Howza 'bout a 2019 WSBK Silly Season Thread...

I'd also like to know about the bankruptcy.. I dont know many organizations that go through bankruptcy and plan to be back in the same year?

 

There are different kinds of bankruptcies, but the general idea is that it’s a way to pay/settle debts and remain operational in some capacity.

 

Well son of a bitch, learn something new every day. Thank you sir

 

So my wife's Lincoln was made in Canada so it must be a foreign car?

 

well...Toyota and Honda have more US/NA made content than Ford does in their cars, so yeah, it's foreign

 

What roll does Metzeler play in Pirelli motorcycle tires?

 

Pirelli owns Metzeler. That's as far as I would go. I expect a lot of cross pollination of technologies, though.

 

Pirelli bought Metzler in the mid-80s and some of the product comes out of the same manufacturing facility in Germany. The tires, and what they were designed to do, are different.

 

Out of curiosity, where did you think they were out of?

 

I believe NJMP did it.

 

Germany, only ever used their product 1 time so didn't really know much about them. Tire said Germany so I thought Germany.

 

Quite understandable. They were both axis powers so, they've got that in common

 

Hey the Michelin race tires I saw at the track a few months ago said made in Spain, so they're a Spanish company?

 

And I saw a pair of Moto 2 Dunlops this year and it said made in France on the sidewall, so Dunlop is a French company?

 

Look out Mongo you were still in high school in the 90s so your memory may be hazy . But yep back in the 90s the factory's capacity was at the max so getting tires here (where they were much cheaper than in Europe) was really hard. So we would get a container and it would have a mix of Rennsports and Dragons in it. It was so common for a while we all joked and called them Merillis or Pertzlers.

Then in the late 90s the Pirelli brand starting focusing on road racing more and Metzeler much, much less. We already had World MX sewn up as the dominate tire as we still do today so the progression was to go after race slicks and DOTs. What helped support this was some new technology was found and the performance difference from the late nineties tires to the early 2000s was huge.

So today Metzeler road race tires are a few steps behind a Pirelli.

 

In the 70s and 80s Pirelli was building tires in Europe at a factory in Spain and two in Italy and they needed to expand. The Metzeler guys were building some good stuff with some cool technology but in only one factory so Pirelli purchased them around 1987 or so. And there's a Pirelli car tire plant about a half a click down the road.