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"  When it comes to choosing venues for press launches, car and motorcycle manufacturers are in a constant race to outdo each other-- from Sardinia to the Arctic Circle, no locale is too far flung for a car or bikemaker to debut their wares, if only for the &amp;quot;wow&amp;quot; factor of juxtaposing their latest, greatest hardware against a visually and viscerally stunning background. The latest hot property is the newly minted Circuit of the Americas, a 3.4 mile road course which made its auspicious debut with last November&amp;#039;s Formula One United States Grand Prix, and is building buzz for its rumored half billion dollar price tag and difficult-to-learn layout. It&amp;#039;s also garnered some unwanted attention for some ugly friction with racing legend Kevin Schwantz, but for the (mainstream) most part, the circuit promises to stoke the motorsports fire stateside in a way that hasn&amp;#039;t been achieved in recent memory. And so it was in a grand fashion that Ducati launched the first motorcycle press launch at COTA-- and only the second vehicular press launch there, on the heels of a Jeep SRT8 event just a few weeks earlier-- and heralded the new track with their $30,000 1199 Panigale R superbike. What&amp;#039;s it like to pilot the \u00FCberDuc at the Austin track? In a word, daunting: negotiating 20 turns of varying camber, shifting radii, and elevation changes is no small task, and doing so aboard a 195 hp, 417 lb two-wheeled rocket requires every last ounce of core strength, concentration, and intestinal fortitude. It&amp;#039;s not just about remembering the nuance of each turn, but staying on guard when rhythmic, high-speed esses constrict into a tight right hander that&amp;#039;s sure to create some interesting power plays when the MotoGP circus goes to battle there on April 21. The track offers a little bit of everything, which I was fortunate (and frightened) enough to experience on the Panigale R: a dramatic uphill that resolves with an acute left hander, followed by a sweeping right hander that F1 cars have taken at roughly 180 mph-- not to mention a back straight so long, the Ducati is able to hit the rev limiter in sixth gear before its monobloc stoppers are called to duty for a sharp left hander so tight, F1 cars can only handle it at a piddling 68 mph. With rental rates for the general public rumored to be in the $100,000 range, it&amp;#039;s unlikely that COTA will be accessed by many enthusiasts. But in terms of a fresh stage for motorsports in the U.S., it will be hard to beat the newest, biggest, and most notorious circuit to hit primetime in years. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/a8771/ducati-panigale-r-circuit-of-the-americas/>