There was an interesting article in the Motorcyclist magaine July 2013 on the first ride of the Ducati 1199 Panigale R which was debuted to the press at Circuilt of the Americas (COTA) in Austin, TX. Ben Spies (#11) and Nicky Hayden (#69) were special guests at the press launch previewing the new bike.
The bike has a thin-film-transistor (TFT) instrument display that blanks out after you pass 186mph. Nicky Hayden said it still continues to accelerate after it blanks out when coming out of T11 at COTA...so, the screen won't tell you after you've passed 300 kph or 186 mph...
Ducati has opted out of the gentleman's agreement to limit the speed to that number on the R model.
They also have an article titled "6 Questions with: Mel Harder" who is the Senior Vice President & General Manager, Circuit of the Americas.
Interesting read as well.
400 Million investment in the track so far, with possible motocross facility to be built as well.
Last month there was an article about Moto2 and it's growing audience and competitive spread in lap times between racers. Oddly enough that article indicated that most of the MotoGP/Moto2 audience was not bikers. So, the commercial race sponsoring is being driven by fans whom aren't riders, kind of like automotive motorsports is largely a fan base of non-racers... It pays the bills and eventually the technology trickles down into the street bikes, even the non-crotch rocket bikes benefit, just not as directly/quickly as the technology is shared.
Sorry, this post is a bit off topic from where it had been going...
