Rider Steve Rapp works on seating position just outside the Attack Performance garage at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway during the open test hosted by AMA Pro Road Racing and the Hulman Family-owned facility on Saturday, August 11, 2012. The California-based team and rider were on-hand to get more rider and machine input prior to the running of the 5th Annual Red Bull Indianapolis MotoGP over the August 17-19 weekend ahead on the #15 Attack Performance APR CRT-based mount.
The Richard Stanboli-built and designed Attack machine is fitted with a modified Kawasaki ZX-10R motor and coupled to a hand-built chassis of Stanboli's design, in accordance with the CRT (claiming rules team) guidelines and rules as set forth by Dorna and the powers that be in the MotoGP World Championship rule book. The 2012 season saw the first year that the machines, running production-based power nestled into special chassis' were allowed to run in the prestigious MotoGP class alongside the multi-million dollar factory prototype machinery.
Along with the U.S.-based GPTech team that saw former multi-time AMA Pro Road Racing champion Aaron Yates campaign the Indy round of the MotoGP schedule, former Daytona 200 winner Rapp and the AP team made it two CRT-based teams that were home grown in the U.S. rounds in the 2012 season.
The Attack Performance technicians go about dialing the APR machine in prior to the afternoon testing session at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway as the tire warmers get the Bridgestone rubber up to operating temps.
Team owner and machine designer Richard Stanboli (right) helps one of the team's technicians get the Attack Performance Kawasaki-based mount buttoned up prior to another test run at IMS.
Attack Performance and team owner Stanboli can be seen talking with a member of the media while the team goes about the finishing process of readying the APR machine for the next test session at Indianapolis.
With owner Stanboli and rider Rapp talking in the background, right of this shot, the Attack Performance technicians ready the team's CRT effort for the afternoon of testing on the MotoGP-spec Bridgestone Battlax rubber.
Steve Rapp gets a push start from two of the Attack Performance team members as he heads out for the afternoon testing session at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on August 11, 2012. With only six days until the opening day of practice for the 5th Annual Red Bull Indianapolis MotoGP round, the team had their work cut out for them in getting ready to qualify for their first MotoGP event in the new-for-2012 CRT entry class.
It obviously paid off. Rapp ended up putting the APR machine in the field at Indy the next weekend, qualifying in the 21st-place spot just ahead of the final grid position held by Aaron Yates and the GPTech team. Rapp went on to finish in the 14th-place spot in his first-ever grand prix after having just missed the show at the Laguna Seca round just weeks before. Rapp and the rookie team also garnered two points in the 2012 MotoGP World Championship for their hard earned results at Indy.
For the upcoming 2013 season the team will have three rounds in which to improve their results with their newly-granted wild card entries into next season's three United States rounds at the COTA in Austin, Texas, Laguna Seca and Indy. It wasn't announced whether rider Steve Rapp would be back on board, but we can't see where this won't happen after Rapp's good showing at Indy and his long-time association with Stanboli's team and Attack Performance. Rapp won the 2007 edition of the Daytona 200 while riding an Attack-prepped and sponsored Kawasaki ZX-6R and finished out the '07 season ranked 2nd in the now-defunct AMA Formula Xtreme Series Championship class and has continued his association with AP riding this last season in the AMA Pro National Guard Superbike Championship on the team's ZX-10R-based superbike, garnering 13 top-10s and four top-5s along the way.
Here's wishing the team the best of luck in the coming year, they definitely deserve it for their great efforts on this beautiful machine, as does rider Rapp. You can read the official news below and check out some more reading on owner Richard Stanboli's efforts to build a competitive CRT MotoGP entry from scratch.
Thanks to Motorcycle.com's Dennis Chung for this news out yesterday concerning Attack Performance's entries being accepted for the CRT class in all three of the rounds in the U.S. for the 2013 MotoGP season. The article reference's GPTech's entries for next year also, which we covered earlier this month:
http://blog.motorcycle.com/2012/12/14/manufacturers/kawasaki/attack-performance-gptech-to-race-all-three-us-motogp-rounds-in-2013/
Attack also campaigned the Laguna Seca and Indy rounds during the 2012 season. Here is one of the articles that talked about this from back in April, again thanks to Dennis Chung and Motorcycle.com:
http://blog.motorcycle.com/2012/04/09/manufacturers/kawasaki/attack-performance-announces-motogp-crt-effort/
Motorcyclistonline.com's James Parker penned this story of Attack's Richard Stanboli and Steve Rapp contesting the two rounds in the CRT class during the 2012 season:
http://www.motorcyclistonline.com/features/columns/122_1211_steve_rapp_attack_performance/
You can also find out more about the fine line of Attack Performance's wares here via their official site:
http://www.attackperformance.com/
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