DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – For the fifth-straight year, legendary Supercross champion Ricky Carmichael will challenge riders with his latest signature course design in the 2012 Daytona Supercross By Honda scheduled for Saturday night, March 10, the only AMA Supercross event in Florida this year.

“It’s an honor and a pleasure to design the course for Daytona, where there is so much racing history involved,” said Carmichael, who owns a record five Daytona Supercross By Honda victories. “The fans are great, and there is a great group of people working at Daytona International Speedway. I’m flattered that they continue to want me to keep coming back to design their race course. It’s a pretty cool deal.”

The Ricky Carmichael Signature Design course will draw some parallels to last year’s layout with the placement of the starting gate remaining on pit road and providing fans with a great view of the first turn. It will feature slight changes in the course’s configuration, particularly in the corners.

“It’s fun to sit down at the drawing board and to think of a design that will be fun and challenging for the riders, as well as exciting for the fans and for the people watching on television,” Carmichael said. read more »

As I made my way to the west coast for the last Stop at Anaheim SX for the year I had a good trip planned. Was a short trip but packed with great meetings on some things we are working on for ‘13 as well as a few other things for some sponsors.

Thursday evening we attended the Fox international sales meeting at their Irvine office to launch the all new Instinct boot to their international team. It was similar to what we did last week for the media. To say the least the International sales guys we pumped and love the new boot now that they finally had a chance to see it in person. After the launch, Fox hosted a great party at their office for the sales guys and some people from the moto industry. The vibe was great and everyone had a fun time.

Friday was packed with meetings for some really exciting things we have in the works for 2013. I can’t give you all the details on it at this time but it is something I have been wanting to do for quite sometime now and just have been waiting for the right opportunity and timing. After the day was done we went down to a local hot spot in Newport for dinner with some great friends. It was my self and Ursula along with long time friend Jeff Emig and his wife, Pete Fox and his better half and Tom Stevens and wife to be. It was a fun time, the guys had a great time talking old times and current things going on the wives gossiped about who knows what (shocker). read more »

To say the least it was a crazy week but none the less a really funny one and action packed. It all started on Tuesday in Southern Cal the Moto Mecca then ending in Nor Cal for round 4 of 2012 monster energy Supercross Championship in Oakland.

The week started out Monday flying to Orange County. During the flight I had an awesome tweet up with all of my followers. That was cool, had a lot of great questions and participation and it was great to see everyone’s outlook and opinions. I look forward to doing these a lot more and interacting with my fans. We landed in the afternoon and the weather was just starting to clear out. The plan was to head to our home base (where we normally stay) and get a quick mountain bike ride in. Next we were going meet Jeff (Emig) up in LA and head up to Buellton for the Fox ride day at Zaca Station. Fox Racing was hosting a ride day with the media to introduce the new V4 helmet and the all new Instinct boot. Fox wanted to have all the media ride in and wear the new product. I was there to give my feedback on the product and talk about my involvement with the R&D of the boot. The ride day ended up getting postponed a day because of the rain they got so it was great time to meet up with a great friend Johnny O’mara and Nicky Hayden for a couple hour bike ride. It was a great ride and we had some good talks as well during the ride. After that I headed to Monster Energy headquarters to visit all the people there, which is always fun, before meeting Jeff at Pro Circuit so we could drive together up to Zaca Station for the Fox ride day. read more »

I don’t know what it is about Chase Field but I have always enjoyed going there and even when I was racing I always had a great time racing there. That place always produces good races and a lot of excitement and it lived up to its past this weekend. I got in on Friday afternoon in time for our Speed TV production meeting. With the racing as good as it’s been it’s our job to help put on a great show for all the fans watching at home and I really enjoy being a part of the show. After I had a great dinner with Fro and Travis (one of the guys from my video game company 2XL Games).

I really didn’t know what to expect coming in to this weekend other than just speculating off of what I had seen during round one, I just basically wanted to see what kind of reaction the guys would have for the winners of Anaheim. It’s hard for me to predict the weekend’s outcomes early in the season because I don’t feel that everyone is in their groove and are still trying to find their zone and are just too inconsistent for me to make a solid pick. read more »

Finally here. Opening round of the 2012 Monster Energy Supercross Championship at Anaheim.

After all the anticipation and talk about another great season ahead of us the time was here. I got out there the Wednesday before hand to visit the people at Oakley and Fox which is always worthwhile and great to see everyone. I also to attend the pre race press conference on Thursday before Saturday night’s event.

It was a great start to the weekend, weather was awesome and it was really cool to see all the faces of the sport and the great fans as well, it seems to me that every year the paddock gets more packed with big rigs, sponsors and of course fans which always refreshing to me to see the growth.

With all that said I want to get in to the good part and the part I been waiting for the most and that is race time. As practice got going it seemed that it took some time for the track to come to life, I don’t think it was best track that Anaheim has seen in years past but was still good to see the riders out there ready to race. I watched a few practices from down on the track while I was walking around and really got to see up close how guys looked and how their bikes were working so I think that really helped me on making my predictions for the race and who I thought would be race winning contenders. read more »