07 Yamaha Xt 225 On/off Road on 2040-motos

Moto blog

How to solve the mystery of the wildcard replacement

With the two test riders coming forward to act as replacement riders for the injured Rossi and Aoyama, it brought back memories of the days when the grid would be gifted with wildcard riders from the respective countries. The Japanese rounds were always attended by some of the top guys with experience of the 500GP and MotoGP bikes, through racing them in their domestic championships. What resulted was getting to witness the exciting and talented Japanese riders, and bring new riders to the attention of the teams.

Yamaha Focusing on Developing Model Platforms

Following the success of its MT platform, Yamaha says it will continue to develop new models based on shared platforms, allowing for a choice of multiple models while reducing overall costs. Speaking in a presentation on the company’s business operation, Yamaha Motor President Hiroyuki Yanagi reiterated the strategy of developing multiple models sharing the same engine and frame. Honda has followed a similar strategy with its NC models, seeing the platform evolve to include the CTX700 and NM4.

Simon and Leo

If you are a track day regular this year, you may well have bumped into former racer and friendly Kiwi, Simon Crafar. I first met him in Malaysia in 1990 when he was riding for a Yamaha dealer team, sweating his way round circuits like Shah Alam and Johor Bahru but with a long term plan to make it onto the World scene. And he didn’t take long as after riding for Honda in the UK in 1992 he moved to WSB in 1994 and enjoyed success with both the Honda and Kawasaki factory teams.