Alex

The 2012 AMA Supercross series was launched in front of a capacity 45,000 crowd at the Anaheim stadium in Los Angeles last weekend and Joe Gibbs Racing’ James Stewart took his YZ450F to sixth position in the opening main event of seventeen on the U.S. calendar. The former Champion endured a dramatic first evening of the season. He had marked the fastest lap-time in the second qualifier but was undone at the beginning of the 20 lap sprint when a poor start left him deep in the pack. Behind runaway leader and winner Ryan Villopoto Stewart worked up to third position and then enjoyed a tight battle with 2010 champion Ryan Dungey. The Floridian made a small mistake on the approach to a table-top jump and hit the hay bales at the side of the track, causing a crash and some light damage to his motorcycle. He was hit in the stomach by his handlebar but had no other problems. By the time he could rectify his radiator plastic shroud and regain his composure he had lost several places and needed to push again to reach sixth. “James showed a lot of patience out there tonight,” said JGR/Toyota Yamaha team manager Jeremy Albrecht. “He didn’t get the best of starts, but he did a really good job of being patient and catching the leaders without taking too many risks. But the track was changing a lot throughout the night and he just got caught out over there and landed in the Tuff Blox. He was missing a radiator shroud when he got up, and the front end was kind of tweaked, but he still made the most of it. Championships are won on your bad days, and this wasn’t a good day, but he still salvaged sixth place. That’s pretty good.” Ryan Morais and Davi Millsaps filled 15th and 16th places under the Anaheim lights. Ryan Sipes (5th spot) and Monster Energy Yamaha’s Zach Osborne – completing several West Coast events as warm-up for the FIM MX2 World Championship – (9th) posted finishes on the YZ250F in the Lites division. Round two takes place next weekend at Chase Field in Phoenix. Click here to view the news

Now if it was a smaller loop and you han a run up ;-)

An exciting season finale in Doha, Qatar saw the Yamaha Racing France GMT 94 Ipone team with riders David Checa, Kenny Foray and Matthieu Lagrive power their YZF-R1 to the finish line and snatch their first victory of the year and as a consequence earn the third place overall in the 2011 Qtel FIM Endurance World Championship. The GMT 94 R1 was quick off the mark for the eight hours of Doha on Saturday, battling for the lead from the very beginning with fellow Yamaha riders Igor German, Steve Martin and Katsuyuki Nakasuga from Monster Yamaha YART. In a dramatic ninth lap Monster Yamaha YART’s Nakasuga went down in a tussle with Sébastien Gimbert, sending the Austrian team to the back of the pack with a one lap deficit. Yamaha Racing France GMT 94 Ipone managed to avoid the collision and took advantage to push their Yamaha into the lead. Thanks to some slick pit work and consistent runs from Checa, Foray and Lagrive, the team managed to maintain this lead. Holding off constant advances from the Suzuki Endurance racing team, the French Yamaha squad gradually created a comfortable gap and completed a total of 231 laps to take a well-earned first step on the season finale podium. Despite the collision at the early stages, Monster Yamaha YART riders put in an outstanding performance to push back through the field to complete the final race of the season just shy of a podium position, in fourth place. Closely following was the Spanish Yamaha of YMES Folch Endurance with Dani Ribalta, Pedro Vallcaneras and Jose Manuel Luis Rita, crossing the line in sixth place. Belgian’s Yamaha DG Sport Herock Team took a beautiful victory in the Superstock category, giving the YZF-R1 ‘the double’ in Doha. Riders Raymond Schouten, Hugo Marchand and Josep Monge all completed trouble free stints and were able to run a perfect race following the lined out strategy. Four out of the entered seven Yamaha YZF-R1 machines completed the 2011 Qtel FIM Endurance World Championship in the top ten with Yamaha Racing France GMT 94 Ipone, Monster Yamaha YART, YMES Folch Endurance and Maco Racing Team wrapping up the season in third, fifth, sixth and ninth places respectively. Click here to view the news

Yamaha Factory rider Ben Spies delivered a sensational performance today to take second in the Valencia Grand Prix. The Texan was quick to tuck in behind the fighting duo of Andrea Dovizioso and Dani Pedrosa, pacing the two as they fought for position. With seven laps to go he made his move and began to close down race leader Casey Stoner. Capitalising on a small mistake by the race leader, Spies moved to the front and managed to create a small gap. Unfortunately the last corner saw Stoner fight back, charging to cross the finish line just 0.015 seconds ahead. Katsuyuki Nakasuga put in a brilliant performance today in his first ever premier class MotoGP race. The Japanese rider has faced challenging weather conditions all weekend on his first visit to the Valencia circuit. Faced with a grid of experienced GP riders and hugely changeable track conditions, Nakasuga-san delivered, holding his own and fighting through to take a very respectable sixth place finish. Todays Grand Prix at Valencia was not only the last of the season, but also the last of the 800cc era. Although unable to ride for the last two Grand Prix, Jorge Lorenzo has amassed enough points to seal second in the Championship standings with 260. Team mate Ben Spies takes fifth place with 176 points. Click here to view the news

Hi thanks for the notification, sorry that's a page which hasn't yet been rebuilt on the new site since moving over. Amazingly it's a pretty damn important one! Membership upgrades from free to paid are under the main subscriptions link at the top. However this page needs some work, it doesn't clearly let you see the differences in the options. Will be getting it fixed soon, need to get a quote from a developer as it requires changes to the core code :-(

They're assholes. They still haven't got back to me yet. Anyway glad it's all back up.

Sorry the site was down shortly. The morons at ServerCentre.net who manage the DNS for the domain name decided not to take payment for the domain and cut our access off. All my billing information is set for automatic renewal so I should never have to worry about this happening. I've got no idea why they've done this! Anyway I've paid them manually and its just been switched back on. Bastards, I can't believe they didn't send an email to say sorry payment couldn't be made or similar if there was a fault. Awaiting their response...

Helder Rodrigues toasted a fantastic FIM Cross Country Rally World Championship victory on his WR450F thanks to second position in the Pharaoh’s Rally in Egypt last weekend. The Portuguese led the four round series coming into the hot and testing terrain and completed an emphatic 100% podium record for the 2011 campaign to lift his first FIM title. Rodrigues had finished as runner-up in Abu Dhabi, emerged victorious from the round in Tunisia and then was third in Sardinia to head to the Middle East with an excellent chance of securing the honours. He started the competition not wanting to test fate but soon settled into a rhythm and through the six stages eventually managed to conquer three of them to classify behind Marc Coma. Helder was pronounced Portugal’s very first champion of the discipline. “More than ever I wanted to race without taking any risks and happily I was able to come through the six stages problem-free,” he said. “I worked so hard to try and reach the top and this title is a fantastic reward and now we have a new challenge to improve our classification at the Dakar.” Incidentally Yamaha dominated the Quad class in Egypt with four riders claiming the six stages and filling the overall top six of the final standings. Camelia Liparoti was third to become FIM Women’s World Champion for the third year in a row. Rodrigues can now fully focus on the 2012 Dakar rally, beginning once again in South America in the first days of January. The new FIM number one will be aiming to better his third place from this year’s edition of arguably the toughest race in the world. Click here to view the news

Hi Tim i'll change this for you later today. Cheers Alex

Multi Dakar winner and Yamaha rally legend Stephane Peterhansel was on hand at St Jean D’Angely for the Motocross of Nations last weekend to unveil the 2012 WR450F enduro motorcycle in public for the first time. The Frenchman took advantage of a small gap in the busy timetable at the traditional season-closing event to ride the new bike up onto display in front of a generous section of the estimated 68,000 crowd. Peterhansel then chatted about the light sensation and nimbleness of the WR. This was hardly surprising considering the brand new fuel injected 450cc engine has been bolted into a fresh 250 class bilateral beam frame. With the high-torque five-valve powerplant nestling in this small and compact chassis the onus has been on delivering maximum tractability and performance with a feeling of light, fast and fun riding. The 2012 WR450F could not have asked for a better endorsement than Stephane’s and on one of the most important off-road racing stages. Click here to view the news

Haha that's great, but I still prefer the first one. Surprised no one else has sent any in ;-)

Best fan photo sent to me so far, in fact it's the only ones I've had worth publishing. Feel free to send in more ;-) Wonder what bike she's got?

Monster Energy Yamaha’s Steven Frossard will sadly not be able to contest the Grand Prix of Italy at Fermo this weekend for the fifteenth and final round of the FIM Motocross World Championship. The Frenchman had initially planned to enter the meeting after feeling no ill effects in the wake of his crash last Sunday at Gaildorf in Germany. The winner of the Swedish and French rounds of the MX1-GP series this year went for further examination on his chest in Belgium this week and was found to be suffering from a lung infection that was causing a bubble to appear. Medical specialists advised that it would be dangerous to consider participating at the scenic hard-pack circuit near the east coast. Frossard has had an immense first season in MX1-GP and also with the factory team on the YZ450FM. He picked up six podiums and is currently second in the series; a standing he will retain if fourth-placed Max Nagl cannot amass more than 33 points in the final two motos of the year. He is guaranteed a top four finish. Frossard will have another x-ray on Monday to determine whether he will be able to represent his country at the 65th Motocross of Nations at St Jean D’Angely the following week. Click here to view the news

Home hero Ben Spies put in a superhuman effort today, coming back from ninth place to take a hard fought podium spot for the Grand Prix of Indianapolis. Starting from second on the grid the Texan rider was caught up in first a bottle neck of riders in turn one, then came together with Andrea Dovizioso in turn four, dropping him back to ninth as he fought to stay on the bike. Despite the setback Spies went on to deliver one of the star performances of the day, taking an impressive number of overtakes and setting some of the fastest laps of the race. He finally took the chequered flag in third place and stood on the podium to a huge applause from the US crowd. Team mate Jorge Lorenzo’s race was a battle not with his competitors but with the resurfaced Indianapolis track. The reigning World Champion continued to be plagued with a rapidly wearing front tyre causing critical control issues from as early as lap four. Lorenzo battled on regardless, having made a great start he eventually had to relinquish position to team mate Spies and crossed the line in fourth, pushing to stay ahead of Dovizioso to the line. The results of today see Lorenzo’s gap to Casey Stoner in first extended to 44 points with six races remaining. Team mate Spies picks up 16 points, moving up to fifth in the standings, just five points behind Dani Pedrosa in fourth. The team now head across the Atlantic with no break to the Grand Prix of San Marino at Misano next weekend. Ben Spies - Position 3rd - Time +10.603 “My actual start wasn’t too bad, just a couple of people got into turn one too hot and I got bottled in. I think Dovi came across in front of me in turn four and I was just glad to stay on the bike. I never even saw him. After that happened we just had to pluck away and not get ahead of ourselves. We rode well but just needed to be up there in the first four turns. I rode as fast as I could; it was tough to pass out there as we couldn’t get it done on the straight so we had to figure out some different spots. I was happy to be able to do that and still run good pace at the end.” Jorge Lorenzo - Position 4th - Time +16.576 “It's a shame; I thought I could reduce my gap with Casey at Indy but since the first practice I have had many problems with the asphalt and the front tyre. I've tried everything with my team to fix it, but we couldn't. After four or five laps the front tyre was destroyed. I saw the other three front riders and their tyres were perfect. I don't know if it was because of the track and I’m not the only one complaining. Now the Championship is much more complicated, but hope is the last thing you can lose. Next weekend we ride again at Misano, I looking forward to forgetting this result." Wilco Zeelenberg - Yamaha Factory Racing Team Manager “A disappointing weekend, fourth place I think was the maximum we could get out of it. It was clear that even one lap more might have meant finishing fifth; the front tyre was completely gone, that’s basically the whole story. It was also disappointing that Ben was not able to fight for the win. He did a fantastic sixteen last laps but the first ten were very hard for him after the start. I think he could have fought with Casey. Anyway, third and fourth we have to swallow and we will look to Misano.” Massimo Meregalli - Yamaha Factory Racing Team Director “I think the race could have had a different final result, but the start compromised it. Ben made some great passes, I don’t think he could have done better under the circumstances. He did a good job, there’s nothing bad I can say. Jorge unfortunately fought all weekend with tyre management. He still managed to get fourth place and more valuable points for the Championship. Everything is still open and for sure he is a really tough rider and will go to Misano with good expectations.” Consistent Edwards delivers another top ten in Indianapolis Colin Edwards extended his impressively consistent run of results in the 2011 MotoGP World Championship this afternoon, the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Team rider racing to a hard fought seventh position at the iconic Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The Texan made a fast start from the second row of the grid but as the pack jostled for position in the tight first section of the 2.62 miles track, Edwards was bumped back to eighth. He was involved in an exciting early battle with factory riders Alvaro Bautista, Ben Spies and Valentino Rossi before the field began to stretch out at the halfway stage of the 28-lap encounter. With temperatures reaching close to 30 degrees, Edwards was left in a personal duel with Spaniard Bautista until lap 23 when a big front-end slide cost him crucial time. With his front tyre starting to push more and more, Edwards decided to slow down his pace to secure a deserved seventh place, which moves him into eighth place in the World Championship standings ahead of Marco Simoncelli on 84-points. Cal Crutchlow's reward for a weekend in which he worked tirelessly to improve the front-end feeling with his Monster Yamaha Tech 3 YZR-M1 machine was his best finish since the Catalunya race in early June. He maintained a consistent pace throughout the race having led Loris Capirossi, Toni Elias, Randy de Puniet and Hiroshi Aoyama in a frantic opening few laps. And a series of strong laps in the final stages saw him snatch 11th from Marco Simoncelli on the final lap to end his recent run of disappointing results. Colin Edwards - Position 7th - Time +36.690 “I thought I got a fantastic start but the problem is the Yamaha is lacking a bit of grunt. I needed Fred Flinstone behind giving me a push to go faster, so I had a few people come by me on the run to the first corner. The first few laps I felt I could go faster but with Bautista sitting in front of me, I'd get close and then coming out of the corner he would just grab a few metres on me. In the twisty stuff at the end of the lap I was gaining it all back and at the last corner I almost ran into him. But by the time we got to the first corner he'd pull a few bike lengths on me again. I really wanted to beat Bautista but he started to ride really well in the second half of the race. I was on his back wheel and looking for an opportunity to make an overtake but I lost the front at the end of the back straight and that was a warning just to back off and take seventh. The front tyre lost a fair bit of grip in the last few laps though I wasn't the only one to have a problem. But I was top non-factory rider, I got another top ten and I moved up another place in the Championship, so it wasn't a bad afternoon's work. We go to Misano now and see if we can fight for the top six." Cal Crutchlow - Position 11th - Time +57.184 “Firstly I want to say a big thanks to all my guys in the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Team. They never gave up all weekend, even when we were struggling a little bit and it might sound silly but I don't think any of us in the garage have ever been so pleased to get an 11th place. After the bad recent run it was important to finish the race and I did that. The result wasn't the best but my speed at the end of the race was really good and I'm happy about that, so there are a lot of positives to take to Misano. At the end of the race I was lapping faster than Jorge Lorenzo. I was a long way behind him but that still gives me a lot of encouragement. Like a lot of people I had a few issues with the front tyre and in the early part of the race it wasn't easy but I never gave up and pushed right to the end. This result at least gives us something to build on for the next races, starting at Misano, which is a track that at least I don't have to learn. I've needed to finish races to gain some experience and I'm glad we did because I learned a lot this afternoon and gave the Team a lot of good feedback to hopefully improve the bike in Misano.” Herve Poncharal - Monster Yamaha Tech3 Team Manager "I am very happy with the performance of Colin and Cal today and I think both of them got the best result we could have hoped for. Colin rode full of determination and I think at some stage he could have passed Bautista, but it was difficult. It was very wise from Colin not to push anymore with five laps to go as he had a big lead over the riders behind. This puts him in eighth position in the Championship standings and he passed Marco Simoncelli, who is one of the fastest riders in MotoGP. He deserved to have a strong race in front of his home crowd and he has been pushing all weekend and I want to thank him for that. Cal was a lot better than in previous races and he did a good, solid job. At the beginning he struggled but he got a lot better throughout the race lap and at the end he was faster than the group in front of him. That race was just what he needed after the bad period to clear of his mind a little bit. I believe he had a great race and that will put him back on the track. We go to Misano now where he knows the track and that will be another positive. Today he has learnt a lot and he was faster at the end of the race than at the beginning and this experience helps him prepare for next year.” Click here to view the news