Here's comes 2012

We are 2 days away from celebrating the new year and a week away from the beginning of the 2012 AMA Supercross season. Exciting times. More so for me as I am moving to something new, exciting (bis repetita), challenging, super cool, different, rewarding and what will be some kind of a change in our family life.

I have left AGV Dainese, after 4 great years there, achieving a few good things like the return of AGV in MX with 2 new helmets, the development of the MTB segment for Dainese, in order to try to take the brand back to where it belongs, and more. I was comfortable there, I had a good living, a good crew and had tons more things to achieve, more challenges and successes ahead.

Until one day I was offered something that is difficult to refuse; a project that would demand more and better from me, a project that was exciting, that was C.O.O.L and more especially, the opportunity to work with gentlemen I have always admired and respected in this industry.

Definitely an opportunity I couldn't refuse, an opportunity that forced me out of my safe cave, but that is already so worth it and rewarding.

But enough with me. Boriiiiiiiiing!!.

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We are 1 week from the end of another memorable silly-season, that's what's the most exciting part of celebrating this new year.
If last SX season was described as the best season of them all (let's keep things in perspective though, despite Ralph's enthusiasm, and Feld's PR machine, and remember that things were pretty exciting in 1985, '86, '91, '92 or '98 too); then the upcoming season looks REAL good in the 450 class. Apart from Trey Canard sidelined with another injury for the first rounds, we have a pretty heavy line up ready to take on Anaheim.

I'll be there, I want to blog more, I want to post more pics, I want to make this a fun year again.

LA SX at Dodger Stadium by GoPro

With Mr Millsaps and his AGV lid :)

Anaheim 1 SX by GoPro

Really digging those. I'll paste them all here, so what homies! :)

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! 

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?

Awesome Motocross of Nations 09 video by Moto Mag

This is a really good video by the lads from Moto Magazine in the UK. Summary of the '09 Motocross des Nations. USA wins for the 5th time in a row. 20th Chamberlain trophy for the US. 3rd victory at Des Nations for IT9.

Carmichael RedBud Two-Stroke Video

Check this very cool video of RC4 at Red Buuuuuuud

and below the Red Bud National video recap where we saw a crazy 250 race and the first overall win in the 450 class for Josh Grant

High Point MX National thoughts

A quick note before the 2009 High Point National starts Live on www.allisports.com. It's been a crazy beginning of the series in the 450 class with the injuries of title contenders and fastest guys, Ryan Villopoto and Mike Alessi. Everyone has been trying to make a pick for the "new" title contender and who's in line to take the championship but it is very hard to say right now. And maybe that's what makes this 2009 Motocross Outdoor Nationals very exciting and entertaining. I see 3 guys who can take it right now, Rockstar Suzuki Chad Reed, Joe Gibbs Racing's Josh Grant and Factory Honda Andrew Short. Even if the #29 is the furtherst in point, I believe that his consistency can pay. Shorty was involved in the title race 2 seasons ago, against Grant Langston and Alessi and must have learned from that. So, even if he's not really shining as Alessi, RV, Josh Grant and Chad have been until now, he's a serious contender.
Reed knows how to win championship and has shown some very good speed despite his health issues. As soon as #22's camp figure out his illness and get him sorted out, Chad will be the fastest on track.
Josh Grant has been a revelation this year. After a great rookie SX season he's been showing speed and a lot of potential in his MX 450 debut. He can take the title this year.

So, let's hope for lots of racing and let's see how this pans out.

Here's the link to the MX Sports/Racer X Pre-Race show with 2 of my favorite guys in the MX industry, andy Bowyer and The GOAT.

www.allisports.com

The 250 Class is as wide open as it was in Glen Helen but I think that the title will be go to either Rockstar Makita Suzuki Ryan Dungey or Monster Energy Pro Circuit Christophe "the crafty Frenchman" Pourcel.

On a personal note, I would like to have a thought and a prayer for our niece Ana Olson who passed away last night, at the too young age of 18. Very deep support and love to Remelle, Terry, Deny and all the family.

Las Vegas SX press-conference, The heat Is On

Very good press-conference in Las Vegas today as the end nears on this fantastic Supercross season. All the hype was from the lack of it and the mysterious absence of series points leader James "Bubba" Stewart. There has been no information as to why James is not there and the last time he updated his Twitter account was 2 days ago when he was on his way to Vegas.

Here's the link to the Racer X Illustrated report by Steve Cox and some quotes of the p-c.

Chad is good this year, he talks a lot more and says the right things. He definitely insinuate often that Larry Brooks is playing with people's mind and has a somehow negative influence at times.

His views on the Salt Lake City Incident:

QUOTE:
In regard to the incident last week with Kyle Chisholm, Reed had this to say: “I guess I’m just going to take my road, and I’ve always tried to be honest with you guys and tell you my side of the story and what I feel… Who can deny that it was intentional? You watch the video and it’s quite obvious – his line, and his position being a lap down, and the obvious of him being James’ teammate – and it was a shame. I don’t believe that Kyle’s a bad person or anything like that. I’ve heard that he’s a great guy, and I don’t know him personally, but it seems that he’s a good person. It seems weird that a good person would do that, so it’s a shame. But it’s all water under the bridge, and we’ll just live and learn. There’s a paper trail a mile long of what people in… Should I say, ‘His boss’ has done along the way? You look through the years and we can all find little things that he has done, and one that stands out most is sitting [Steve] Boniface out of a race [in 2003 at Millville with the Red Bull KTM team] because he wouldn’t help somebody, and taking his rear wheel out of the bike. I find it quite amusing, quite funny, and each and every one of the people sitting in this room I believe knows the truth and what really happened, whether they write that or not. Everyone has to be political.”

QUOTE:
Reed was also humble and admitted he was wrong in how he handled Ivan Tedesco a couple of years ago in “Chumpgate” and even Andrew Short last year. “I think I’ll take 100 percent of the heat with the Ivan thing. I was heated, and I felt that I was better than I was performing, and I was racing for position on the lead lap, and same with Shorty last year. I somewhat felt my walls coming in. I was hurt, and I didn’t want to be hurt, and I felt that I was good enough to win races, and it was a tough position to be in. I had people around me saying things and they were in my head, and I think the situation was made out worse than it really was. I think I made dumb choices, but at the end of the day, when you calm down and think about it, I was racing on the lead lap for a podium position. At that time, it was Shorty’s best 450cc main-event finish. So you live and learn.”

QUOTE:
To round it out, Reed commented on the importance of this title to him: “It’s been a lot of fun, and I’ve learned a lot, but this title has a hell of a lot more riding on it than just that red background and number one. There’s a lot of pride involved, and there’s a lot of, I would call it, hatred over what happened last year, and the situation that it’s left in still to this day. There’s nothing more that I want to do than to stand on the podium tonight and be the champion, so I will do everything in my power to try and make that happen.”

And, like me, Chad Reed wasn't home-schooled, but I'm a washed-out wannabe motocrosser and he's a Champ

QUOTE:
Rupert X asked Chad how close he was to coming to blows with James on the podium in Jacksonville in their infamous face-off, to which Reed responded, “[Laughs] In order to come to blows, you’ve got to have somebody that’s willing to throw down, too. So I don’t think we were that close to getting ready to throw down. I grew up as a normal kid. I went to primary school and a regular school… I got on a bus, wore a uniform and everything like that, so I grew up in a playground, not like most of these motocross kids that are home-schooled… I don’t know, I had fun with it, and I was heated, but for good reasons, I believe.”

Welcome to Las Vegas, People!!

Here we go again! SX is on in Seattle

After the only weekend off of the season the SX series return in Seattle this weekend. 3 races to go and 5 points difference in the SX class, between James "Bubba" Stewart and Chad "Skippy" Reed. The title race is wide open.

2 races to go in the West Coast SX Lites class who return to racing after a veryyyyy loooooong break. I even forgot who's really in this class apart from the Top 3 contenders and very tight in points, Dungey, Weimer and Morais. As we drawn to the finish line I am still bummed that both Trey Canard and J-Law took themselves out of the series in the early rounds.

The weather forecast shows possible rain on Friday... but who really believes the Weather Man.

Here's the Seattle track:

St Louis Supercross Photos

Here's my album of the 2009 St Louis Supercross. I hope you enjoy these and particularly the black and whites.

St Louis Supercross 2009

Supercross Anaheim 2, thoughts

My trip to A2 definitely didn’t go the way I had planned it. Trusting American efficiency once more, I had booked a morning flight into SNA arriving at noon, right on time to jump into my Avis car and drive to Angel Stadium. Unfortunately a very efficient coalition of very bad Midwestern weather, United Airlines maintenance schedule and a mechanical failure on the Airbus A319 that was commuting me to SoCal made it all possible to change my day’s agenda. I ended up taking of 3 hours later than planned from O’Hare and landed at LAX instead of Orange County’s john Wayne Airport.

I arrived at Angel Stadium at 6:45 p.m. :-(

I tried to do a quick round of the pits before the intro ceremonies, trying to see if I could catch anything interesting before the night show. I very quickly realized that I wasn’t really in the mood for shooting, not doing the right thing, getting the wrong settings on my camera and decided to just enjoy the night and Supercross and stick to a few snapshots of peoples instead of trying to do some photography.

I love being at the races and enjoy a lot of what’s happening on a Supercross weekend but some of my favorite times, apart from the racing itself, are the early mornings when the SX circus wake up and crews are opening the pits, doing the track walk with riders who are discovering it for the first time and watching the mechanics working during the practice sessions. But my preferred moment and place is the tunnel before the opening ceremonies. I love the atmosphere down there, seeing the way riders behave differently, who’s really focused, who’s relaxed, who’s socializing, the anxiety of some wrench guys and team managers, the Feld guys trying, usually looking very serious and a bit stressed, trying to run everything as planned as possible, etc, etc… It is a very cool place to be and observe.

Of course it was a privilege to see McGrath, Carmichael and Bubba all together, waiting for the show to go on. I mean, how many times one can see so many Supercross/Motocross victories and championships like that in one place. There is a lot of respect and a bit of complicity between these guys.

Before the race I had talked to some riders and team managers who said that they didn’t like the track saying that it was too dangerous, especially the way the landings of some jumps were built and I thought that the races would see some big crashes and first turn pile-ups, but it really went well. Nothing bad happen and we got some very good racing, in both classes.

James Stewart managed against all bike odds to win the 450 class but there is no disputing the fact that Chad Reed is the fastest rider on the track right now (the only one to go down to 58” a lap during the race). Reed looks smooth and comfortable on his Suzuki and turns it like a BMX. He reminds me of MC on his Chaparral Yamaha when he came back to take the title from Emig.

Outside of the bike, the Chad Reed 09 is a different person too, with a very positive attitude and approach on things.

Of course I think that any other rider who would be racing the #7 Yamaha would often be on the ground and only an outstanding rider like James Stewart can ride it and save it like he does right now. I saw him casing more jumps at A2 that I did all of ’07 and believe me, I case a loooot. After he passed K-Dub in the Main, James saved it a-la-Carmichael when everyone in the press box thought that he was going to hit the dirt. Unbelievable!

Like others, I don’t think that Bubba is going to be able to do that every race. If the bike settings are not sorted soon, James may crash hard at some point, especially if Chad Reed has a good start and is right on his tail.

Chad came back from the back of the pack after a first turn crash to pass Kevin Windham for second, in the last lap. We can speculate that if the race had 25 laps, CR would have won it. And the same would have happened in Phoenix the previous weekend.

Anyway, the racing is good right now. 2009 is on the gas.

K-Dub finally got back to speed and rode awesome, leading the Main for 11 laps. He looked like Mr. smooth again, more comfortable than at the first 2 rounds. RV rode very well too, fighting for 2^nd most of the race. His first podium is close.

Short rode well again and seems the most comfortable on the new Honda. The #29 should make the podium again this season.

And what about Josh Grant people! The guy is legit and after 3 very good Supercross races, I really believe that he is there to stay. I am not sure whether he is going to be able to secure a podium overall but I repeat myself and he is definitely Top 5 overall at the end of the season. At A2, he tightened up towards the end but was once again racing for the podium and rode good to a 5^th. Had he managed to pass Kevin Windham early in the race, I think that he would have secured a podium spot.

Ryan Dungey took his second win of the season in the West Lite series and we should expect to see him ride smart to secure his first title this year. Again, the PC boys were strong and rode great, Morais being very surprising and edging Jake Weimer again for a PC 2-3 podium result. The title chase is still very close right now, but Morais is definitely not where I would have thought. Great effort and a good surprise for sure.

Jason Lawrence is not riding as well as expected right now. His heat race was bad, out of control and sent him to the LCQ again. Hopefully for him J-Law gets things back on track at Houston and makes more podium but for sure, the title is out of reach for him unless something crazy happens.

Brayton and Sipes looked good. Dan Reardon rode well too and should get more Top 5 before the end of the season. A quick shout out to my buddy Mike Sleeter for making the Main again, coming out of the gnarly and very difficult LCQ. Mike has been going to the races on his own this year and is grateful to get some help from One Industries and KTM.

A quick info about French rider Cedric Soubeyras: He was racing his last US SX of the year at Anaheim 2, before going back to Europe, to race the World Championship in MX2. Cedric was coming form a great performance at Phoenix but crashed really hard in practice and ended up at the hospital with a collapsed lung and broken ribs. A bit banged up but he’ll recover quickly and get ready on time for the MXGP’s. Hopefully team MD Racing and Soubeyras will come for a full West Lites season in 2010. Cedric is one of the very few pro riders who wear the RXR chest-protector.

My MotoXdream fantasy team wasn’t very lucky this weekend, especially my Lites team where I had Soubeyras :-(

On another note, Monday was important for me at work as we had the first annual Dainese Media day at the Dainese D-Store in Costa Mesa. We presented the company’s new structure in the US to about 35 members of the press who were treated to a fashion show presenting our 2009 collection. While my colleagues-buddies Mark and Allan presented the Dainese products the models had, I was taking care of the AGV helmets introduction. It was a successful event thanks to everybody involved, from Supercross.com’s Amanda who was hosting, to the models, the editors and journalists present as well as the full Dainese crew. We should see some good exposure coming our way soon along with new sponsorship announcements as we are trying to get much more involved in road racing in the US.

So, it’s back home for a day for me and back on the road, off to Houston on Thursday and SoCal on Monday.

By the way, who will win the 2009 SX series? Ha! Right now I believe that Chad has everything lined up for it. 2 more races like that and Chad will have it secured.