today, with Ducati test rider Franco Battaini giving a shakedown to the new series of upgrades, including electronics and a new engine with a smoother delivery that Filippo Preziosi has prepared for the GP12 before the arrival of Rossi and Nicky Hayden tomorrow.

These new parts and the engine will debut, if Rossi and Hayden approve of them, not before the Laguna Seca round late July, as Ducati will carry out a further two test sessions in June and July.

At the Tuscany circuit with the Ducati test team is former World Superbike champion and Borgo Panigale’s part time test rider Troy Bayliss who posted this photo of two 1199 Panigales on his Facebook page stating “Two bikes to play with, TB21.” Bayliss will be testing the Superbike before Carlos Checa gets to ride it for the first time sometime next month.

Unfortunately the test will be behind closed doors - but who knows if Rossi and Hayden and Bayliss will switch bikes just for the fun it.

Update:
Aprilia’s WSBK test team is also at Mugello with Alex Hofmann, so we may get some inside news on how the Ducati is performing.

While visiting the Monza circuit, we also got the chance to check out the special Superbike Museum that has been set up just outside the paddock area to celebrate 25 years of World Superbike Championship, and we got to say that that turned out to be a pretty emotional trip down the proverbial memory lane. The place is filled with many exciting motorcycles that simply made the history of this class: bikes that won the championship, bikes that just went close to win the title as well as bikes that did not win much but still managed to carve out their own place in the hearts of many fans around the world.

So we have the mandatory Ducati 916s, 996s and 998s that brought the likes of Carl Fogarty and Troy Bayliss to success, the mighty 888 of Doug Polen, the Honda RC45s of Aaron Slight and John Kocinsky, the SP1 twin of Colin Edwards, James Toseland’s championship winning Fireblade and 999 and so forth sitting beside more ‘obscure’ racers such as Foggy’s Petronas, Haga’s first Aprilia and even the mighty Bimota SB8K that earned Anthony ‘The Go Show” Gobert a famous win under the rain at the at the 2000 Australian World Superbike round.

Actually, there are just too many cool and exciting bikes at the museum in Monza, too many to mention, so we would like to challenge to recognize the lot of them in our exclusive photo gallery: that should be more fun than reading a boring list anyway, but if there’s some that you really can’t figure out what it is, feel free to ask. In order to see all the thumbnails at once, click on the ‘continue reading’ link below.

View the full WSBK, Monza: the 25th anniversary museum (Gallery) photo gallery

Continue reading: WSBK, Monza: a visit to the 25th anniversary museum (Gallery)