New MEGAMoto series being "tested" in Europe

[supermotoC]

Ooh-la la! Giant Supermoto, or MEGAmoto! Of course, the KTM 950 SM, race fitted, and the only other (currently) giant-moto bike, the HP2.
Check this out, O-rider-of-Darth!!!

This is a LOT of metal to be flying around & backing it in, but.....

http://endurosport.baboons.de/img/gallery/CAT_690/megamoto5_web1513643188.jpg

http://www.1000ps.at/magazin/ktm/megamoto4.jpg

http://www.1000ps.at/magazin/ktm/megamoto1.jpg

http://www.1000ps.at/magazin/ktm/megamoto2.jpg

http://www.1000ps.at/magazin/ktm/megamoto3.jpg

http://www.krtracing.de/gallery/images/_9255823.jpg

http://grizz.smugmug.com/photos/46125353-M.jpg

http://www.krtracing.de/gallery/images/_9255826.jpg

"A new race series in Germany and Austria has been announced:

„Megamoto – Rough Roads Ahead“
shall provide the missing link between Supermoto and SuperSport racing. Only slightly modified big-Dual Sports with 1 to 3 cylinders and with up to 1250ccm are eligible. The race series is a combined effort of BMW and KTM.
Races will be held on proper racetracks (as opposed to carting tracks), a section with loose surface and a "speed jump" will be included. According to the organisers, the first test at Oschersleben showed that the HP2 and the 950SM were about at the same pace. The organisers hope that Buell, Ducati and Aprilia will jump on the train."

[Wild Will]

This is way cool. Send us more if you hear more. KTM and BMW about evenly matched! Pretty good work, BMW!

[Dallara]

KTM and BMW evenly matched?

Oh, yeah... But it only took BMW twice as much money to do it, AND 250cc's more engine displacement to do it! (or close to twice as much money, anyway, and 21% more displacement...)

"Let's see... I think I am going to buy me a bike to race in Mega-Motard... Which one should I get? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm... I've got this BMW HP2 over here for $22,260.00... Or I have this KTM 950 SuperMoto that'll cost me $12,999.00... Decesions, decisions. Oh, and just one little question... How am I going to change gearing for different tracks with that there BMW HP2?"

Anybody wanna' take bets on who will win the championship in that class the first year out?

Cheers!

Allan (Dallara - NACD)

[Deans BMW]

Look at the diameter of the head pipes.

http://grizz.smugmug.com/photos/46125353-M.jpg

[DarthRider]

Damn, that just looks like *the* most fun racing I've ever seen, even on the big Sumotards!

Manly motorcycles...

Sure would be cool to see a Speed Triple stripped down and set up for this.
I'd guess the weight would be in between the KTM & BMW and the power to weight ratio better than either. Stock they weigh 416 dry, 128 HP, 79 Ft Lbs.
Z-Technique or someone has a *small* Ti 3 into 1 system, easy to lose a front rotor, passenger stuff, aluminum bars, no instruments or lights, a load of Ti fasteners, 520 chain conversion, smaller battery, misc. crap...I'd guess 365 lbs. dry is do-able without spending a large fortune, maybe a little better.

Triumph just has such a long, strong racing heritage they should be in on this too! They were there back in the ABC TV American Super Bikers series too, when "Super Motard" racing was born. I have a good story on that for another day.

Ooohhh...I'm gettin' wood!

Dave

[IT- FasterPecker]

Well,
The bikes looks well but I can't understand the sense of this kind "Fatmotard".
I love supermotard and I own one as KTM LC 640 and love too naked (I own a R 1100 R and A Brutale 910 R).For me, Fun mean Light in these bikes. Anyone can explain me the sense?
It seem a pointless category too close among Supermotard and Naked.
Ciao Fabry

[supermotoC]

As a fellow supermotard retard (sic), and having ridden a SM950 recently, I think the SUMO-tard concept is an extension of the Naked or Streetfighter movement, with supermoto styling. These are both too heavy to really toss around a real SM track, but as a real-world streetbike, the SM 950 is about as fun as it gets (getting back on my Duke II was a little deflating). The Hypermoto from Ducati will also be in this group, and it will be the new "Monster". This "race series" is probably just a shared marketing tool to help sell these beasts.

streaming video: http://950supermoto.com/fileadmin/950/media/vid_1.php

[DarthRider]

My opinion is it probably does not make sense really, for a race series except it gives BMW & KTM a place to show off their new bikes.
And it would be fun!
A "real" Super Motard has to be very light but Porker Motards can be any weight I guess. But put them on a track against a "real" SM bike and see them get their porky asses spanked!

Dave

[Dallara]

Oh, but Gentlemen!

Do any of you remember a post of mine from the old R1150R board about this very subject?

Collyer, I know you do...

Where I said these new big Motard's could be the salavation of both a part of road racing and of dirt track racing in the USA, along with bringing back a true "Championship Trail" to American motorcycle racing?

Nobody really wants to see lightly modded 600cc sportbikes as the premier class at the Daytona 200. It cheapens the event. For fun, let's spin the the *way-back* machine up for a second or two...

Back to the days to when to win the AMA Number 1 plate you had to ride short track, TT, half-mile, mile dirt tracks and road races. You didn't have separate Number 1 plates... No. To be Number 1 you couldn't be a specialist - you HAD to be versatile.

Well, with regular 450 and 500+ SuperMotard's and these new MegaMotards you have the makings of one hell of a series. You hold events on short tracks and regular SuperMoto tracks, and for these you use 450's. Then you have some true TT tracks, and depending on length you run either the 450's or 500+ cc bikes. On half-mile dirt ovals you would have to run the 500+cc bikes, and on miles you would have to run the MegaMotards of say, 750cc's and above (this would allow Harley to stay in the game with XR-750's, but more on this in minute). On true road race tracks (like Daytona, Elkhart Lake, Mid-Ohio, Barber, Road Atlanta, Laguna Seca, etc.) you woould have to run the 750cc or larger bikes (and hence Harley couold be in there, too). To win the championship you would have to ride ALL the various types of events. Bikes would have to be based on production models readily available to the public, and modifications would have to be controlled much like Superbike - i.e. use production frames, engine castings, same method of induction as production, etc. To keep speeds down on big road race tracks fairing would not be allowed. Harley could fully revive their Rotax program, or something like it to get bikes into the smaller classes. The Japanese factories would jump on this series like a duck on a june bug, and be building KTM 950 SuperMoto bikes in a heartbeat... In my humble opinion it would not be too long before you had Harley, Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, Yamaha, Ducati, BMW, KTM, Aprilia, etc. all competing in one series all against each other... Primarily because it would be the only way for any brand to carry the TRUE Number 1 plate.

I dunno'... I think the series would be cooler than canned beer, and help revive famous dirt ovals all over the USA. It would be easy to televise, and I think sponsors would go to it. You would have the ability to capture diverse audiences - Supermoto, dirt track, and road racing fans, along with a few moto-cross fans - and have one series benefit from it to produce one, true motorcycle racing champion for the whole USA... and I think other countries would soon follow such a format, too, and then you could have World Events where the champions from each country raced each other.

Of course, YMMV... and you might think the whole idea daft.

But I love it!

Cheers!

Allan (Dallara - NACD)

[DJ Down Under]

Did some one say Sumotards....:003: .....it reminded me of this pic from the Winter Olympics...:icon_biggrin: ...sorry for the interuption...carry on.

DJ

http://members.optusnet.com.au/~djp1/mypic2190.jpg

[DarthRider]

Allan -

If the car selling gig doesn't work out for you, may I suggest Director of Professional Racing, Class C Division at the AMA?
Class C was truly the Golden Age of American motorcycle racing.

Dave

[Dallara]

Hey, Darth...

Much like you I am trying to figure out just how I can kind of retire from the rat-race and move up to the Hill Country and slow things down a bit for a few years, but...

There's one job I would love to take on!

The AMA has shot itself in the friggin' foot so many times in the past 20 years that it almost frightens me. They sold themselves out ot the BLM more times than imagineable... They screwed Class C racing so bad and guaranteed its slow death spiral to obscurity when they folded to Harley's incessant whining... They tossed away classic events like the Astrodome Short Track & TT Races to try and smooze the moto-cross crowd... They sold their souls to Supercross for the quick buck and in the process damn near decimated outdoor MX to obscurity... They have sold themselves out to Washington so many times while patting themselves on the back for useless, miniscule *victories*... and on and on...

That I am damn sure there is no way I could do any worse of a job than the morons running racing for the AMA now!

What they have done to the Daytona 200 is so criminal, so stupid, and so damaging that it almost defies description, and it appears they want to do even more damage to American road racing in the future.

Personally I think most of the world looks at the US motorcycle racing scene and just laughs their ass off. Hell, just look at the country we live in. Given the terrain and open space available to practice, train, and promote feeder races... Riders from the USA should be winning each and every Paris to Dakar race each year, places first through tenth, but the AMA doesn't consider that an "American" form of racing and as such is not willing to support or sanction a series to get our boys there. They have grown to ignore a 250 GP class nationwide which would be of vast usefulness in preparing American riders to better compete in MotoGP... Whe was the last time you saw an American in the World Championship in the 250 GP class? The 125 GP class? The only real avenue for an American to get to MotoGP is from Superbike, and yet the AMA is slowly walking away from Superbike for 600 Extreme... What kind of MADNESS is that?

Another terrible travesty is how the AMA does next to nothing to insure the USA's very best riders are at the Moto-Cross De Nations...

And then there is Class C... American Class C riders like Cale Rayborn, Gary Nixon, Kenny Roberts, Freddie Spencer, and Eddie Lawson taught the entire rest of the world an entirely new way to ride in road racing, and ushered in an era where Americans literally dominated the Premier class of road racing. Yet now the AMA treats dirt trackers almost like second class citizens in their boot-licking haste to satisfy the Japanese by using much of their promotional budget for Supercross and moronic, idiotic road race classes like 600 Extreme.

Folks, I don't know how many of you have ever seen a good short track, TT, half mile, or mile dirt track event, but if you haven't then you owe it to yourself to get down to one before they disappear... The sight and sound of 20 or so 750cc twins thundering into a turn all turned sideways and sliding, spitting out roostertails of soil, is not something to be duplicated, or ever forgotten.

You somehow get me nominated for the job, Dave, and I will do what I can to get hired.

Whew! Okay, folks... Sorry. Rant's over and I'll climb down off my soapbox now.

Cheers!

Allan (Dallara - NACD)

[DarthRider]

Yeah, what Allan said about Class C and the AMA...and do see some dirt track races before you croak!

Ever hear the story about why Malcolm Smith quite running the ISDT (now ISDE)? See "On Any Sunday" to see what this type of extreme motorcycle competition is. See O-A-S anyway!)
I don't know if this was under the auspices of the AMA or an American branch of the FIM or what (Collyers?) but they decided for Malcolm to "make" the US team he would have to enter ISDT qualifiers on both the West and East Coasts...at his own expense! He asked them why he had to do them both...they said so they could sell more tickets and make more money.
He asked them if they didn't think his 8 Gold Medals and 1 Silver would "qualify" him as he had a (then) struggling motorcycle business to run.
They said, no he had to run them both. Everyone else only had to do one qualifier.
Malcolm being the gentleman he is didn't tell them to go screw themselves, he just withdrew and the United States and the world lost one of the best motorcycle competitors in history, still in his prime.
If it wasn't the AMA...it should have been!

Dave

[Dallara]

Dave,

Yes, I had heard and remember the story about Malcolm...

And yes, it was the AMA.

For future reference, the AMA is the *approved* sanctioning body for the FIM in the United States, much like ACCUS is the approved FIA legal authority in the US.

(For those of you who don't know, ACCUS is the automotive entity that oversees all American auto racing that needs an FIA sanction... Series like NASCAR, IRL, ChampCar, the SCCA, ALMS, Trans-Am, Grand-Am, the US Rally championships, etc.)

Folks, there is a lot more politics in both US auto and motorcycle racing than one can possibly imagine. You simply can't believe the political wrangling that goes on if you want to field a race team in a major US series. Like when were racing at Indy and in selected CART events, and then later the IRL, you had to not only get a license each year from the appropriate US sanctioning body, but also an ACCUS license and an FIA license, each of which cost money and considerable time to obtain. Each has certain requirements and regulations you must follow...

In February 1993 our team set what would have amounted to a new, closed-course open-wheel world speed record - repeatedly running over 234 MPH at Texas World Speedway (in College Station, TX). Our speed of 234.516 MPH stood for years as the Texas World official lap record, and USAC (which was the Indy 500 sanctioning body at the time) recognized it as a record, but the FIA would not recognize it as an official world record because there were no ACCUS or FIA officials there at the time. The record was later eclipsed at TWS by Parker Johnstone in a Honda powered CART car in 1995, but his team ran into the same bureaucratic nightmare. People were regularly exceeding the FIA record by that time, but nobody really knew about it... Mario Andretti finally got the FIA record before it he retired, but it was quickly overshadowed by Arie Luyendyk's phenomenal 239+ MPH lap at Indianapolis in 1996, and that's where the *official* FIA recognized open-wheel record stands today...

There are numerous hideous horror stories like the Malcolm Smith incident in the AMA's history... And it's one of many reasons I still refuse to re-up my membership to the AMA. The last year I was an AMA member was 1978.

Why?

Because I started racing WERA road racing events that year, and at the time if you held a racing license in a series not sanctioned and controlled by the AMA then you couldn't hold an AMA license. Therefore I couldn't retain my AMA Pro Moto-Cross license (which I had held since 1974) because I held a Road Racing license in another series! Bizarre, eh? A road racing license in one series precluding you from holding an MX license in another...

The AMA was finally forced to relax that idiotic stance when WERA nearly became more popular that the AMA road racing series and there was a very real threat to the AMA maintaining its stranglehold on major road racing series and events. Even the Daytona 200 came very close to tossing its AMA sanction out the window and becoming a WERA sanctioned event!

And one day maybe we'll talk about how Pace Productions (promoters of the Houston Astrodome short track and TT events) almost started their own dirt track series because they got tired of the AMA's BS...

IMHO, screw the AMA!

Cheers!

Allan (Dallara - NACD)

[DJ Down Under]

I think if you're not good enough for Moto Gp..or World Supa's..the US AMA Superbikes are next on the list as the next best thing...

...or race the Brittish sesies..or Down Under series.

It's a shame to hear about Malcolm Smith's treatment...wot a legend.

DJ

[Dallara]

You're right, DJ... US Superbikes are awesome, but see that's the rub. The AMA is very quietly trying to eliminate the class in favor of the stupid 600 Extreme's. That's one of the main reasons Yamaha isn't going to be in the US Superbike series here in 2006. They had to make their plans for their race involvement a year to 18 months ago, and at that time they weren't US Superbike would even be here in 2006! From all indications the AMA is working toward eliminating US Superbikes in the next couple of years. Where are the USA's MotoGP hopefuls going to come from then? 600cc streetbikes?

Oh sure, the Superbikes still run at Daytona, but now they are a friggin' SUPPORT race for the Daytona 200 - which once was the absolutely pinnacle of US road racing. Now the AMA has chosen to run the 200 with the GALACTICLY STUPID 600 Extreme class, and on a shortened and slowed course, no less...

Not that long ago 500cc two-stroke GP bikes, 750cc Yamaha TZ-750's, the brutal Honda FWS's, etc. ran in the Daytona 200 - ON THE LONG COURSE - and what a show those races were! Now they are running lightly modified 600cc production based bikes as the premier class in the premier event, but on an emasculated, watered-down mere shadow of the former layout.

But to show you just how idiotic the AMA can be...

How about when Kenny Roberts decided to hang up his 500cc GP racing gloves he came back to the USA and decided he wanted to do a limited number of AMA dirt track races... Just for fun.

Know what the AMA did?

They made KENNY ROBERTS - a multi-time AMA Number 1 plate carrier and Champion, along with being a multi-time World Road Racing Champion - have to re-apply for his AMA Pro License and go through all the steps a novice or junior would have to do to get a Pro license and assigned a Pro number... Now just how asinine and moronic is that?

"Oh, no Mr. Roberts. It doesn't matter that you are a World Champion and former AMA champion... No sir... We can't be sure you have sufficient skills to race here in the US again until we check you out. Fill out all this paper work and submit it for our review and consideration. Once we have completed our evaluation we will let you know if you are good enough to race with our dirt track pros..."

Ludicrous! Simply 110% ludicrous in the extreme!

Cheers!

Allan (Dallara - NACD)

[DarthRider]

My friend, mentor & hero Jack Wilson hated the AMA with a passion that went w-a-y back, for many reasons.
He said the AMA was "nothing but a bunch of dip-shits and piss-willies!"
Ya' gotta love it!

Dave