Vital MX Monday Headlines




 Unfortunately, Davi's sidelined with a broken femur, but if you're craving a new wallpaper of 118, you can download the one that fits your monitor the best.


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Now that the U.S. Open is done and gone, it's that time of year where things shift from the weekly routine of travel and racing for the pro teams, riders, and fans, to a mode that offers fewer bright lights and glamour, and no less hard work. This is when everyone's focus (if it hadn't already) shifts to working even harder on their Supercross program. Racing the stopwatch, and grinding out laps. Working on speed through the whoops, dialing in suspension settings, and practicing their imitation drink sips for podium appearances. (Hey, the NASCAR guys perfected it…and like it or not, we've adopted it.)


Unfortunately, it's also the time of year for injuries. Davi Millsaps was a victim of pre-season practice crash last week, that resulted in a broken femur. That's one of those injuries that makes you cringe just to think of. But at the same time, you can breathe at least a small sigh of relief that it wasn't any sort of spinal or cervical injury. (Get well soon, Davi.)

Team Honda has had a rough year in '06, with a career-ending injury to Ernesto Fonseca, Andrew Short's knee trouble (and a potentially lengthy recovery), and now Davi's femur. At the moment, Tommy Hahn's all alone in the big rig, and it'll be interesting to see what moves the Honda squad can or will make as they eye the '07 season. It looks like Travis Preston will still be Honda-mounted (though outside their big rig), and there aren't a large number of riders with either the talent or availability to make the jump, even if Honda wanted to do it.

Hopefully you caught (or recorded) both the U.S. Open, and the Jeremy McGrath Invitational on CBS and NBC last weekend, which might hold you over a little. From the chatter we've seen on a few message boards, people seemed to dig the shows…and a few were using the HD coverage as a way to pitch stepping up to a new HD TV for the '07 season.

It's now less than two weeks from the start of both the BooKoo Arenacross and Toyota AMA National Arenacross series, so watch for a flurry of announcements from both sides, touting their riders, teams, and sideshow attractions. We like the sound of BooKoo's track walk for fans, as well as their newly added 150 series that's sponsored by Honda. Add in the previously announced pit bike racing, and you're looking at one very full night of racing. They also have their U.S. Open of Arenacross at the final series race in Uncasville, CT, with a $100,000 purse, and $50,000 to the winner.

The BooKoo schedule looks like this:






















November 3-5 Fresno, CA
November 10-12 Salem, OR
November 17-19 Yakima, WA
December 29-31 Fort Worth, TX
January 5-7 Reading, PA
January 12-14 Chicago, IL
January 19-21 Fort Wayne, IN
January 26-28 Guthrie, OK
February 2-4 Minneapolis, MN
February 9-11 Uncasville, CT

Their site is racearenacross.com

On the AMA side, you've got the lure of advancement points to AMA Supercross, and a regional series that has been merged into the National schedule. There are also races scheduled at different locations on the same weekends, which work like this…the National series dates have more prize money, though the regional races offer the same points, so you might see some cat-and-mouse games of "Who's going where?" during the season. The four regions (North, South, East, West) offer up regional number one plates of their own. You can find out more at www.arenacross.com.






























November 3-5 Des Moines, IA
November 10-12 Albany, NY
November 17-19 Reno, NV
January 5-7 Grand Rapids, MI
January 5-7 Charlotte, NC
January 12-14 Baltimore, MD
January 19-21 Dayton, OH
January 19-21 Pikeville, KY
January 26-28 Denver, CO
January 26-28 Louisville, KY
February 2-4 Springfield, IL
February 16-18 Nashville, TN
February 23-25 Wilkes Barre, PA
Mar 9-11 Greenevile, SC

We've seen some message board volleys about whether RC taking up stock car racing will boost interest among motocrossers. While we can only dream about the amount of TV time that they get, their driver's star power, or the quantity of fans that they can put in the stands, we'd guess that once some of the initial grumbling dies down, MXers will watch. Even as RC progresses through some of the lower rungs of the NASCAR ladder, we'd be more likely to tune in...we actually now have a reason to care. And if you think Nextel Cup drivers are oblivious to Supercross, you'd better re-think that. RC fielded phone calls from quite a few drivers after he made his MB2 announcement.

Travis Pastrana and his co-driver, Christian Edstrom (who is possibly the bravest man in the world), wrapped up the 2006 Rally America title in their Subaru Impreza WRX STI, after his closest pursuer in championship points crashed out of contention. Travis' teammate, Ken Block, took the win for the weekend, and is closing in on second overall in the season standings.

In our last auto racing reference for this week (I swear), if you're an F1 fan and feeling a little down about Michael Schumacher's retirement, you can read this L.A. Weekly article about the Mike Goodwin murder trial, and suddenly things will probably seem a whole lot better (and a lot less contentious) than even the recent AMA/Clear Channel/Jam battles.

There's no doubt that Goodwin was flashy. I saw him show up at his own events in a variety of pimped-out rides like a Clenet. One year at the LA. Coliseum I spotted him in the days leading up to the event rolling around in a decidedly less stylish vehicle…as he was face-down on a gurney, healing up after a road bike accident that had ground off considerable portions of his backside.

Growing up I also got to watch Mickey Thompson drive vehicles as diverse as a funny car, stock car, and a small Mazda pickup that had a huge V8 stuffed into the bed. He was definitely motorsport hero material.

Whether or not Goodwin will be convicted I couldn't say. But I'd guess that there were very few people who'd heard of their back-and-forth lawsuits back in the day who didn't think he was involved in some way as soon as they heard that Thompson and his wife had been murdered. Now we'll have to see what the prosecutors have for evidence, and what a jury thinks.

And on that pleasant note, it's time to wrap this up for the week. Be sure to stop back throughout the week, as we've got some cool stuff in the works. And if you haven't signed up for an account on Vital yet…what the heck are you waiting for?

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