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Sunday, January 31, 2010
The Austrian off-road elite and top international riders came together for the second round of the ACC in the Alpine quarry of Roppen/Tyrol.
After the sensational results of the races in Italy and Austria, the first race of the Baboons German Cross Country Championship for BMW Motorrad was held at the Tollwitz Sand Pit near Leipzig. Even before the race, appreciation was shown for the fact that BMW factory rider Simo Kirssi was competing on the 2-cylinder HP2.
After his sensational start and second place finish on the HP2 Enduro at the ICC race in Malandrone/Italy at the Easter weekend, Simo Kirssi this time faced up to the notorious "Hard Enduro" course at Reisersberg near Passau on his factory HP2.
In Malandrone, Tuscany, the BMW Motorrad Offroad managed a virtually perfect start to the 2006 season.
Only Matteo Paoletti, leader of the ICC overall ranking to date, defended his position for almost an hour against the sonorous flat twin roar until he too was finally beaten and had to hand over the leadership to Kirssi.
While the top riders in the field took the many table jumps on the rather cross-oriented and narrow track at heights of three metres and lengths of 15 metres, the BMW Motorrad factory pilot flew up to four metres high at lengths of 20 metres.
"I´m very happy with this race," said the taciturn Finn at the end of the race - in other words "almost perfect". The first victory on the HP2 in a cross country really is in the air...
Saturday, January 30, 2010
A new winter sports discipline is born: Snow Speedhill.
Held for the first time on March 4th in Götschen, the "Flying Finn" Simo Kirssi once again demonstrated his top-class ability and became "Snow Speedhill King" on his HP2 Enduro.
Chris Pfeiffer, BMW Motorrad´s second company motorcyclist, also made the final and finished sixth.
The enthusiastic crowd was offered a unique motorcycling spectacle. 60 entrants lined up for the start - not just to climb an 800-metre snow slope but also to beat their opponents in doing so. Of course, not everyone could be king, but they all received the applause of the masses.
Due to the great success of the event, biker friends and winter athletes can look forward to a Snow Speedhill again next year.
We will then see if His Majesty Simo I. can defend his crown!
There were 431 entries and only 231 finishers in the 2006 Tecate Score-International Baja 1000, but the BMW Motorrad off-road team was one of them, posting 14th overall in the motorcycle class. The team, consisting of riders Beau Hayden, Ron Bishop, Chuck Dempsey, Tony Megla and Peter Postel, tore the 105 horsepower HP2 Enduro through a treacherous 1047-mile course, racing for twenty-four hours straight to reach the finish line at La Paz.
"I started the 22nd bike out of 26 open pro entries. There was no wind but very thick dust and the sun was in my eyes for the first 40 miles of the race. The dust rarely let up during my stint on the bike. My ride was fairly uneventful as I concentrated hard on not making mistakes or misjudgments in the dust. The bike worked flawlessly and I steadily moved forward through the pack. At one point we moved up to approximately 6th overall around Valle de Trinidad. My highlight of the day was crossing El Diablo dry lake bed where I could open up the bike and let it run."
"It was a tight race up to this point where I would get passed in the very rough areas of the course where there were big whoops and ruts and I would blow back by them in the faster sections. We did a tyre change at pit 3 (mile 185) and three or four riders passed me there. A few riders also passed me during a whoop/rock section prior to checkpoint three and I handed the bike to Ron in 10th place overall."
Averaging just above 42 mph, the team navigated hundreds of waist-deep water crossings, extremely rocky sections of boulder fields, pitch black night conditions, lava rocks, washouts, and tons of deep, deep silt, not to mention the numerous other surprises that the Baja throws at riders. From local traffic, roaming cattle, and hurricane-ravaged terrain, the hazards were ceaseless, but the team endured to capture a genuinely remarkable result. After Hayden´s first leg, Baja legend Ron Bishop-a veteran of every single Baja 1000 ever run-handled his section smoothly and then Chuck Dempsey took the helm. Chuck had this to say about his section:
"I rode as safely as possible in the whoops because they were pretty big and sandy. I wanted to save the bike for when I got to the fast roads. This was my 21st year racing in the Pro Class down in Baja and I´d have to say that the HP2 Enduro is the fastest bike I have ever ridden in my life. I started passing guys right off the bat which surprised me - when I got on the roads it was like taking candy from a baby."
"The middle of my section was fast," Dempsey continued, "but the last 20 miles were tight and rocky so I knew I had to get there as fast as possible before all the guys would pass me back, and then we headed into the night. I turned on the headlight and it lit up for about three seconds, and then turned off. That´s when I knew I was in trouble because Baja is pitch black when there´s no moon. I rode as fast as I could, even though I couldn´t see much in front of me. That was a handful on the HP2 Enduro when you can´t even see your own fender - and that´s when everybody started passing me back."
I tried riding next to other riders, but they were not happy with that since I had passed them earlier. So about seven miles from HWY 1 I saw a group of 30 or so Mexican locals standing and drinking beers watching the race, so I pulled up to them and grabbed a flashlight right out of their hands and took off. I guess I owe them a flashlight! I started to ride holding the flashlight with my clutch hand - it wasn´t much but it was better than nothing."
"I was so happy to see my BMW team waiting for me at HWY 1. It seemed like I rode 50 miles that night with no light. From there we jumped on HWY 1 and I rode behind the chase truck to where Tony was waiting for us with new lights. We did another wheel change and the new race lights were installed on the bike, after which Tony took off to complete his section."
Megla reports: "I was the rider from San Ignacio (mile 554) to Loreto, (mile 776) and from Insurgentes (mile 855) to checkpoint 9 (mile 943). In San Ignacio the bike showed up late because of a blown headlight fuse in the wiring harness. This was the pit where we had to change to the stock headlight with the Baja lights. I left San Ignacio about 6:45pm and tried to make up as much time as possible. We had dropped back to around 38th overall. The course from here was fast graded roads, sandy roads, and tidal flats with a few muddy spots on the Pacific coast before it turned inland to the town of La Purisma.
"From La Purisma it was a lot of old washed out rocky roads to the Gulf side of the coast. The last 60 miles into Loreto was the toughest part of my section. Some parts were brand new road freshly cut just for the race. It was twisty, tight, and technical with a lot of sand washes and rocks - first and second gear for long sections."
"I passed about eight riders - three with broken bikes - and had a trouble-free ride. I arrived in Loreto at 11:45pm, then jumped into our chase truck and drove to Insurgentes for the next section. Peter Postel was scheduled to ride the HP2 Enduro from Loreto, but a slight change occurred.
"The original plan was for me to ride from Loreto to the finish," said Postel, "however, Tony came in and said he was feeling great, so the decision was made for me to push hard through the next section to stay ahead of the Trophy trucks and then he would get back on the bike. We checked the bike when he pulled in, and the rear tyre was completely gone so we changed it there. The amount of spectators was unbelievable, even at 1am."
"South of San Javier, there was a lot of water left over from the hurricanes. Postel went on to say, "I believe there were about 27 water crossings. Also the course was extremely rocky, riding over boulders for miles. I passed six other riders in this section. Then going out to the highway, there was lots of single lane silt. From there to the finish there were big silt beds to the ocean, some so deep the cylinder heads were dragging. This was an area to just get through and survive. "
Postel did just that, before handing off to Megla, who had this to report: "When Pete arrived he was completely soaked from all the water crossings. I got back on the bike at around 2:30 in the morning. In this last section I made a wrong turn when the locals took down the course markings and I went about five miles off course. Once I was back on course there were miles and miles of deep silt. The ruts in the road filled in with the silt and the road looked hard until the bike just drops out from underneath you and the ruts almost completely stop you. I arrived at mile 943 at about 4:30am and gave the bike back to Peter."
Postel finished about 100 miles later in La Paz, bringing the BMW Motorrad off-road team to the 14th overall position in the motorcycle class, and sixth in class 22 (Pro/Motorcycles over 251 cc). This strong finish on a motorcycle as large as the HP2 Enduro in conditions as challenging as the Baja 1000 is nothing short of amazing.
"I very much enjoyed racing the BMW and truly appreciate the strong efforts put in by BMW, my teammates, and Baja Bound, said Hayden. "The HP2 Enduro certainly drew its share of attention at Tech/Contingency and at the start people were constantly surrounding the bike, asking many questions."
"The HP2 Enduro is a blast to ride!" added Postel. "You just have to respect it and ride it accordingly. I can´t wait to ride it again. It was truly a unique experience."
A pair of BMW HP2 Enduro motorcycles finished 3rd in their respective class. In fact the BMW Motorrad Team Baja Bound scored a third-place finish in the top-ranked Class 22 (Open Class) as well as the Team Mexico finished third in Class 30 for riders over 30 years of age.
Drawing the last class starting position, Jimmy Lewis, belonging to the BMW Motorrad Team Baja Bound, began the first leg of the race just after 6:35 a.m. on Friday morning. Riding out from Ensenada in front of many of the 300.000 fans that lined much of the course, Lewis was soon passing competitors through the very technical first miles. After some handovers and approx. 18 hours drive, Donationi, also member of the famous Team Baja Bound, blazed through some 150 miles of darkness as the course headed back toward Ensenada. Lewis took over for the final 30 miles of the race to the traditional finish line inside the baseball stadium, finishing the journey he began some 20 hours before.
"The HP2 Enduro survived a very tough Baja 1000," said Berthold Hauser, General Manager Motorsports of BMW Motorrad. "Each rider reported very difficult conditions, but they also told that they had a lot of fun riding the race. A third-place finish is a great result, but to see that each rider enjoyed the experience is equally gratifying and is proof of the HP2 Enduro concept."
After thr race, Jimmy Lewis was strongly in love with BMW Motorrad´s new High Performance brand. The HP2 Enduro embodies the spirit, passion and technology of more than 80 years of BMW Motorrad motorcycle manu-facturing.
The HP2 Enduro bike of the BMW Motorrad Team Baja Bound will be shown at the International Motorcycle-Show in Long Beach, California from December 9th through 11th.
Altogether, the final results were the best finish in the race by any European manufacturer.
There was plenty of good news but a little bad news too for the BMW Motorrad Enduro-Team Feil at the final race of this year´s German Cross Country Series in Eckolstädt, near Apolda. On the one hand, Simo Kirssi easily achieved his target for the season - to be placed among the top ten; however, he and his team would have liked to have performed better on the final day.
It all started well. The popular Kirssi pulled away from the Le Mans start in second place and showed what he was made off from the very beginning. With the powerful BMW HP2 Enduro he was really able to pull out all the stops on this super fast track. The bike´s superb directional stability turned out to be perfect for the tough ground conditions in Eckolstädt. After ongoing rainfall during the night, the course at the former rocket base was sodden and slushy.
International Cross Country Finals.
The last race in this year´s cross country season confronted all participants with new challenges.. In Volary, Czech Republic, the cross country promoter BABOONS had set up a circuit of approximately 4 kilometres which could hardly have been more varied.
The correct choice of tyre was crucial here. After a perfect start, Kirssi came away in second place and shortly afterwards was one of the first to turn into the tarred supermoto track. Here, the young Finn stretched the HP2 Enduro to its limits in practically every situation. With extreme banking and spectacular drifts he was able to consolidate his second place up until the subsequent off-road section of the course. "Yes, it really was a new situation for me. But it´s great fun to burn through the bends on the HP2," said Kirssi in the interview after the race.
On the classic cross country section, Simo Kirssi left nothing to chance either. Fast leaps, hairpin turns and "washboard" tracks made heavy demands of man and machine. Then came the entry into the hall. With one table after another, there was a thorough remixing of the field through to the end of the lap. In these sections, Kirssi´s enormous stamina paid off. The HP2, not actually designed for the demands of a supercross circuit, had no problems whatsoever. With the machine´s powerful torque, the flying Finn was even able to fly over large tables with a very limited run-up. Due to his spectacular performance, Kirssi quickly became the spectators´ favourite as the laps went by. He engaged in particularly breathtaking duels with his friend and arch-rival Thomas Günther on the 450 Husaberg, with one or the other alternately coming out top.
Simo achieved his lap time virtually to the second on every round and was able to hold his second place consistently. Not until the last quarter of the race did he reduce throttle somewhat and briefly stop in the pits for a technical check before taking home his overall second place with supreme ease.
Incidentally, Simo Kirssi´s excellent placing in Volary puts him in a sensational overall second place in the European cross country rankings. Congratulations!
In the penultimate race of the German Cross Country Championship on September 11th in Lahnberge/ Wolfshausen, Simo Kirssi on his HP2 was once again both "king of hearts" as well as king of the show. At the end, the "silent Finn" clearly had mixed feelings: he did reach a ranking amongst the top ten with ninth position - as had been his stated aim - but he could also have done a lot better.
This unanticipated interruption cost Kirssi about ten minutes (approximately two laps) and it was clear that he would not be able to make up this time before the final flag came down. But this was exactly what spurned Kirssi on: unleashed once more, he worked the throttle and set about taking the field apart from behind.
The 5th race of the German Cross Country Championship in Goldbach near Aschaffenburg, Germany, marked the highlight so far of this year´s GCC series; not only did several 1000 spectators crowd the track, but with his 9th place in the professional class, Simo Kirssi rode to his first top 10 placement on the BMW HP2 Enduro. The 26 year-old Finn got off to a flying start and was in 4th position coming out of the first bend on to the very narrow and demanding course. The field of starters was even more high-calibre than ever before in this series. For example the well-known cross specialist Bernd Eckenbach put in an appearance and also the multiple Enduro all world champion Giovanni Sala on the newly-developed 950 KTM showed up ...
This season´s objective for the HP2, namely to be among the top 10 at the end of the season, is drawing ever closer. Of seven races there are still two left with Lahnberg and Eckolstädt , and Simo Kirssi is currently in 10th place overall. And the current trend is towards single digit placements as the season proceeds.
Friday, January 29, 2010
In the superluxe world, we're used to this maneuver: add a few horsepower, shave a tenth or two, sew in a few extra threads, name your exclusive new interior color something like "Algerian Beet" and voilà, a 50-percent price premium for three-percent more car. On the surface, the Bentley Continental Supersports is a GTC Speed that has gone on The Biggest Loser, Extreme Makeover, and Alter Eco. But you know what they say about the proof and the pudding, so the question is whether the Supersports is a nameplate special or a genuinely higher evolution of the baller's favorite steed. We spent a day in the wilds of New Jersey and upstate New York, along with a few hours at Monticello Raceway to find out. Ladies and gentlemen, allow us to introduce you to the first Continental you can feel.
Think of the Bentley Continental Supersports as Usain Bolt: both are hypothetically too big to perform as they do, but they do it anyway.
The Continental GT is not a sports car. Nor is the Continental Supersports. Nevertheless, both Bentleys do things that only sports cars can do, and the Supersports does some of them more quickly – like 0 to 60 in 3.7 seconds. The difference is in how they do it. In our review of the GTC Speed, we wrote that it achieves these feats by taking the goddess of physics hostage, forcing her to obey. Bentley should be commended for engineering a 5,182-pound beast to perform such feats at all, but it remains an act of coercion.
In the GTC Speed, though, the driver is separated from all that imperative violence by multiple layers of sound deadening, carpeting, wood and leather. If you really pay attention, you can catch a soupcon of the brute force wizardry being conducted somewhere in the Bentley's deathly hallows, but why would you? There are 1,100 distracting watts of Naim audio to command the ears and a woman named Katerina or Genevieve or Summer in the front seat to command everything else.
The Supersports, on the other hand, requests your attention. Why? While the conversion to being a high-po ethanol coupe does involve more electro-mechanical magic, it's primarily achieved the old fashioned way: less weight and more power.
A 243-pound reduction from a 5,000-pound car isn't much – 4.86 percent, to be exact – but the Supersports drops weight in the right places. Unsprung mass has been reduced by 66 pounds with the addition of carbon-ceramic brakes and lightweight wheels, while the chassis gives up 20 pounds and the elimination of the rear seats, replacement of the wood with carbon fiber trim and the fitment of those carbon fiber seats nixes nearly 160 pounds. But a strict diet isn't the only regime Bentley put the Supersports on.
Output is up to 621 horsepower at 6,000 rpm – another 21 hp over the GTC Speed – thanks to an increase in boost pressure, with torque goosed (or would that be 'swanned') from 553 foot-pounds to 590 ft-lb at 2,250 rpm, making this "extreme Bentley" the most powerful model to wear The Flying B. Your new corn-fed top speed: 204 miles per hour. An even better stat: you can get from 50 to 70 mph in 2.1 seconds. Worry not, cellulosic stocks will work as well if you're concerned about things like, oh, world hunger.
Speaking of which, let's throw our bingo chip down right now on the second biggest story of this car: E85. (Yes, that means we're actually playing bingo.) This is the first Bentley with flex-fuel capacity, the first arrow in what is meant to be a quiver full of eco-friendly Bentleys by 2012 (or at least less eco-injurious).
All that oomph makes the Supersports a heavy breather, the bi-turbo W12 needing 10 percent more airflow to remain cool. That's the reason for the exterior redesign up front, with the lateral intakes feeding intercoolers and the hood vents extracting hot air from above. Another upshot: the changes create more downforce in front.
But let's take that concept of 'down in front' to the cabin. As we all know, it's the details that define the superior product – and even more detailed details that make this year's superior product better than last. By that standard, the Supersports is noticeably better, the sum of its changes having recast the entire tone of the Continental GT, which is itself better than almost everything else out there.
Flood the optical nerves with padded carbon seats, Alcantara, leather and carbon trim, and the brain's signal processing center immediately switches to its "Sports Car" setting. A simple viewing also ushers in the thrill of trying to simultaneously process pole and antipole: the cabin is as spartan as it is luxurious, clinical as it is inviting, hard as it is soft.
The leather-trimmed carbon fiber seats have fixed seat cushions and clamshell rear panels that can adjust fore and aft. This is the first Bentley to wear Alcantara inside, and a smaller diamond-quilt pattern makes its return after a long absence. The steering wheel is lined in soft-touch leather so that your fingers are always sending you the signal, "Remember, we're here on business." It's a cabin good for all-day comfort on the eyes, the body and the driving soul.
And perhaps you noticed that missing rear seat. In its place is a luggage shelf topped by a hollow carbon tube that keeps parcels where they belong when things get all brake-y. Just under that luggage shelf is less sound deadening than in other Continental models, and a retuned exhaust. When you start the car, it sounds like a proper sports car.
The other GT variants cannot be heard in most circumstances, and even when they can, they sound like a chorus of butlers humming. Granted, it's a bunch of big, rugby playing butlers that still have a bit of imperial about them. But it's guys humming.
The Supersports doesn't hum like that. The Supersport rumbles. If you could call it a hum at all, it would be the hum of a Vulcan. Sitting on top of Vesuvius. Courting a Valkyrie.
That left us one thing to do: find out what happens when Vesuvius blows. It was not hard, it did not take long and it was Earth shattering.
The Supersports remains a devout Bentley, so its low-speed performance should already be well known. Ambling around town won't raise anyone's heartbeat but those of the people watching you. As far as the car's effort is concerned, the urban hike is like using an aircraft carrier as the Staten Island Ferry.
That lower rear is also wider, with the rear track upped by two inches. As well, more power heads that way in the car's default setting, with a 60 percent rear bias on the all-wheel-drive system improving the ability to throttle steer. Getting it all where it should be is the new six-speed "Quickshift" transmission, which cuts shift times by 50 percent in part by cutting fuel and ignition, which speeds mechanical actuation. It also double downshifts and rev matches when descending gears. Finally, the updated Electronic Stability Control allows more leeway when you're on it hard, with a higher tolerance for slip angles, and it reinstates power and torque more quickly after an intervention.
The result is animal. Not just any animal – this is Battle Cat. You know, the green guy He-Man used to ride. Has the saddle and everything. And a much nicer color. But it is muscle, it is speed and it is ferocious.
Steering load-up and turn-in happens quickly, and precise wheel placement is a cinch after the first couple of corners. At high speed, only G-forces and cornering speed – not body roll – can help you judge how aggressively you've taken a turn compared to your previous run. Bentleys have never been slow to go, but the Supersports goes even faster thanks to more power and its commitment to downshifting.
Let the car shift for you, and now it isn't a big GT looking around for the right ratios to haul itself from apex to apex; it's a double-downshifting, throttle-steering monster with bags of grip that can't wait to get back to a high-revving sprint. Take control of the ZF box via the column-mounted stalks and gain a few tenths and a cranium full of sound by downshifting even earlier – you'll do anything to get out of a turn more quickly so you can hear it roar down a back straight.
Which brings us to what, for us, is the biggest story of this car: emotion. It isn't only that you're doing things in a 2.5-ton Bentley, it's that you can feel and hear and sense the doing of it, and it's all being done in the right way: less weight, less heard from the doodads, more engineering, more power, more grip.
It's a luxury coupe that covers a huge amount of ground in all kinds of ways, and for proof, consider the fact a Bentley press drive for it was held at a race track. Sure, a 599 and a Lamborghini Murciélago are more dramatic; they are also louder, smaller, more frenetic, much more expensive and only slightly faster, and in the case of the Ferrari, maybe not as pretty. A Porsche 911 has finer reflexes, but less luxury and much less gravitas. An Aston Martin might be just as much fun, but isn't nearly as fast or as practical. A Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG might have the Supersports matched for curb and visceral appeal, but it's tiny inside, a tad harsh... and it simply isn't a Bentley.
It's not like we want to say this, it's that we aren't sure there's any other choice: if you want to have it all, the Bentley Supersports is probably it. And we only say "probably" on the off chance there's a car out there we don't know about at this end of the spectrum that has the speed, space, smoothness, suppleness and sound to beat it. Maybe in a cave somewhere. If Bentley would just fix that center console screen and software, then we'd really have nothing to complain about.
For much of its history, Bentleys have shielded occupants from the action by placing scads of cloth, leather, hide and wood between the driver and the din and the dynamics. And that was the point – that's why you bought a Bentley. So while the Continental GT is a fantastic coupe, it isn't visceral. The Supersports, though, is a fantastic coupe that is.
[Source: Autoblog]
