LA SX at Dodger Stadium by GoPro

With Mr Millsaps and his AGV lid :)

GoPro HD video of Supercross Opening Day at Anaheim 1, 2001

Great video!

Davi Millsaps Uncut!

by Vurbmoto

http://www.vurbmoto.com/theatre/462/davi-millsaps-uncut/

On my way to the first Supercross of 2010

I’m half-way through my American Airline flight 1425 from O’Hare to Orange County-Santa Ana Airport and listening to Steve Matthes’ podcast of Honda Red Bull Racing’s Andre Short.

I think that I was pretty lucky to get out of Chicago this morning, ahead of the heavier part of that huge Winter Storm that’s hitting the city. My drive to the airport was pretty slow but not too bad despite the 2 inches of snow that blanketed the roads in some parts. Of course our plane was late at the gate and we departed late, after 2 series of de-icing but it’s been pretty smooth up here at 38,000 feet.

So Steve and Shorty are previewing the SX season, talking a lot about the #15 of course (just kidding) and it made me think about Kevin Windham a bit. What is K-Dub going to do this season? He has been one of the greatest motocross and supercross riders in the US, has come so close so many times to win a major title, won many Outdoor Nationals and Supercross races but never got consecration. He is back riding the 450 Factory Connection Honda and will line-up again for the AMA SX series but what can K-Dub really do? It’s hard to say, and hard to accept that someone of his level and class cannot fight for podiums or titles anymore, but I think that his chances are gone. Of course Windham is fast and of course he has what it takes to make Top 5, but it is going to be very hard for him to beat RV, Josh Grant, Josh Hill, Shorty, Millsaps and even support-Yamaha guys like Reardon and Tedesco on a weekly basis.

Like I wrote before – and like everyone has been saying – the2010 450 class is stacked up! There’s no shortage of fast guys and talented rookies like Suzuki’s Ryan Dungey (who will be wearing the #5 that he stole from Johnny O’Mara, Ricky Johnson and Mile Larocco!). It’s going to be tough for the #14 and I wouldn’t be surprised if this is his last SX season.

(Just done listening to Shorty, now on Rich Taylor’s podcast)

It will be good watching him ride though; K-Dub - who’s one of my wife’s favorite riders after RC, Stewart and our friend DV934 - is one of the smoother riders out in the recent history of SX and MX. For the 4 or 5 of you who are reading this, make sure you go to some SX races this year to watch him race.

 (Rich Taylor is actually a very interesting guy, and I can never respect enough someone who has the courage to start his own company in 21^st Century USA, and a motocross goggle brand at that, probably one of the most saturated segment in the off-road market.)

2 days before the first race of the year.  Josh Grant took a big digger this week, breaking his nose but nothing else and should be on for A1 although he might not be 100%. Apart from Stewart and Reed, I still think that Davi Millsaps, Josh Hill, Ryan Dungey, Josh Grant and RV will be the guys fighting for Top 5. I do not see Tedesco racing in that Top 5 and I don’t think that Reardon122 will consistently get in there. I know that a good amount of people believe  Justin Brayton is going to be a threat, as strong as those I previously named, but I am not convinced he can be there this season. No doubt JB114 is very fast, matured a lot, has become a stronger racer and will benefit a ton from the move to the JGR Yamaha 450. But I don’t think that he has that killer instinct, constant starvation for victory you see in JS7, Reed, RV, Grant, Barcia, and De Coster, Lackey, Hannah, Bailey, Rick Johnson, Jeff Ward, JMB, Stanton, McGrath or RC before. Andrew Short is bit like Brayton actually.

I still believe in Hill and Millsaps and see them doing very well this season.

                As soon as I land, grab my Ogio back and my Alamo rental car, I have to rush to Angel Stadium and the AMA Supercross press-conference to work on Davi’s helmet and arrange his cheek-pads. Unfortunately his race helmets only got painted yesterday and couldn’t be used for the Red Bull rider intro, which I am a bit upset about. We’ve rushed to get things going but after the first 2 races, all should be smooth and tuned.

Gautier Paulin has already been practicing with his AGV AX-8, which is pretty cool. I just need to add an AGV sticker on the front, somewhere.

Darn! 2 more hours to go before touchdown. 46 minutes to go in Rich Taylor’s podcast after that I’ll be back reading Racer X and the last Powersport Business newspaper.

5 Days til Anaheim 1, 2010

Thinks are getting heated. We are 5 days before the first SX races and still rumors are flying around. Apparently Josh Grant crashes hard this afternoon while praticing for A1 and was sent to the ER.
Yesterday the Nike MX boots finally came out in the open with confirmation that both Ryan Dungey and James Stewart will be wearing them at A1. very surprising for JS7 since he was under contract with an Italian brand until 2011.

On our side, we are getting there Davi Millsaps' AGV helmets are being painted and Gautier Paulin has received his. GP21 has actually been giving us some good exposure recently with a mag cover in France, a video and a few super good shots from French photog Stephan Lebig.

The Motoverte.com video by Lebig.

On all of those GP is wearing the MTX.

He has since received his AX8 painted and ready for his first American Supercross.

A new year and new season of racing are upon us

Here we are at the dawn of 2010, a new year that I hope will bring a ton of positive things to people, my family, friends and me included, as well as surely some very exciting racing in all series. MotoGP and WSBK are going to offer some good racing with new riders, new teams and the same for the FIM World Motocross and the AMA Supercross and Outdoors Motocross series. The only championship that is looking bleak right now is the AMA Pro road racing series. Unfortunately things are not looking very good there. The second year of DMG's control of the series is bringing more controversy than Tiger Wood and the almost extinction of purse money in the Superbike class is not going to help things, to the contrary. At this time, only about 12 riders are confirmed in the AMA SBK class, including Yates and Zemke, the 2 Michael Jordan Motorsports riders and Dainese's Blake Young on the Yoshimura Suzuki team. Things are looking worse for what is actually supposed to be the new #1 class, the Daytona Sportbike where 5 riders are kind of officially in. Of course despite the pull-out of Kawasaki from US road racing, adding to the departed Honda, Yamaha and Suzuki is not helping but like every year, a lot of last-minute decisions and entries will take place in the weeks leading to Daytona.

But the most important right now is that we are 2 weeks from Anaheim 1, the opening round of the AMA SX series. Things are actually looking good, especially in the 450 class, with a lot of healthy, fast, riders. This could be a very good season with a lot of possible podium contenders lining up behind the fast James Stewart and Chad Reed. Lots of question of course, will Ryan Villopoto beat any of those two aliens on a regular basis? will Hill, Shorty and Millsaps step up to the plate? Will Dungey be the 4th fastest guy, will he battle for 3rd on a regular basis, will he win his first Supercross race? What about Reardon, Ivan "I'm a Yamaha Privateer" Tedesco, Jake Moss, Matt Moss, Josh Grant, JGR's Justin Brayton or Jason Lawrence?
I believe that it won't be too hard for JS1 and CR22 to get to the front but it is going to be a very hard fought battle from 3rd to 15th, with the starts being more important than ever.

The Lites class is going to be good, lots of very fast riders, lots of title contenders, East like West, even if the Pro Circuit and Factory Connection teams should squat the podium spots, we should count on Suzuki's Stroupe and the Yamaha boyz to shake the establishment. Pourcel, Barcia, Stroupe, Weimer, Canard, I will bet some money that those 5 will win races.

I have been a bit busy with AGV and Dainese sponsoring matters in the last couple months as I tried to bring some good names to our team. Although we have not really produced a competitive off-road helmet for a few years, as a leader in the manufacturing of helmets and a brand with a strong off-road past, we decided to get back in the mix. People will say it is pretty bad timing in view of the economical crisis that hit the world and our industry in particular (leisure don't always do good in time of financial difficulties), some even advised us not to do it.
As a helmet manufacturer though, and a proud one, with very strong roots in racing, we couldn't stay out of such an important segment of the motorcycling world. And a really cool one at that. MX and off-road rocks! We know that.

So from the time I was hired, almost 2 years ago, we were working on the MX lids. The aim was always to produce a "price point" helmet in polycarbonate and a high-end one in carbon/kevlar/fiber. While we were making strides in R&D I swas asked to start working on potential pro riders for the AMA SX and MX series. Snnoping around the '09 races I started looking at guys that could work with us, riders who had the right exposure but more so the right personality to work with a new helmet and a renowned brand like AGV.
I was also helping on the Euro/FIM side, brainstorming with my Italian colleagues on potential riders, pushing for who I thought would do well for us and would be great partners to work with.
It took about a year to come with a final team. A year of building up relationships, meetings, traveling, endless phone calls, visits, meetings again, more late phone calls, testing, etc, etc.
Then I received the first production models of the MT-X and the AX-8. I was pumped with the way the helmet turned out and how good they are. Now I wanted to go ride MX again! I knew it would work very well for our team riders.
In the last months we have scrambled to get the necessary helmets delivered on time for the painters (AirTrix and AP Designs) to get the riders' lids ready on time for A1, while contract negotiations were still ongoing for some (just for minor text amendments).

At Anaheim, Honda Red Bull's Davi Millsaps and Yamaha Rinaldi's Gautier Paulin will go racing with the AGV AX-8. We are pretty excited to be teammed up with DM18 and GP21 and I will have a small tear of pride when the gate drops for GP's first race, the first at that level, for an AGV MX helmet in many years.
In Europe along with Gautier (who will be using the Star Racing Yamaha rig as a base for the first 4 SX Lites West) the second AGV MX rider will be 2008 MX1 World champion Davide Phillipaerts.
In US, along with DM18 (who is looking good right now) the other AGV riders will be Honda Red Bull's Ashley Fiolek with whom I have always wanted to work again. I appreciate and respect Ash and her dad Jim a lot and believe that they are great people to work with, on top of the fact that Ash will be a great ambassador for AGV. A 3rd rider, a Red Bull off-road legend, should be signed in the coming days.

I'll try write more things as the season goes on. 

Photos of GP21 during a photoshoot for French magazine MX Mag by Stephan Legrand, along with the cover of the mag's last issue. Pretty cool! 

MX photo of the day

This is one of those photos that make you want to go ride.

Back from California

45 minutes in my American Airlines flight back to Chicago from Santa Ana. Pretty empty flight, I have my row with enough space to unload my laptop, iPhone and magzines. The flight attendant just served my orange juice and I switched on Steve Matthes' podcast with his fellow Canadian and all time good guy in MX, Allan Brown. I always really enjoy bench-racing with Allan at the races and outside.

Time to kick back for me and think about the last 3 days in the Orange County.
I had a few targets this week, one was a very important sales meeting with Denver's Fay Meyer Motorsports who are an important client for Dainese, the other was to finalize the AGV deal with one of our motocross rider for 2010.
The sales meeting went well and we scheduled more meetings in Denver later this month and in February in order to train the shop sales team. I "inherited" Colorado and New Mexico as additions to my territory and I will be spending more time there this upcoming year, especially with the AMA Outdoor National, the Motocross Des Nations and some of the Mountain-bikes events I will attend, like Crankworks.

On the AGV motocross sponsoring side, we are making good progress.
Rider X had already tried our MT-X helmet (the new AGV entry level) and we had mostly agreed on conditions but still needed to meet to finalize his helmet fitting. It is very important for us that the riders have the right fitting and feel comfortable when riding with our helmets, be it blazing through whoops on an SX track, or clocking 199 mph at the Indianapolis Motorsports Speedway.

Early on Tuesday morning, I got in my rental car and drove South from Irvine, towards Corona. They had given me the right direction but I did still get lost a little bit, after a quick coffee and snack stop at the AM/PM. I drove through a few dry and dusty SoCal hills before I found a small supercross track, with whoops very close to metal fence which appeared to be the KTM track, then another beautiful one, on top of a hill, with small palms, which was the Yamaha track. Of course I finally found where I was supposed to be and spend time with Rider X, working on things, discussing stuff and making sure he feels comfortable and happy with not only our products but working with us.

The MT-X is not the helmet we want him to mainly race with, although it will be an alternative in some cases, because we mostly want to promote our new carbon/Kevlar/fiber helmet, the AX-8.
This is a very cool new lid, pretty light, strong venting features and I would say, without being biased, although I do work for the brand :-), very comfortable (photo below)

Now, we don't really know which of the 2 helmets this Rider X will want to wear in the end, as we've noticed with James Stewart who prefers to wear the lower end Bell helmet instead of their high-end Moto 8.I believe that in the end it's a matter of what the rider feels comfortable racing and blazing through the whoops with. We are just here to make it as perfect as possible for them.

After a few bench-racing chats and checking him ride, I left Rider X and his wrench to drive (fly) back to Costa Mesa for some important office work and follow up.

Things got better for our return to MX on Wednesday morning when another rider, let's say Rider XX, agreed to work with us in the next seasons. This one is particularly rewarding for me, because I really like working with Rider XX and believe that Rider XX is very good not only on the track but especially outside, in the "real" world, where that rider has a strong following and gets a lot of (deserved) respect. I'll be sending helmets for testing to Rider XX tomorrow.

Yesterday, I worked in the office, following up on some of my accounts and clients, Getting things set for 2010, following up on orders and deliveries. Steve Rapp, one of our road racing rider and a good buddy of mine, and his girlfriend Circee, flew in Santa Ana, in his Cirrus single-engine airplane for lunch. They took me to a pretty good Mexican restaurant in Irvine, right by the airport. Good bench-racing lunch, talking 2010 and what options are there for Rapper. After lunch I took them back to the airport and walked with them to the plane, sat in the Cirrus, checked the equipment, held the stick, missed flying again. Well, later, again, for sure.

A very positive trip to Southern California indeed, and it got much better when I received an email this morning as I was going through security at SNA. It was an offer for another rider (let's call him Rider XXX because he is a real big part of the sport). I am not sure that we can do it and work with him in 2010 (and beyond) but there is no doubt that in the next 3 days I'll be scrambling, lobbying and doing anything possible to find the right budget to sign Rider XXX.
This is the kind of offer that any sales & marketing person and action sports company owner cannot pass on. So you can bet that I won't be sleeping for 3 days but scratching my head and pulling the last bit of hair I have left, to make it work.

Hopefully one day I will be able to tell you who are Rider X, Rider XX and Rider XXX but I can tell you that it's not Josh Hill, with whom we came very close to a deal that unfortunately didn't materialize because he was signed head-to-toe by a fox head... :-)

Monday Morning Video: Josh Hill vs. Marvin Musquin at Madrid SX

Here's a cool little video to start a good Thanksgiving week. Although Marvin Musquin, the French wonder of the moment, won the SX race later that night, Josh Hill took him for an SX school session in the one-on-one.

Hill is looking good right now, better than ever, getting fitter and ready for the 2010 SX season. Next European stop for the L&M rider will be the Supercross of Geneva in Switzerland.



Here's JH75 versus Spanish MX1 star Johnatan Barragan

Off to Dallas during SX silly-season

I'm in a plane to Dallas, blogging at 35,000 feet on Mi iPhone. Actually not that easy to write so much with a finger, yes, I admit that the double-thumb typing is not a skill I have mastered.

So off to Dallas, for less than 24 hours, to represent AGV helmets and Dainese apparel at Moto Liberty's annual Midnight Madness sales bash. One of my best clients and voted Best Texas Motorcycle Accessories & Apparel Shop 8 years in a row, this is one of their events one can't miss. Caught my flight out of O'Hare at 11am, landing around 1:30pm, rental car then off to the store. Work all afternoon and night, the event usually ends around 2am, then off for a quick sleep before carving my 10am flying bus back to Chicago where I hope the Bears will take one over the Eagles.
The weather was great - yes chilly too - when I left and I hope that we'll have the sme tomorrow because I really want to take Taao and Tanner for some shredding at the Elgin BMX track.

The 2010 SX season is closing in pretty fast, and even if some riders are still racing at the four corners of the world, from The Madrid SX to the Australian SX series via the Lyon SX, Genoa and Geneva. Teams and riders are getting ready, programs are bring finalized although things are really late this year, especially in the gear segment. I am still in talks with 3 riders in the US and know that 3 or 4 more interesting guys are available for helmet deals.
In Europe, It looks like we will concentrate in the MX2 Motocross World Championship with 2 riders, including one that I really would want to make sure we sign because I believe that he has a great future and has a very cool personality. He would spank me on the bmx track too by the way. So crossing fingers, and lobbying strongly, so that we sign him.

Of course I'm not allowed to give banes right now but after a few good weeks of talks and lobbying, we finally gave our word to a rider that I believe in. Someone that could have a break away year and bring us a good amount of exposure. I believe ge has the ability and the speed to be a regular top 7 in SX in 2010, even if the competition will be pretty strong.

Of course we are not going to see an AGV helmet on Bubba (still under contract with Bell and for sure way too expensive for us, we already have Valentino and Marco at that level), not on the Factory Kawi Monster Energy Thor Parts Unlimited boy, Reedy and RV2 (those lads belong to Thor forever I would think), not on Mike Alessi neither and although there was a very short discussion/interest on our part, the #800 was to expensive for our budget and for the exposure we thought we would get from him; over $60,000 for a helmet deal for a racer doing the AMA Nationals only and no SX or no X Games isn't really someone we would want right away. Not until we build on our sales and have a stronger sponsoring budget, in order to afford to grow the team. I do think that Mike has a good amount of exposure, can win races in 2010, but I'm not sure we are rich enough to afford the controversies that usually follow him and we know that riders' endorsements are not a strong impact on products sales, the Alessi Broz and DV didn't really boost the Shark MX helmets sales in the US. Riders are a very strong part of marketing and exposure for sure, but as part of a whole strategy, not as purchase influencers.

That's why I believe that our choice of riders for 2010, will help us re-enter the already saturated off-road market. They will bring us enough exposure to back-up the rest of the marketing effort.

Of course there is one more rider I'm trying to sign but I'm not sure we have the budget. I have to say that I really would love to find the budget because that is one of my favorite rider; great exposure, great personality, no controversy, great family and easy to work with. Not an AMA SX winner but a definite MX race winner. I'm crossing fingers on that one and lobbying my mangenent ro find the extra ressources, because that would be a good match.

1 hour left on our flight. I'm going to go back to reading the latest Racer X issue. I really love the new look they gave to the magazine. Great editorial by DC and especially by David Bailey this month. Also liked Cox and Ping's columns, and Steve is right, it is time we get involved in concussion management and prevention.

I'm going back to finish the 'zine, but I think that 2010 is going to be a great racing year in AMA SX/MX as well as World MXGPs.
From Anaheim 1 to Sam Boyd Stadium, we should have a very good battle and although I believe that the 3 podium spots will be squatted by James Stewart, Chad Reed and Ryan Villopoto, we should have all out dash for cash races with Josh Hill, Josh Grant, Andrew Short, Davi Millsaps, Ivan Tedesco (on which bike or team?), JB114, Ryan Dungey, Dan Reardon and Kevin Windham.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Valentino Rossi Airing it!

It's always been known that Vale is a fan of motocross and practices very often. He says it's for fun and also for training, for slides, better bike control and endurance. It was during one of those sessions riding together that Marco Simoncelli broke his wrist right before the season opener, a small mistake that costed Supersic the 2010 250cc title.

Notice on the above photo the AGV motocross helmet painted to the 5 Continents colors. No MX boots for Dainese so it's Sidi for him and the pants are One Industries brought to him by the Monster Energy guys.

Here's Motocross Action's article on Vale's Motocross dei Campioni race last weekend:

IS VALENTINO ROSSI SWITCHING TO MOTOCROSS?

Times 9 for Vale!

Parts Unlimited Dealer Showcase

This afternoon I'm at the Parts Unlimited Dealer Super Showcase at the Las Vegas Sportcenter. Got the booth and the lids all set up. I'll be back at the MGM fir the race later this evening.












-- Posted from my iPhone