Blog: Get on the cover

Getting scoops on new bikes is probably the biggest bit of this job – causing more headaches and late nights than anything else but also more satisfaction when the pictures come in. So it was refreshing to receive an email last week with a world exclusive on a plate, all thanks to a sharp-eyed and quick-witted MCN reader. All the excitement, and none of the agony.
Reader Paul Moore managed to get the world’s first pictures of the new British-built Ilmor MotoGP bike when it broke cover for its very first shake-down run at Silverstone – and he sent us the pictures. It shows the ever increasing role members of the public can play in making the news.

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While it’s relatively easy for manufactures to keep their mouths shut about new bikes, and keep journalists and professional photographers away from secret tests, it’s virtually impossible develop them without some member of the public catching a glimpse.
Anyone reading a paper after a disaster like the London bombings last year will have seen the huge influence camera phones can have on capturing images traditional journalism could never have managed. And recent celebrity drugs scandals show nobody can hide their secrets from photographic evidence any more. Paul Moore successfully transferred the same quick thinking to the world of bikes, and grabbed his opportunity to get pictures of the Ilmor. Good work Paul.
I’m sure most of you reading this have camera phones, and many of you will live in areas where new bikes are tested – be it Hinckley or Hamamatsu. So I’m counting on you to be our eyes and ears – keep your wits about you and there’s no reason one of your pictures couldn’t be splashed over the front page of MCN.