So the only real motorcycles news this week has been the various MotoGP and World Superbike teams announcing their official line-ups, news that has been known unofficially for months now. Ho-hum, its a slow news week.

There have been a couple of items in those announcements that I think deserve a quick “word up”.

First, the Xerox Ducati World Superbike team of James Toseland and Regis Laconi where announced today with a big webcast splash. Same team, same riders, yawn. But Ducati does deserve the credit for having cultivated a multi-year sponsorship agreement with a company that is neither involved in the motorcycle market nor part of the tobacco/alcohol money monster. With worldwide political pressure steadily restricting tobacco and alcohol advertising, those companies which have historically propped up the bulk of motorized competition, are scaling back their support. For Ducati to bring in Xerox as the title sponsor of their World Superbike effort (Xerox was already involved with Gary McCoy’s privateer team in 2004) is something worthy of a news splash. Better yet, Ducati is showing continued success at bringing in outside money since they have had Fila and Sony as their title sponsors in the past. Lets hope the other World Superbike teams can have such success. That outside money is the holy grail of both race teams and race series and an infusion of dough is something all series could use to help them grow.

Its not just in WSBK either. Gone are the days when big cigarette companies virtually funded Grand Prix racing. Ducati still has Marlboro money and the Yamaha teams still have their Fortuna/Gauloises backing but its rumored that Yamaha may run self-sponsored machines in 2006, partly at Rossi’s insistence since he *hates* tobacco sponsorship. Oddly enough, Rossi has no such problems with alcohol money, since his favorite sponsor is Italian beer company Nastro-Azzuro. Anyway, there is bright news in the MotoGP world as well, as Makoto Tamada will be sponsored by Minolta this coming season. Just as with WSBK, having a company not traditionally associated with motorcycles willing to fork out cash to a team means the sport’s growing in status. If other companies can successfully court big companies, they may yet weather the bad financial times that have been forecast when tobacco sponsorship dries up completely.

Bravo to Honda and Ducati for leading the way…

[image from Ducati web site.]