Attack Performance MotoGP CRT Team Granted Wild Card Entries for Three 2013 U.S. MotoGP Rounds

Rider Steve Rapp works on seating position just outside the Attack Performance garage at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway during the open test hosted by AMA Pro Road Racing and the Hulman Family-owned facility on Saturday, August 11, 2012.  The California-based team and rider were on-hand to get more rider and machine input prior to the running of the 5th Annual Red Bull Indianapolis MotoGP over the August 17-19 weekend ahead on the #15 Attack Performance APR CRT-based mount.

The Richard Stanboli-built and designed Attack machine is fitted with a modified Kawasaki ZX-10R motor and coupled to a hand-built chassis of Stanboli's design, in accordance with the CRT (claiming rules team) guidelines and rules as set forth by Dorna and the powers that be in the MotoGP World Championship rule book.  The 2012 season saw the first year that the machines, running production-based power nestled into special chassis' were allowed to run in the prestigious MotoGP class alongside the multi-million dollar factory prototype machinery.

Along with the U.S.-based GPTech team that saw former multi-time AMA Pro Road Racing champion Aaron Yates campaign the Indy round of the MotoGP schedule, former Daytona 200 winner Rapp and the AP team made it two CRT-based teams that were home grown in the U.S. rounds in the 2012 season.

 

The Attack Performance technicians go about dialing the APR machine in prior to the afternoon testing session at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway as the tire warmers get the Bridgestone rubber up to operating temps.

Team owner and machine designer Richard Stanboli (right) helps one of the team's technicians get the Attack Performance Kawasaki-based mount buttoned up prior to another test run at IMS.

Attack Performance and team owner Stanboli can be seen talking with a member of the media while the team goes about the finishing process of readying the APR machine for the next test session at Indianapolis.

With owner Stanboli and rider Rapp talking in the background, right of this shot, the Attack Performance technicians ready the team's CRT effort for the afternoon of testing on the MotoGP-spec Bridgestone Battlax rubber.

Steve Rapp gets a push start from two of the Attack Performance team members as he heads out for the afternoon testing session at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on August 11, 2012.  With only six days until the opening day of practice for the 5th Annual Red Bull Indianapolis MotoGP round, the team had their work cut out for them in getting ready to qualify for their first MotoGP event in the new-for-2012 CRT entry class.

It obviously paid off.  Rapp ended up putting the APR machine in the field at Indy the next weekend, qualifying in the 21st-place spot just ahead of the final grid position held by Aaron Yates and the GPTech team.  Rapp went on to finish in the 14th-place spot in his first-ever grand prix after having just missed the show at the Laguna Seca round just weeks before.  Rapp and the rookie team also garnered two points in the 2012 MotoGP World Championship for their hard earned results at Indy.

For the upcoming 2013 season the team will have three rounds in which to improve their results with their newly-granted wild card entries into next season's three United States rounds at the COTA in Austin, Texas, Laguna Seca and Indy.  It wasn't announced whether rider Steve Rapp would be back on board, but we can't see where this won't happen after Rapp's good showing at Indy and his long-time association with Stanboli's team and Attack Performance.  Rapp won the 2007 edition of the Daytona 200 while riding an Attack-prepped and sponsored Kawasaki ZX-6R and finished out the '07 season ranked 2nd in the now-defunct AMA Formula Xtreme Series Championship class and has continued his association with AP riding this last season in the AMA Pro National Guard Superbike Championship on the team's ZX-10R-based superbike, garnering 13 top-10s and four top-5s along the way.

Here's wishing the team the best of luck in the coming year, they definitely deserve it for their great efforts on this beautiful machine, as does rider Rapp.  You can read the official news below and check out some more reading on owner Richard Stanboli's efforts to build a competitive CRT MotoGP entry from scratch.

Thanks to Motorcycle.com's Dennis Chung for this news out yesterday concerning Attack Performance's entries being accepted for the CRT class in all three of the rounds in the U.S. for the 2013 MotoGP season.  The article reference's GPTech's entries for next year also, which we covered earlier this month:

http://blog.motorcycle.com/2012/12/14/manufacturers/kawasaki/attack-performance-gptech-to-race-all-three-us-motogp-rounds-in-2013/

Attack also campaigned the Laguna Seca and Indy rounds during the 2012 season.  Here is one of the articles that talked about this from back in April, again thanks to Dennis Chung and Motorcycle.com:

http://blog.motorcycle.com/2012/04/09/manufacturers/kawasaki/attack-performance-announces-motogp-crt-effort/

Motorcyclistonline.com's James Parker penned this story of Attack's Richard Stanboli and Steve Rapp contesting the two rounds in the CRT class during the 2012 season:

http://www.motorcyclistonline.com/features/columns/122_1211_steve_rapp_attack_performance/


You can also find out more about the fine line of Attack Performance's wares here via their official site:

http://www.attackperformance.com/

Reflections of the 5th Annual Red Bull Indianapolis MotoGP Weekend August 17-19, 2012

The 5th Annual Red Bull Indianapolis MotoGP Weekend saw the first repeat winner at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway when 2010 winner Dani Pedrosa on the #26 Repsol Honda RC213V took home the top honors on a weekend that will be remembered for the Spaniard's second win on the oldest race track in America, but also for the carnage that littered the track and paddock long after the checkered flag had fallen.

Pedrosa is seen at high speed rocketing down the long front straight at Indy during the first practice session of the weekend, where speeds of 208 MPH were recorded during the 3-day weekend in the series' first visit to Indy in the 1000cc era of MotoGP World Championship racing.

Pedrosa's team mate, Casey Stoner on the #1 Repsol Honda (and the defending MotoGP Champion and Indy winner) faired much worse then his double-winning team mate over the long weekend at The Brickyard.  After a seriously nasty highside during the qualifying round that saw the Australian suffer serious ankle injuries, Stoner at first wasn't expected to contest the weekend.  But like the tough competitor he is, the #1 machine soldiered on to a strong 4th-place finish at Indy.

Stoner however had to sit out this weekend's Brno event and is hopeful for the next round at San Marino on September 14-16.  This was Stoner's last trip to the track he loves to hate as he announced his retirement from the sport earlier this summer after the 2012 season.

Honda was one of the many manufacturers on-hand for the 5th Annual Red Bull Indianapolis MotoGP Weekend, and one of theirs and all of the displays that was catching a lot of interest was the new Honda CBR1000RR.

Ben Spies' 2012 season troubles continued at Indy in spite of his 4th-place qualifying effort on the #11 Yamaha Factory YZR-M1.  Elbowz got a monster start at the drop of the green in the MotoGP main event and led a few laps before being passed by eventual-winner Dani Pedrosa.  But while giving chase, the motor expired on the long front straight and was highly reminiscent of his 2012 season in which he has suffered a series of maladies and get-offs.


























On a brighter side for the 2009 World Superbike and 3-Time AMA Superbike Champion, the 2011 Petronas Factory Yamaha M1 that Spies rode at the Laguna Seca and Indy rounds last year graced the Yamaha display in the infield at IMS.  The paint job helped Yamaha celebrate their 50th anniversary.

Andreas Dovizioso continued his season of superior runs on the #4 Monster Energy Tech 3 Yamaha M1 with a 3rd-place finish at the 2012 version of the Red Bull MotoGP Weekend. Dovi signed between Sunday's Brno round and Indy to ride for the Ducati factory in the 2013 season alongside America's own Nicky Hayden.

You can't talk MotoGP without making a shoutout to and about 9-Time World Champion and 7-Time MotoGP World Champion Valentino Rossi.  The Italian was the first Ducati home at Indy, bringing the #46 Marlboro Factory Ducati GP12 home in the 7th-place spot.

Rossi was also on-hand at the Lucas Oil Indy Mile on Saturday, August 18, hanging out with Tommy Hayden and Chris Carr on the stage as a special guest of Family Events Promotions and AMA Pro Flat Track.  He also went home with his own Harley-Davidson XR750 to ride on his backyard track, and it was reported that Carr helped to broker the deal for the popular MotoGP icon.

Ducati Island at The Brickyard was at the usual level of excitement that is seen amongst the 'Ducatista' fans and one of the nicest displays at the track was set up for the Ducati compatriots and other fans on-hand throughout the weekend.  The display included two street versions of two of the three Ducatis that 3-Time World Superbike Champion Troy Bayliss rode to his titles, and a Ben Bostrom #1 Vance & Hines Ducati from the '99 AMA Superbike Championship season.  Can you say drool...............

The #17 Cardion AB Motoracing Ducati GP12 of Karel Abraham and the #69 Marlboro Ducati Factory GP12 enter the garage area at Indianapolis after the end of the first practice session of the weekend at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway-hosted 2012 MotoGP World Championship round.

In another case of two ends of the spectrum, Abraham brought the satellite machine home in the 8th-place spot (and just under 11 seconds behind Rossi) while The Kentucky Kid saw air/sky/ground in a brutal crash during qualifying that saw him suffer serious wrist injuries and miss his first home race in the five years that the series has visited Indy.  It was a sad weekend for fans of the popular former '06 MotoGP World Championship and former '02 AMA Superbike Champion.

Teknic Leathers had one of the coolest displays on-hand in the Gasoline Alley vendors area at IMS, which among others included a pair of Miguel Duhamel's leathers from his season of racing the Harley-Davidson VR1000 in the '94 AMA Superbike Championship and a pair of Kurtis Roberts' leathers from his days with the Erion Racing Honda team in the early '00s in the AMA Superbike Championship.  Alongside are a set of Aaron Yates' leathers from one of his years with the Yoshimura Suzuki team and John Hopkins' leathers from his days with the Rizla Suzuki MotoGP squad.

In what was a joint effort among IMS, AMA Pro Flat Track and Family Event Promotions, the promoters of the 2012 Lucas Oil Indy Mile on August 18, 2011 AMA Pro Flat Track Saddlemen Rookie of the Year Brad Baker and Bryan Smith were on-hand Friday afternoon, August 17 to sign autographs for the fans and talk about the next night's great racing at the Indiana State Fairgrounds.  AMA Pro Flat Track announcer Scottie Duebler talks with the boys while Baker's #12 Dodge Brothers XR750 and Smith's #42 Crosley/Howerton/Eaken Kawasaki sit on display for the several hundred fans that showed up to talk to the two stars of the greatest racing series on wheels in the world.

For the first time ever, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway hosted a garage at the Red Bull Indianapolis MotoGP round called the Social Media Garage.  Set-up for the fans with several laptops, big screens showing the action and racing simulators, the lounge-like atmosphere was a very cool place for fans to come and hang out and chat with some invitees that were on-hand to cover the action at the track for Twitter, Facebook and their respective websites.

Stu's Shots was one of the five invited guests to this special event, thanks to Cassie Conklin with the Indianapolis Motor Speeway, along with Lance Lau, Terry Hampton, Daniel Lo and Larry Lawrence of The Rider Files.com.  It was due to LL's kind mention of Stu's Shots to Ms. Conklin that we were invited and I owe a big thanks to both for allowing me to attend this special event, which included among other perks full access to any stand in the house and free premium parking and credentials that made it a breeze to enter and exit the track I have been stalking since the spring of '69 when I was just a wee junior high student still living in Iowa.

For what was started this year as an experiment with the Indy 500 and The Brickyard 400, the special event was a big hit with fans and with Stu's Shots.  I was and still am humbled by the invite and the great treatment that was given me and I appreciate the efforts of all in putting this super weekend together!

In a finishing touch to wrap-up the 5th Annual Red Bull Indianapolis MotoGP Weekend review, and a shallow and self-serving mode of self-promotion, 'Stu's Shots' was advertised inside the Social Media Garage over the weekend along with the other four invitees with scrolling LED read-outs of each of our respective sites and/or Twitter feeds. 

I'm still not quite sure to know what to do with seeing my name in lights for the first time in my life, but I guarantee you I won't let it go to my head!

Again, a big thanks to the folks at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for a great weekend of racing and for the special invite.  It was a blast and again a stellar running of another World Class event.

Bravo and thank you!