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The past few weeks have been very busy preparing for the 3rd round on the CCS/SW racing series. First off, I used some of the money I received from my 2007 Most Improved Amateur award, to attended the 2 Day Advanced Riding School at Arroyo Seco Raceway in Deming, MN. The school is taught by Arroyo Seco track owner Roger Heemsbergen, AMA racer Mike Shreve, and local ASMA racers Tiras Banks, Bob McFarland and Scott Bergen at Arroyo Seco Raceway in Deming, NM.

The school focuses heavily on bike setup, linking turns together, throttle control and riding position. Combine this with extensive personalized one on one instruction and the highly challenging Arroyo

Well …… once again Hagasan proves why he’ll probably never win a championship. During the first round of World Superbike, held this past weekend in Qatar, the veteran Noriuki made a rookie mistake.

In the opening laps, Haga who was running in second place right on the tail of his teammate Troy Corser, was aggressively passed by Max Biaggi. The pass was completely legit and without incident. But, the Sterilgarda Ducati rider’s move caused Nori to have to “check-up”. This infuriated Haga so much that he decided to take his left (clutch) hand off the bar to give Biaggi the one-finger salute.

Almost immediately upon raising his arm, Haga’s right hand (throttle) moved just enough to cause the rear-end of his bike to break

SuperbikePlanet, my favorite source for roadracing information, has released it’s 2008 calendar and the racing start ONLY a month from today!

http://www.superbikeplanet.com/calendar2000/

 You’ll notice the first serious race of the 2008 season is next month!!! World Superbike from Qatar on Feb 23.

Other notes:

First MotoGP race is also at Qatar and is UNDER THE LIGHTS AT NIGHT on the same weekend as Daytona!

 For American fans, instead of one World Championship, we get 3 this year, and two are combined with the AMA series:

 Miller (June 1) - World Superbike/AMA

Laguna Seca (July 20) - MotoGP/AMA

Indy (Sept 14) - MotoGP

 Biggest racer to watch: Kenan Sofuoglu, World Superbike. He ran away with the Supesport title last year and is riding the TenKate Honda World Championship seat vacated by James Toseland

The Beast Report

Team: 2up Racing By Myself. / Event: CCS/SW – January 12th and 13th, 2008 – Round #1

Sponsors: Kurveygirl.com / M4 Exhaust / Euro Motorsports of Scottsdale

Preferred Tire Vendor: / Jim Cox Racing (Dunlop Racing Tires)

Spring time temperatures fell upon the Phoenix Arizona area for the first round of the 2008 CCS/SW racing series. Many would find racing in January a bit strange, but for phoenix this is the norm not the exception. The weather was a near perfect with clear skys and

This Sunday is the last “live” motorcycle roadrace to be broadcast by Speed this season. MotoGP will wrap-up it’s 18 race schedule at Valencia, Spain this Sunday (Nov 4). WSB and AMA have been done for weeks, so after this Sunday’s race, it’s reruns, internet and silly season rumors until February when World Superbikes kicks off the 2008 season.

 While it’s true this season was a bit of a yawner with Casey Stoner and Ducati wrapping up the title with 3 races left to run, the 250 class wasn’t decided until the penultimate round with the current Champion, Jorge Lorenzo taking his second title from Andre Divizioso. Both are moving up to MotoGp next year along with another 250 standout, Alex DeAngelis, so

Despite a double win in the final round of the World Superbike Championship, Noriuki still came up just 2 points short. Even some pretty mediocre finishes by series leader James Toseland couldn’t change the Sultan of Slide’s luck. The perennial tuning fork pilot has finished second in the WSBK series once before (2000) and has finished 3rd or better for the last 5 years! So Haga appears to be the next Randy Mamola (take that, short-time race fans).

I had to wait until last night, Tuesday, to see Sunday’s finale from Magny-Cour, France. In it’s infinite wisdom and concern for it’s paying viewers, Speed decided a motorcycle World Championship series, where the outcome would most likely be decided in the final

around the net today, I found a report on roadracingworld about Greg White getting a shot at racing the Yoshimura Suzuki superstock bike at the final round of the AMA series at Laguna.

For those who don’t know Greg White, he was the once shaved head (Just like AB) host of Two Wheeled Tuesday. After almost three years the programs plug was pulled for the much more topical “Superbikes” show. Since then Greg has continued to act as a field reporter down on the gird at AMA races when broadcast on speed TV. Another little known fact is Greg was very eager to become a professional road racer. It has been commented on by Star School founder

Sometimes you just have to shake your head when you read something. Roadracingworld.com published a press release about shortening the Sunday AMA Superbike race at Road Atlanta. The race was reduced from 25 laps, down to 20 laps. The reason for the reduction was at Dunlop’s Jim Allen request, due to safety concerns. The kicker is the safety concerns was the Dunlop tires were blistering and in one case the tire came off the rim and wire from the bead on one tire was viable

In a statement released by Dunlop, the company said, “With knowledge gathered from the recent tire testing session and confirmed in the first Superbike race on Saturday, the tire compounds available

According to SuperbikePlanet.com, WSB is headed to Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele, UT for the 2008 season! As a resident of the Beehive State, I couldn’t be more excited!

A Barber round is also rumored. If we could go from zero to two rounds, how cool would that be! Especially on the heels of MotoGP’s second round at Indy this coming year. Looks like interest in roadracing is picking up in the States.

Wow, my head’s spinin’

Rhino

I consider myself a huge fan of MotoGP and think its the greatest racing on TV and in general.  There are a couple things I need to be entertained though.  A - good racing & B - my guy(s) to be involved in the action.  Unfortunately, for me, this race gave me neither after turn #1.

There is a big “?” about defending the Laguna Seca three-peat.  Don’t get me wrong, Stoner had a perfect, and mistake free race.  But the reality is that the question about Hayden’s performance on his home turf will go unnswered until next year.  Could he have beaten Dtoner today?  It appears that a Hayden three-peat would have been difficult. 

Rivalries and the home crowd, however, bring out