Back in the Weather

Of course it snowed again just in time for my flight to get all jacked this morning. Everyone was storming the gates because their Sunday night flights were rescheduled to Monday morning, so the ATL airport was just as packed as any of the planes leaving it.

I'm super tired because I only slept on that DMXS studio couch for about an hour. But let me tell this tale:

A guy called today with a question about GNCC. He was recently injured so he wanted to know if he could transfer his points from one of his races LAST YEAR to THIS YEAR'S series. TRANSFER the POINTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He was serious.

It's still snowing out. It will surely stop just in time to start again when I leave for St. Louis.

-blogANDT

Red Neck Oscar Party

On one end of the country Hollywood's most glamorous are walking the red carpet, but here in Blogandt country, we're all about rolling out the red Georgia dirt. For real. The stuff is all over my clothes, my shoes and my rental car. I'm writing this from inside the cozy confines of the DMXSRadio studio, which offers amenities such as a couch and a high-speed internet connection. And that's about it, besides microphones that aren't needed right now.

Today was the second annual DMXS Radio charity ride for AT. The Kelley family (including Kevin from DMXS) opened up Bremen MX Park and some of the sport's biggest stars came out to raise money. Ricky Carmichael was there for two hours signing autographs in the rain and cold. Matt Walker purchased a photo of himself for $300 and then gave it to a kid who wanted it. Shae Bentley was in the house, and Ezra Lusk was, too, churning lap after lap on the minibike track in the mud.

Then the DMXS guys ran the best fund-raiser ever: they started a vintage powder-blue Yamaha 1978 IT175, ran it wide open, and took bids on how many minutes the bike would last before it blew up. And a crowd gathered around the bike as various people took turns holding the throttle. I even took over for a few minutes as the little air-cooled two stroke just kept running. But it wouldn't stop. So we poured straight gas in the tank. Kept running. So we leaned out the air screw. Kept running. We zip tied the throttle open and put the kickstand down. Kept running. Finally it stopped at 29 minutes and a huge cheer erupted from the crowd. That's the funniest fund raiser ever.

All told the event raised $19,000. Not bad considering the rain kept most people off of the track (the $25 practice fee went straight to the AT fund). For more on the event, click here.

When it was all over I retreated into the Bremen race park garage where Kevin Kelley's dad King (yes, King Kelley is his real name) was teaching David Bailey magic tricks. It was a surreal experience, King and his two redneck brothers leaning against a smashed up Chevy Blazer, each with a Miller Light in their hand, while talking about life with David Bailey. Then King made fun of me for being from New Jersey and I cracked back at him for the whole Georgia thing. Unfortunately most of the red neck jokes are used against West Virginian's, however, so I was kinda' stuck there.

Then the Georgians watched NASCAR until the supercross came on TV, and we watched that with Bailey. Man, that guy is so smart. I don't think you could ever run out of topics to talk to him about. He just oozes motocross knowledge, and that's what I like to hear about. It was like Joan and Melissa Rivers gossiping about all the Hollywood types, only we were critiquing riding styles and racers and TV production. We drank more beer and ate some pizza, and then I retreated into the DMXS studio to write this.

Atlanta rules.

-blogANDT

Thriller 2

The sequel is rarely as good as the first, but the Atlanta supercross can rival San Diego’s race for excitement. And Ricky Carmichael feels this one was even better than the last, since the ending was so much better. At least for him. For Chad Reed, the Atlanta Supercross was the scary movie where one of the stars gets picked off at the end.

But it was thrilling to watch. In another classic, 20-lap, fans-on-their-feet-the-whole-time-struggle, Carmichael took the lead from Reed, crashed in a corner, and then put on an amazing charge, slowing inching back up to Reed until he made the pass just three laps from the finish.

The 62,000 on hand loved every second of it, and now supercross fans are surely begging for the sequel to become a trilogy next weekend in St. Louis. Let’s hope it happens, because Carmichael has reestablished his dominance perhaps even more convincingly than he had already done this year.

Reed took the holeshot on Atlanta’s quarter-mile drag style start, but Carmichael nearly edged by him over the first set of jumps. Reed held him at bay for a few laps while Carmichael searched for lines. And traction. Unlike previous races in the ATL, the dirt here was dry and slippery. There were no ruts on the jump faces, and few berms in the corners. As Reed joked after the race, he’s going to take his dozer to his practice track and knock over all of the berms. There were no bowl turns in Atlanta, and that made getting traction difficult, especially on that slick dirt.

Carmichael eventually passed Reed on the inside of the first turn and tried to pull away, but he stuffed his front wheel way too hard into a corner after the finish and crashed. It was a simple crash, but it allowed Reed and Kevin Windham to get past him. It also handed him a 5 second gap on Reed. But Carmichael dug super deep, first absolutely forcing his was past Windham in a very aggressive move, and then chopping a half second off of Reed every lap. Finally he caught him, and in a reverse of the San Diego race, lappers worked against Reed. Carmichael then passed Reed in the very same corner, around turn one, and held on through more lapped traffic to win.
Carmichael didn’t need to explain much after this one, as the race tells the entire story. As for Reed, who had revised his game plan and set up and everything else before San Diego, this is a hard hit. Chad said he simply didn’t attack the track or ride aggressively enough. He will work on attacking more (and practice bermless corners) for next week.

Windham finished third in an uneventful ride, besides that little run in with Ricky. K-Dub and RC’s recent friendship seems to have taken a hit.

As for the 125s, Grant Langston and Matt Walker painted the town green by running 1-2 on their Pro Circuit/Monster Energy/Kawasakis. Walker, the McCrae, Georgia favorite, passed Langston early and seemed ready to win. And the fans wanted to see it. But near the halfway mark he got really squirrelly near the mechanics area. He barely saved the crash, but the mistake knocked him off of his rhythm enough for Langston to get around. Walker rode his heart out to try to get the lead back, but Langston rode a solid race to notch just his second career 125 supercross win.

Samsung Wireless Honda’s Steve Boniface rode well for third, with former series leader Davi Millsaps taking fourth after a horrible start.

Grant’s happy to be back on top. But the series is far from over. Look for the next great installment next weekend.

-blogANDT

Hotlanta

There's just so much going on there's no way even a high-speed internet connection can keep up with it. Here's a brief review on the last two days:

Since Michelin's tire test with Travis Pastrana was scheduled for Friday morning in South Carolina, and I wasn't supposed to land in Atlanta until 10:40 pm Thursday, I knew I was pressed for time. But of course it snowed all crazy Thursday, which delayed my flight. We boarded the plane a half hour late, and then had to get back off of it because of a "maintenence issue." One person said it was a loose screw on the stairs, which I believe is the defacto PR answer to what any "maintenence issue" is on a plane. We ended up landing in Atlanta at 12:30. I got my rental car and hit the road to SC at 1 a.m., got to my swank hotel at 4:00 am and slept until 7:30. We had to meet at 8. I was tired.

But we plowed on to the Michelin track in Laurens, SC and proceeded to eat humble pie all day long. We were doing laps of a wet skidpad which was, well, designed to make you skid. And skid I did, all the hell over the place. We were supposed to see who could put an Infiniti Q45 into a controlled slide for the longest distance. I instantly spun the car into a ditch and rolled a tire off the rim. Jeez.

Travis won the comp by doing nearly a complete lap in a slide without going 360. But DMXS Radio jack of all trades David Izer nearly topped him. Hairmizer Izer's secret? "I used to own a Z-28 and I live in Georgia!" He can slide it Duke Boys style.

With my driving confidence shot I battled ATL traffic back into the city Friday evening. Then it was on to Buckhead for the DMXS party, and I kicked it up a few notches, raised the bar and took it to another level with my dancing skills. Check out tonyscavo.com for photos ....

Now it's on to supercross. Reed and Carmichael look good, but RC has an ever-so-slight edge in practice times. This track doesn't look nearly as tough as San Diego, especially the whoops. Considering Reed made up big time there last week, he's probably bummin' over the track design.

Show starts in an hour. Check out supercross.cc.com and enjoy the internet broadcast show. I'll be the guy with the raspy voice (little too much fun last night).

-blogANDT

Snow Daze

I have a new plan to make money. It involves stealing kids' lunch money, but not in the same way the bullies used to steal it from me (I'm still not capable of beating kids up, physically or legally). Here's what I'm going to do: whenever I kid has a big homework assignment or needs a day off from school, he can pay me to book a plane flight and take a trip to the airport. Because EVERYTIME I GO TO THE AIRPORT IT SNOWS!

I'm not one to believe in superstitions, luck or fate. What happens happens. But this is happening way too much. It last snowed in the greater Morgantown/Pittsburgh area last Thursday when I was flying to San Diego. It didn't snow again until today, and my flight leaves in four hours. This matches the pattern well from say, the return trip from Anaheim II when it dumped snow all over it place on Saturday night (I was flying Sunday morning).

Hey Jason, isn't it snow season? Isn't this normal? Yes it's normal. It snows every January and February here. But does it have to do it every Thursday?

And I don't want problems with my flight. This is a HUGE weekend. I land in the ATL and head straight to South Carolina for a special Michelin press event with Travis Pastrana on Friday. (I'll try to get a report up right here, because Travis is going to ebe wringing out a few cars. Then they turn us loose on them. Look out. On a few hours sleep I will make the trek from SC to the ATL for the big DMXS party at Buckhead Friday night. I'll just tell the Clear Channel bosses right now that I'm not going to get loaded and tired and hungover before work day on Saturday. No way. Not me. Not in Atlanta.

Then we have that supercross race thingy in the dome on Saturday, followed by the DMXS Charity Ride for AT on Sunday. People, if you're anywhere near the Georgia Dome on Saturday you have to be at Bremen MX for the ride on Sunday. RC, the elusive Ezra Lusk, Talker Matt Walker and the entire Motoworldracing.com Suzuki team will be on hand riding and signing autographs. You won't get this close to Carmichael in a relaxed setting all year. Maybe Chad Reed will stop by to show he can be even more relaxed. Maybe it depends on what happens Saturday night.

I can't wait.

Did anyone see clips from the Barry Bonds Press Conference the other day? You know, you would think he's a roid rager, but he treats the media so gently and warmly there's just no way.

Here's an interesting note: Pink is having Carey Hart's baby! Carey is probaby doing backflips.

Clear Channel placed a superb primer on motocross into a local paper in Denver. The paper is called the Advocate - not the gay magazine but the newspaper for the University of Colorado. Check out the article here.

Okay, I'm off to the white house.

-blogANDT

Bradshaw

The good thing about getting to meet Damon was that he actually was cool. He was genuinely intrigued by our questions and didn't come across as the jerk I had heard he could be. And you know, it didn't matter. He didn't have to be cool and for me it wouldn't have changed the way I thought of him one bit. He was a racer, not my friend. But I think it's strange for him. People are still fans, and I'm sure that feels good, but at the same time he must feel a little sheepish at the races. Remember, he was the guy who burned out, who choked, who blew it all. Who couldn't beat McGrath. Who spent all of Yamaha's money. I'm sure it's hard to walk around the races being known as the guy that should have been a champion.

Damon says he doesn't follow the sport much anymore, and my guess is it's because of that. The whole deal was so frustrating to him and to his fans. The highs were high but the lows sucked. It was pretty neat to be able to meet him somewhere in the middle.

-blogANDT

Bradshaw

It was an emotional night in San DIego. Both races were great, and 53,000 went home happy. But for me, my emotional cupeth runneth over long before the main events began. I got to interview Damon Bradshaw.

I could wax poetic about Damon. He came along just at the right time: he turned pro when I was 10 years old, the perfect age for a hero to come along. He finished fourth in his first 125 National, and then battled RJ and Stanton to a podium finish in his first 250 SX main event back in San Diego in 1989 - he was 16 at the time. That's like Bubba saying his life was all about January 2002, and making his American supercross debut on 250s and finishing third. Stewart is 19 and still hasn't delivered in the 250 class yet. By 19 Bradshaw was already a veteran in contention for a 250 SX title.

And the way he won races was just unbelievable. Bradshaw coined the term "winning with dirt on your number plate" and when he notched his first 125 Supercross win in Miami after crashing twice, but doubling through this huge table top section on a track made entirely of beach sand, there was no doubt he was the star of the future.

And that makes his story so intriguing. Bradshaw never won that supercross title, and he got burnt out and left the sport altogether. The baton to the future was handed to Jeremy McGrath and MC ran with it. Now Damon goes to the races occasionally and marvels at how much money is out there. He made his fair share, sure, but when MC holeshot the San Diego race and the crowd went nuts for the legend ... it's strange. If you were in Qualcomm, sorry, Jack Murphy Stadium back in 1989 you would have sworn Bradshaw would have been the legend 16 years later.

Instead Bradshaw was hanging out. He wasn't finishing tenth like MC, and isn't getting paid like MC, and the fans would not be as thrilled to see him as MC. But damn it I was. Bradshaw was Bradshaw, and anyone who saw him race in his heyday knows what that means. I did. And I was ten-years-old. Old enough to know what was going on, young enough to believe in it all.

The Bradshaw legend was sealed with me, and I didn't ever need to or even really want to meet him. Bradshaw was Bradshaw and that has nothing to do with me.

Look for more here tomorrow.

-blogANDT

Natural Selection

You can try to manipulate racing to create a great show. NASCAR does it all the time. They know the car makes more of a difference than the driver so they just make sure every car is restricted down to almost identical performance specs, put everyone on an oval track, and even throw in a pace car every half hour or so to make sure no one pulls away and dominates.

So big shocker that Sunday’s Daytona 500 featured a full-tilt down to the wire battle. How could it not?

Supercross is not the same. The rider makes much more of a difference than the bike, so the man with the most talent, smarts and the best work ethic will win everytime. You can’t put a restrictor plate on the rider, and you can’t make rule changes to ensure every rider trains the same number of miles every week. Michael Jordan was the best player on the floor every time he laced up his shoes. Jeremy McGrath was the best supercrosser every time he showed up at the stadium. Lately, it has been that way (again) with Ricky Carmichael.

Luckily Chad Reed has shown up to manipulate the racing in the most natural way: he has matched the talent, the smarts and the work ethic of Carmichael. And his will to win is off the charts. Really off the charts.

Let’s look at the so-called chart: it indicates that Chad should have given up by now. Ricky hung five-straight wins on him, including a straight-up duel in San Francisco and a systematic dismantling in Indianapolis. These are the basic ingredients that poison confidence. It’s why Ricky reeled off 13-straight back in 2001 when it looked like McGrath was every bit as fast. Then the rumors went into full swing on Reed: He was defeated mentally. His confidence was shot. His bike wasn’t performing right. He took the off-season off to head to Australia and lost focus. He lost too much weight. Blah. Blah. Blah.

This is why they say winning a title is one thing and defending it is another. Chad had to answer some tough questions every weekend, and apparently the attitudes in his own camp were the toughest. Read TFS’s interview with him from Racer X to hear how Chad’s wife Ellie told him he sucked in Indianapolis.

So instead of just laying down and chasing his huge paycheck, blaming his problems on something else or getting started on outdoor testing, Chad put his nose to the grindstone during the week. He tested for eight hours on Tuesday. He made himself step up, which happens so rarely in this sport.

Combine that with 18 different pace cars out there in the form of lapped riders, and Chad finally got the break he needed. Did he beat RC straight-up? Well, he passed him on the last lap, but no doubt all of that traffic played a role in him getting so close. But he made himself fast enough to be there when it counted, and he deserves all the credit for that.

And you know what? As good as that Daytona finish was, the San Diego SX was much, much better.

-blogANDT

Reed Wins a Classic

The cool thing about supercross is that, while one rider may be able to dominate week after week, you never know when you’re going to witness a historic night. And when the same guy wins every week, that means the opportunity for history to take place shows up every week as well. Because if the dominator finally gets beat, you’ll never forget where you were when you heard it or saw it.

And so it was for 53,000 plus people at Qualcomm Stadium, who witnessed Chad Reed run down Ricky Carmichael and beat him in the THQ AMA Supercross Series. It was a historic night, a thrilling night, and one no one watching the race will forget it.
The final battle came down to Carmichael and Reed, but everyone else in the 250 main had an impact. Jeremy McGrath grabbed the early lead and the San Diego crowd went nuts. Carmichael soon moved around him, while Reed, who said his missed a shift when going from second to third gear off the start, took two laps to get into second. By the time he got there over three seconds stood between Reed and Carmichael. Judging by the results from the last few weeks, this one was over.

But McGrath ended up making a big difference. A huge pack of riders caught the King of Supercross, but they could not get around him. McGrath held his position and the other riders didn’t force the issue, so they started stacking up. Eventually a ridiculous brawl broke out for the third place spot, with McGrath, Mike LaRocco, Michael Byrne, Heath Voss, David Vuillemin, Kevin Windham and Sebastian Tortelli all battling and passing and slowing each other down. Way down. Then by the time everyone had passed McGrath and could start racing again, the track had broken way down. After being hit by rain all weekend the track shaped up well, but some spots, especially the whoops, were really getting chewed up.

By the halfway mark Carmichael was well into lapped traffic, and those lappers were darting and weaving all over on the rough track. The gap was still around three seconds with nine laps to go, but then the lappers started getting really, really bad, and Carmichael was struggling to find the right line in the whoops while also battling lappers.

And here came Reed all full of fire. Looking smooth and aggressive like the old Chad Reed, the gap got closer and closer as the duo lapped such notables at Byrne and even Windham. The crowd began to cheer as Reed got close with just a few laps left. Then Tortelli veered hard left right off the track in the whoops and came within about a foot of totally cleaning Carmichael out. Basically no one except the lead two could get through the whoops clean, and it was wreaking havoc.

As the white flag came out the stadium was going nuts. Reed had caught Carmichael. Just as wild, RC and CR had actually caught the battle for third, between Vuillemin and LaRocco, and Carmichael found himself stuck behind both riders heading into a left hander. Carmichael left the door open, Reed stuck his #22 Yamaha in it and took the lead. Reed was then nearly taken down by his teammate Vuillemin as he lapped him, and Carmichael loaded up for one last ditch all-out charge through the whoops before the finish. Carmichael threw himself in there as hard as he could go and ended up crashing. He tried everything he had to get Chad back, but he couldn’t do it. Luckily he has a whole lap to get up before he lost second.

Reed had ended the win streak in one of the most dramatic supercross races in a long time. LaRocco crossed the finish line in third just a few bike lengths ahead of Reed. Otherwise the leaders lapped every other rider on the track. I know I said last week that if you aren’t Reed or Carmichael you might as well just enjoy the San Diego weather. Well, the weather was bad, and I had no idea the leader duo would be this far out front!

So was it just lappers that cost Carmichael? It seems it, but Reed was riding better than ever in this one. He said on Monday after Indianapolis he had a meeting with the Yamaha people to come up with a game plan and make his bike work better. Then he rode for eight hours on Tuesday working it all out. He came a long way, and it showed. You’ve got to admire Chad’s heart and will to comeback and win one of these.

Carmichael was gracious in defeat, saying he’s only human and sometimes he gets beat. And the two patted each other on the back after the race. The respect has grown tremendously between these two, and since they both nearly lapped everyone, it should.

Too bad the 250 race was so good, because the 125 race was awesome too, but it was probably overlooked. Ivan Tedesco was killing it in practice and in the heats, so when he snaked into the early lead in the main it looked like it was over. But Nathan Ramsey wouldn’t let him off the hook, and with better speed through the whoops he was able to even pass Ivan. “Hot Sauce” kept the heat on Nate Dawg all the way to the finish, but it was not enough, as Ramsey took a thrilling straight-up win. Andrew Short was third but admitted he didn’t have the speed for the two leaders.

Which is what everyone in the 250 class besides RC and CR has realized as well. What a spectacular, and memorable, night.

-blogANDT

San Diego Saturday (now with 100% less rain)

Some of the boys from the track here wanted to go to Mexico last night. Sounded like good times but we all secretly feared getting arrested and missing race day. I probably would have been fired from two jobs if that happened. So we were all scared to go but even more scared to admit we were scared, so it was hard to make a decision. Making me look even cooler was the fact that my mom and sister were hanging out after driving me from the stadium to the hotel. The other guys were too scared to go to Mexico. I was scared to go and worried I would let my mom down. Aww how cute of me.

Anyway someone finally piped up and put and end to the Mexico trip. So then I was free to hang out with mom, so I slowly cruised through the lobby, hoping not to be noticed walking with my mom. I was caught by D5 Prez and all-around mastermind Jeff Cernic, who wanted to tell me about his ride for the weekend: a fully-pimped out black Ford Excursion complete with 4 DVD screens (none of which Cernic knew how to operate) and 24-inch rims. So Cernic and the gang cruised to dinner in the pimped ride. I hopped in with my mom and sister.

Everything was delayed today due to rain, or the threat of rain. Okay not really everything. My buddy Jim Holley took the train and trolley all the way down from his house hours away so obviously public transportation was on time. But practice and the track walk and all that was held back a few hours. But the track is in awesome condition – a few soft spots but definitely not muddy. It’s just amazing what they’ve done with this place. So whoever your normal favorites are (like, say, um, maybe Ricky Carmichael) will be the favorites tonight.

Too bad. This afternoon Kevin Windham told us he’s trading in his nickname K-Dub for a new one today, SMR (Super Mud Rider). Unfortunately he probably won’t get to live up to the name. However, Kevin did look much happier this week than he did last time at Indy, where he appeared all super-bummed due to nagging injuries and a sharp drop in the points standings.

I wish I had a dollar for every SX or national that was supposed to be muddy and didn't turn out to be.

What’s the new buzz word in the pits? Corner speed. Now that Chad Reed is being accused of losing some corner speed from last year, everyone is trying to make up time in turns. Last week in the press conference Reed said corners where the entire difference between he and RC. Carmichael said no, there are more jumps than turns so there was more to it than that. Then Ernesto Fonseca told us today he needs to work on his corner speed. It sounds to me like the whoops have been replaced by the corners as the place to make up time.

And I’m not sure if any of that really means anything.

- I saw Sebastien Tortelli and Greg Albertyn chatting in the pits today. Those guys are so similar and yet so different.

- Bobby Kiniry is riding an ECC.com Honda 450 in the 250 class tonight. He beat Sean Hamblin in his qualifier. Hamblin is going backwards fast.

- Why don't any big convenience store chains go national? There are AM/PM ads and stores all over the place here. Just like Sheets back in Morgantown. Or Wawa ba. ck in jersey. L'il Champs in the Southeast. Besides 7-11, which I don't believe sells gasoline, no one can stretch coast to coast. But there's a Lowe's, Ikea and Office Depot right across the street from here. Just like they are everywhere else.

I can’t believe who is here. Not one but BOTH of my all-time racing heroes. I hope neither of them makes it on to our show tonight because I’ll nut up bad – even worse than when we had Bob Hannah on in Anaheim 2. Damon Bradshaw, the Beast from the East, and Gary Denton, the all-time ATV racing king, are both in the building. Holley tried to introduce me to Damon and I hid. I’ve been a fan of these guys for so long, I think it would be like Marty McFly meeting himself in Back to the Future. This just can’t happen!

Enjoy the Ricky and Ivan show tonight, and pray for rain or for a miracle if you’d like. Regardless, I hope you listen to our wonderful show tonight on supercross.cc.com. We’ve got tons of great scoops, including a great interview with Ricky Carmichael’s be-all end-all trainer Aldon Baker. It’s worth hearing for his accent alone (it's to die for).
I’m digressing. Have fun tonight.

-blogANDT

Mall Game

I have to leave, my mom is in the parking lot of the stadium. Yeah. It's like I'm being picked up at the mall back in 1992.

BUT!! I have found this photo of my man Thunderlite. Shot courtesy of my man Ray Gundy and GNCCRacing.com

Be back tomorrow if the parking lot bullies don't beat me up.

-blogANDT

Thunderstuck

Oh man. I'm leaving the press box to get some lunch when I run into THUNDER! Thunder is some crazy guy who I met last weekend at the GNCC in Texas. He was handing out his patented new product, Thunderlight, which is a nylon sort of covering for your fenders that prevents mud from sticking. It's probably like the Fender Skins that Scott Summers' dad used to sell, but don't tell THUNDER that, because he's been working on this invention for 14 years.

Anyway he's a wild character. He shook my hand about 17 times in Texas and handed me 30 or so business cards. I thought that was it. But then I'm leaving the press box here in San Diego and guess who comes flying out of the elevator carrying two McDonald's bags. "Jason! You want a doule cheese burger?" he yells. "I've got 40 of them. C'mon. We're going to take this place over. It's going to rain tomorrow!"

He was all pumped because if it rains, people will be tempted to use his Thunderlight things. I told him it might not rain, and he said it would because he is THUNDER AND IT"S GOING TO RAIN!

Okay. Here's his website: thunderlite.com. I'm a believer. PLEASE check out the video on the site, you'll get to hear my man Thunder in action. He also spins some serious donuts. And by the way it's getting very cloudy here.

I was also told to brace myself for this crazy deal in opening ceremonies tomorrow where he blows the whole stadium up. Several times throughout the night, in fact, he plans on blowing the stadium up. I don't even know how you do that? Maybe he will blow up several stadiums? Maybe only a portion of the stadium per explosion?

He'll have a few hotties with him this weekend too, and he offered one up to me if I had a hotel room. I'm hoping she is really hot and wears some of the Thunderlight nylon things. We'll see what sticks.

Oh God did I just say that? I think I've taken the cool aid. Plus, my producer Karin just said I'm not allowed to accept gifts do the girls are out. What was in that double cheese burger anyway. And what's this - an empty McDonald's bag in the Clear Channel show office! The whole staff has eaten Thunder's food. I'm feeling sleepy. So very, very sle......

-blogANDT

Rain, Out

Welcome to sunny San Diego. Where it is actually, well, sunny. But practice was cancelled anyway. The track is covered in tarps and there’s plenty of water on them from the rain they have gotten over the last few days. But today is very nice.

So who looked good out on the track today? Well, Butch, the San Diego Padres groundskeeper, was all over the place. He looked a little ragged at times, but he tried a lot of different lines, and he didn’t seem to be struggling with the ruts and the mud as much as you would have expected for a California guy. Meanwhile Jim, from the Dirt Wurx crew, was content to just work on a tricky triple-double combination section all afternoon. Looks like they have been revising the settings on the DC 209 all day long, struggling with the whoops.

Okay, the track is covered and I haven’t seen a single person on the field in an hour.
So there’s nothing to report.

This is a big weekend for me, because my mom and sister came into town for a vacation, and of course it coincided with my trip here, too. Plus they’re running the Sebring convertible so if I want to cruise in style with some ladies … I’ll just toss them out and find some. The good thing is they won’t read this because they won’t be near a computer for a week. So I’ll be digging into them all weekend long. Last night you should have seen them struggle to get in and out of the car when it was packed with luggage and stuff. Two door cars are tough on them, they really should have rented a six-door or something.

At some point I hope some bikes get out on this track. You don’t really want to hear about my mom and sister all weekend, do you?

-blogANDT

Just Dead

Check the time above. We're finished!

Now onto a jam packed day of work tomorrow.

-blogANDT

Deadline

Okay we're crazy up against it on TRP today because I decided to slack off by going to those races over the weekend. We're working late again. Which leads me to this: When is some marketing genuis going to hire ONE MINIMUM WAGE employee that speaks good english to work the phones at a Chinese restaurant? That's all it would take. Let the family who moved here and opened the restaurant run the place and make the food. But just have ONE MINIMUM WAGE employee answer the phone. This way you could place your order and tell then where to deliver it to with ease. And when you're looking through the phone book, they could mention that they have ONE MINIMUM WAGE employee who speaks solid english. I'm telling you, if you're choosing between the restaurants in town, and they all offer the same basic menu and prices, that ONE SINGLE person would make all the difference.

I can't believe how hard it was to get directions out to our building tonight.

-blogANDT

Bowled Over (it)

Too much TRP deadline today to post. It's nearly 10 pm and I'm still at work. Looking for relief and inspiration. Heading to the Fish Bowl....

-blogANDT

No Sleep ‘till San Diego

BlogANDT has returned to the Racer Productions office in Morgantown, and not much has changed. Including me. I’m still wearing the SAME clothes I had on in INDIANAPOLIS!

Here are some stats on my trip to Texas:
Hours in the state: 27
Clothing changes in the state: 0
Showers in the state: 0
Hours of sleep in the state: 1.5
Number of Lone Star flags seen in state: 1.7 million (approx.)

Luckily I did get a solid hour of sleep this morning while flying back to Indy from Dallas. So I was plenty charged up for the drive back to Morgantown today. I'm running “in the zone,” as they say. I actually haven’t felt that tired considering I slept two hours Saturday night and 90 minutes Sunday night. In fact, I feel smarter - and not just in an after-six-beers way. I have read that Einstein did his best thinking just before he fell asleep, so he would strap a lead ball to his arm when he was tired. He would hold the ball, get to the “smart zone” before nodding off, and then when he fell asleep he would drop the ball and wake himself up again. He would go on doing this for hours to maximize his genius.

I’m kind of afraid to sleep right now because this has to catch up to me eventually. Let me know if this post starts trailing off into sentences that don’t make sense. Right now though I feel like Michael Jordan did when he hit for 38 points in the first half of the 1992 NBA Finals Game One against the Portland Trailblazers, just shrugging to the scoring table and saying everything is moving in slow motion. It’s all coming easy. And did I mention I don’t want an ice pop? What? Oh you want to join the military. Yeah I was going to get the poster.

Bang!
The lead ball just dropped.

Anyway I don’t remember what I was going to write about. Yes, it’s all catching up to me. But that’s not what I was going to write about. Oh, oh yeah, today was Valentine’s Day. It just ended, and for those couples out there cuddled up to the warm glow of TheRacingPaper.com tonight, hey, you’re welcome. Unfortunately, circumstances intervened and there was no official Valentine's for blogANDT, but considering I’ve worn the same clothes in three states without a shower in between, that was probably for the best.

Special thanks to Steph Mac from the AMA for meeting me for dinner tonight in Columbus. However, it was not a Valentine’s dinner but a business one, especially as far as Uncle Sam is concerned. Yeah you know him, the guy with the car. He washes it with the movie. And now you don’t want to eat pickles?

Bang!
Lead ball dropped again.

Okay as a recap for the last few days I’ve seen people go from favorite to underdog, from questionable to undoubted, from undefeated to bummed, from unknown to unstoppable, and of course from sober to drunk and back again several times over.
Now while I’m in the zone I have to work on The Racing Paper for the next few days. By Thursday night in San Diego I’m going to be the smartest human being on earth.

-blogANDT

Kuntry folk welcome those from another country

Time for some kuntry stories of kuntry folk. I landed in Dallas this morning and headed out for Gilmer and the Lone Star GNCC. I was still wired on coffee and adrenaline from Indianapolis (it’s good that that place is known for its speed). Anyway I picked up the Pontiac Grand Am rental and pinned it East to Gilmer. While admiring such rustic road signs as “Gary the Agin’ Cajin’” and “Kuntry Store for kuntry folks,” I failed to notice the smokey hiding out under a bridge. Lights went on and bingo, he was after me. I was doing “over 80” in a 70 MPH zone. Considering I wasn’t driving a full-sized pickup (the only vehicle to drive around these here parts) and I wasn’t from around here, I was scared. Plus I didn't have my unliscened, unregsitered loaded handgun sliding around on the dash. So I expected to be Bar B Q'd over a spit or maybe dragged behind a pickup truck (full-sized). But the officer asked me where I was headed, and he liked hearing about dirt bike and ATV races. He gave me a warning and let me go. I kinda’ feel like a girl for not taking my ticket like a man. And for driving a Grand Am. My mom has one.

I got to the track by 10:30 and the announcing began like it had never stopped from the night before. As Bon Jovi sings in Wanted Dead or Alive, “Only the names have changed.” We did GNCC TV work and interviews and noticed how much fun we were having. I was afraid I would be over the whole GNCC thing after seven weekends of jet set supercross, but by the time I got into Chaos Canyon and watched 100 bikes scrambling up a rocky hill, roost and lines everywhere, fans going crazy pulling bikes up and cheering and screaming, I was smiling wide.

Props out to the media people who covered me while I worked the mic. “Rainman” Raymond Gundy and Shan Moore from Cycle News pitched in big time. Moore, incidentally, has taken my place as the 2004 AMA Sports Print Media Journalist of the year. That’s my award! Nerves were certainly at a pitch when we ended up bumping into each other, tumble weed was rolling and spaghetti western whistling could be heard in the distance. But I backed out of the draw since only Shan had a camera. I couldn’t shoot.

Onto the racing. The morning amateur race ended with a historic feat: Heather Wilson took third overall, the first podium ever for a Women’s class racer. Heather is as dedicated to her career and getting faster as any racer I have ever met. For real. She earned this one, and then in true girl fashion broke into tears on the podium. In case any of her female comp is wondering, the crying should prove she is legit in that class. Check out her website, cyringgirl, oops, crashinggirl.com.

The afternoon race turned into a battle of attrition. And the result was scarier for the comp here than it was for Davi Millsaps’ 125 East mates. Juha Salminen, the Finnish World Champion, in his first GNCC race in his first full season here, spanked them. He rode easy, but still won. KTM is pumped and everyone else is worried. Is this guy going to Shane Watts everyone?

Not coincidentally, it was another Australian, Glenn Kearney, who came home second on his FMF Suzuki. The two international stars went first and freaking second! This is the stuff PR hacks love, and the local Texas papers were just beside themselves that a Euro and an Aussie came to their town to race dirt bikes.

Mike Lafferty was third, Chuck Woodford was fourth and Steve Hatch fifth. Mike looked awesome, Chuck has never started the season even remotely this strong, and Steve was up and down as always but definitely trying hard.

What about everyone else? Barry Hawk crashed on a rock and kinked his throttle cable on the first lap. That's a huge, huge DNF for the title favorite. Jason Raines put in a hero ride though, he’s only been on the bike for a few weeks since shoulder surgery but he ground out a tenth. Rodney Smith was out with his leg injury (but still hanging out signing autographs) and Fred Andrews had a rock go through his RM-Z450’s radiator. Freddy tried to block pass about 10 riders early in the race and crashed into a pole, ripping off his radiator shroud and exposing it to those Texas rocks.

Juha not only has a win but big points over the contenders. Look out, people.

I’m in the back of the Pete’s RV typing this. GNCC madman Tommy Harris is wheeling the Grand Am in more civilized fashion behind us. Yeah, I get a rental car and a rental car driver! Destination Dallas, and then home by way of Indy.

Ah perfect. The Racer Productions caravan has arrived at the beautiful I-35 RV Park in scenic Waco, Texas. Unfortunately, we looked up Branch Dividian in the phone book so we could find a place to party, but it wasn't listed.

You wont find another state with more state flags in people's yards then Texas.

-BlogANDT

Suzuki Sweep (again)

Suzuki did it again! All of the bad luck and poor results the RM squad has experienced over the last few years, or decades, has been cashed out on a phenomenal 2005 THQ Supercross Season. Tonight in Indy, Ricky Carmichael reeled off his fifth win in a row by pulling away from Yamaha’s Chad Reed. And Davi Millsaps capitalized on all of the talent and potential we’ve been hearing about by capturing his first professional win ever – in Indy’s 125 class.

That’s twice now that the Makita Suzuki has won both mains this year. And that’s two more times than they have ever done it in any season before.

For RC, the competition has narrowed down to just one rider: Reed. Kevin Windham came into Indy limping after a rash of crashes over the last few weeks. Windham was actually dealing with some nerve problems in the leg he broke a few years back, so he was thrilled to just take a solid third tonight. As for Reed, the defending THQ AMA Supercross Champ actually bested Carmichael’s lap times in the final practice session –albeit by a 4 hundredths of a second. This set the stage for a war in the main event, but it never materialized. Carmichael slid past Butterfinger Crisp Holeshot winner Erick Vallejo to take the early lead, while Reed battled and banged his way into second at the end of the first lap. The gap between RC and CR stood at 1.5 seconds after that lap, but Carmichael would slowly pull away for the next 19 until he took the win. Reed said it was all about the corners and Carmichael’s speed through them. Carmichael said it was the whole track and not just the turns that helped him pull away. Who is right? Probably Windham. When Carmichael was asked in the post race press conference how he got through corners so well, Windham took out a Sharpie and acted like he was taking notes!

Reed vows to keep working and try to get his mojo back. As for points, he’ll need to get a ton of those because Carmichael is well over a full-race ahead of Reed in the AMA Series. Hometown here Mike LaRocco couldn’t duplicate the magic of his win here last year, as Iron Mike rode to a solid fourth while celebrating his 34th birthday. The fans were as pumped to see LaRocco win his semi as they were when Jeremy McGrath won his in Anaheim last week.

On a related note, the fans were supporting Carmichael, too. That’s a huge change from the boo birds that stormed this stadium (and Carmichael) four years ago.
On to that 125 East class. With championship and race winning veterans in the field like Grant Langston, Branden Jesseman, Matt Walker, Brock Sellards, Shae Bentley and Josh Hansen, the East looked wide open. But there was some fear that Millsaps would figure everything out and finally put his skills to work. Bad news for everyone else: he did. ‘Saps was faster than everyone by a wide margin in practice, in his heat and in the main. He jumped a tricky triple-triple jump section in practice, and when his competition tried to do it, the results were bad. Walker crashed hard and Sellards came up short a few times. Oddly enough, not even Millsaps ended up jumping it in the main.

A crash early in his heat didn’t stop Millsaps him from logging fast times while coming through the pack. Then he managed to grab a decent start in the main and went to work on Langston, who had taken the lead from Butterfinger Crisp holeshot artist Kelly Smith. Langston and Millsaps battled hard for a lap, but Millsaps eventually found his lines and pulled away. Langston admitted he got a little tight in his first supercross in a year, but he held off Hansen to take second. Hansen was third and Brock Sellards was fourth.

What’s this mean for the 125 East guys next week? It doesn’t matter. They all get the weekend off while the Western Region fires back up in San Diego. Carmichael will be there attempting to lengthen his win streak (another Suzuki record). Reed will keep digging to stop him. As for the rest, well, the weather will probably be really nice out there. Enjoy it.

I'm off to the airport: GNCC in Texas tomorrow. Word from the track is Chris Borich put it to Bill Ballance in an awesome ATV race this afternoon down there. The bikes are on tomorrow and I can't wait. Literally. My flight is outta here in just a few fours.

Indy Practice

Okay everyone, if you're running a fantasy team, you want Davi Millsaps on board. MTF's namesake was killing it in both practice sessions today, not only lapping about a half second faster than anyone else, but looking at ease while doing it. Now only one test remains: can 'Saps handle the pressure? The only other time as a pro he showed up at a race with everyone looking at him was Houston last year, and he locked up. Let's see if the sophomore is seasoned enough to handle it.

Grant Langston looked solid as well, but he never jumped the big triple-triple combination that Millsaps invented yesterday. Brock Sellards did it a few times and was barely getting over, and Matt Walker, of course, responded when the gauntlet was thrown down. He tried to jump it and crashed HARD. Walker is still racing tonight but I think he's beat up.

How about Jeff Dement being back in the states and winning his qualifier?

Reed had faster times that Carmichae in both 250 sessions. Good sign for speedy Reedy, as some people have been calling him. He needs to win one just to prove to everyone that he's not beaten mentally. And he's not. Chad has come too far and accomplished too much to submit to Carmichael by February. Heck, it was all over for him a few years ago against RC, too, and then he reeled off six in a row. Only men of strong character can bounce back from that. Chad's a bad dude.

I need to bounce back myself. It was a wild time in Indy last night, and it ended with a visit to the almighty White Castle. For those of you not fortunate enough to live in one of White Castle's royal regions of the country, you're missing high-quality mini hamburgers. I mean high-quality here. A few years back Farber offered a homeless guy a leftover burger and he denied it!

Anyway, I was smart enough to order just three White Castles last night (they're small, so to be a man, you feel like you need to order 20. That's how you end up with food for the homeless to reject). I noted that they're taking reservations for Valentines dinner there. No joke. Valentines at White Castle. Even the homeless guy wouldn't find that romantic.

Racing starts in half an hour. Enjoy the show at supercross.cc.com

Sleep Stalker

Well I made it to Indy at 4 a.m. after taking a few power naps in various truck stops. Luckily I didn’t have much cash on me or I could have gotten in some trouble. Lack of sleep led to a strange morning here at the RCA Dome. Jim Holley and I went on patrol for interviews with 125 East riders, most of them are faces we haven’t seen in a long time. Grant Langston is back, he’s a dad now and has spent the off-season making the adjustment from Red Bull to Monster Energy Drink. He looked …. energized. His teammate Stalker Matt Walker is ready too, and Matt seems to at least be talking about riding smart and staying consistent. If these boys can keep it on two wheels, Kawasaki could be looking as strong on the East as they do out West.

Except now, in the waning moments of the second and final 125 practice, Davi Millsaps just busted out a triple-triple combination I didn’t even see the 250 riders do. I didn’t see him string many hard laps together, but man that kid has talent.

But I turn my attention back to Kawasaki riders. I sent out a press release yesterday on the GNCC opener kicking off this weekend in Texas, and I mistakenly left out my boy Chuck Woodford. You may remember Chuck from such incidents as “Timmy Coombs and Chuck Woodford woke me up late on a Sunday night to play pool (see BlogANDT Novermber 22).”

Anyway, Chuck is coming in under the radar this weekend in Texas, and while he normally starts the season slow, this year he already has a win under his belt with a National Hare Scramble victory in California a month ago. Go get them, Chuck!

After Indy I’m catching a plane first thing in the morning to Texas for the GNCC. It’s gonna’ be an awesome year for GNCC.

Meanwhile there is a third race going on, the highly-controversial debut of Attack MX. It goes down this weekend in Phoenix, and all the elements are there: the race is for C/Novice riders only, there is a $40,000 truck on the line, and it’s muddy. I hope they have wrist braces for the yellow flaggers, because there will be some crashes I’m sure.

DMXS radio founder Kevin Kelly is there announcing the race. Check with Kevin on the DMXSradio site for photos, videos, all kinds of comedy (and some racing) during the weekend. A few minutes ago we had this three-way (hey, get your mind out of the gutter) IM session with Kevin there, me at Indy and DC back at the Racer X headquarters in Mo’town. All about filtering the word through to Racerhead, the best spot on the web. Besides BlogANDT.

And by the way, we did some quick math and saw that Bad Billy Ursic’s photo blog here is getting more hits than blogANDT. C’mon, I can’t let that happen. Tell your friends – this is the place to be!

Sorry, Billy.

It’s going to be a wild night in Indy. Brozik, British Jason, Hooper and his girl Leslie are making the trek here tonight, so we’re going to get our Hoosier on big time. Bad Billy and his blog will be here tomorrow along with Langers and D5 Vet fave Eric, uh, Eric. That’s all I know.

And what the hell is a Hoosier anyway?

Hey Ali "Hurricane" Mills: congrats on the big win last night.

I got in a quick word with Branden Jesseman for the first time in ages. Brando looks happy (at least for him). Suffice to say he's happy to be done arenacrossing. Considering he's back on Suzuki and wearing Fly gear, he looks like Brando '03. I think the arenacross time let him adapt to the RM-Z250 a lot better than he did in the nationals last summer. But you just don't know with the way things have been going for him lately. Same goes for his teammates Shae Bentley and Eric Sorby. Can you get a more erratic group than that team? Between the mental meltdowns, sicknesses and injuries those three have been dealing with they might need a bubble over the truck.

I’m pumped for this weekend? Supercross, GNCC and Attack MX. I’m so excited I don’t even feel tired anymore. Or maybe it’s because I’ve been eating Rice Krispies Treats and drinking Coke all day. Hey, you need fuel for big weekends like this.

I find it strange that they spell it Rice KrispieS treats when you know everyone says “Rice Krispy Treats.”

Finally, if you want to become super famous and get your name in the next issue of The Racing Paper, click this link and tell us what your favorite off season hobby is.

Over and out – blogANDT.

Roadtripicus Ridiculousicus

Excuse my mess, I've entered the threshold of the craziest weekend of the year. Supercross Saturday night, fly to Texas for the opening GNCC Sunday morning, work the PR front for GNCC Sunday night, fly back to Indy on Monday and drive back to MoTown. Somehow, that was the most practical way to do this.

We're slaving away on the next issue of The Racing Paper too, and that's due Wednesday. I should be on the road to Indy right now, but there's too much work to do so I'm stuck, and plus, the snow is starting to fall. Perfect.

If you hear me on the show Saturday night, it's a minor miracle. And if I'm still blogging by Thursday, well, then you know I can type even after my head has exploded.

This just in on a sad note:

Former 125 World Champion Gaston Rahier has passed away. Click this story to read about this great rider.

I missed a day. I feel bad.

I think the TVs we were watching the supercross on last night were broken. The V-Hold was all jacked up. It was like I was bobbing up and down and nodding my head incessantly or something. Must have been technical difficulties.

I stood up next to the TV at the bar so all the ladies would realize it was me on there and be impressed. I signed an autograph and this other babe shook my hand. Score!

You know what's bothering me? For the last year girls have been running those black librarian-style glasses with great results. It's definitely the hot look. The problem is the glasses work so well that it can throw you off - uglies can become hotties until you look closer. It's like the glasses make their vision better and your vision worse. And just imagine combining those glasses with a few glasses of beer. If Kristina the giant from karaoke on Friday had been wearing them I might have been seriously injured.

Ernesto Fonseca should start giving "how-to-fall" lessons to aspiring racers. Fonz crashes hard often, but he rarely gets hurt. Personally, I would rather learn how to crash and not get hurt than learn how to be the fastest guy on the track.

Besides a torn ACL last year (which must have been an elaborate insurance scam), Ernesto's injury record is spotless. And it's not like Nick Wey and Heath Voss, who don't crash and don't get hurt. No, Ernie pounds himself and comes back for more. He was the human highlight reel early in 2003, with spectacular flips and crashes every week. But by the end of the season everyone else got hurt, and Ernie ended up with six podiums in the last six rounds.

One of those '03 crashes, at Anaheim 2, was his patented over-the-bars forward flip. That move made its world debut in Dallas back in 2001, I believe. Ernie can flip completely over the bars, and you swear he's going to hit head first and get drilled by his bike. But he usually lands on his feet and gets up unhurt. It's easily as stylish and dangerous as anything thrown out on the X Games.

Then last week in San Francisco he was battling with Wey in a heat race and got out of shape over a triple. Even wondered what would happen of someone didn't pull a big whip back in time for the landing? I think this was it. He crashed hard, and he also finished fifth in the main. Last Friday in practice he clipped a whoop and went flying into the Angels' backstop, which was about 10 feet away from the track. But he got up and took fifth in the main again.

This sport would be so much cooler if we could all get up like Ernesto.

With the clumsy precision of an earpiecing with a jackhammer comes my debut on the supercross TV show tonight. Check your local listings. Or, check the list right here: ESPN2 10 p.m. - 12 a.m. EST. That's two hours of supercross insanity right in your living room! You'll buy the whole seat but only use the edge of it!!!!! Tickets in the Tread Head Zone just ten bucks!!! Who's a Ford fan!!!!!!!!!?????????????? GraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaveDigger!!!!!!!!!!

Consider that digresson the first commercial break we've ever had on BlogANDT. But the TV news is serious. Cameron Steele stormed our little broadcast booth Saturday night to tape the Suzuki All Access segment for tonight's show. We did the segment live on our show, so I believe it's the first time ever two mediums, TV and radio, crossed at the same time. Not just in supercross, but in the world. Did Joe Buck (TV) interview Marv Albert (radio) last night live during the Super Bowl? No way. Only we can handle that.

But about that clumsy part. I had no clue what was going on, since we had to wait for Cameron to get his cue before he could start talking, which meant the dreaded dead air for our radio show. So I just started talking aimlessly to fill space. Then it dawned on me that Cam wasn't wearing one of our headsets, so I thought our listeners wouldn't be able to hear him once he finally started talking. I was all worried trying to figure out how to get a headset on him, which would also mean two mics running at the same time. It would have been like George W. running that big backpack thing during the debates a few months ago. I don't even know. But Cam shrugged off the headset. Unbeknownst to me, we had his TV mic wired into our deal.

So in the midst of trying to fill space and figure out the microphone situation, Cam asked a question. I don't even know what I said. I think I threw myself under the bus to make my man Jim Holley sound smart. That's usually a good go-to move, just lob it up there for the big man.

We'll see how it all looks tonight. That's 10 p.m. Eastern time on ESPN2. Not like it's a big deal to mem by the way. I'm way above petty stuff like a 2 minute TV plug.

By the way we're having a big party at Keglers tonight here in Morgantown.

When it rains it pours in this sport, and right now Ricky Carmichael is pouring it on and reigning supreme in THQ Supercross.

Yeah that was a nifty little intro there, wasn't it?

Anyway Ricky's luck is good and everyone else's is bad. Witness: RC grabbed another great start and moved out quick, winning his fourth-straight supercross race (a new record for Team Suzuki). Meanwhile Chad Reed crashed in the first turn, Kevin Windham crashed out of the race on the second lap, and Jeremy McGrath crashed out on the third lap. MC and K-Dub looked shaken up and had to be attended to by the Asterisk medic crew, and Reed was suffering from a major (and literal) pain in the neck. But Carmichael now has a monster points lead, momentum, confidence, fame, fortune, heck, the Jonses are probably trying to figure out how to keep up with him.

As for Reed, his weekend went like this: He overjumped a jump on Thursday's press day and tweaked his neck. He struggled after that, crashing awkwardly in one practice and then electing not to ride the second practice today. But he rose to the occasion and scored a big heat win, only to get bumped and stopped and hit and eventually crash in corner number one in the main. Reed was a victim of the Anaheim Option, the split lane start. With half the field going one way and half the field going another, the track is only half as wide as the rest of the track through that section. There wasn't enough room for Reed.

Reed held his comments on the split start back, but Carmichael, even though he benefitted from it, said he did not like it.

After the crash, Reed proved his mettle. He rode with incredible heart to rally all the way back to second at the finish. Last to second!

Third came Kawasaki's Michael Byrne, who grabbed the holeshot and rode approximately 4 million times better tonight than he has at any other race this year. Where did this come from? Hey, we predicted it right here on The Racing Paper dot com and Blogandt after watching practice. Byrne was on it tonight.

Time finally caught up to the 125 class. After four different winners in the first four rounds of the season, Ivan Tedesco put a stop to the chaos by taking the win in the main. Hot Sauce is the first two-time winner this year, and he's the points leader. Last week's winner Billy Laninovich rode well for second, but he just didn't have enough for Ivan, while Nate Ramsey survived a brief fall to finish third. Andrew Short, Thomas Hahn and Ryan Sipes failed to finish. Bad luck is all around in this class, unless your name is Ivan Tedesco. He's reigning and pouring it on, too.

Durt Wurx has ground the Angel Stadium floor down to the concrete already - for the first time in a month the floor isn't being prepared for another Clear Channel Motorsports' event. We're done with Anaheim. See you on the East side next weekend.

Oh what an enjoyable Friday in Anaheim. It started with the most thorough haircut ever, as the cut job took 40 minutes, and it didn't even include washing. Since I was getting my haircut in Cali, I was considering a full-on Rip Curl bleach blond surfer combover, but Karla my stylist for the affair, was being too careful for that. And whatever she did seemed to work. Read on.

At night we I met up with Bad Billy Ursic at Dave and Buster's, meaning the two TRP blogs crossed paths. Billy's been riding a motorcycle from San Fran to Anaheim all week. Check out his photo blog for evidence of last night's kareoke fest.

Here's the verbal end. The only way we would be able to avoid waiting for a table last night was to eat in the "Show Room" which has a full-on kareoke stage and all. I volunteered my services for the team. While flipping through the song books I was greeted by a volcanic explosion of cleavage via some other girl who wanted to sing. Unfortunately, the volcanos were accompanied by, um, various other large elements. As fitting for someone her size, she layed it on thick with lines like "I'm basically a big whore .... (10 second pause to let me think about what she has just said) .... when it comes to getting attention, so that's why I sing."

She tried to bait me into conversation with the classic "Oh, I hope they have my favorite song" in hopes I would gleefully respond with "And what is your favorite song and by the way I'm available." But I wasn't falling for it. I said nothing. So she continued "Yes! They have I Touch Myself. I love that!"

Oh brother. So she sang her song and even added some guestures to illustrate it, and dedicated the performance to the boys at our table. Excellent. Then I ran a rendition of A-Ha's Take on Me, followed by the Wanted Dead or Alive (which, thanks to her, was basically true).

I avoided all traces of accidental eye contact with her for the next hour. Finally she headed to our table and dropped off a note: "I'll take you on. Love, Kristina." She threw in her #, of course. For fear of injury and missing tonight's show, I haven't called her yet. I'm playing really, really, really hard to get.

Yesterday's practice session was a sight. Riders were trying to jump over an entire whoop section heading into the home-plate turn, and Ernesto Fonseca clipped the last whoop and went over the bars. He ended up crashing into the Angel's back stop (not sure if that will be scored a wild pitch or a passed ball). So some track guy doesn't alert any flaggers, but instead moves a tuff block to the end of the whoops so anyone else trying to jump them, I guess will presumably crash too? A minute later Joe Oehlohf landed right on the thing and crashed. Meanwhile, Chad Reed was coming, hovering helplessly in the air as Joe tried to get up. He missed him by inches. Joe had a stern talking to with the guy who put the tuff block out there, and then they finally brought out some yellow flags. No one was hurt, luckily.

The 250's haven't gotten out on the track yet today, but Brett Metcalfe was the rider to watch in 125 practice. He was hyper-agressive, then got hooked up in a battle with Ivan Tedesco, who will for now on be referred to as "The guy all the 125 riders try to challenge in practice." Must be a number-one plate thing. Anyway Metcalfe only hung with Hot Sauce for half a lap. He looked less agressive after that. No worries though, mate. Since Brett is the only rider out there on a 125, he gets tons of press because every semi-knowledgable fan and reporter can say "you know he's the only one on a 125?"

You know who looked really good in the first 250 practice? Mike Byrne. No kidding. he nailed that "jump over the whoops" section better than anyone else. Ricky Carmichael looked good too, big surprise there. But the second practice is what counts. Lets see what happens there.

Over and out...

7,212

BloGANDT couldn't find an internet connection yesterday while in transit from West Virginia to California. Boy, is it far from home out here.

First, I decided to catch a quality dinner at Jack in the Box. Yes, I know that may not be possible. After cutting across three lanes of traffic and then beeping like it was everyone else's fault that the Jack in the Box was on the left and I was on the right, I pulled in. Driving was tough, but ordering the food was even harder because the entire counter was covered in bullet proof glass.

It was like a damn bank in there, except even banks don't run bullet proof glass on the inside. I had to slide my money through a tray and grab the food through a bullet proof glass door. How often does this place get robbed?

I started thinking they were due soon after the second guy came up asking me for change. Then it dawned on me that the glass will protect the workers but wouldn't do anything for me if tonight's thief showed up soon. So I was out of there.

I switched the radio on in the car and found a bunch of Spanish stations, then I finally found some progressive punk rock station that was playing the stuff I'll hear in West Virginia five years from now. They were building up this bike punk show at, and I quote, "some place called Asbury Park on the Jersey shore." Some place?!?!? Asbury is the home of Bruce "Greetings from Asbury Park" Springsteen! It's the home of the Stone Pony! It was the home of many a great family vacation from 1921 - 1964. It was even the home of my final night in the pro wrestling business, the infamous Wrestle Palooza in August, 2000.

Some place!?!?! Asbury is bad ass, they don't run need no stinkin' bullet proof glass on their fast food joints.

BloGANDT is totally laming out and just copying its column for the supercross.cc.com site verbatim over here. But don't feel slighted: they haven't even posted it yet, so you got the scoop first.

But as far as original content goes, this is as authentic as Cody, the GI Joe figure the Iraqi insurgents threatened to kill on Monday. But here comes the column. Hey, if Clear Channel tries to sue, do you think they have any good lawyers or anything?

Turn Tables

Somewhere between the era of hair metal and MC Hammer, vinyl records went out with the times, replaced by the CD. Yeah, I’m still bitter that CD prices never dropped like they were supposed to when the technology came of age, but people bought them up anyway. The record was technically inferior, and it couldn’t survive on theories like “I think music should have scratches in the background” or “people like getting that big jacket and artwork for their money.” The bottom line: the CD was better. Plus it was powered by a computer! (That was hot back then).

Unfortunately the CD’s time to go the way of vinyl is coming soon. MP3s, the internet and the iPod are making it look stodgy. The computer, in fact, has turned against the CD. And try all the excuses you want, like “people like to get their hands on something for their money,” you can’t stop progress.

Unless you’re Ricky Carmichael.

RC is the vinyl of supercross to Chad Reed’s compact disc and James Stewart’s MP3. Only he has managed to stopped progress. In fact, he’s reversed it. Ricky the turn table just turned the tables on his competition.

How else do you explain the monumental battle last Saturday night in San Francisco? Reed had proven his technical superiority over Carmichael two years ago when he took the champ down six-straight times at the end of the 2003 season. He threw in two U.S. Open of Supercross wins for good measure, as well. Technology had marched on.

But so far this year, RC has reversed the momentum. Things like this just don’t happen in this sport. Just ask Kevin Windham, who has been trying to figure out how to beat Carmichael, in vain, for eight years now. Carmichael summed that battle up like this during last weekend’s press conference: “I’ve been racing Kevin since we were on minibikes,” said Carmichael. “I know his strengths and his weaknesses. This is going to be between me and Chad. We’re the two guys.”

Carmichael has held Windham back for years, and history shows us once you get beat, it’s tough to bounce back. Once Bob Hannah got hurt and left three-straight supercross titles on the rocky shores while water skiing, he never could get it back. Once Ricky Johnson got hurt and lost the SX crown to Jeff Stanton, he couldn’t reverse the trend. And once Carmichael overcame McGrath, McGrath couldn’t stem the tide.

So when Reed bounced Carmichael a few times, and then took the THQ AMA Supercross Title while Ricky was injured last year, the guard, it seemed, had changed like it always does.

Sure, Carmichael went to work on his equipment with Makita Suzuki, but there’s only so much you can do with a relic. Strap on better speakers if you want, but Ricky still had scratches and pops that may not show up outdoors, but were glaringly obvious in a stadium. Reed, meanwhile, produced nothing but sweet music.

And then there’s Stewart, who just does unimaginable things. People are still coming to grips with his potential, which is still largely untapped. Unfortunately, he isn’t reliable enough yet for anyone to make a decision on him.

Which leaves the CD, Reed, against the record, Carmichael. And you know how this one is supposed to turn out. Don’t you have a collection of CDs at home? But this is one highly-refined record, and after a 20-lap duel head-to-head in San Francisco, Carmichael has actually reversed progress. He found a way to beat Reed.

Surely, someone will replace Carmichael for good one day. But for now, so much for progress.

Jason Weigandt would like to give supercross.cc.com a big plug for letting me steal this.

The people next door at MX Sports just got the mother of all emails:

Subject: race questins

When will yall be having the next race at yalls track?
Is there one befor the March Nashinal hiar scrable?

Please replay

Unbelievable.

Sometimes I am just blown away by the attention to detail around here. Did anyone notice I left "2004" in the date of all of these blogs until today? I finally noticed and fixed it this morning. It took me an entire month to realize I was still typing 2004 every day.

I have been really busy though. The GNCC Series opener is just two weeks away, and we've been pushing the press hard. Have you noticed? Here are some big headlines I spotted on the wire:

TORONTO, Jan. 31 /CNW/ - The Directors College today announced it is
launching three new specialized programs tailored to the needs of chairs,
directors and board committee members who want to gain specific expertise in
focused areas. The following programs include:
Governance and Nominating Committee Certified (GNCC) will concentrate
on the key responsibilities of these committees in areas including selecting
and ensuring adherence to the right governance principles and ethical conduct,
developing a robust board renewal plan and conducting effective board and
director performance evaluations.

Daboase (W/R), Jan 31, GNA - An official of the Ghana National Commission on Children (GNCC) has appealed to parents to protect their children by eliminating discrimination in whatever form among them. "If discrimination is allowed to continue among children, it could make them timid, less friendly and deprive them of their childhood". Mr John Hackman, Western Regional Coordinator of the GNCC said this at an end of year get-together at organised for 100 children at Daboase on Saturday.
Mr. Hackman said though no child trafficking case was reported in the area, a lot of children are engaged in illegal gold mining in several communities.

Curl up with a good match in Laurel
If you haven't seen enough ice yet, the Potomac Curling Club is hosting the top mixed curling teams from the East at the GNCC (Grand National Curling Club) Mixed Championship, Jan. 27-30.

GNCC is blowing up!

The time I'm not spending promoting GNCC I'm spending with the ladies. Each weekend at the supercrosses Clear Channel brings in a new Miss Supercross, and they are generally blonde hotties who just turned 18. Anyway I have to interview them for the webcast, and inevitably my interviews with them are so shaky that they never make it to the air. I ended the interview with Amanda, Miss Anaheim 2, by saying "good luck and have a good job out there." Have a good job! I said have a good job.

My skills are nothing compared to The Racing Paper Graphic Designer Jason Hooper.

I did find a nice catch this morning on AOL IM's Rate-a-Buddy program. There's a girl on there who doesn't look too good, but she does carry this description:

Dirt Bikin’ Darlin’
You just gotta love to watch a chick on a snowboard or a dirt bike - right?

Right. Anyway be sure to check out Bad Billy's Photo Blog, the new page for TRP's other editor. Billy has better chances of reeling in hotties and getting pictures of them than I do.

Correction: Just saw some Suzuki people in the lobby of our hotel (including Roger "Happiest Man on Earth" DeCoster) and got the word: Broc Hepler's arm isn't broken after all.

It was "almost broken" apparently: stretched and bruised and everything else that means it hurts but isn't broken. And he's apparently going to race next weekend in Anaheim. We'll see.

Yes I'm sober and yes this is true.

Goodnight.

It was the race you've been waiting for – especially if you’re Ricky Carmichael. RC and Chad Reed faced off mano-e-mano for twenty laps tonight in San Francisco, and this time Carmichael came out on top. But the race was as good as you wanted it to be: Reed grabbed the holeshot, while Carmichael battled past Mike LaRocco to get into second. And then the chase was on, Ricky stalking Chad ever so closely, both looking relaxed and confident in their chances. The fans, meanwhile, were anything but relaxed: they stood and cheered the duo around every inch of the track.

Finally, near the halfway mark, Carmichael used a simple inside line in the right hander after the finish to tuck inside and grab the lead. Reed gave him a fight through the whoops and into the first turn, but Carmichael was able to hold it and then begin inching away in the same manner he has done so many times to so many riders. But this meant so much more than most of those races. This time he was doing it to a rider who had beaten him many times before, and it would be a clear test of who really was the man to beat in this series.

Right now it’s clearly Makita Suzuki's Ricky Carmichael. Kevin Windham, who was right with Ricky in the points standings coming into this one, couldn’t pull off the come-from-behind magic that he had last weekend in Anaheim. After notching the fastest heat-race lap time of the night by winning heat one, Windham was making a move on LaRocco for third a few laps into the main when he fell in a corner. Ooops.

By then the pack had spread out, so Kevin had his work cut out for him moving up from 15th. He would only get to ninth, giving Carmichael a big points lead in the THQ AMA Supercross Series. He’s also got a nice edge on LaRocco in the THQ World Supercross GP.

But it’s not about points right now, it’s about firing the first shot in this battle everyone has been waiting for. After six-straight losses to close the 2003 SX Series and back-to-back U.S. Open defeats, Ricky Carmichael finally beat his rival head-to-head.
Both riders showed great sportsmanship after the race. Reed didn’t even look too rattled, and granted, he had even less momentum on his side the last time he started a winning streak. And Carmichael knows it’s not over, he said so much in the press conference, acknowledging that he’s been racing Windham for a long time, and he knows Kevin’s strengths and weaknesses. Ricky knows Reed is his main competition every time the gate drops in a stadium.

The 125 class continues to discover new heroes every week. After years of bad luck and unfulfilled potential, Amsoil/Chapparal/Honda’s Billy Laninovich rode the perfect race, pulling an early lead and leaving the comp behind. And behind they were. Defending series champ Ivan Tedesco, last week’s winner, had a good start but crashed with Nate Ramsey early. “Hot Sauce” kept his bike running and rolled out of the wreck about 15th, while Ramsey spent hours starting his KTM 250SXF and finished way back.

Tedesco climbed all the way to third at the finish though, while Andrew Short collected second for the second race in a row. Short looked much happier now then he did a few weeks ago when he was having all kinds of bad luck.

But no one’s luck has been worse than Billy Laninovich lately, but he finally turned it around in one fell swoop.

On the other hand, Broc Hepler is finally facing a test. A heat race crash resulted in a broken arm for Hep, and he’ll be out for awhile. A week ago he was an unlucky crash victim, a week before that he was a part of a Suzuki sweep by winning the Phoenix 125 main. Now he’ll have to bounce back from some major adversity for the first time in his pro career.

He should ask Laninovich for tips.

See you in Anaheim.

Yes, we're in San Francisco and supercross is on. It's a little late though because they don't have practice on Friday. SBC Park, the park that can't keep Barry Bonds' hits inside of it, has a parking lot seperated from the stadium by a draw bridge. The teams and riders have to get themselves across the bridge to get from pits to track, and that's not possible during Friday traffic. Clear Channel pulls some strings on Saturday though so it all works out.

Anyway all the rain they had here was held off by tarps, and the track looks mint. It's meeting time now though so I'm off.

Stop back by after the race.

Spike TV, "The First Network for Men" continues to break new ground. They debuted a new awards show, Autorox, which is an award show for cars (they launched the Video Game Awards last year). Spike was somehow able to find Camen Electra and Joe Rogan to host the show. Shocking because Carmen is never available (unless you count the 3 billion or so shows like this she has hosted). As for Rogan, he's the host/master motivator and pshycological counselor from Fear Factor. You might also remember him as the guy who led The Man Show to get cancelled and also hosted a terrible edition of Girls Gone Wild. But he was able to clear his schedule for this.

My buddy Timmy Coombs told me about the GGW tape.

Anyway my dad watched the show and sent me this note:

Just watched this Autorox car award show from Spike last night,
hosted by Joe Rogan and Carmen Elektra. Here's how it started:
Joe: All these cars here, and the best body still belongs to Carmen
Elektra!
Carmen: Joe, you're so sweet. But tonight, it's about the cars.
Joe: Yeah, and Carmen Elektra's ass!
Carmen: Woooo!

Hilarious!

Sounds like we may be in for another mudder this weekend in San Fran. But enjoy it if you're there. Mud might be the only thing that can cost Ricky Carmichael some points and get Chad Reed back in the chase. But if you're on the East Coast, there's an event for you. Our man in New York, Jeff Kocan, spotted this, the Idiotarod. It's like the Iditarod in Alaska but it uses people instead of dogs and shopping carts instead of sleds.

And in my last relative update of the day, I am now the proud owner of Bel-Ray V-Twin Lip-Lube (don't get carried away Joe Rogan style. It's chap stick.) Anyway my aunt works at Bel-Ray and sent me some as swag. I won't be sharing it with anyone out in San Francisco.

I was on DMXS last night, but it wasn't really anything worth listening too. At least not in comparison to last week's epic event starring Motormouth Larry Huffman. The DMXS boys gave him quite a run, essentially telling him to say random things just so they could hear it in his legendary style. Head to DMXSradio.com and listen to the January 19th show for a peek.

You know, after watching supercross on TV last weekend it motivated me to watch the rest of the shows. No, I'm not kidding. So there is only one logical solution when the shows are on during the same weekend times when you are at actualy races: TiVo.

Yeah, the VCR is still out there, but I've given up on it. I have a cryogenically frozen lab in my house containing every ESPN/ESPN2 broadcast of SX and MX from '89 through about 2002 (except for a few SX races from mid-1992, which were lost in a tragic tape snapping incident. See the December 15 blogANDT entry for a look back at this terrible event). Anyway, by '02 I was going to races every weekend and missing shows. You can set VCRs for time record, sure, but then the power inevitably goes out between Thursday when you leave and Sunday when the race is on and erases all record of setting the VSR. Or they change the broadcast times. Either way, TiVo is the solution.

So I'm running through the TiVo site today and I'm ready to take the plunge, to make the technoliogical leap from VCR to DVR. Then I note this sign on antiquity: "what you need to use TiVO" and it says a land line. Huh? See, I don't have a land line in my house. Why would I? I'm on the road every weekend and at work all day during the week. Once you find a cell phone company running free nights and weekends you have them suckered forever. Why have a land line, then?

Well, it turns out you really do need a land line for TiVo to communicate with the outside world and get the latest listings. Who comes up with this? This is the 2000's, people run cell phones. Am I just too technologically advanced for the latest technological advancement to handle?

And why can't the thing just communicate to the outside world through the freakin' cable that's bringing in the TV in the first place?

So anyway, I'll be setting my VCR for the San Fran SX this Sunday.

Iraq's election is coming up. Does anyone else feel like this is the 2002 Motocross des Nations in Competition Park? Plopping a historic, significant event in a place which has never held it, with a date set not neccesarily due to what's realistic regarding the progress made at the actual site, but what the organizers from afar have set. It's an ambitious goal, and if it worked, it would be spectacular, incorporating American success into foreign tradition. SoCal hosting the MXdN? Democracy in the middle of the Middle East? It's an idea that's time has come.

Let's hope the natives don't shut this one down like they did at Competition Park.

My annoying friend Tony Scavo did an interview with me on his website TonyScavo.com. Tony's a cool guy and a great photographer, and his girl Danya is an expert at the voodoo science of the internet (nee, Internet). He's not really that annoying either. This was the first time anyone asked me to give people advice. So I just said a bunch of stuff that's horribly wrong to throw everyone off. I don't want any comp.

Scavo has some cool wallpapers for downloading here.

Does anyone remember FMX original gangster Larry "The Wombat" Linkogle? He was always "the other guy" with Brian Deegan in the early days of the Metal Mulisha, but I haven't heard a thing about him in years. But he's resurfaced down in New Zealand. And he's on fire! Check out this story of the Wombat lighting himself on fire before performing a trick.

By the way, Fox is going to show highlights from Tony Hawk's Boom Boom Huck Jam during their day-long pregame festivities for the Super Bowl. Yes, that includes FMX, so tune it at noon Eastern on Fox's Super Sunday.

Good news for all of you Popeye Rubi fans out there. Oh wait, you've never heard of hi