Rumour Mill 2007

[patnicholls]

Rumours and conjecture for the coming season to go in here...

[mx311]

Since no one else has posted anything here I'll go first. (remember it's early in the year so not too much happening).

- Red Bull are rumoured to be looking at buying the World Superbike championship. F1 czar Bernie Ecclestone also rumoured to be interested.

- Troy Bayliss has been linked to a new factory Ducati team in the Australian Superbike series in 2008. It's rumoured that Bayliss will retire at seasons end before heading home to be team owner/manager of the new Oz Duke squad.

- Neil Hodgson linked to Yamaha France WSBK (already mentioned elsewhere).

- Honda are rumoured to be building a 4-stroke 250cc bike to try and pressure the FIM to reform the 125 and 250 rules for 2008/09. Honda and Yamaha have both stated that they'd like 250 4-strokes to replace the current 125's and 450 4-strokes to replace the current 250's, the same as what happened in motocross racing.

- The MotoGP to Indy thing seems legit. The rumour is the bikes will race the opposite way around the circuit to the F1 cars with the Turn 1 banking bypassed in favour of the pitlane warmup lane. A chicane in between oval turns 1 and 2 would slow bikes down before entering the road course. The rest of the track would be the same but backwards except for the last turn (back onto the front straight) which would be made tighter to keep bikes away from the outside wall. There have been other venues mentioned though, including Miami-Homestead and Mexico City.

[maxu05]

If Bayliss is to retire, it would be great to see him still involved with racing, as he is such a good bloke. If he does manage/own a team, all the best to him, I think he deserves it

[harsha]

well anticlockwise @ indy doesn't seem so bad,esp if the turn 13 in f1) is taken care of....

yea,heard about the 250cc 4 strokes rule,will the 125cc be the same then cause there is no point trying to run 250cc 4 strokes and the 125cc two strokes

[maxu05]

I am excited by this news, as I think the bikes should be all 4 strokes. It makes you wonder though, as Honda has just launched their "World" Honda F1 car, and California does not allow 2 strokes to race due to emission regs ? It all adds up IMO. I would love to see 4 stroke 250's and 400/450's.

[fatman]

4 stroke 400/450s would be excellent. I would love to have a little 450cc sport bike to ride around on.

[ChrisS]

Red Bull are rumoured to be looking at buying the World Superbike championship. F1 czar Bernie Ecclestone also rumoured to be interested.

I heard about Bernie buying WSBK elsewhere too, but it seems every time a racing series is up for sale, Bernie's name pops up so I have my doubts.

[maxu05]

I don't think it would be good for the sport if Bernie stuck his big snoz into it. He would turn it into a circus.

[harsha]

Bernie Ecclestone buying SBK would be the worst thing to happen,i'd rather have Dorna buying SBK

[ChrisS]

Dont be so quick to contempt Bernie guys, he may be a money hungry old man but he has great power and connections that could benefit WSBK

Just the contacts he has with racing circuits around the world could mean he could set up a killer WSBK calendar. I mean if he approached an F1 circuit and told them to give him a superbike race or risk losing F1 would they say no?

and he also has connections with TV broadcasters, sponsors etc...

of course if Bernie is indeed interested in buying WSBK then I believe it would be to take it, set it up and sell it for a huge profit.