WSBK : Tom Sykes takes impressive victory in race 1 at Donington

FRom TWOWHEELSBLOG

After dominating all the sessions this weekend at Donington Park, Tom Sykes put in his pocket his second win of the season, after Assen, with a lights-to-flag victory at the British circuit.

The Kawasaki rider played hare and greyhound in the first race, never really contested by the rest of the field even if Jonathan Rea pressured him for the first six laps - with the fastest lap of the race and breaking the record - with Sylvain Guintoli and team mate Eugene Laverty trailing the two front runners, but the Northern Irishman on lap 8 after Marco Melandri overtook him, ran off track at the Fogarty Esses dropping behind Chaz Davies and directly into a battling group made up Althea’s Davide Giugliano and Loris Baz.

As the laps began to count down, Jonathan Rea began to fade struggling with right arm issues and as began to loose touch Guintoli reached him and then overtook with nine laps to go and the same move was repeated by Marco Melandri on lap 15, and by lap 18 the BMW rider caught and passed the Frenchman at the Goddards and sped away.

Further down the field Eugene Laverty was struggling with the aggressive Baz and Giugliano who passed the Aprilia rider on lap 20 to continue their paint swapping and leaving Laverty to lick his wounds.

With three laps left the positions were more or less frozen with only Michel Fabrizio gaining the 10th spot denying a bevy of Ducati riders, that turned into a Ducati cup over thhe finish line with Ayrton Badovini who still is suffering with ankle issues, pipping team mate Carlo Checa with his shoulder issue, and wildcard entry Niccolò Canepa finishing ahead of MR Racing’s Max Neukirchner.

Sykes would cross under the chequered flag with a comfortable 2.3 second margin followed by Melandri and Guintoli who completed the podium.

Prodigy frontman Keith Flint was no doubt upset to see friend Leon Camier crash out on lap four, while Leon Haslam decided to withdraw - his team insisted - from the round unable to continue the weekend riding with his leg giving him problems on the left corners, will see him at Portimao.

2013 WSBK Donington Race 1 Results:

1. Tom Sykes (Kawasaki Racing Team) Kawasaki ZX-10R 34′10.881
2. Marco Melandri (BMW Motorrad GoldBet SBK) BMW S1000 RR 34′13.260
3. Sylvain Guintoli (Aprilia Racing Team) Aprilia RSV4 Factory 34′14.689
4. Jonathan Rea (Pata Honda World Superbike) Honda CBR1000RR 34′17.641
5. Loris Baz (Kawasaki Racing Team) Kawasaki ZX-10R 34′24.530
6. Davide Giugliano (Althea Racing) Aprilia RSV4 Factory 34′26.432
7. Eugene Laverty (Aprilia Racing Team) Aprilia RSV4 Factory 34′28.334
8. Chaz Davies (BMW Motorrad GoldBet SBK) BMW S1000 RR 34′30.019
9. Jules Cluzel (Fixi Crescent Suzuki) Suzuki GSX-R1000 34′38.619
10. Michel Fabrizio (Red Devils Roma) Aprilia RSV4 Factory 34′41.698

Classic Driver Concours d'Elegance

With one of the calendar’s best-known concours about to commence on the shores of Lake Como, we decided to hold our very own, albeit with a slight twist: our ‘Best in Class’ beauties are all currently for sale.

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Best of the Future Classics: 2009 Maserati Quattroporte Bellagio by Touring


We’ve already considered the merits of a Mk 5 Quattroporte as a modern classic, but the Bellagio has that extra facet of desirability, having been fashioned by Touring using traditional coachbuilding techniques. Just four were built – this being the first – and the only oversight during its transformation seems to be forgetting to re-christen the now hatchbacked Maserati as a ‘Cinqueporte’. 

It will soon be auctioned off as part of RM’s Villa Erba sale, taking place a stone’s throw from the Bellagio’s namesake province. 

View this auction lot on Classic Driver >>

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Best of Pre-War: 1939 Lagonda V12 Drophead Coupé


Lagonda V12s are a mainstay of the concours circuit; their rarity, W.O. Bentley-designed engine and air of pre-War British majesty all contribute towards the car’s desirability. And few are more desirable than this 7,500-mile example, ordered new by Briggs Cunningham with unique coachwork and a Le Mans-spec engine. 

Buy this Lagonda V12 on Classic Driver >>

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Best of Italian Elegance: 1970 Lamborghini Miura S


Miura. Not a lot more needs to be said. Presented here in the interesting combination of white on beige, this low-mileage S is one of our favourite cars in the Marketplace at the moment. 

Buy this Miura on Classic Driver>>

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Best of French Coachwork: 1938 Delahaye 135M 2 Seat Coupé


Delahaye 135s are famed for their combination of extreme rarity (all were sent to various domestic coachbuilders, making many completely unique) and a competition bloodline: the late 30s saw wins at Le Mans and the Monte Carlo Rally. What's more, with ‘The Great Gatsby’ set to return pre-War fashion to the fore – much like ‘Mad Men’ did with 60s style – the present seems like a better time than ever to secure a svelte example of French coachwork at its finest. 

Buy this Delahaye on Classic Driver >>

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Best of Show: 1958 Ferrari 250 GT Coupé Pinin Farina


With so many stunners to choose from, why have we chosen this as our Best of Show? In a word: simplicity. This Ferrari 250 GT, styled by Pinin Farina in 1958, has no frills, just perfect proportions. And that, to us, is what sums up true class – elegance without fuss.

View this auction lot on Classic Driver >>

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Text: Classic Driver
Photos: Classic Driver Dealers / Auction Houses

A Traveler’s Bounty: Cuban Cacao

By JEREMY BERGER

Back safely in the U.S., I removed the cacao ball from my running shoe. I unwound the plastic wrap from the dark brown orb and sniffed it. My best friend, Mycah, and his wife, Ashley, had picked it up at a cacao farm in Baracoa, a small town on the eastern tip of Cuba, farther east still than Guantanamo Bay. When I met them in Santa Clara they’d presented me with the cacao and a glass of fresh guava juice. This was the good shit. I pictured myself shaving it over ice cream to impress a date or using it to flavor chili. Oh, this chocolate here? I got it from a guy in Cuba.

Excited by my bounty and wanting to make the best use of it, I pulled some strings and arranged a meeting with François Payard. Payard is pastry royalty: He came up through top restaurants in France in the ’80s, came to New York to make pastry at Le Bernardin and Restaurant Daniel in the ’90s, won the James Beard Award for “Pastry Chef of the Year”, and opened a collection of bistros and cafes around the world, including FPB, a casual bakery in downtown New York.

That’s where we met. It was raining hard outside, one of the last cold days of spring. I had the cacao ball in my pocket. I liked transporting it, always in a baggie, showing it to people. Payard was in the kitchen, moving around with purpose. He has wild eyes and boundless energy. His French accent is exactly what you want it to be, and he begins sentences in English with “Alors”. I produced the ball. Payard looked at it, put it right to his nose, sniffed it deeply.

“It smells like p*ssy almost”, he said.

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The cacao hadn’t picked up the smells from my coat pocket or running shoe, thankfully. Payard explained in more refined terms that it smelled astringent, likely a result of an ill-managed fermentation. Making chocolate involves several steps. First, the beans and and pulp are scooped from the fruit; then they’re covered and left to ferment for a few days; this is followed by a period of time in the sun to dry. The beans can then be shelled and ground into a paste consisting mostly of cacao mass and some cocoa butter, which will eventually be refined and combined with other ingredients to make the chocolate we buy in stores.

At the paste (also called “liquor”) stage, the cacao is essentially a raw food, the type that might be used in vegan restaurants or eaten in cacao-rich countries. In fact, one of Payard’s cooks, from Cote d’Ivoire, the largest producer of cacao beans, tasted what I’d brought home and confirmed that it was commonly eaten this way in his home country. The unrefined cacao is not sweet and luxurious like a bar of chocolate; the upside is that it’s very healthy, filled with flavonoids and low in saturated fat and sugar.

I HAD THE CACAO BALL IN MY POCKET. I LIKED TRANSPORTING IT, ALWAYS IN A BAGGIE, SHOWING IT TO PEOPLE

So I had a ball of bitter cacao paste, and it hadn’t been fermented properly. Worse yet, there wasn’t enough of it to make very much. I considered filing a complaint with the U.S. Interests Section, located at the Swiss embassy in Havana. But Payard, a man of action, wasn’t troubled. The cacao was still usable, and we would make chocolat chaud, hot chocolate — a pure expression of the ingredient — with the addition of some of his Guittard chocolate. Unlike most of the hot chocolate we drink in the States, this version (recipe below) is like liquid velvet because it’s cooked for several minutes, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. “You see, it’s very thick”, Payard said. “That’s what you should expect with very good hot chocolate”.

The combination of milk, cream, vanilla and chocolate made excellent hot chocolate, indeed, but it did have little fragments of shell and other solids from my cacao. Making this recipe with high-quality store bought chocolate like Guittard or Valhrona is probably the easiest method, but should you come across a ball of cacao paste in your travels, use it. Just strain it before serving. And don’t let anyone sniff it.

What I brought back from Cuba may not have been the best cacao or even the right chocolate for the job, but it was worth much more than the few pesos it cost: it was a gift from a friend, a good story, a chance to meet a legendary pastry chef and, maybe in a tiny way, the size of a cacao nib, a bridge between two countries at odds for many decades. Can you say the same about cigars and rum? I wouldn’t know. I didn’t bring any of those back…

Chocolat Chaud (Hot Chocolate)

COLD CHOCOLATE

You can turn the hot chocolate into a refreshing cold chocolate for summer with a few simple changes. Follow the procedure for hot chocolate exactly, but substitute the milk and cream for something with less fat — skim milk, for example, or even soy milk. Make the hot chocolate and pour it over ice. Always make it like this instead of refrigerating it, which will cause the fats in the liquid to coagulate and the drink to become too thick. Be sure to casually remind everyone that the chocolate is from Baracoa.

Ingredients:
4 cups whole milk
4 cups heavy cream
500g chocolate (64% dark)
1 pod vanilla beans

Procedure:
Bring milk and cream to a boil. Add chocolate and stir until melted. Cook for about five minutes, stirring. Toward the end, scrape vanilla beans from the pod and add (including the pod) to the mixture. Allow to infuse.

Note: This recipe was adapted from the FPB recipe, which called for 3 liters of whole milk, 3 liters of heavy cream, 1,500g of chocolate and 2 pods of vanilla beans.

from Gear Patrol 

BMW Concept Ninety - Roland Sands

Written by Ian Lee.

When a bike manufacturer commissions a special edition bike to be built outside of their factory, they don’t just put their creation in the hands of any nuff nuff who can swing an angle grinder and crimp terminals together. As part of this new trend to work with outside customisers, Yamaha approached Wrenchmonkees, Triumph went to Icon, and now BMW has collaborated with Roland Sands to create a homage to the BMW R90S – the German marque’s bad ass bike of the 1970’s. Forty years after it’s launch, BMW & Roland Sands have reimagined the R90S in a modern vein, while still retaining such touches as the blended paint job, ducktail and bikini fairing the original bike was renowned for. The spirit of the original is retained, with some awesome new design ideas thrown into the mix, making it clear that BMW has chosen the right bike builder for the job. 

Visually, the bike is striking. The upper components are painted up in bright Daytona orange as a nod to the original bike. The lower end is splashed with black, R90S badging and othe aluminium hand crafted highlights breaking up the dark visual effect. An LED headlamp, wrapped in a bikini fairing envelops a two gauge meter cluster, RSD clip-ons and levers. The custom tail end is a healthy mix of Moto2 & café racer ducktail, with the paintjob blended from the psychedelic orange of the Daytona paintjob through to a white stripe running up the centre, adorned with a BMW badge. Roland Sands has crafted a lot of the componentry inhouse, but the most standout aspects are RSD wheels wrapped in Dunlop rubber making up the rolling stock. With a café racer styled aesthetique, the Beemer features an almost wedge shaped outline when viewed from the right angle. It features tank cutouts to grip your knees against when testing the flat twin to it’s full capability, and according to BMW’s press release, ‘an attack stance like a sprinter about to explode into action’.  

The BMW R90s concepts first public outing is to be at the Villa d’este Concorso Eleganza, generally a car based event but this year with the R90S in attendance, more attention will be given to the motorcycle class. 40 years after the original R90S was released, this collaboration could be the start of something beautiful. A lot of people are asking if BMW could be using the concept as a gauge of public reception, to make a special run of bikes a la Paul Smart LE1000. With no technical specs released, if the bike was to go into production it would have to be able to live up to the name, reminding everyone of what bike it was that won the first AMA superbike championship, and an amazing homage to the bike that broke the mindset that BMW only made good touring bikes. 

[Spotted on Ride Apart]

from PIPEBURN