2009 Buell 1125CR Sneak Peek
Since August we’ve all known that the Buell 1125R had been turned on its side – front wheel pointed towards the sky side – into a tighter and tougher looking café racer called the 1125CR. If you’re as big a motorhead as your wife, girlfriend or bank balance says you are, you’d have been as excited as a little girl when you walked around the pits at Mid-Ohio this week.
Buell Inside Pass attendees got more than just a glimpse of the 2009 models, they were able to hop on and play moto-journo for a day. Your brand loyalty and enthusiasm created great privilege that day. Privileges usually reserved for the press had to take the back seat while you folks got to rip up the asphalt.
In this case, ‘for your eyes only’ is a misnomer. I could see and touch the machine, but only you readers got to ride the CR (or many other 2009s) before the press.
If you’re already the biggest Buell fan in your club, you’ve already attended one (or more) “Inside Pass” track days. Buell describes their series of nationwide events as the Ultimate Track Day and with its most recent stop in Lexington Ohio at the 2.4-mile 15-turn Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. Buell put its 100 guests in the saddles of the 2009 XB and 1125 line-up in the secure hands of a closed course last week.
The Ultimate Trackday is a 10-stop tour across the nation’s premiere raceways, providing current Buellers, as well as interested buyers, a taster’s test of the Buell motorcycles in the standard mixed-session format. As an attendee, you are invited to bring your own motorcycle to ride on the course while you await your demo ride - as a warm-up or for some sighting laps.
For $150, each rider in attendance gets access to the track in the typical three skill level sessions per hour, food and drink, an event t-shirt, Buell-branded knee pucks to keep you in the rad column amongst your friends, action photos to also keep you a rockstar around the office water cooler and a ride on any of the available Buell motorcycles.
Those action photos happen to be shot by yours truly, by the way. Here’s your chance to not only ride the cutting edge Buell line-up but also to get your picture taken by an industry icon, the Fonz. Semi-colon Right Parenthesis. You pick the track and I’ll be there - just for you - and 99 of your close friends. But don’t you worry, I like to stand out there in the hot sun just to make you look good. It’s my honor to do so (I’m used to being teased with track days)… come see me at the next event and say hello!
For the remaining 5 stops of the 2008 tour, you’ll find me as well as the Buell of your dreams. Sign up today for the last chance to ride the CR before Motorcycle.com at the Eagles Canyon Raceway in Decatur Texas on September 23rd. [http://buell.com/en_us/company/events/inside-pass/] After that, you’ll have to settle for a purely awesome ride on some of the most awesome tracks in the country. Dial up your favorite Buell forum and ask any of the other hundreds of demo riders that have already attended a Buell Inside Pass trackday. I think you’ll find they too had a great time and probably plan to sign up from another!
If you can’t get to the Texas Inside Pass event, hustle your butt up to the Indy GP this weekend and sample the 2009 1125CR while you’re there. The Indy Demo Day rides are first come, first serve!
Sign up now! Levels are filling up quick – some locations have already sold out. The remaining event locations include Las Vegas Motor Speedway (just prior to the Femmoto event), New Jersey Motorsports Park, the big track at Willow Springs in California and the glorious Infineon Raceway in Sonoma.
Meanwhile, I’ll be bringing you a ride report from the 1125CR’s international press launch at the end of this month.
See you in the corners.
More by Alfonse Palaima
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