Haslam Looking for French Success

Leon Haslam is hoping to take a step forward from his recent consistency when he challenges for a first win of the year in the 13th and penultimate World Superbike Championship round of 2009 at the Magny-Cours circuit in France on Sunday.

Haslam has taken the Stiggy Racing Honda machine to 12 top six finishes this year, including four podium finishes, and is looking for further podium success in the last four races in France this Sunday and then in Portugal on October 25.

The 26-year-old is sixth in the World Championship points standings and is the leading private team rider of 2009, an impressive 64 points ahead of the next non-factory rider.

"Weve certainly found some consistency in recent races and its all credit to Stiggy and the team that weve been able to get those results, said Haslam. The team has had a turbulent time of late but there was a really genuine team spirit in Imola last weekend and Im sure that will carry us through the final two rounds.Haslam is also looking to add to his two front row starts in Holland in April and in Germany three weeks ago with an improved qualifying performance in France this weekend".

Haslam continued: "Again, I missed out on challenging for the front row by just 0.05s in Imola last Saturday so were very close to being there on a regular basis now and I just need to ensure I get the clean, fast laps when I need to on the two qualifying tyres were allowed.Magny-Cours provides a technical test for us in terms of set-up but Im pretty confident that with the team I have behind me that we can again find the race setting and be near the front in Sundays two races".

Haslam Consistency Continues in Italy

Leon Haslam finished in sixth and eighth places respectively in Sundays two races of round 12 of the World Superbike Championship at the Imola circuit in Italy to retain his sixth place in the Championship.


Haslam started from 10th place on the grid in the two 21-lap races and was quick to make up ground once the action got under way. In race one Haslam charged through to fifth place and looked certain to retain that place to the chequered flag but was relegated to sixth in the final corner, crossing the finish line in sixth place.

"I made a pretty good start but my lap times were not good", said Haslam. "I got stuck behind Troy Corser and Shane Byrne in the early laps and the leaders got away. I was then struggling to change direction and had problems under braking.

Ryuichi Kiyonari had got past me at the last chicane for the previous three laps but I got him back each time out of the corner and before the finish line. When he did it on the last lap I then missed a gear on the run to the line and ended up losing out and finishing sixth".

The 26-year-old Stiggy Racing Honda rider gambled on his rear tyre choice for the second encounter of the day and was left struggling for rear grip for the second half of the race, eventually finishing eighth. "I made a good start again but was pushed off the track by Marco Simoncelli and when I came back onto the track I had trouble selecting gears for some reason, reported Haslam. I then got a good rhythm going and ended up in a battle with Jonathan Rea. But he put me on the grass and into the gravel more times than I have been all year.

We both made some hard moves on each other but the pace and lap times werent that bad. Then, for the last 10 laps, the rear tyre went off and I knew wed made a mistake with the gamble we made. Overall I suppose I should be reasonably happy with two top eight finishes but its all credit to the Stiggy Team, they put in a great weekends work for me again".

For more news and Information on Arai please visit http://www.whyarai.co.uk/

Arai – Helping the Heroes

Arai and Phoenix have backed Centurion Racing in helping raise awareness of the charity 'Help for Heroes' and the dedicated work of the medical staff of Headley CourtThe British Supersport team is organising a fantastic day out at the BSB round at Silverstone Circuit on September 27 for service personnel undergoing medical rehabilitation at Headley Court, following injuries sustained while on active duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.

SMR - Hydrex Honda (www.hydrexhonda.com) has generously offered to support the initiative by providing free hospitality throughout the day for the visitors and their medical staff while Silverstone (www.silverstone.co.uk) has kindly donated The Brooklands Suite as a viewing area for the day's racing activities.

We’ve donated two Chaser helmets, which have received Help for Heroes artwork by specialist race helmet design artist Richard Stevens of RichArt Concepts www.richartconcepts.co.uk.

These unique helmets will be worn during the British Supersport race by Centurion’s riders Dan Cooper (#20) and BJ Toal (#36) and following the race they’ll be signed by Superbike and Supersport riders and auctioned to raise money towards the rehabilitation work of Headley Court.

For more information go to: www.helpforheroes.org.uk . See more Arai news / information at http://www.whyarai.co.uk/

WSB: Up And Down Weekend For Arai Riders - 7 September 2009

Round 11 of the World Superbike championship at the Nurburgring, Germany, was a weekend of mixed fortunes for the Arai riders.

Xerox Ducati’s Noriyuki Haga entered the round with a slim points advantage over arch title rival, Ben Spies, but a second place in race one and a race two crash following a collision with Jonathan Rea damaged his title chances as Yamaha-mounted Spies romped to a double victory.

Jonathan Rea just missed out on a podium in race one after a battle for third with Hanspree Ten Kate Honda team mate, Carlos Checa. The young Irishman more than made up for his disappointment with a stunning victory in race two and now sits 45 points behind Michel Fabrizio for third place in the championship.

Stiggy Honda rider Leon Haslam was disappointed after collisions in both races damaged his chances for a podium. The Derbyshire man was involved in the first lap incident in race 1, pushing him back to 11th place. In his true, gritty style, Haslam clawed his way back up the order only to lose out on 5th place at the line behind Max Biaggi.

In Race 2, Leon was holding second before a hard move from Spies pushed him off track and onto an eventual fifth place. John Hopkins suffered more bad luck after being knocked unconscious following a multiple bike incident on the first lap of race one. The popular American was taken to hospital but was later discharged without serious injury.

Haga now trails Spies by 18 points but there is still 150 points up for grabs with three rounds to go.

Race one:

1 Ben Spies, Yamaha

2 Noriyuki Haga, Ducati (Arai)

3 Carlos Checa, Honda

4 Jonathan Rea, Honda (Arai)

5 Max Biaggi, Aprilia

6 Leon Haslam, Honda (Arai)

Race two:

1 Jonathan Rea, Honda (Arai)

2 Ben Spies, Yamaha

3 Carlos Checa, Honda

4 Max Biaggi, Aprilia

5 Leon Haslam, Honda (Arai)

6 Troy Corser, BMW

World Championship points after 11 of 14 rounds:

1 Spies 364

2 Haga 346 (Arai)

3 Fabrizio 289

4 Rea 244 (Arai)

5 Biaggi 224

6 Haslam 201 (Arai)

7 Checa 177

8 Sykes 165

9 Byrne 140

9 Smrz 140 (Arai)

13 Nakano 86 (Arai)

20 Hopkins 17 (Arai)

More news and information: http://www.whyarai.co.uk/

BSB: Seeley Crowned 2010 British Superstock Champion - 1 September 2009

Arai racer Alastair Seeley has secured the 2010 Metzeler British Superstock championship at Cadwell Park (August 31).

Seeley, riding for Relentless Suzuki, wrapped up the championship with two rounds to go, incredibly having won all nine races so far this season.His closest rival, fellow Arai rider and the previous Superstock champion, Steve Brogan, crashed his Padgetts Honda on lap 1 at the hairpin and consequently losing his mathematical chance of retaining the red-backed no.1 plate.

It is unclear whether ‘The Wee Wizard’ will continue to retain his unbeaten form in Superstock or step up to the Superbike class for the remainder of the year.

Congratulation to Alastair from WhyArai.

More news and information: www.whyarai.co.uk

Bath anyone?

Arai will be at Matlock Bath Motorcycle Festival – Sunday August 23 2009








Motorcyclists are invited to celebrate the art of motoring on two wheels at Bike Plus 09. Organised by the Derby and Derbyshire Road Safety Partnership, the event on Sunday 23 August will offer visitors to Matlock Bath the opportunity to admire the latest machines, test their skills on a motorbike simulator and pick up a free copy of The Bikers’ Guide to Derbyshire.



Arai will be taking its helmet service vehicle along so that owners of the Japanese brand can receive a free helmet service and inspection along with the opportunity to ask its technicians any questions.



Visitors can also learn about discounted training, enjoy a virtual tour of the nation’s best roads by watching Highways Agency movie Great Roads Great Rides2 and enter special prize draws.Along with Phoenix Distribution, Derbyshire motorcycle dealers B&M Honda, CMC Motorcycles, Triumph World, Pidcocks and Minions are among those who will be exhibiting bikes at the event.



Rob Hill, the manager of the road safety partnership said: “Hopefully Bike Plus 09 will be the beginning of a beautiful friendship! We want to build strong relationships with the motorcycling community and work with them to cut the number of riders coming to grief on our roads.



The bikers’ guide on offer at Bike Plus 09 is a free pocket-sized booklet containing advice from the partnership about how to survive the fourteen countryside routes which they have identified as crash hot spots. The guide also includes an application form for Bike Plus - the subsidised rider development course after which this month’s festival of motorcycling is named.



Thanks to Derbyshire County Council, bikers can usually take advantage of the training for as little as £50 if they live in Derbyshire or £90 if they live outside the county. Bike Plus instructors are approved by the Driving Standards Agency.



They teach bikers to spot hazards and tackle challenges such as cornering and overtaking with greater confidence.Staff from the partnership’s member organisations will be on hand at the event to talk to visitors about their road safety work.Bike Plus 09 is taking place in the Derwent Gardens in Matlock Bath and will be open between 11am and 4pm. Admission is free.



To read more Arai news and information please visit http://www.whyarai.co.uk/

British MotoGP - Edwards podium , Pedrosa cautious, Hayden luckless -

Held at Donington Park for the final time, the British MotoGP provided a dramatic race with unexpected results.

Colin Edwards took a surprise podium in round 10 and looked very close to getting his first premier class victory after scything through the field from a slow start to finish in second place.



The Monster Yamaha rider and long-time Arai racer had a very cautious start, taking his time to get heat and confidence into his tyres. With early leaders Elias, Lorenzo and Rossi all crashing out, the two-time World Superbike champion used his experience to reel in eventual winner, Andrea Dovizioso.



Though Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa featured in the early leading group, the 2006 Donington victor chose a cautious approach having narrowly avoided Toni Elias following the fellow Honda rider’s high speed crash, finishing in 9th.



Nicky Hayden’s gamble of fitting wet weather tyres to his factory Ducati failed to manifest as the 2006 champion continued his luckless season to finish a lowly 15th and last behind team mate Casey Stoner.



Colin Edwards, Monster Yamaha – 2nd



"That was a pretty intense 48 minutes but at the start there was no way I thought I was going to be on the podium. I'm not sure what happened at the start but I just had guys coming by everywhere. I was using a front tyre I'd not used all weekend and it took me a while to get a feel for it. Once I got some momentum going and I started to understand how the front tyre was feeling I started pushing my way through. But with about seven or eight laps to go I started having some big moments because it was hard to know where it was raining and where it wasn't. And all the time you're trying to figure out where there's grip and where there isn't. It was easy to mistake and the left side of the rear tyre was pretty cold and that just helped make it even more mentally draining because you need to concentrate so hard. I could see I was catching Randy really quick and we got into a good battle. He was faster than me in some parts and I was better in others but luckily I passed him on the last lap and made it stick. By that time though Andrea was too far ahead to think about pushing on for that first win, but second is a great way to finish at Donington."



Dani Pedrosa, Repsol Honda - 9th



“First I have to congratulate Andrea on his win because he rode a great race from beginning to end in very difficult conditions. For me, the result today is obviously disappointing and the team because I have been fast all weekend and I couldn’t keep that up during the race. At the beginning I was feeling good on the Bridgestone slicks and was able to judge my pace well according to the conditions. As the rain came however, I couldn’t maintain the temperature in the tyres and when this happens the grip really goes away and I wasn’t able to control the bike as I wanted. On the grid I was sure my tyre choice was correct, but with 10 laps to go I thought that maybe I should go into the pits and change to wets, but it wasn’t worth losing 20 seconds for the bike change because the lap times of the riders on the wet tyres were the same as the times on slicks. It was a frustrating race in strange conditions, but we’ll still have confidence going into the next race in Brno because we’ve been making progress recently and I’m feeling strong on the bike.”



Nicky Hayden, Marlboro Ducati – 15th



“We took a big gamble, it backfired and it’s frustrating because we made a big change to the bike for warm-up this morning and I had a great feeling with it in the wet. The track was damp for the sighting lap and it was spitting with rain on the grid and since my pace on slicks hasn’t been great all weekend we took a big gamble. I had nothing to lose so we rolled the dice. The odds were against me but it was so close to paying off. It rained throughout the race but the track was so warm the moisture wasn’t accumulating on the ground and unfortunately that spelt disaster for us. I take full responsibility for the decision. We agreed on it together with the team but it was my shout, I thought ‘let’s try and be a hero here!’ The tyre was pretty much destroyed after seven or eight laps but there was no point coming in to pit and it came apart five laps from the end. To be honest it’s amazing how it held together for that long! I don’t want to say it was a mistake; it was just a gamble that didn’t pay off and we’ll learn from it.”



The next MotoGP round is on August 16 from Brno, Czech Republic, more news, reviews and products to view at www.whyarai.co.uk and www.phoenixnw.co.uk