BMW says it’s ready to race
Big news from BMW is that local boytjie, Greg Gildenhuys, will contest the 2013 World Superstock 1000 Championship for the BMW Motorrad Italia GoldBet Team.
This comes after Gildenhuys’ outstanding performance on South African tracks the past three years on the BMW S 1000 RR, winning the South African Superbike championships three years in a row.
BMW is also the winner of the World Superstock 1000 Championship in 2012 and the company’s clear objective in 2013 is to defend its title.
“We know that it will be a big task to defend the title in such a fiercely-competitive championship. However, I am confident that we can achieve this goal with the overall package we have at BMW Motorrad,” said reigning champion Sylvain Barrier (FRA). Gildenhuys, Barrier’s new team member, added: “I am already looking forward to the next chapter in my career. I would like to thank BMW Motorrad for this opportunity to ride on the international stage and will be out to repay the faith they have put in me, in the form of good results.”
Locally BMW Motorrad has raised the bar with the announcement that it will contest the 2013 SA Superbike championship with the all-new BMW HP4 lightweight four-cylinder superbike.
“The BMW HP4 is an exciting new version of the RR, which remains in the BMW range and which Greg Gildenhuys rode to three consecutive South African Superbike championships,“ said Rob Holder, general manager of BMW Motorrad in South Africa.
“It’s not just a better-equipped RR. It features innovations and components not previously offered on a production BMW superbike and has been homologated to meet World Championship Superstock 1000 rules.
“A unique new feature is the Dynamic Damping Control (DDC), which allows adjustment of the bike’s suspension on the fly. This is a truly race-ready machine.“
Midrand-based BMW Motorrad Motorsport will field two machines for Chris Leeson Jnr and Ryan Ottens. Leeson was South African 600 cc champion in 2007 and finished third in the 2012 Superbike championship behind the BMW S 1000 RR machines of Greg Gildenhuys and Nicolas Grobler.
Ottens was fifth in last year’s national superbike championship on a privateer BMW S 1000 RR entered by the Ottens family’s BMW motorcycle dealership, Northside Motorcycles in Fourways, Johannesburg.
The opening round of the 2013 South African Superbike Championship will be at Kyalami on February 23. The World Superstock 1000 Championship’s opening round is on the 24th of February in Phillip Island, Australia.
