MORE Morning Moto News - Dave Watkins Retires & Aussie Supersport

Dave Watkins has been Development Manager - Motorsport at Dunlop tire for some time now. He is a 46 year veteran of the tire conglomerate and has been through many years of changes, engineering success and overall great tire manufacturing. Watkins has decided to hang up his white-collar and move on to life with his family. After all the years of hard work, all the travel to likely thousands of races, he was the man to see about Dunlop tires...now, he will be the man to see about relaxing...we hope!

http://tinyurl.com/y9ayssg

Though we did not see this earlier, I thought it would be nice to get a story which focuses on the Australian Supersport Championship round held this past weekend at Phillip Island. Two races were held for this class - much like the Superbike series - and Suzuki mounted Troy Herfoss took the overall win (a 2-1 finish). There is more here about the Waters Superbike victory as well, so dig in and take the link.

http://tinyurl.com/yblgjbe

MORE Afternoon Moto News - Speed Dating & Dunlop Supports CSC

Road Racer X's Speed Dating column comes to us again...and I missed it earlier this week. Well, along with myself, Joe Petrali, Randy Krummenacher, Nicky Wimbauer, Takuma Aoki, Joey Dunlop, Toriano Wilson, Alex de Angelis, Joan Lascorz Moreno, Colin Edwards, Jorg Teuchert and Terry Rymer are all celebrating birthdays from this past week. Funny, Edwards and I share the same birthday and we were both born in Texas - but I am no MotoGP racer yet, why? Also, Triumph returned to racing during this week in 2003 in the British Supersport Championship.

http://tinyurl.com/ylq7h8t

The California State Championships (CSC) will now be supported by the Dunlop Motorcycle Tire company. It's a good thing for the three round series in this still bad economy...and they are quite pleased with how it has worked out so far. For more detail, please take the link.

http://tinyurl.com/yz3g5t5

More Monday Morning News - More WSBK & ASBK

Althea Ducati is working very hard to help Shane Byrne get up to speed on his World Superbike machine. The team has a new bike, but Byrne says they are working incredibly well together. It should be noted that he did get the third fastest time at the Portimao test - even though this is his team's first time to work with Ducati.

http://tinyurl.com/ye3sa9w

Dunlop has secured itself as the control tire supplier to the Australian Superbike Championship again, this time for three more years. Also, they have announced the contingency plans. So, if you are curious or are in the series and want to know what to expect, please take the link.

http://tinyurl.com/yb8bmxc

Thundersport GB Tests Aprilia RRV Moto 450 at Almeria

The new motorcycle race concept of taking a 450 motocross-type motorcycle and converting it into a road race bike (often referred to as Formula 450) has been catching on everywhere of late. I still remember the first article I read about it some four years ago - I had expected it to start up sooner, but the economy probably helped to delay it a bit. Still, overall, running such a team is rather inexpensive when compared to even a Supersport series, so it should bring in plenty of privateers. In this article, some Aprilia Superteen competitors, Ian Newton and Jeremy McWilliams attended a Dunlop tire test at the Spanish Almeria Circuit to see how hard these machines will be on tires - hint: they're not at all...

http://tinyurl.com/yfvlbev

Dunlop To Be Control Tire for Australian Superbike Championship for Next 3 Years

So, this is not all of the news, Dunlop has also secured rights to be the tire of choice for the Australian Formula Xtreme Championship Series for the next two years. In both series, Dunlop has also improved the contingency program to help racers with the costs associated with racing. The entire ASBK paddock will now be using only Dunlop tires for the next three years. It is an agreement which shows just how well Dunlop is performing for riders in these Australian championship series.

http://tinyurl.com/y8dswy9

Rather Decent Tire Test - The 2009 DOT Race Motorcycle Tire Shootout

Over at Motorcycle USA (the online 'zine is really proud of their Executive Editor), they took several makes and models of DOT race rubber and pitted them against each other in a pure test of performance. Dunlop, Michelin, Bridgestone, Pirelli and Avon were all involved in the testing. To see what they thought - and it is a long, detailed, well-documented article - take the link. Interesting results...

http://tinyurl.com/y9ze88a