Racing

XtraPix: Masterbike 2008-The People

Herding the sheep.

August 18, 2008

Masterbike—the giant comparison test of all the top sportbikes done by the world's top magazines—is a monumental affair, requiring much planning and behind-the-scenes effort. There are bikes to wrangle, riders to recruit, transport, house and feed, timing, scoring, photography, videography...so much stuff it boggles the mind. And yet, every year it comes off smoothly.

There are so many people that work very hard to make the MasterBike events a success. I wanted to direct the attention their way, so I put together this slideshow. I hope you enjoy it and get a bit of perspective of what goes on behind the scenes of the world's most competitive trackday test.

MasterBike 2008: The People: The KTM crew and the new RC8.

MasterBike 2008: The People: BMW's HP2 Sport had these able bodies to keep it going.

MasterBike 2008: The People: The flock waits for Victor to bring them lunch.

MasterBike 2008: The People: Big Red sent this team for its CBR600RR and CBR1000RR.

MasterBike 2008: The People: Aprilia's RSV1000R Factory had its own crew as well.

MasterBike 2008: The People: Kawi kept the ZX-6R and ZX-10R humming.

MasterBike 2008: The People: Behind every bike were factory reps to keep them in top form. Here's the Yamaha team.

MasterBike 2008: The People: Das Motorrad's Jurgen Fuchs checks to see if he's still on top of the timing charts. He was: This guy's fast!

MasterBike 2008: The People: Say cheese! The 2008 MasterBike riders, writers and ringers.

MasterBike 2008: The People

MasterBike 2008: The People: Spanish favorite Oriol Fernandez from Motociclismo and Fuchs battled for supremacy the entire event.

MasterBike 2008: The People: MV Agusta's F4 312 R and team.

MasterBike 2008: The People: He may look mild mannered, but Jerker the Swede is a madman.

MasterBike 2008: The People: The boys in blue: Suzuki techs and their trio of GSX-Rs.

MasterBike 2008: The People: Riders had to deal with some trackside distractions?

MasterBike 2008: The People: Timing and scoring officials worked themselves silly.

MasterBike 2008: The People: To keep riders in line, the organizers kept the Albacete branding iron close by.

MasterBike 2008: The People: When it came to administration, Motociclismo's Victor Cancedo was the man.

MasterBike 2008: The People: If Moto Sprint's Alex Gramigni wasn't on a motorcycle he was asleep.

MasterBike 2008: The People: Next year, some safety issues will have to be addressed.

MasterBike 2008: The People: Kei "Nasty" Nashimoto is one of Cernicky's closest rivals - and closest friends - at MasterBike.

MasterBike 2008: The People-MasterBaaaah! The staff lead the riders around like a flock of sheep. These are actual sheep?

MasterBike 2008: The People: Motociclismo magazine is to Spain's motorcycle community what Cycle World is to stateside moto-heads.

MasterBike 2008: The People: The MasterBikers had to be on their best behavior at all times; someone was always watching.

MasterBike 2008: The People: If you want to be in the MasterBike final, you'll have to be faster than these five guys.

MasterBike 2008: The People: At least the riders had leathers on! Cernicky thinks the guys in the trunk of the car were crazy.

MasterBike 2008: The People: The video crew wasn't allowed out of their truck all day.

MasterBike 2008: The People: Luckily, the brand went unused; they had other ways of motivating the riders to go as fast as they could.