Cyril Despres takes maiden win with Yamaha at Rally dos Sertoes

In the wake of a few races that did not deliver the expected results, Frenchman Cyril Despres has finally earned his first victory on the Yamaha YZ450F Rally. After winning his fifth Dakar at the beginning of the year, Despres left KTM in a surprise move and signed a new contract with the Japanese manufacturer, but had to wait to get back on the South American territory to savour the joy of victory once again.

Despres has won yesterday the fourth stage of the Rally dos Sertoes - an event that takes place in Brazil - the Uruaçu-Porangatu of 132 km, with 24 seconds over historic rival and former team-mate Marc Coma, and has taken the second place in the overall standings behind the Spaniard. The Rally dos Sertoes covers a total of 4,115 kilometers and will continue with six more stages before ending in Goiania on the 3rd of August. An understandably beaming Cyril Despres said:

“Today we were rewarded for the months of hard work the team have put in with a first stage victory here in Brazil on the Rally dos Sertoes. It’s a great boost for all of us, not only for those of us present on the race but also for everybody at Yamaha who believed in the project and who have been so solidly behind us. Obviously it isn’t a Dakar stage victory, let alone an outright Dakar victory, but it is an important milestone on the road to that ultimate ambition and I must admit today’s result has a special flavour to it. Not that we have much time to saviour it! Tomorrow is the first leg of a particularly tough 900 kilometres marathon stage and we have a lot of work to do, both on man and machine, to make sure we are in good shape for the challenge.”

from TWOWHEELSBLOG

CAFE RACER FESTIVAL 2013

A french festival dedicated to vintage and customized motorcycles, taking place on the mythical Linas-Montlhery speedtrack. Loud pipes, boiling oil, hot tires and leatherjackets. Let's rock.
CAFE RACER FESTIVAL 2013 from CHF on Vimeo.

Range Rover Sport rocks the Pikes Peak

The recent 2013 Pikes Pike International Hill Climb surely was a successful one for the recently unveiled Range Rover Sport, introduced at the 2013 New York Auto Show, which established the new record for a production-standard Sport Utility Vehicle and broke the long standing record for any kind of production-standard vehicle on the famous 12.42-mile Colorado mountain’s hill road, and here is a new and very professional official video celebrating the achievement.

Powered by a 5.0-litre supercharged petrol V8 engine producing 510 horsepower and driven on the record run by American competition and stunt driver Paul Dallenbach, the Range Rover Sport completed the climb and all of its 156 corners with a time of 12 minutes and 35.61 seconds, at an average speed of 59.17 mph (95.23 km/h). The record-setting vehicle avtually altered from production specification only in the fitment of a roll cage and harness seatbelts, which are mandatory to meet racing safety requirements.

Beside the supercharged 5.0-litre V8 petrol engine, the Range Rover Sport is also available on the market with a 3.0-litre V6 diesel engine producing 292 horsepower, but in early 2014 a 3.0-litre V6 diesel unit developing 258 hp and a high performance 4.4-litre V8 diesel engine delivering 339 horsepower are also supposed to join the fold. All petrol and diesel engines in the new Range Rover Sport are paired with the advanced electronically controlled ZF 8HP708-speed automatic gearbox. Designed and engineered at Land Rover’s development centres in the UK, the model is produced in their manufacturing facility at Solihull, UK.

from EUROCARBLOG

the EFI

Running on fat Avons, our EFI showcase’s the simplicity of your archetypal bobber in its purest of forms. Simple and clean lines, the latest generation Royal Enfield motor sits snugly in the modified frame. The sports bike front end compliments the already ‘beefy’ look, giving the bike a suitably more aggressive stance not to mention stopping power. The tin ware strategically placed as not to clutter but to accentuate the styling based around a 40′s/50′s design to complete a custom motorcycle that looks equally at home trundling about country lanes as blasting though town.

from oldempire motorcycles