Tag: valentino

Video: Valentino Rossi’s personal paradise as seen by Dainese

Filed under: Motorsports, Europe, Videos, Motorcycle

Valentino Rossi tearing it up on a motocross bike - video screencap

Valentino Rossi recently invited Supermoto World Champion Thomas Chareyre and road-racing icon Guy Martin to go dirtbiking at his private track – and, for the first time, let a film crew in to capture it all on video.

Talk about a home track advantage, Rossi says owning the course, which he bought near his home in Tavullia, Italy three years ago, was one of his childhood dreams. It’s made of a thin layer of gravel on top of a concrete base, a dirtbike-friendly surface that promotes fat powerslides. As competitive as he is in the MotoGP series, the nine-time World Champion says that riding at his track in the countryside is all about having fun – he never goes alone, always with friends. Watch the professional riders tearing it up in the video below.

Continue reading Valentino Rossi’s personal paradise as seen by Dainese

Valentino Rossi’s personal paradise as seen by Dainese originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 26 Jul 2013 17:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Valentino Balboni picks his favorite Lamborghini Countach

Filed under: Classics, Coupe, Performance, Lamborghini

Valentino Balboni and the four Lamborghini Countaches

Valentino Balboni and the four Lamborghini Countaches – Click above for high-res image

We’ve seen a lot of creative comparison tests over the years. Most of them involve new cars compared against other new cars. But for its latest retrospective, Inside Line has gone a decidedly different route, comparing the various renditions of the Lamborghini Countach against each other. And they brought along Lamborghini’s veteran test driver Valentino Balboni for an inside line of his own.

Now if you think the Murcielago lasted a long time, well… it did. Eight years, in fact. The Diablo before it lasted eleven. But the Countach was around for an astonishing sixteen years – an incredibly long lifetime for any car. And over the course of the three decades it remained in production, the Countach spawned numerous derivatives, from the original production LP400 through the wide-body S and the Quattrovalvole through to the straked 25th Anniversary edition.

As the Countach ages from the chintzy and cartoonish to the iconic and historic, choosing which one stood out as the finest example was undoubtedly a difficult task, but someone had to do it. Follow the link to see what they found. It’s worth the read.

Valentino Balboni picks his favorite Lamborghini Countach originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 10 May 2011 17:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Valentino Rossi makes switch to Ducati officially official

Filed under: Motorsports, Hirings/Firings/Layoffs, Motorcycle, Celebrities

We’re sure that none of you saw this one coming, right? To the surprise of absolutely nobody paying even an ounce of attention, Valentino Rossi has officially announced that he will ride for the Ducati factory team for the 2011 MotoGP race season. It’s a veritable dream scenario for Italy, as an Italian rider will take to the track at the pinnacle of motorcycle racing aboard a bright red Italian motorcycle. Bellissima!

It’s expected that American Ben Spies will take over Rossi’s vacated paddock at the Fiat Yamaha factory team, joining 2010 title-leading rider Jorge Lorenzo. Lorenzo himself told us as much in an interview ahead of the U.S. Grand Prix at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca a few weeks ago. Rossi’s teammate at Ducati is very likely to be American rider Nicky Hayden, giving the Italian team a duo of riders who have each won world championships – in Rossi’s case, an impressive nine of them, in fact.

Of course, we already knew that current Ducati rider Casey Stoner was transitioning to Honda at the end of the 2010 season, where it’s rumored he could share space with both Dani Pedrosa and Andrea Dovizioso. Read Vale’s own emotional statement about the move to Ducati, which was made shortly after the end of the latest MotoGP round in the Czech Republic, after the break.

[Source: Valentino Rossi]

Continue reading Valentino Rossi makes switch to Ducati officially official

Valentino Rossi makes switch to Ducati officially official originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 15 Aug 2010 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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