Dave with Jordan Szoke

Jen with Amy Szoke

The Motourage crew were lucky enough to have a chance to meet reigning Canadian Superbike champion Jordan Szoke and his wife, Amy – an accomplished road racer in her own right -  at this past weekend’s AMA White Lightning Nationals at Virginia International Raceway. Jordan, fresh from a perfect seven-win season and his seventh Canadian Superbike title, made the trip from Atlantic Motorsport Park in Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia to Alton, Virginia to show his stuff to the American audience.

Canadian motorsports program, The Auto 123 Show caught up with Jordan before the final race of the Canadian Superbike season. Jordan and Amy are a great couple, and you can tell by this video just how exciting their lives are.

The Motourage crew would like to thank the team at Salt Lake Motorsports for all their hospitality during our visit today on the way from the airport.

Everyone was so helpful and even let us into the stock room to rummage through the merchandise that had not been on the shelves. The shop has a great selection of Ducati apparel, helmets, boots, gloves and leathers not to mention a wide variety of accessories and the latest Ducati motorcycles.

We all stocked up on more than our share of Ducati gear, and – with some great prices and even better clearance deals – we go out of there for cheap – well – when compared to other Duc shops.  With the helmet sale they currently have going on, we very likely will be stopping back before the weekend is over to grab a couple new Shoeis we had our eyes on.

The consensus of the group is that Salt Lake Motorsports is one of the best Ducati dealers we’ve ever visited. Unfortunately, due to standing partnerships between Ducati and another dealership, Salt Lake Motorsports will not be out at the track this weekend. So, if you’re in town for the World Superbike Championship this weekend, make sure to head down and pay them a visit.

You can find them at 916 South Main St., Salt Lake City, UT 84101or follow them on Twitter at twitter.com/slmotorsports.

Suzuki Alstare’s Leon Haslam extended his World Superbike points lead on Max Biaggi after a third- and first-place finish at Kyalami this past weekend.  Xerox Ducati’s Michel Fabrizio scored his first win of the season while Carlos Checa, Jonny Rea and Max Biaggi also climbed the podium in South Africa.

A 70-point round this weekend by the top three Motourage Fantasy Riders Race League teams made it difficult to catch the leaders, while less than 100 points separates fourth through 11th places.

The next round of the Motourage Fantasy Riders Race League will score next weekend with MotoGP round four, the Monster Energy Grand Prix de France in Le Mans.

All selections will be frozen on May 21 at Noon EDT in the US ( 17:00 BST, 16:00 GMT), so make sure your lineup is finalized before this time.

Notes:

• Rizla Suzuki’s Alvaro Bautista suffered a broken collarbone in a motocross training crash, and although he is slated to compete this weekend, don’t expect him to be 100%.
• Last year’s Le Mans results were: 1-Jorge Lorenzo, 2-Marco Melandri, 3-Dani Pedrosa. Valentino Rossi and Mika Kallio both scored DNFs
• Results for the last MotoGP race, the Gran Premio Bwin de Espana at Jerez, May 2: 1-Jorge Lorenzo, 2-Dani Pedrosa, 3-Valentino Rossi

Current standings for the Motourage Fantasy Riders Race League:

The fine Pegasuses, Pegasi, Pegapeople over at SoCal Buell Riders recently – via Twitter – brought up the idea of putting together a meeting of Twitter users (the cool kids call it a Tweetup) who’ll be attending the US round of the World Superbike Championship May 29-31 at Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele, Utah.

Since the main reason for Motourage’s existence is to bring together fans of racing across the country – and around the world – to share our love for our sport, we think this is a great idea, and would be more than happy to get the ball rolling.

If anyone would like to be included in the official twitter list for the Inaugural Miller Motorsports Park World Superbike Tweetup, please use the comments section below to include your twitter handle and real name – if you so choose.  We’ll get a good list together and grab a few prizes from the Motourage closet to give away at the races. Maybe Miller itself (twitter.com/utahmmp) would be so kind as to join us and recommend a suitable place to skirt the crowd to get together, or maybe they’d be willing to put together something special for the attending Twitteratti.

Please feel free to spread the word.  We’re looking forward to finally putting some faces with Twitter names and meeting our fellow motorcycle boys and girls in the real world and not just from behind a computer screen.

Not on Twitter? It’s cool. Bookmark this page or subscribe to the Motourage RSS feed for the latest updates about the Tweetup and the latest news from regional, national and international racing organizations.

We’ll see you in Utah!

The Motourage Fantasy Riders Racing League spreadsheet is getting too big to fit comfortably in the space provided by WordPress, so it has been moved to Google Documents.

For the latest results and standings, check out the new Motourage Fantasy Riders Racing League results HERE.

This weekend marks Rounds 6 and 7 of the Motourage Fantasy Riders Racing League season.
Due to the postponement of the Motegi MotoGP round, no points were scored in Round 4.  Round 5 was scored with the Assen Round of the World Superbike Championship, and teams will score this weekend based on the results of the MotoGP-Jerez and British Superbike-Oulton Park races.
The top scorer in Round 5 was Brad Boutilier’s East Coast racing team with a very impressive 70 points, but a big weekend by Luckyguess mixed up the standings at the top of the chart.

In MotoGP, Valentino Rossi’s health may have been in question at the beginning of the weekend due to an injury he sustained during a motocross crash, but he finished free practice at the #5 position.  Stoner, Lorenzo, Hayden and Pedrosa rounded out the top spots, but the Jerez race is anyone’s to win.  Will the Spanish Armada flex its collective hometown muscle or will it be an Aussie an Italian or even one of the field’s three Americans atop the podium on Sunday?

The British Superbike field is another story altogether, with a total of seven riders sitting this weekend out.  Hampus Johansson, James Edmeads, James Ellison, Pat McDougall, Scott Smart, and Simon Andrews are watching from the stands, and the big news is the sudden retirement of World Superbike Champion (and a familiar face in the AMA paddock for four seasons) Neil Hodgson, who was forced out due to his aggravating a two-year-old shoulder injury by crashing at Brands Hatch.

Team lineups have been locked in since Noon EST today, so sit back and get ready for some two wheeled action, both on the track and in the virtual world.

The current Motourage Fantasy Riders Racing League standings are below. Good luck to all the Motourage teams.

Round 2 of the Motourage Fantasy Riders League corresponded with Round 2 of the World Superbike Championship in Portimao, Portugal. Results and standings are posted below.
Round 3 of the Fantasy Riders league scores this weekend with the opening round of the British Superbike Championship at Brands Hatch Indy.
All rider changes for Round 3 must be submitted by the cutoff time of 17:00GMT (Noon Eastern time in the US) on Saturday, April 3. Log on to Fantasy Riders to make your changes, and good luck to all competitors.

Scores and rankings after two rounds
1st: MinellaSpeed, Dave Minella – 45, 50 = 95
2nd: Blue Galaxy, Alun Edwards – 0, 90 = 90
3rd: Flying Monkeys, Jeff Ritter – 29, 59 = 88
4th: Swamphole Racing, Noel Nunkovich – 46, 32 = 78
5th: East Coast Racing, Brad Boutilier – 33, 38    = 71
6th: Spieswise, A. Van Donselaar – 24, 32 = 56
7th: Team Motorious, Ivan Lo – 35, 16 = 51
8th: Ow My Freakin’ Ears!, Leigh Berwick – 0, 48 = 48
9th: CornerSpeedPhoto, Dan Lo – 27, 20 = 47
10th: team karbonated, Rebecca Saclolo – 27, 16 = 43
11th: BNG Racing, Bridget Kirkland – 27, 16 = 43
12th: Motherless Goats, Jared Koch – 27, 16 = 43
13th: Dark Energy, Camila Restrepo – 27, 16 = 43
14th: Team Rig, Lee Lilly – 27, 16 = 43
15th: irishlad, Dave Kelly – 9, 22 = 31
16th: Pretty.2010, Pretty Pretty – 16, 13 = 29
17th: luckyguess, N. Van Donselaar – 0, 26 = 26
18th: Uttley Allstars, Richard Uttley     – 6, 19 = 25
19th: JJ’s M1 Super Scooters, Jennifer Jabbusch – 6, 19 = 25
20th: ducatinewstoday.com, Mark Morrison – 0,0 = 0
21st: Desmodromic Demonoids, Aaron Boyle – 0, 0 = 0
22nd: rozlanbgsp, Rozlan Abdullah – 0,0 = 0
23rd: MotoGPNewsBlog, Chris Lykins – 0,0 = 0
24th: MotoGPBlog, Rob Jones – 0, 0 = 0
25th: gp1malaysia, Nazarie Francis – 0, 0 = 0

It has been a few weeks since Phillip Island, but the 2010 motorcycle racing season is finally getting ready to heat up.
Round Two of the Motourage Fantasy Riders League will again be a one-series weekend as the World Superbike Series heads to Portimao, Portugal.  If your results from round one were worse than expected, you have until 17:00GMT/12:00EST on Friday, March 26 to make your WSBK rider substitutions. You may also make BSB and MotoGP transfers during that time frame.  Remember, points are scored the same for all three eligible series, BSB, MotoGP and WSBK.

Good luck in round two!

The standings after Round One of the Motourage Fantasy Riders League are as follows.

1st Swamphole Racing, Noel Nunkovich, 46
2nd MinellaSpeed, Dave Minella, 45
3rd Team Motorious, Ivan Lo, 35
4th East Coast Racing, Brad Boutilier, 33
5th Flying Monkeys, Jeff Ritter, 29
6th team carbonated, Rebecca Saclolo,27
7th BNG Racing, Bridget Kirkland, 27
8th Motherless Goats, Jared Koch, 27
9th Dark Energy, Camila Restrepo, 27
10th Team Rig, Lee Lilly, 27
11th CornerSpeedPhoto, Dan Lo, 27
12th Spieswise, A. Van Donselaar, 24
13th Pretty.2010, Pretty Pretty, 16
14th irishlad, Dave Kelly, 9
15th Uttley Allstars, Richard Uttley, 6
16th JJ’s M1 Super Scooters, Jennifer Jabbusch, 6
17th ducatinewstoday.com, Mark Morrison, 0
18th Desmodromic Demonoids, Aaron Boyle    , 0
19th rozlanbgsp, Rozlan Abdullah, 0
20th MotoGPNewsBlog, Chris Lykins, 0
21st MotoGPBlog, Rob Jones, 0
22nd Ow My Freakin’ Ears!, Leigh Berwick, 0
23rd Blue Galaxy, Alun Edwards, 0
24th gp1malaysia, Nazarie Francis, 0
25th luckyguess, N. Van Donselaar, 0

An exciting weekend of World Superbike action from Round 1 at Phillip Island. This weekend was also round 1 of the Motourage Fantasy Riders league.  Suzuki and Ducati – both factory and privateer efforts – came up big in Australia, and the players who picked those teams also came up big.

Here are the results of Round 1 of the Motourage Fantasy Riders league:

1st Swamphole Racing, Noel Nunkovich 46

2nd MinellaSpeed, Dave Minella 45

3rd Team Motorious, Ivan Lo 35

4th East Coast Racing, Brad Boutilier 33

5th Flying Monkeys, Jeff Ritter 29

6th team karbonated, Rebecca Saclolo 27

7th BNG Racing, Bridget Kirkland 27

8th Motherless Goats, Jared Koch 27

9th Dark Energy, Camila Restrepo 27

10th Team Rig, Lee Lilly 27

11th CornerSpeedPhoto, Dan Lo 27

12th Spieswise, A. Van Donselaar 24

13th Pretty.2010Pretty Pretty 16

14th irishlad, Dave Kelly 9

15th Uttley Allstars, Richard Uttley 6

16th JJ’s M1 Super Scooters, Jennifer Jabbusch 6

17th ducatinewstoday.com, Mark Morrison 0

18th Desmodromic Demonoids, Aaron Boyle 0

19th rozlanbgsp, Rozlan Abdullah 0

20th MotoGPNewsBlog, Chris Lykins 0

21st MotoGPBlog, Rob Jones 0

22nd Ow My Freakin’ Ears!, Leigh Berwick 0

We’re planning on producing some Motourage Tour 2010 T-Shirts, highlighting the events where the Motourage group will have a presence this summer (So far the list is WSBK at Miller, MotoGP at Indy and AMA at VIR with more TBD).  So, we’re asking readers to submit their favorite motorcycle racing quotes to be used on the back of the shirts.

We’re looking for famous or semi-famous racers or anyone close to the racing world; managers, techs, crew chiefs, promoters, media, etc.

Just post your suggested quote and to whom it’s credited in the comments section.  If your suggestion is selected for use on the Motourage T-Shirt, you’ll receive a free T-Shirt and some other neat little prize that we find lying around.