Been battling a slight head cold for a week now and ran out of my favourite Fisherman's Friend lozenges, so during my lunch break yesterday, I wandered down to local Shell Station cum Convenience store to pick up a pack. Did a wee bit of a double take when I saw their latest promotion plastered on their door.

Seems they have teamed up with Monster Energy Drink to give away a 2011 Yamaha YZF-R1.......and the only restrictions to entering the contest and winning this beast is you have to be 18, that and be able to log on to their web site and fill out a simple ballot.

Okay, I know that Shell and Monster Energy Drink have teamed up to sponsor the AMA Super Bike Series and I generally applaud anything that promotes motorcycling. But I really think they are making one hell of a big mistake with this promotion. It is open to anyone, even those who never been on a bike in their life and the odds of some newbie winning this beast are pretty high. Basically what Shell and Monster Energy Drink is potentially doing is akin to giving a kid with who drivers licence ink is still wet an F1 race car and telling to him to have fun driving it in traffic.

Monster's target demographic are young males, between the ages of teen-something and early 20's. Not the demographic you generally think about when it comes to putting rational thought ahead of irrational action. And definitely not the demographic you think of as having enough saddle time and experience to handle an R6 class of bike let alone an R1.

A lot of us here have spend considerable amount of time and energy trying to steer newbie riders into getting proper training, gear and more importantly, the correct bike to start out on. When so-called responsible Corporations pull a promotion stunt like this, they are not doing us any favours, unless of course one of us who has the skills and experience to handle this bike is lucky enough to win it. So, I will give them an E for Effort for promoting the sport of Motorcycling, but an EF for EPIC FAIL for picking the Yamaha YZF-R1 as the prize.

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Always ask why.

Perhaps TMW could contact Shell + whoever makes Monster Energy drink to inform them of concerns of motorcycle community?

If they included a training package as well it could be used as excellent PR!

The racing scene should also pitch in with support for training.

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MOG


The roar of her mighty TRIUMPH was heard throughout the land

Wow, what a great contest but I totally understand where you're coming from Ceemes! Someone like us would love to win an FZ1 but you are right, the target demographic is not really us...

I think Mike had a contact at Shell a while back... I'll speak to him and see if we can be in contact to voice our concerns. Wouldn't it be great if TMW could twist their arms to also offer a free riding course and even some gear? What a cool idea MOG!

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Andrea

Let me see what I can do, I do have a contact from Shell a few years back.

Mike

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I don't see a problem with it. I've seen people who get sponsored to race with only a year or so riding under their belt and they weren't really any good.

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One thing you can count on: You push a man too far, and sooner or later he'll start pushing back.

Bit of a difference between sponsoring a bad rider on the race curcuit and handing over a full on 1 litre class sport bike to a noob to use on the streets.

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Always ask why.

Marlboro does that a lot here too. Last time they had some sort of promo, the grand prizes were an Aprilia RSV4, Ducati 1198, an R1 and a Gixxer thou. Most winners end up selling the bike (I assume to get something more practical, like uh, cash), but if you're a total noob who actually wants to keep and ride the thing, sadly, it's perfectly legal.

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"If you ride like there's no tomorrow, there won't be."

Given the traffic and road conditions in you part of the world, especially outside of Manila, I can see why you would sell those bikes for something more practical, such as a 250. Plus I guess even the resell price of any those bikes would equal a few years pay for majority of Philippino's.

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Always ask why.

Hell yeah. Even I'd sell a literbike if I won one. Who needs a supersport in these roads?

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"If you ride like there's no tomorrow, there won't be."

I don't think we'll be able to convince shell. I think the best thing we can do is use our numbers to enter as many ballots for Storysunfolding as possible. After all, as a track instructor he's probably the best qualified in the US to get this handled correctly.

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