Motegi, Tochigi

Motegi (茂木町, Motegi-machi) is a town located in Haga District, Tochigi Prefecture, in the northern Kantō region of Japan. As of May 2015, the town had an estimated population of 13,501 and a population density of 78.2 persons per km². Its total area was 172.69 km².

Geography

Motegi is located on the far eastern border of Tochigi Prefecture.

Surrounding municipalities

History

The town of Moteki, and the villages of Sakagawa, Nakagawa and Sudo were created within Haga District on April 1, 1889 with the creation of the municipalities system. The three villages were annexed by Moteki on August 1, 1954.

Education

Moteki has four primary schools , three middle schools and one high school.

Transportation

Railway

Highway

Jorge Lorenzo

Jorge Lorenzo Guerrero (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈxorxe loˈɾenθo ɣeˈreɾo]; born May 4, 1987) is a professional Spanish motorcycle road racer. He is the 2006 and 2007 250cc World Champion, and the 2010, 2012 and 2015 MotoGP World Champion. He currently competes in the MotoGP class, riding for the Yamaha team. Apart from his three titles in the premier class, Lorenzo has also finished as runner-up on three occasions. In 2012, Lorenzo became the first Spanish rider to win multiple premier class titles, and with sixty-one career wins, he is fifth on the all-time wins list.

Motorcycling career

125s and 250s

Lorenzo made his championship debut on his fifteenth birthday, on the second qualifying day for the 2002 125cc Spanish Grand Prix, after having to miss Friday practice as he was not old enough to race. Lorenzo dominated the 2007 250cc World Championship. His nine pole positions led to nine victories in 2007.

Lorenzo's victory at Misano in 2007 was his 16th in the 250cc class, making him the most successful Spanish rider of all time in the intermediate class – with one more victory than Dani Pedrosa and Sito Pons.

Marc Márquez

Marc Márquez Alentà (born 17 February 1993) is a Spanish Grand Prix motorcycle road racer and former MotoGP world champion. He is one of four riders to have won world championship titles in three different categories, after Mike Hailwood, Phil Read and Valentino Rossi.

Márquez won the 2010 125cc World Championship, the 2012 Moto2 World Championship, and the 2013 and 2014 MotoGP World Championships. Márquez became the first rider since Kenny Roberts in 1978 to accomplish the premier class title in his first season, and the youngest to win the title overall. He defended his title, winning the 2014 championship with three rounds to spare. He is the older brother of 2014 Moto3 world champion Álex Márquez.

Career

125cc World Championship

Born in Cervera, Spain, Márquez made his championship debut on 13 April 2008 at the 125cc 2008 Portuguese Grand Prix at the age of 15 years and 56 days. He is the youngest Spanish rider to take a pole position or a podium in a motorcycle racing world championship.

World championship

A world championship is generally an international sports competition open to elite competitors from across the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport or contest.

The title is usually awarded through a combination of specific contests or, less commonly, ranking systems (e.g. the ICC Test Championship), or a combination of the two (e.g. World Triathlon Championships in Triathlon). This determines a 'world champion', who or which is commonly considered the best nation, team, individual (or other entity) in the world in a particular field, although the vagaries of sport ensure that the competitor recognised at the best in an event is not always the 'world champion' (see Underdog).

Certain sports do not have a world championship, instead they may organise a world cup competition, or they may organize both. Often, the use of the term cup or championship in this sense is just a choice of words. Some sports have multiple champions because of multiple organizations such as mixed martial arts, boxing and wrestling.

Dani Pedrosa

Daniel "Dani" Pedrosa Ramal (born 29 September 1985) is a Spanish Grand Prix motorcycle racer. Pedrosa grew up in a village near Sabadell called Castellar del Vallès. He is the youngest world champion in 250cc Grands Prix. Pedrosa is 1.58 m (5 ft 2 in) tall and weighs 51 kg (112.4 lb).

Career

Early days

Born in Sabadell, Catalonia, Spain, Pedrosa started riding bikes at the early age of four, when he got his first motorcycle, an Italjet 50, which had side-wheels. His first racing bike was a minibike replica of Kawasaki, which he got at the age of six and which he used to race with his friends. Pedrosa experienced real racing at the age of 9, when he entered the Spanish Minibike Championship and ended his debut season in second place, scoring his first podium finish in the second race of the season. The next year, Pedrosa entered the same championship, but health problems prevented him from improving his results and he ended that season in 3rd position.

125cc

In 2001, Pedrosa made his World Championship debut in the 125cc class after being selected from the Movistar Activa Cup, a series designed to promote fresh racing talent in Spain, back in 1999. Under the guidance of Alberto Puig, Pedrosa scored two podium finishes in the first season and won his first race the following year, when he finished third in the championship. In 2003, he won five races and won the championship with two rounds remaining, scoring 223 points. In his first championship winning year, Pedrosa scored five victories and six podium finishes. A week after winning the championship, eighteen-year-old Pedrosa broke both of his ankles in a crash during practice at Phillip Island (Australia), ending his season.