The Pata Honda team has announced the introduction of a nepotistic youth policy designed to enhance development and ensure continuity of its world championship racing programme.

On tomorrow’s third and final day of the World Superbike championship test currently taking place at Jerez in Spain, regular riders Leon Haslam and Jonathan Rea will hand over their Honda CBR1000RR SP racing machines to their respective young sons. Despite being less than a year old, Max Haslam and Jake Rea are deemed to have inherited sufficient quantities of the so-called ‘speed gene’ to warrant a full test on the sophisticated production race bikes. The Pata Honda crew has lowered the ride height on both CBR machines and engaged the services of a goo-ga translator to record feedback from the would-be young racers.    

Leon Haslam    

It’ll be interesting to see if young Max has got it. The ‘rocket’ that is, which is coincidentally what me and my dad have on our salad when it’s in season. I reckon he’ll be fast though – he’s got a bit of a weight advantage.       

Jonathan Rea   

Jake was born a month or two after Max but we’ve been weening him on Manx kippers to build up his strength. He had a wee go on my CRF450R motocrosser on the Isle of Man, so I had to clean up the seat after, but he’ll be right.        

Pieter Breddels -  youth development manager    

With world championship racers seemingly getting younger every year – just like policemen, really – we’ve decided that we need to start investing in youth. Jonathan’s father raced and won a TT and Leon’s dad was pretty handy, too, so it absolutely HAS to be a genetic thing. If it’s not, we’re going to look a bit silly, but the lads will have had some fun.        

A decline in cognitive abilities – for example the onset of dementia – is the greatest concern that families have about elderly relatives driving. Nearly half (46 per cent) of people are worried about it, according to a survey by the IAM.

Forty-two per cent of people who have concerns about an older relative driving have tried to discuss this with them.

People with dementia may still be able to drive safely for some time after it has been diagnosed, but because of the progressive nature of the disease, there will come a time when they have to give up.

Drivers must tell the DVLA if they have dementia or another condition that affects their driving.  The law assumes that people have a right to drive safely and will only intervene when medical conditions impair driving ability.  The aim is to allow people to drive for as long as possible. If the DVLA allows someone with dementia to continue driving, then they will almost certainly have to have periodic medical assessments.

IAM chief executive Simon Best said:  “Staying healthy is the simplest way to ensure you are fit to drive but an independent and objective driving assessment will also help people make the right decision at the right time. Experts warn that the numbers suffering from dementia will continue to grow and it is important drivers seek advice before using their cars.  Families and friends need to be aware of the early warning signs of dementia and seek advice and medical help as soon as possible.”

Signs that an individual no longer has the skills needed to drive safely; •Difficulty judging speed, distance and space •Getting lost on familiar roads •Straying across lanes or hitting kerbs •Confusing the gas and brake pedals •Making slow or poor decisions •Failing to observe road signs and traffic signals •Parking inappropriately •Becoming angry or confused while driving •Causing passengers to have concerns about their driving

Given the varying progression of dementia, the driving skills of an individual with dementia can decrease significantly in between evaluations, therefore those who have demonstrated they are able to drive should gradually modify their driving to reduce the risk of an accident.

Over 800,000 people in the UK currently have dementia (17,000 are under 65).   This is expected to increase to over a million people by 2021

New online store Bike Nation, which was launched last week, is to become the new title sponsor of the Lightweight TT Race, which will be called the Bike Nation Lightweight TT.

The Lightweight Race for Supertwin machines first took place in 2012 and has quickly become an established part of the TT schedule.  James Hillier won the 2013 race setting a new lap record of 119.130mph. This year's race takes place on Friday 6th June, ahead of the PokerStars Senior TT. Almost 90 entries were received for the race, the highest number since the race's inception. The start list will be announced on Friday 4th April.

As part of the launch programme, Bike Nation will offer one customer a VIP trip for two to the Isle of Man TT Races. The trip will include travel and accommodation, as well as two tickets to the TT's VIP Club, the Isle of Man's prestigious hospitality that gives ticket holders access all areas to the world's leading road race.

Bike Nation has been launched in conjunction with TT sponsor Bennetts, whose brands have sponsored the Lightweight race since 2012. Bike Nation offers one of the UK’s widest selections of quality motorcycle clothing and accessories, offering over 100,000 lines from 140+ brands. It also uniquely offers original equipment parts and new motorcycles from top manufacturers and insurance cover on helmets and leathers.

The site completes the company’s overall offering to British motorcyclists, with its award-winning Bike Social website and Free Classifieds services complementing the 84-year-old company’s traditional insurance offerings.

Bike Nation can be found at www.bikenation.co.uk

More details on the Bike Nation Lightweight TT can be found at www.iomtt.com

Street Repairs is a brand new way of linking local people to local authorities, councils, and highway transport bodies on a nationwide scale.

It empowers residents to improve their local environment while saving local authorities money on maintenance and administrative costs. The publicly accessible, free-to-use transparent reporting and monitoring system, hands power over to local residents by making it easy to report faults and track the council's progress in addressing them.

The Street Repairs website is used to capture information about street maintenance issues such as broken pavements, rubbish, street lighting and potholes. Residents can reclaim local streets and work with their council to keep them clean, tidy and safely maintained.

To submit a report the user simply completes a few simple fields, including the uploading of photos and a brief description of the defect. The built-in geo tracking automatically identifies the user's location and provides exact coordinates which are then overlaid onto a map. This process takes just a couple of minutes and there is no fee to the fault-reporter (normal data handling charges from their service provider apply). Confirmation of the report is sent immediately to both the reporter and the council in question. Regular updates are then made as the report is processed by the council.

Another big advantage is that the system encourages early reporting of problems, when they are cheaper to fix, thus reducing higher costs to councils.

Colin Mahoney, the IT Developer behind streetrepairs.co.uk, designed the reporting system to boost engagement between local people and local councils. Evolution of the system is continuing on a daily basis as his team of software developers fine-tune functionality. He stated: "By making the reporting and progress tracking system transparent and freely accessible to the public, residents are now empowered to improve their local environment by flagging faults as the system chases progress updates from the local authorities."

www.streetrepairs.co.uk

World Superbike stars Carl Fogarty and James Whitham show no sign of slowing down as three extra dates are added to their sell-out 2014 tour…

No strangers to a victory lap, the four-times World Champion and British Champion turned top TV-pundit are back on the road due to popular demand.

May 13th - National Motorbike Museum, Solihull.
May 14th - The Palace Theatre, Paignton.
May 15th - The White Theatre, Hastings.

www.foggyandwhit.co.uk

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