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Heading into the Bagger Racing League Championship Round at the legendary Willow Springs Raceway , California , November 16-19 , 2023 , Trask Performance ' s Shane Narbonne leads the NAMZ Bagger GP class from Suburban H-D ( Benny Carlson ), Lloydz Garage ( Hawk Mazzotta ), Alloy Art ( Oleg Painykh and Bryan Shields . In the Andrews Cams Big Twins , Shredder Bob Racing ( Bobby Parker ) lead Lloydz Garage ' s Hawk Mazzotta . The Zipper ' s American Twins Unlimited has Lloydz Garage ' s Josh Baird leading the class from Craig Braymiller ( A Plus Performance ), with Trask ' s Gunnar Ouellette leading Clayton Braun ( Rundlett Racing ) in the Metzeler Pro Stock Bagger . In the ICON Lite Weight Twins , Suburban H-D ' s Jake Masters has the lead from Anthony Gilmore ( RF Racing ) and Suburban ' s Cody Gilmore . Finally , the DP Brakes F / S Cup sees Josh Baird ( Lloydz Garage ) ahead of Suburban H-D ' s Benny Carlson and Alloy Art ' s Kory Cowan .
China is to launch a $ 40bn state backed investment fund to boost its computer chip industry as the country ramps up efforts to catch up with the U . S . and other rivals . It is likely to be the biggest of three funds launched by the China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund , also known as the ' Big Fund '. Its target of 300bn yuan ($ 41bn ) outdoes similar funds in 2014 and 2019 , which , according to government reports , raised 138.7bn yuan and 200bn yuan respectively .
Six-time WorldSBK Champion , Jonathan Rea , will leave the Kawasaki Racing Team ( KRT ) at the end of the 2023 season . Formally contracted for both the current and 2024 seasons , Rea will be released from this agreement by mutual consent at the end of the racing season . During his time riding for the official Kawasaki factory team , 36- year-old Rea achieved an unprecedented haul of six WorldSBK titles ( 2015 to 2020 inclusive ) as well as accruing a slew of other records including all-time WorldSBK records for Championships , Race Wins ( 119 , 104 for Kawasaki ), Podiums ( 256 ), Fastest Laps and Overall Points Scored . Rea will be racing for Yamaha from 2024 .
Taiga Motors ( LaSalle , QC ) has added the 160 hp Orca Performance fully electric PWC . Features include what is described as a " revolutionary sheet-molded composite hull , an enhanced powertrain , and cutting-edge 6th generation Tractive Unit .
European styling and American engineering By Ben Purvis
The X-Wedge was originally developed in the heyday of the volume custom bike building era by S & S Cycle , and originally launched in 2007 as a 56.25-degree off-the-shelf turn-key option for proto-OEM brands and custom bike builders .
' X-Wedge cruiser brand '
Fast forward 15 plus years to a muchchanged world , and September 2023 saw the return of the X-Wedge brand with an initial five model range
For more than 70 years , Autoliv ( Stockholm , Sweden ) has been manufacturing safety equipment for cars and in a landmark move it ' s turning to motorcycles with the aim of bringing airbag technology to the mass market in 2025 . Autoliv might not be a household name , but the company has been at the forefront of car safety for decades . It developed the first car seatbelt back in 1956 , the seatbelt pretensioner in 1989 , the knee airbag in 1995 and the side curtain airbag in 1998 . In 2021 , it signed a deal with Piaggio to develop an affordable on-bike airbag system for motorcycles and scooters . Now the company says its on-bike airbags will reach production in the first quarter of 2025 as part of the company ' s ambitious goal of saving 100,000 lives per year by 2030 . At the moment , Autoliv estimates its safety equipment saves around 35,000 lives per year , so the prospect of reducing unveiled by Chongqing Huansong Industrial Group - better known in Western markets for the HiSun brand of ATVs and side-by-side fourwheelers that it offers globally . We scooped the plans for a new range of Chinese-made cruisers using the X-
motorcycle-related fatalities could be a significant step towards that target . Although Honda has been equipping some Gold Wings with airbags across two generations of the bike , starting in 2006 , the technology hasn ' t spread . Autoliv believes that by applying
airbags to small-capacity bikes and scooters - the sort of vehicles that are vastly popular in places like China and India - there ' s scope to save a large number of lives . In those markets there ' s a lower use of helmets and a large proportion of motorcycle traffic is concentrated in cities , which means
Wedge engine earlier this year , but at that time what wasn ' t known was that Huansong had bought the whole X- Wedge project and would be building the engines in-house . The three-cam , fuel-injected V-twin was first seen in 117 ci form but rapidly
Autoliv Airbags on Bikes by 2025 By Ben Purvis
' world ' s biggest automotive safety supplier getting on two wheels ' there are a lot of crashes where a car pulls out in front of a motorcycle , causing a direct frontal impact for the bike . It ' s in those circumstances that airbags promise to be particularly helpful . The Autoliv airbag system is generally similar to the one on the Honda Gold Wing , inflating a bag in front of the rider when it senses a frontal impact . It ' s suited to scooters and most motorcycles with upright riding positions ( sports bikes with a forwardbiased riding position are a tougher challenge because the rider ' s head is closer to the point of impact - reducing the time in which an airbag can be inflated ). The system is made up of sensors , a wiring harness , an electronic control unit and the airbag itself - which uses an electric signal to start a chemical reaction that fills the bag with gas in milliseconds , just like those in cars . Because the technology is similar to
16 AFTERMARKET MOTO DESIGN - OCTOBER 2023 www . AMDchampionship . com