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World MotoGP Champion Casey Stoner's Ducati's entry into the MotoGP World Championship back in 2004 with an all-new from the ground up V-4 desmodromic engine design and trellis steel chassis was no less than revolutionary. Then for the small, specialty Italian sportbike manufacturer to begin winning races in its first season against the mighty Japanese manufacturers who have dominated ever since having decimated another small Italian sportbike manufacturer, MV Agusta, nearly 40 years early, is no less than astonishing. Just like their neighbors Ferrari up the road from Ducati's home base in Bologna, who have stayed at the top in Formula One car racing since the late sixties amid the onslaught of other major manufacturers including Honda and Ford, Ducati exemplifies's the passion which Italians have to be the best in the world when it comes to building and racing in motorsports. Up to the 2006 season the new 4-storke MotoGP bikes were 990cc monsters producing well around 250hp, and were deemed almost to dangerous to ride. In the course of continual development, Ducati Corse had redesigned a new GP05 bike for 2005 that they could never get dialed in properly and they found themselves relegated back to mid pack,. But with the 2006 season then GP06 bike returned back to the chassis specs of the year before and became competitive again, and it crowning moment came when Ducati's World Superbike team rider Troy Bayliss filled -in for injured GP team rider Sete Gibbered at the final MotoGP race of the season at Valencia and led a Ducati 1-2 sweep of the podium with Loris Capirossi. The next year, 2007 would see the MotoGP World Championship downsize to smaller 800cc engines in an attempt to restrict power, but to the contrary, the smaller displacement GP07 Desmosedici with its desmodromic valve train was able to turn higher RPMs without floating the valves, around 22,000 rpm's, and it still made nearly as much power as the old, bigger engine, just now it was peakier and harder to ride. As it turned out, Ducati lucked out in finding the one kid who could ride the bike, a young and likeable Australian kid name Casey Stoner (who replaced Giberneau on the team) who rode the GP07 to dominate and win the 2007 MotoGP World Championship. For the 2008 GP season the Japanese would fight back with pneumatic valve systems in their engines which would allow them to attain the same higher RPMsas Ducati in their engines (and come close to matching the Ducati's power), and Yamaha's Valentino Rossi would return on equal footing to battle Stoner and Ducati for the 2008 MotoGP Championship. The bike shown here was photographed for our 2009 Fast Dates racebike Calendar with beautiful model Carrie Ann Stroup, in the back alley behind Pro Italia Motorcycles in Glendale , CA. It is actually a replica of one the GP07 bikes which Casey used to win the 2007 MotoGP World Championship. This particular bike was on loan to Ducati North America for the Cycle World International Motorcycle Shows 2007-2008 tour across America. In truth it is a Ducati Corse parts bin special using the engine and chassis from the previous season'sGP06 990cc works bike, clothed in Casey Stoner's actual GP07 racebike bodywork, and is much the same as the GP08 bike which the team raced again in 2008. As you might guess, there is only one bike which Casey used to win the final race race of the 2007 Championship, and that now sits in the Ducati Factory Museum, but during the race season other bikes, frames and engines were employed in pursuit of the Championship. This may also be the last of the trellis tube frame Ducati GP bikes, as for the 2009 season Ducati will surprise the Japanese manufacturers once again and the new GP09 will do without a frame, have all the suspension and body components bolted directly to the engine which served as the chassis as pioneered by Britton back in the mid 90's. Click on any picture to enlarge and download a screensaver.
For our Fast Dates calendar photo shoot with Casey Stoners bike I though it woul look great to have Carrie dressed in big black rubber boots and a bikini washing the bike with a bucket and sponge, and hose, and I was right! I got so many incredible images from this shoot I knew one of them had to be on the cover. Unfortunately i just couldn't choose because so many of them came out great. The 5 photos of thecarrie with the bike shwn here (below) were waht I finally narrowed the choices down to, then I showded these fianl shots to friends and sponsors to see what they liked. They all voted for the picture of Carrie in the red bikini facing towards the camera so that ended up the cover selection. However, if I had it all to do over again, I'd choose one of the three in the black bikini which are my personal favorites. What do you think?
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