Motourage

At the start of four days of testing for World Superbike’s factory Kawasaki Racing Team at Sepang in Malaysia, Chris Vermeulen had his first taste of the 2011 Ninja ZX-10R as he made his comeback ride after recuperating from knee surgery.

Unlike his teammates, Tom Sykes and Joan Lascorz, Vermeulen had never ridden the new bike before today and was instantly impressed with it, despite setting a limited number of laps. This was a first ride in Malaysia for Sykes and Lascorz, although Vermeulen has ridden at Sepang on many previous occasions.

Sykes and Lascorz used the first day to familiarize themselves with the wide and comparatively long circuit in the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur and find base settings to work with for the rest of the tests.

Chris Vermeulen said of his first day back in the saddle: “I eased into it today and only did a limited number of laps, over three separate runs. I stopped before lunch today and then the rains came later in the afternoon, but we will go out again tomorrow. The new bike feels really good. The last bike I rode around Sepang was a GP machine, so to be impressed with this motorbike already shows it is a very good start. All the guys have done a great job in developing it. I was happy to come away with that positive impression, even after a relatively short number of laps so far. Right now I cannot quite bend my knee enough when going round right hand corners, but my knee has improved a lot over the last couple of weeks. Everything in the recovery of my knee is going to plan, and in fact I am quite a bit ahead of what the doctors expected. My muscle growth is good, particularly considering I have only been walking for three weeks.”

Also joining the three works KRT riders in Sepang is the Pedercini Kawasaki Team, which will be using the opportunity to learn more from the factory team’s experience with the new Ninja ZX-10R (and seriously needs to update its website). The crews will continue on track tomorrow, take a break for a day on January 12 and then complete their final tests on Thursday and Friday.

Roger Hayden has seen his share of difficulties in the past two seasons but hopes to put that behind him in World Superbikes

Roger Lee, youngest of the Hayden racing family has signed a deal to ride for Pedercini Kawasaki in the World Superbike series.  Roger has raced for the Monster Energy Attack Kawasaki squad in the former incarnation of the AMA supersport class and won that class’s championship in 2007 as well as finishing 10th at Laguna Seca as a wild card with the Kawasaki MotoGP team.  In 2009, he competed in the newly formed Daytona Sportbike class and finished 10th in points after missing the first three rounds of the season. Prior to today’s announcement, Hayden was linked to a Moto2 ride with JiR.

News release from Pedercini Kawasaki:

Pedercini Kawasaki is delighted to announce that American Roger Lee Hayden will join the team to compete in the 2010 Superbike World Championship.

The 26-year-old from Owensboro, Kentucky, USA has spent much of his career on Kawasaki machinery and in 2009 he participated in the Daytona Sportbike 600cc category in the Monster Energy Attack Kawasaki team. Hayden’s career began in 2004 in the AMA Supersport championship and the year after he was named AMA Superbike Rookie of the Year. In AMA Supersport he was able to win 13 races.

Regarding Pedercini Kawasaki’s second rider, the team is carrying out negotiations with several competitive riders, in order to have a strong team to be able to run at the front.

Roger Lee Hayden declared: “I am really happy to be participating in the World Superbike Championship next year with the Pedercini Team. It has always been my goal to race in a World Championship Series, and now I have the opportunity. It’s a big difference from what I did last year, but I’m ready and looking forward to taking that next step. I have experience on the Kawasaki Superbike, so that does not make everything completely new. It should be fun learning and racing at the new circuits and of course we have a home round in Salt Lake at Miller Motorsports Park. My first test will be at Portimao towards the end of January and I can’t wait to get back on a bike again!”

Team manager Lucio Pedercini added: “We’re very happy with our signing of Roger. He is a young rider and we hope to realize his full potential and guide him through his debut as we strongly believe that Hayden will put us in a good position to compete in the next Superbike World Championship. He has been competitive on Kawasaki machinery in the USA, he knows the Kawasaki ZX 10R and we want to continue developing his career within Kawasaki. We understand that Roger may need some time to adapt himself to our team, the new circuits and to such a difficult and competitive championship as World Superbike, but we are sure about his talent, motivation and determination.”