“While we’ve already had an incredibly memorable season with Ryan Dungey emerging as the star of the future, the return of James Stewart provides a captivating storyline as we close out the season and head toward crowning a champion,” said MX Sports Pro Racing Vice President Davey Coombs. “Ryan appears to be on his way to making history, and by adding James to the mix, it will be a must-see turn of events as arguably the two biggest names in the sport right now battle it out.”

2010 Lucas Oil AMA Pro Motocross Championship: Standings at round 8

450 Class Championship Standings
Ryan Dungey, Belle Plaine, Minn., Suzuki, 368
Andrew Short, Smithville, Texas, Honda, 273
Brett Metcalfe, Australia, Honda, 257
Josh Grant, Riverside, Calif., Yamaha, 238
Ben Townley, New Zealand, Honda, 223
Mike Alessi, Victorville, Calif., KTM, 219
Chad Reed, Australia, Kawasaki, 204
Ryan Sipes, Flaherty, Texas, Yamaha, 166
Kyle Chisholm, Valrico, Fla., Yamaha, 158
Kyle Regal, Kemp, Texas, Honda, 157

250 Class Championship Standings
Christophe Pourcel, France, Kawasaki, 340
Trey Canard, Shawnee, Okla., Honda, 302
Dean Wilson, Scotland, Kawasaki, 294
Tyla Rattray, South Africa, Kawasaki, 286
Justin Barcia, Ochlocknee, Ga., Honda, 212
Blake Wharton, Pilot Point, Texas, Honda, 209
Broc Tickle, Holly, Mich., Yamaha, 209
Eli Tomac, Cortez, Colo., Honda, 200
Jake Weimer, Rupert, Idaho, Kawasaki, 195
Martin Davalos, Ecuador, Yamaha, 163

Motorcycling Australia (MA) has announced the team that will represent Australia at the 2010 Motocross of Nations (MXoN) to be held in Colorado, USA on September 26th, 2010.

Australian Team – 2010 Motocross of Nations:
MX1: Chad Reed
MX2: Dean Ferris
MX3/Open: Brett Metcalfe

Reserve: Jay Marmont
Reserve: Kirk Gibbs

As recently announced, the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM) regulations stipulate that in 2010 the maximum age for the MX2 class rider is 23 years, meaning that riders born before 1 January 1987 were not able to be selected for the MX2 class.

The 2009 MXoN was claimed by the USA, represented by Ryan Dungey, Ivan Tedesco and Jake Weimer, while Australia will be looking to better their seventh place finish when the 2010 event takes place in September.

For more information regarding the event visit the event website at www.redbullmxon.com.

His slow healing wrist injury has so far prevented his return to racing the 2010 AMA Motocross Championship. However, James has been focused and determined to join the series just as soon as humanly possible. Currently James now has his head down in an attempt to get back up to racing speed in the coming few weeks.

James Stewart 2010

Motosport

Rocky Mountain MC

The wait is over as some of the worlds greatest Freestyle Motocross Riders return to Australia for the Crusty Demons, Beyond the Apocalypse, regional tour for 2010.

Jackson “Jacko” Strong will headline the first show at Gosfords Bluetongue stadium as he attempts to perform the dangerous front flip. Strong broke his arm in January when he missed a ramp during an exhibition in Sydney. He’s again fully fit and is ready to attempt the front flip for the first time on Australian soil. Kain Saul will also make an appearance at Gosford where he will back flip a Harley Davidson XR1200. Saul is the only one ever to perform this trick.

The Darwin show will be headlined by Blake “Bilko” Williams and Cam Sinclair. Cam has now recovered from near fatal injuries performing his double back flip in Spain last July. “I have no doubt I can land the double back flip again, I have watched footage from Madrid over and over again. I know where I went wrong. I just can’t wait to start working on them again.”

Riders

The line up for the Crusty Demons regional tour 2010 will include Seth Enslow, Caleb Moore, Ben Fiez, Myles Richmond, Matt Schubring, Joel Balchin, Josh Seehan, Rhys Hillier and Chris Jones.

Tour dates

Sat April 17, Bluetongue Stadium, Gosford
Sat April 24, TIO Stadium, Darwin
Sat May 15, Salter Oval, Bundaberg
Sat May 22, Cazalys, Cairins

Then there’s reality, you get out on the track and try to clear a jump, say a table top for starters but your not really sure how much power you need to clear it. You pin the throttle and hit the ramp only you’ve jumped way to far and had your weight to far forward. You end up nose diving and knowing what your in for pin the throttle in the hope that the rear end will drop and you’ll land safely. Nope, at best you’ll be limping around for a couple of days.

After a while you learn to gauge how far you need to jump to land on the down ramps and your getting pretty good. Someone forgot to tell you about ruts on jump faces though and for some reason the bike kicks sideways of the peak of a ramp and you are all crossed up when you land, oh no, here comes that soil sample again.

How do you become a better dirt bike rider? Ride your bike. Take your time when trying new things and build up to them slowly, knowing what you can and can’t do. Think about what people tell you and take everything you read online with a grain of salt. Watch what the faster riders do on the track, look at their body position, listen to what the pro’s have to say. You probably won’t put any of it into practice until long after you knew about it though.

Unfortunately the most important lessons are those we learn the hard way, like the things I did when learning to jump the I mentioned in the beginning of the post. You can’t just get advice on something an expect to go out and do it straight away. When your able to do things it will come naturally and you will then release what you should have been doing all along was something you had been told or read about before.

So reality aside what advice can I give you?
When learning to jump keep your body in the attack position central to the bike, try to stay relaxed, you’ll most likely become a statue in the air though. Start with table top jumps and gradually work your way to jumping the full distance. Keep the bike in a higher gear rather than under power and keep a constant pace don’t back off but give the bike a little more power just before taking off.

When cornering try to put your leg out straight, don’t dangle it down or sideways. Sit on the opposite side of the seat to the direction you are turning, lean the bike and push against the outside of the bike and down on the outside peg. Power out of the corner from the apex. Make sure you’ve got good tires on the bike and practice pinning the throttle to get a feel for the rear end slide.

Use your legs to steer the bike and point your toes in to grip the bike over rough obstacles. Shift your weight off the seat and to the opposite direction to steer the bike while standing.

Keep your weight way back when braking to get maximum traction. Practice taking the inside line and braking harder if you usually take the outside.

Make adjustments to your suspension in small increments if you think it could be better. The more you play around with it the better you’ll get, but be careful as the wrong adjustments can be very bad for the bikes handling, if not dangerous. I increased the compression dampening so I didn’t get as much spring when learning to jump and not quite making the distance. This was great, only problem was now I had head shake in the front end at high speed. Not so great.

“I set the fastest lap in Daytona, so I know I have the speed,” said Reed. “I’ve been riding as much as I can and trying to stay in shape for my return. This week should be a fun one for me.”

The win for Reed won’t come easy as the series points leaders Villipoto and Dungey will have something to prove. If Stewart turns up as well it will make for some very exciting racing.

“I’ve had a good couple of weeks of training,” said Villopoto. “I know it isn’t going to be easy to win the title, but I’m going to try and win out and hope things go my way.”

Dungey, a rookie in the premier AMA Supercross class, has four wins on the season and nine podium finishes. His consistency through the first 12 races has paid off.

After making his recovery Cam once again got the chance to perform and as an added bonus it just happened to be in front of his home crowd.

“It was so great to get out there again and ride in front of a crowd. I’ve been training at my setup at home, but there’s nothing like hearing the crowd cheer for you; that’s something I missed the most since my accident in Madrid,” Sinclair said.

Cam is now the first person ever to ride a motorcycle on the hallowed turf of Melbourne’s landmark sporting arena, which is estimated to be worth $1000 per square meter if damaged.

“I’m still amazed they allowed us to ride today,”, “I was so careful not to damage the grass and everything worked out perfectly”

Sinclair will return to competition at Round One of the Red Bull X Fighters, in Mexico City, Mexico on 17 April.
Sinclair’s FMX career has hit new heights in recent years. In 2008 he set a Guinness World Record for the longest distance ever back-flipped on a motorcycle (129 ft) and soon after became the third person ever to land a double back-flip on a motorcycle. Sinclair’s long list of recent achievements include:

World record longest back-flip (129 FT)
World first double back-flip in a competition run (Texas, USA 2009)
4th Red Bull X Fighters FMX World Championships (Mexico City, Mexico 2009)
3rd Red Bull X Fighters FMX World Championships (Texas, USA 2009)
Most double back-flips ever landed to date (25)
Current Australasian Dirt Bike Magazine FMX rider of the year
2009 AFMX Awards ‘biggest slam’ winner
Star of ‘Crusty Demons World Tours’ (2004 – Current)
Star in upcoming ‘Nitro Circus Live Tour’

Come join motocross superstar, X Games gold medalist and Guinness World Record-holder for highest air.
Load up the trucks, bikes and haulers and come be a part of the action. It’s not everyday you get to ride and party with the best. There is no rigorous schedule, no info booths and no egos … just pure freeriding.

Ronnie Renner Free Ride Tour