As part of this years festivities for the Isle Of Man race, Yamaha had Valentino Rossi go over and do a parade lap of the circuit with Giacomo Agostini. Looks like they had a lot of fun!! Vale makes an interesting comment about the new R1 at the end when he compares it to his 2004 Yamaha M1
5 Star Epic Finish At Catalunya
This was just to good to wait for a Two Wheel Tuesday
Why LeMans Is Relevent
I was asked by Michael Banovsky of the great vLane site to come up with a short blog post about the 24 Hour of LeMans race. You can check it out over on their site. 2009 24 Hours Of LeMans Preview If you would leave a comment at the bottom of the post.
Thanks and enjoy!
Happy 50th Birthday To Honda
Honda sent this time line over today in a press release to show where they have come from, it’s pretty cool.
American Honda 50th Anniversary Timeline
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Two Wheel Tuesday Erik Buell
Erik Buell is a very polarizing person in the motorcycle world, you either love him or you loath him, there are very few people in the middle. People who buy Buell’s tend to treat Erik with a reverence normally associated with a diety. Erik Buell has been called the Jim Jones of the motorcycle world.
This past weekend Erik had members of the media and some others out to his “shed” where he build some of his first motorcycles. Watch these three videos and decide for yourself where you fall.
Product Review Meguiar’s Plastic Headlight Restoration Kit
For quite some time on my POS daily driver the headlights have been an issue. They have become so fogged and yellowed that at times it’s hard to tell if they are on at night. I really hate spending money on this truck, because it’s not worth anything. I bought it Memorial Day weekend in 2006 for $900, and have spent little money on it. A new battery, front rotors and pads and a fuel pump, that’s it. 45,000+ miles later, it still runs good and gets 27-28mpg on the highway.
The lack of illumination has mostly been an annoyance but of late it’s hit a tipping point. Over the last few months I’ve seen a few products advertised on TV and magazines that are supposed to clear up yellowed and fogged headlights, and I’ve been curious to see if they would work. Earlier this week I was at the parts store to buy some new wiper blades and saw this on the shelf, I figured I’d give it a shot.
Shelby Car Show At Ford World Headquarters
Sunday, May 31st there was a car show put on by the local SAAC (Shelby American Automobile Club) that happened on the grounds of Ford’s World Headquarters. Out time was short there, but we were able to put this video together. Make sure to click the HD button to see it in it’s best format. If you’d like to see the individual pics have a look at them on out Flickr page
Dale Junior’s Latest Fresh Start
The news that everyone knew was way past due came this week when Tony Eury Jr. was replaced as crew chief of the 88 team. If you’ve spent more than ten minutes watching Nascar, you know the history there. And if you didn’t FOX and SPEED are sure to run at least thirty minutes of packages and vignettes over the Dover weekend events to dramatize them.
To say Junior is loyal to a fault to his family is a massive understatement. Eight times out ten that’s a good quality to have, but like now when it interferes with your performance, well, sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself and your friends and family is find a soft landing spot for them, and that certainly happened with Eury Jr. as he is moving over to JR Motorsports full time now.
By the way when did Dale Junior become a Brazilian soccer star where he’s just known by one name, Kaka, Ronaldinho, Pele, Dida, etc., then again Brazil’s affinity for nicknames might stem from the country’s historically high illiteracy rate. As such, shortened spoken names are typically used more often than longer birth names, not that I’m drawing any correlation to the Nascar fan base, :rolleyes:
I don’t think anyone who reads this, nor I who write it, can understand the level of pressure to perform and live up to the legend that was his father. For that alone it’s understandable that Junior would place himself in a protective bubble surrounded by friends and family where he feels safe. There in may lie the problem. The Junior entourage, and no I don’t know who’s Turtle and Johnny Drama etc., enjoy the good life and may not want to upset that gravy train. The only person we know for sure that maybe giving Junior an unfiltered opinion is Rick Hendrick.
Hendrick has been more than patient with Junior, letting him pretty much have his way in how the team was set up, staffed and run. At the end of the day though Hendrick had to put his foot down and say enough. In a crappy economy he has sponsors who are paying him at 2005 levels and not even getting an acceptable return for that time frame, let alone 2009!
With someone new on top of the pit box and in his ear, Dale Junior will be forced to come out of his comfort zone, and that maybe just what he needs. Will it have the desired effect, no one knows for sure, but as the old saying goes, if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got.”
The move to Hendrick was a “Fresh Start” and “Clean Break” from DEI and was suposed to kick off the era of Junior domination. We know how well that worked out. Lets see if this “Fresh Start” works out better.
Finally we want you to check out this interview with Junior from Thursday while he was in Detroit promoting the upcoming race at MIS. Out friend Larry Henry (twitter.com/DetroitVoice)condcucted most of the Q&A, it’s pretty reveling about how hard this move hit him.
RumblestripRadio #95
Time for a little cross promotion. It’s been a while but a new episode of RumblestripRadio is now posted. It features and extend conversation with Chris Jonnum, the Editor of Road Racer X.
Check it out at www.rumblestripradio.com remember to subscribe to the show via iTunes or your favorite RSS reader.
The Bathurst 1000
If you were to make a list of all the important car and motorcycle races in a year, all over the world, and make a list of all the great tracks in the world, would the Bathurst 1000 on Mount Panorama make it? Well it should! In the land of Oz this is their Indy 500, their Monaco GP, their Assen and Mugello.
You can spend hours on YouTube watching videos of V8 Supercars turning laps at this place. The track looks like a mix of Spa, Road America and Laguna Seca. This TV package gives you an idea about the history of the race, the track and it’s importance to the motorsports culture of Australia.