Sad thread going on over at the Ducati.ms forum, called appropriately enough, “Ducati Pile Up” — Apparently for a few Ducatista, the fowl weather and heavy rain at the Indianapolis Grand Prix was not the worst of their day but rather just the beginning…

Head over the thread to read more.

After much speculation, today Nicky Hayden officially signed on as the second rider for Ducati’s Moto GP team for next season. The switch ends a tumultuous multi-year saga of disappointment and frustration for both Hayden and his former Honda Repsol squad.
From Roadracing World’s Newswire:

“We are really happy to have Nicky join us,” declared Claudio Domenicali, Ducati Corse CEO and Ducati Motor Holding Product Director. “We are certain that his never-say-die attitude, riding style and character will be great additions to our team in 2009. I would like to thank …

Some serious props have to go out to the nineteen men who braved the elements and started on the Indianapolis Moto GP grid yesterday. I can’t think of a race in recent memory - on at any level - that had such poor weather conditions. It looked like these guys were riding on a patch of land in the Bering Straits during rainy season. It was just an absolute mess and unfortunately a completely missed opportunity to captivate non-riders in America…
Obviously the weather is outside human control, but I …

As the old expression goes, “where there’s smoke there’s fire”… Apparently during a pre-event press conference at the Indianapolis Grand Prix, Nicky Hayden more or less confirmed his rumored switch to the Ducati Moto GP team next season, saying,

It’s no secret. Everybody knows where my next stop is going to be, but officially we’re waiting to do it the right way, until the releases come out, because there’s teams and stuff. (via Road Racing World)
Usually I don’t comment that much on Moto GP madness - that’s better left to sites …

Every now and then you come across something on the web that just smacks you in the face as ‘oh so cool’ because you realize that computers have come a long way in such a short time… While checking the Ducati boards tonight I ran across this amazingly good looking gif animation of the now heavily debated last corner bump between Valentino Rossi and Sete Gibernau at the end of last weekend’s MotoGP race in Spain. After reading countless columns and web forum postings about the incident I still have …

After writing several previous posts about Michael Czysz’s MotoCzysz MotoGP Motorcycle I wanted to throw a shout out to Travis over at Motorcycle-Blog.com who today posted a scope on the soon to be announced Red Bull USGP paint scheme for the C1. Honestly I have no idea where he saw the press release because as of tonight I can’t get the MotoCzysz website to load in my web browser at all. It appears to be terminally down from where I’m sitting. That notwithstanding I find it a bit ironic how …

You have to hand it to those stylish Italians, they sure know how to unveil a new race bike for the upcoming MotoGP season. Today they introduced the new Desmosedici GP5 on top of the Grosté glacier in the Dolomite mountain range in Northern Italy. Hopefully this year they’ll have a killer racing season to go along with the rather amazing looking Photo Op picts. Between this event, the renewed emphisis on the Il Motogiro d’Italia and the 999 vs Lockhead F104 stunt, somebody in the Ducati PR department …

Interesting and nicely written review of the new 2 disc set of Faster by fellow motorcycle rider Alanf, titled “Getting faster all the time…”. Ever since I watched the original non-collector edition of Faster, which I wrote about awhile back, I’ve been mulling over whether or not to pick up the new 2 disc set…

I recently had the chance to watch One Man’s Island , a first person documentary about Canadian Mark Gardiners’ journey to qualify and race in the 2002 Isle of Man TT Motorcycle Race. Much of One Man’s Island lives and breaths with Mark and within his struggles. He is a privateer racer on a personal quest, who eventually gives up everything to travel across the Atlantic to try qualifying for the toughest road race in the world — The Isle of Mann. A single event unlike any other in motorcycle …