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Valentino Rossi to help young Italian riders when he retires

from Twowheelsblog

You’ve probably already seen videos from Valentino Rossi’s Biscia ranch, where he occasionally invites young Italian riders from the Moto3 and CIV championships to train and have fun on his personal track.

Apparently watching and riding with these teenagers has prompted the former nine time World Champion to try to help fledgling riders, and also help increase the number of Italian youngsters that want to race motorcycles.

According to Moto.it, Rossi is already making plans for when he retires - in a few years - and he and his friends have decided that VR46, Rossi’s merchandising company, will follow and help train several young Italian riders, giving them the opportunity to race in several lower feeder classes, with the hope that one day that some can make it to the big leagues of GP racing.

Rossi’s ranch will be used as a base and the youngsters will be schooled by Valentino and receive advice and tips from an athletic trainer and from all of Rossi’s staff.

It seems that Rossi and the FMI (Italian Motorcycle Federation) have already reached an agreement on the project, with only a few details to be ironed out.

BMW R100 RS: Personality transplant for Paris-Dakar

When the R100 RS was launched in the late 70s, it was intended as a point-to-point rocket. However, several had their personalities transformed, and were turned into ‘indestructible’, go-anywhere machines which became legendary in the Paris-Dakar rally.

With its wind-tunnel tested aerodynamic fairings, the R100 RS was designed to cover ground in the fastest way possible; however, said ground was not expected to be the ultra-demanding terrain of the Paris-Dakar rally.
As a result, when German rally motorcycle specialist HPN modified several brand-new RSs for entry to the then-young continent-crossing rally, the bikes underwent a stark transformation. Gone were the characterful but unnecessary (in this application) fairings; in came the required rally-spec technology such as a reinforced sump, a lengthened driveshaft swing-arm, and specially-made dampers.
The HPN BMWs became legendary, with many entered in the early Dakar rallies. The example seen here was one of those which took part in the 1980 and 1981 events. It is currently up for sale in the UK.

Related Links This Paris-Dakar BMW R100 RS can be found in the Classic Driver Marketplace

Text: Joe Breeze (Classic Driver)
Photos: Unit 56