Aaron Slight and Colin Edwards tested the RC51 last week at Suzuka and all went well. The bike is coming along great according to sources within the team, and at this point it doesn't look like there will be the season long period of struggle like there was during the RC45's first season of racing. 

As rumored here more than a year ago, the FIM has been exploring on-line gambling for all world championship races and by the looks of it, they are now ready to start taking bets. Or maybe it's just an FIM mandated fantasy site, frankly I couldn't be bothered to wait for all the graphics to load. You can check out the FIM site by clicking here. Thanks to Keith Patti for the link. 

Someone doubted that Carl Fogarty said the things we said he did at the MCN Man of the Year celebration on Monday night in London, so we asked our man on the scene to transcribe the conversation. Here it is:

Our guy: Benjamin Bostrom is going to be your teammate, is that cool or what? 

Carl Fogarty: "He's what Ducati want, a rider for the future which suits me fine. I'm certain they're prepared to give him a couple of years."

Our guy: Wonder why Corser got bounced?: 

Carl Fogarty: "I don't think Ducati was too happy with his performance at Sugo, especially because he lost second place in the championship. It probably didn't help that I rode hard at Sugo on the same bike."

*Ever notice it's the lame sites that gets scooped a bazillion times a week that cry the loudest? **

Other Ducati insiders say that the decision to ice Corser was made long before Sugo. 

The AMA's Motorcycle Heritage Foundation director, Aaron Fitch, resigned yesterday. 

Rumor: TPG/ Ducati is in the process of buying both Dainese leathers and Suomy helmets and will bring them inside to become part of the official Ducati motorclothes dept.

More rumor that'd be hilarious if true: the Quokka  commercial on Speedvision features 500 grand prix bikes with ... four-stroke sounding exhaust notes. 

Rich King got the call this week to become the newest member of the Harley-Davidson factory dirt track team. 

Steve Crevier will be announcing his taking a pretty lucrative ride in Canadian Superbike for 2000 soon. It's all hush hush for now, don't tell anybody.

That is all you need to know. 

Your links:

You think your bike is bad? Mine was made by a convict. 

Some are actually surprised.