Syndicate Moto

AURORA, Ill. (October 2, 2007) - From Hurricane Mills, Tenn., to Ponca City, Okla., Lake Whitney and Oak Hill, Texas, and from Gainesville, Fla., to Las Vegas - athletes from the nation’s foremost proving grounds for amateur arenacross racing will all converge on Las Vegas’ MGM Grand Garden Arena for the annual running of the Amateur Arenacross World Finals October 14, part of the Rockstar Energy Drink U.S. Open weekend.

Racers bearing such prestigious titles of Loretta Lynn’s Amateur National MX Championship, Ponca City, Mini O’s & Vegas Mini GP qualifiers - along with qualifiers from the actual four Toyota AMA Arenacross Series regions - have been invited to compete for bragging rights for the Amateur Arenacross World Finals, a title synonymous with “Who’s next?” in the sports of motocross and supercross.

“The Amateur Arenacross World Finals is one of the major steps for riders in making the transition from arenacross greatness to supercross,” said Jayme Dalsing, director of arenacross for Live Nation. “For many kids this is, along with the Toyota AMA Areancross Series regional races, the first time they’ll race indoors - and certainly the first time they’ll face the competition of this caliber in an arenacross-style format.”

The top riders from the Toyota AMA Arenacross Series regions (North, South, East & West) have all received invitations to compete at the Amateur Arenacross World Finals based on their points standings in each region. The Sunday racing at the Rockstar Energy Drink U.S. Open will showcase the sport’s top arenacross. This will no doubt make for one of the more impressive amateur gates assembled all year, giving fans attending the Rockstar Energy Drink U.S. Open a good reason to attend another exciting day of racing at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.

“We can’t stress enough how important the Amateur Arenacross World Finals have become to the amateur racing community,” said Dalsing. “With the format in place for Toyota AMA Arencross Series being a stepping stone for AMA Supercross, the Amateur Arenacross World Finals championship has become a highly-coveted trophy for those racers who have the skill and determination to make it to the next level.”

Of the nearly 350 riders competing in this year’s Amateur Arenacross World Finals, some notable returning champions this year include: Logan Karnow (85cc 7-11), Darren Walsh (65cc 10-11), Justin Cooper (65cc 7-9), Jay Hershey (25+) and April Roper (women).

Tickets for the entire Toyota AMA Arenacross Series are available online at www.Arenacross.com, www.Ticketmaster.com, www.Tickets.com . For more information on the Toyota AMA National Arenacross Series log on to www.Arenacross.com.

About Toyota AMA Arenacross Series
In its 24th year, the Toyota AMA Arenacross Series, owned by Live Nation, is the premier indoor motocross series in the U.S. playing to sold-out arenas nationwide. Information on the Toyota AMA Arenacross Series events may be found at www.Arenacross.com. Live Nation is the world’s largest live music company. Our mission is to inspire passion for live music around the world. We are the largest promoter of live concerts in the world, the second-largest entertainment venue management company and have a rapidly growing online presence. We create superior experiences for artists and fans, regularly producing tours for the biggest superstars in the business, including The Rolling Stones, Barbra Streisand, Madonna, U2 and Coldplay. Globally, we own, operate, have booking rights for and/or have an equity interest in more than 160 venues, including House of Blues music venues and prestigious locations such as The Fillmore in San Francisco, Nikon at Jones Beach in New York and London’s Wembley Arena. Our websites collectively are the second most popular entertainment/event websites in the United States, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. In addition, we also produce, promote or host theatrical, specialized motor sports and other live entertainment events. In 2006, we connected nearly 60 million fans with their favorite performers at approximately 26,000 events in 18 countries around the world. Headquartered in Los Angeles, California, Live Nation is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, trading under the symbol “LYV.” For more information regarding Live Nation and its businesses or concerts near you, please visit our website at www.livenation.com.

About AMA Racing
AMA Racing is the competition arm of the American Motorcyclist Association and is the leading sanctioning body for motorcycle sport in the United States. Its professional properties include the AMA Supercross Series, the AMA Toyota Motocross Championship presented by FMF, the AMA Superbike Championship presented by Parts Unlimited, the AMA Ford Quality Checked Flat Track Championship, the AMA Supermoto Championship and the AMA Pro ATV Championship. In amateur and pro-am competition, AMA Racing sanctions over 4000 events in 24 different disciplines and supports over 110 thousand active members. For more information about professional racing, visit www.amaproracing.com. Accredited media outlets can also access an on line Press Room at www.amaproracing.com/pressroom. For amateur racing information visit www.amadirectlink.com/amrace/amasports.asp.

AURORA, Ill. (Jan. 24, 2008) - The three-successive Toyota AMA Arenacross Series split weekends to begin the 2008 portion of the season gave way this weekend to one, two-night race at Louisville’s (Ken.) Broadbent Arena as Round 10 of the 2007-’08 Toyota AMA Arenacross Series gets set to tee it up for what will be the hottest motorsports ticket in the region this weekend.

As those close to the Toyota AMA Arenacross Series pointed out last week, the championship race hasn’t been this close and this exciting - with a total of three racers vying for the lead - in quite some time.

However, with the good comes the bad and it is that the Toyota AMA Arenacross Series will have to do without its defending 2006-’07 champion - Bad Boy/TUF/Honda’s Danny Smith - for a yet-to-be determined amount of time. Last weekend at Dayton’s Nutter Center, Smith broke his collarbone and it looks like he will not be able to defend his title.

Coming out of the whoop section, Smith lost the rear end of his bike during practice last Saturday, high-sided, lost the bike - then landed back on top of it.

“The bars stabbed me right in the collarbone and it broke, I worked so hard to get ready for this season, to defend the title - it’s really disappointing. This is the first bone I’ve broke in eight years. But it could have been worse. I’ll be there watching it go down from here on in.”said Smith.

Reportedly, his doctor said: “Six weeks minimum - with or without surgery.”

Smith said that one of the reasons for his rough luck this year was the way he had to adjust to the new 250F rule. Though he agrees with the concept, he was one of a few riders - including Robbie Reynard (Reynard Modifications/Suzuki) - that’s had a tough time adjusting to the what he called the “all out” racing on the 250F versus the 450F, which Smith said was “more my style.”

“I knew it was going to be harder for me coming into the season,” he said. “I had some good races, and some not-so-good races. But the bottom line was I struggled and never could quite get it going.”

Smith’s team owner, TUF Racing’s Dave Antolak, backed Smith 100-percent throughout the year. “Danny’s riding real well. He’s bummed about his results, but we’re not bummed about him. You need some luck in racing and this has just not been his year.” Antolak said that last week and it rang true again in Dayton. Smith was some 70 points off the podium pace (219-149) behind Brock Sellards (Monster/Babbitt’s/Kawasaki) after the Dayton round and his return, if possible, would be more for pride than anything else.

We put Smith’s feet to the fire and asked him what his take was on the Chad Johnson/Kelly Smith/Brock Sellards title chase. “I definitely see it coming down to the wire -at least as close as it was last year,” he said. “Chad won’t run away with it. Maybe he could if there was one guy, but not two. He’ll (Chad) have to work harder because Brock’s been beating him out of the gate pretty consistently. And we all know how important starts are in arenacross. But Chad’s been fast for sure.

“The guy that eventually wins will get the advantage with the starts and he’s got to have it right upstairs.”

Last year at Broadbent Arena, Carolina Xpress/Suzuki’s Jim Neese won the Toyota AMA Arenacross Series’ opening night main event while Ohio’s Brock Sellards (Monster/Babbitt’s/Kawasaki) took top honors in the Saturday night main event.

Said Sellards: “We had a great crowd in Louisville last year and this year should be no different.I’m looking forward to racing in front of a packed house both nights at Broadbent Arena.”

“We all get back together in Louisville,” added Toyota AMA Arenacross Series announcer Tim Cotter. “The split series didn’t hurt us at all. We had the highest-ranked rider win in New Mexico (Team Faith/Yamaha’s Kevin Johnson) and the hottest racer in the Toyota AMA Arenacross Series win in Dayton - Brock Sellards.”

Live Nation’s Robert Hansen checked in from Albuquerque with supercrossonline.com’s Jim Holley and Jason Weigandt during the live broadcast of the Anaheim 2 Monster Energy Supercross race and gave fans an update on the action. He also had this to say about the upcoming Louisville Toyota AMA Arenacross Series round: “The Johnsons (Kevin and FiberWise/Yamaha’s Keith) were on fire last week in Albuquerque and Keith was not happy having his little brother whip on him in front of the home crowd. This weekend both of them will have their hands full with all the regulars at Louisville. When the Toyota AMA Arenacross Series doesn’t split, the two-night rounds always produce some surprises. The (Louisville) track is long and narrow with unstable dirt, so look for a shake up in the points after this weekend.”

The Broadbent Arena floor Hansen speaks about is 39,000 square feet, or 137 feet wide and 310 feet long. The seating capacity at Broadbent is around 6,600 people and capacity crowds are expected. According to many on the Toyota AMA Arenacross Series, they’ve wicked it up with the opening ceremonies - with lots of pyrotechnics, show lights and rider entrances - much like the opening to a Monster Energy Supercross races.

Cotter also said to keep an eye on the feud building between Reynard and Kelly Smith. The two got into it on Saturday night in Dayton and Reynard ended up grabbing Smith by the throat. “A lot of drama that’s not going to be extinguished anytime soon,” said Cotter. “I even got roosted in the skirmish!”

2007-’08 AMA Arenacross Class Point Standings
1. Chad Johnson, Hon, 232
2. Kelly Smith, Kaw, 222
3. Brock Sellards, Kaw, 219
4. Teddy Maier, Hon, 195
5. Kevin Johnson, Yam, 188
6. Keith Johnson, Yam, 185
7. Danny Smith, Hon, 149
8. Jim Neese, Suz, 144
9. Tommy Hofmaster, Yam, 141
10. Nathan Skaggs, Hon, 138

Tickets for the Jan. 25-27 Toyota AMA Arenacross Series at Louisville’s Broadbent Arena are available through www.arenacross.com , at the Broadbent Arena Box Office, all Ticketmaster outlets, online at www.ticketmaster.com or charge by phone at (502) 367-5001. Fees and handling may apply. Show time is Friday at Saturday, 7:30 p.m., Sunday (amateurs) at noon. Doors open Friday and Saturday at 6:30 p.m., Sunday at 11 a.m. Friday and Saturday advance tickets are $20 to $25 for adults, $5 for kids ages 2-12. Sunday’s tickets are $20 for adults, $5 for kids. All tickets $2 more day of show.

ABOUT LIVE NATION
Live Nation is the future of the music business. With the most live concerts, music venues and festivals in the world and the most comprehensive concert search engine on the web, Live Nation is revolutionizing the music industry: onstage and online. Headquartered in Los Angeles, California, Live Nation is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, trading under the symbol “LYV.” Additional information about the company can be found at www.livenation.com under the “About Us” section.

FRANCIACORTA, 30 September 2007- A week after the great success of the 2007 Red Bull FIM Motocross of Nations the spectacular images of the action that took place at Budds Creek are still clear in the memory of every fan around the world. A lot of the merit for such a magic weekend has to go to Youthstream track designer Greg Atkins who built a perfect motocross garden. The low-profile and hard working Kiwi track builder, for the return after 20 years of the Motocross of Nations on the US soil, delivered another excellent job. Just as well as he did at the 2006 Motocross of Nations, where he proved his unique touch by making sure the Matterley Basin dirt would be in perfect condition despite the never ending heavy rain of the days prior to the race, in Maryland this year Greg bettered his high standards by fine tuning the Budds Creek racing course. Greg doesn’t like the spot light but since he has been instrumental into guaranteeing the 2007 Red Bull FIM Motocross of Nations would be held on an ideal stage for the most important motocross race of the season we asked him to share with us his secrets and how things went during the past weekend in USA

Most of the pictures taken at Budds Creek a week ago from the fans and the media would be perfect to be used in a motocross presentation brochure, to show how inviting a mx circuit can be when perfectly shaped by an artist like you. “Thanks a lot. I just did my work, the work I do at every GP, we use accurate and precise attention on every circuit we work on. Here we had to fix some issues that obviously generated some complaints back in June at the National round. I think we got it dialled in pretty well”. -Let’s go back to the first time you checked the circuit and the ideas you brought up to make it even more exciting and of course to fix whatever was not in accordance to the FIM rules. “I made two inspections, one in November 2006 and the other during the AMA National in June. Then I arrived at Budds Creek 14 days before the MXoN to follow all the work being done to the track. In general what I did was: shortened the track, mixed wood chips into the soil, added new soil, completely changed the start, added the mechanic’s pit lane, put up the green netting around the circuit, set up the waiting zone and the technical control area, put new larger tunnels for the medical staff and so on. It took quite a bit of work because we had to make sure that the high standards required by the FIM would be respected.” -It sounds like a lot of hard work. “People sometimes don’t realize how high the FIM standards are and how much work it takes if you don’t start from scratch and you have to operate on a pre-existing context. Yeah it was a lot of stuff to do but in the end we were all extremely glad with our results. Let me explain in detail what I had to do to get the track up to the standard we saw at Budds Creek for the Motocross of Nations. I sent plans of what had to be done months before the event but was negatively surprised when I saw in what condition the track was when I went over for the National in June. Again I sent e-mails with guide-lines to follow and I received positive e-mails back saying that the work was getting done.

Like I said I got at Budds Creek for the Motocross of Nations 14 days before and found that only about 20% of the work I had asked to be done was actually done. That required from us an emergency reaction to make sure we would be on time. As soon as I arrived we started working the dirt and added the new soil and wood-chips (in total we brought in about 20-30 truck loads of wood-chips and new soil). The organizer gave me about 20 people to help with the circuit but everyone started working around in circles and we were getting nowhere, so on Sunday evening before the MXoN I showed the organizer the FIM Rules and requested for myself full control of the circuit from 8am Monday morning. On Monday I took three workers to help me on the track and I moved the 20 people to water the track. Some other people asked to help but I already had my helpers so they just took care of putting up the green netting following the FIM Regulations.” -Was the pressure rising with the big expectations for the upcoming weekend? “Well, I admit at that point I was concerned we wouldn’t make all I had planned, but with my small motivated working crew we got things moving and we had everything finished on Wednesday around noon time. We kept the basic layout of the circuit as it was for the AMA National and worked a lot on the details. We started at the start and worked our way around the track; we changed the camber of the first corner, we built a stair-case jump over the first tunnel and we tightened the next corner and added some waves to reduce the speed coming into the ‘gator pit’.

We had to improve the angle of the finish line jump and make it a bit longer and build in the timing lines. After the finish line jump we built some waves and added a hole before the tunnel. Next we had the old finish line that we changed into a step-up jump and we bent and stretched the next three corners adding one off-camber corner. We corrected the alignment for the run up to the triple down-hill and we had to lengthen the table-top at the bottom to prevent riders from landing hard on the flat. We then added a step-up-table-top over the tunnel and in the next section waves were put in to roughen it up a bit for the riders. Throughout the circuit we carved grooves to pre-form three or four lines in the corners. Then, there used to be a jump where riders jumped too far and landed on the flat so we changed it into a triple step-up, the riders used it really well. Next was the ‘horse-shoe’ section where we added off-camber ‘floaters’, then exiting the ‘horse-shoe’ section we added a new step-down before the two straights leading up to the ‘big gulp’. We had to adjust the table top where the Hyundai bridge was and added a new double jump to reduce the speed - at the AMA National this area was just too scary fast - coming up to ‘Henry Hill’. Then after the ‘Henry Hill’ we bent and stretched the corners and put in two lines, we added extra bumps.” -Not a bad job really in such a short time and with a four-guy crew. “Like I said we were really motivated because the Budds Creek arena is very beautiful and I knew I could make it look a lot better.

With all these adjustments the riders took off between 8 and 10 seconds compared to the AMA National. Once we were finished we continued to work the soil and water the circuit. We also had to adjust the sprinkler system, remove electricity poles, install new fences. I was really happy when on Friday morning I saw Jonathan Beasley admiring his circuit from his look-out and when I asked him about the amateur race that was supposed to be going at that moment, he told me he didn’t want anybody on this circuit and he wanted the whole world to see how beautiful it was.” -It was a smart idea for sure to keep it untouched till the MXoN riders would start their engines. “Everyone who knows me knows that all I am asking for is to do my work and to stay away from the stage. But I have to confess that I was really offended by what I have read on the Internet and in particular on the RacerX website because they make it look like somebody else did all this work. I don’t want to take any glory and I don’t need or want to be in the spot-light but I think it’s unfair for others to take the credit for work they didn’t do and I think it’s enough to say the truth. Our four-man dream crew worked more than 14 hours a day to achieve our goal of making this the best Budds Creek circuit ever. If I may, let me take advantage of this opportunity to show my complete gratitude to the guys who helped me out over those tough days and in making my job easier on such a tight time schedule.They followed my guide-lines and supported me in every aspect.

I especially want to thank Jonathan for the trust he gave me by putting his circuit in my hands, and for sure FIM and AMA for their total support.” “Greg Atkins did an outstanding job in designing and preparing the track for the Motocross of Nations in Budds Creek”, said FIM/CMS President Dr. Wolfgang Srb. “Greg does all the tracks for the FIM MX1/2 Motocross World Championship in the most professional way, but Budds Creek was without any doubt his masterpiece. He deserves all the credit for this job. It’s very important having a neutral designer working for Youthstream as there are many countries involved in the Motocross of Nations and we cannot allow a local track designer to build a track in favour of their country, the track must follow the FIM Standards and must be fair and equal for all participating.” “I am also very pleased about the excellent cooperation between FIM and AMA; this was exactly how the World Governing Body and the National Federation should work together. Big thanks to AMA President Rob Dingman and his great staff!”, finished Dr. Srb. LINKS FIM AMA-American Motorcyclist Association Budds Creek Red Bull Maryland Information, photos and results are online at http://www.motocrossMX1.com <../YSPR%2024.09.07%20A%20GLANCE%20AT%20THE%20BACKSTAGE/www.motocrossMX1.com> , the official website of the FIM Motocross World Championships. Fans worldwide can watch this and every race of the 2007 FIM Motocross & Supermoto World Championships live and on-demand exclusively on The Moto Channel on MediaZone (www.MediaZone.com/moto ). MediaZone is a leading global online broadcaster specialized in sports, entertainment and international programming. Fans that go to http://www.mediazone.com/moto/ can get Motocross of Nations for $19.99 or for the best value they can get Motocross of Nations PLUS an entire year of LIVE and ON DEMAND broadcasts of FIM Motocross and FIM SuperMoto for only $39.99. Just click to purchase the all access pass and enter the coupon code: MOTO3999 when prompted. Youthstream is the company that manages the exclusive television, marketing and promotional world wide rights of the FIM Motocross World Championship, the FIM Motocross of Nations, the FIM SuperMoto World Championship, the FIM SuperMoto of Nations, the FIM Snowcross World Championship, the UEM Motocross European Championship and the UEM SuperMoto European Championship. www.MotocrossMX1.com

Photo Gallery: Interview With 2007 Red Bull FIM Motocross Of Nations Track Designer Greg Atkins - Dirt Rider Magazine