The first race of the 2008 Moto GP
season will be run under floodlights. Following a successful test at
the Losail International Circuit in Qatar, Dorna Sports announced
that the season opener there will be run at night. That’s never been
done before in Moto GP.
Five riders – Loris Capirossi, James
Toseland, Marco Melandri, Anthony West, and Alex de Angelis –
represented Suzuki, Yamaha, Ducati, Kawasaki, and Honda in the
night-time test, running laps under the lights Monday night on
road versions of their Moto GP bikes. Capirossi said the lighting was
“perfect.”
The Moto GP racing season lights up on March 9.
At just about any motorcycle shop. The news item this story was developed from stated: The riders used road versions of their MotoGP prototypes. Those would be litre-sized bikes in the supersport category, like the Yamaha R1 and Suzuki GSX-R1000.
What an illuminating article. One little niggle though: where would one purchase “road versions of their Moto GP bikes”? I wasn’t aware that a road version of a MotoGP bike was for sale to the general public.