Among the off-road community, one very welcome announcement has been BMW Motorrad USA's participation with a factory team in every round of the 2008 Grand National Cross Country series (GNCC) - the most competitive cross country class in the world.
Even more welcome was the appointment of five-times series champion Scott Summers to manage the BMW XPLOR race team. Summers has joined BMW for the 2008, 2009 and 2010 seasons, after racing very successfully for American Honda for nearly two decades.
I saw that a while back. I think it will be cool. The BMW 450 has a pretty interesting design with the swing arm pivot acting as a counter shaft sprocket or vise versa. How ever you want to look at it. Should be a cool bike. Expected to be priced in line with the KTM bikes. So it will be a bit more spendy than the jap brands.