Last weekend we had in Montmeló the 5th round of the CEV 2009. Once again it was a very good weekend for the Kawasaki Palmeto team because Kenny Noyes won the race in the Formula Extreme category, in a vibrant race, riding first and controlling his rivals through the pit-board.
Congratulations Kenny! 🙂
Regarding Moto2 bikes, in Barcelona we had some news, the most important was the presence of a new machine, the long-awaited FTR of Joey Darcey team. Friday afternoon, I went with Pablo de Chaves (he also came to Montmeló) to the Joey Darcey box to watch the bike. It has a high finish and design quality, with a lot of small clever details, like the conduit that goes from the bodywork nose to the airbox, made out of aluminium, or the air exits for the radiator, very small and designed to minimize aerodynamic drag. With the same idea we can see how the keel arrives very far to the rear, connecting with the swingarm surface.
The design has a great deal of care regarding aesthetics, for example take a look at the way the footrests are clamped to the chassis (you will see it better in the Flickr photos), ot the support points for the bike stand (in the inner face of the swingarm). By the moment the FTR is the only one Moto2 bike that has the exhaust exit in the left side of the bike. The bike components (rims, brakes and suspensions) are top level.
In resume, a really nice bike. The Joey Darcey team has a lot of experience with Honda engines, and in the next 2 CEV rounds (in Jerez and Valencia) Graeme Gowland will be the rider, he already won the 2007 SS championship with the Joey Darcey team.
In Montmeló we also saw a new Moto2 prototype, the SR7 presented by Santolaya Racing. The bike was showed in the paddock, in the hospitality of the TMR team. The bike has an aluminum twinspar, with the air intake going through the steering head. By the moment it has an R6 swingarm.
Saturday afternoon we had a photo session with all the Moto2 and we went there to take some pictures. Unfortunately the AJR prototype wasn’t there because it burned in a crash during Saturday Q2 training.
Regarding the BQR bikes, Aoyama’s Moto2 (number 64) already had the airbox conduit we already talked about a couple of weeks ago, while Dani Riva’s bike (number 7) didn’t use it.
YM2 LaGlisse’s Moto2 raced in Montmeló with Xavi Forés as a rider. In his first race with this bike Xavi finished as first Moto2 (I remember you that by the moment Moto2 bikes race together with Formula Extreme bikes, Xavi was 10th in the race), ahead of Dani Rivas. Both were fighting all the race.
In the trainings, Supersport rider Jordi Torres was once again faster than the Moto2 bikes. His SS pole was 1:47,688, while Xavi Fores best lap was 1:48,111. However during the race Xavi improved his time, his best race lap was 1:47,743.
If we look at the total time of the race, Jordi Torres finished the race (16 laps) with one second less than Forés. From this data we can conclude that at this moment Moto2 bikes are at the same level of SS bikes.
Diego Lozano was the FTR rider, his best time in the trainings was 1:51,091, so almost 3 seconds slower than Forés, this has sense if we take into account that it was the first time that this bike rode on a track, and of course there is still a lot of setup work to do.
I am curious to see what happens in the 2 final rounds of the championship, in Jerez and Valencia, where maybe we will see more new Moto2 from the World Championship teams.
Action photos were made by Josep Pujol, and regarding the bike’s photos, I uploaded several ones to the Bottpower Flickr gallery.