I know many of my readers are more technical and I haven't blogged\r\non anything non-motorcycles in a while but I had to post about the Red\r\nBull U.S. Grand Prix MotoGP race on Sunday. After some marked\r\nimprovements to Casey Stoner's\r\nDesmosedici GP9's electronics the 2007 world champion has been\r\ncompletely unstoppable in the last 3 races. Seven time world champion Valentino Rossi even joked before the Laguna Seca round began that he would have to shoot Stoner in order to stop him.

In\r\nan amazing show of talent and aggressiveness from both riders, Rossi\r\nwas able to finally stop the train that is Stoner. Knowing full well\r\nthat if he let Stoner stay in front for long that he was pull away,\r\nValentino made multiple daring and aggressive passes in order to\r\nmaintain his lead providing for some of the most exciting and breath\r\ntaking racing the sport has seen in many years.

The wheel to\r\nwheel race was brought to an end though when Casey Stoner ran wide in\r\nlap 24 of 32 and dropping his bike in the gravel. However the duo had\r\nbeen racing so hard that they had already obtained more than a 25\r\nsecond lead on third place. So while Stoner was unable to re-challenge\r\nRossi, he was still able to retain second place.

If you've ever wanted to check out a MotoGP race, I would highly recommend looking into this round and if you follow the \"Read More\" link you can view some video from YouTube.

In May 2008 my desire to get chest protection was heightened after a fatality at the race track involving a bike Vs rider collision. I did lots of looking and finally settled on a couple of products by a company called SixSixOne that seemed to meet most of my criteria

• SixSixOne Core Saver
• SixSixOne Pro Bomber Shorts

My initial reactions to the Core Saver were positive. Professional construction and good seems, It felt comfortable to wear and didn't seem to affect my riding position or any body movements. The shorts feel a bit odd at first; you wear them high to protect your hips. While they look a little funny, I have found them comfortable to wear and they do instantly appear to give me protection in places where I feel the thin hard armor in my Alpinestar suite lacks.

Crash Testing
This past weekend (7/4/08) I crashed during practice at Summit Point T4 in the rain/wet. Speeds were estimated between 90-100mph in the downhill slightly off-camber right hand sweeper. I downshifted a hair to late and after several tank slapper Esq wiggles/save attempts I was fairly violently thrown to the pavement about 10' short of the apex.

I took the full weight of the crash with my right shoulder and top right portion of my chest. After looking at my MRI images I feel fairly confident in saying that my new SixSixOne Core Save is what kept me from doing significantly more damage to my self. I was able to Instead walk away with only a broken scapula (shoulder blade) and some minor fluid build ups in my chest and shoulder... I'm also pretty sure I would have a bruised keester and hips since I ended up hitting both pretty hard. I ended up leaving the track backwards in an upright position. Due to track conditions there was a drop off and my tail bone hit the ground pretty damn hard. Aside from a swollen thumb and my shoulder I have no other injuries.

A feature not highlighted on the spec sheet very highly is the padding on top of the shoulder. It’s a very think and firm padding that I know worked with the shoulder armor in my suit to help dampen my fall. Between this padding and the chest protection that I had no intention of testing out so soon, I definitely feel much safer at the track and on those weekend mountain runs. This armor will definitely be seen on me every weekend going forward.

The Bad / Areas of improvement

• The Core Saver's back protection is not as full length as I think it should be. That is why I believe I would only recommend this to racers who also plan on wearing the Pro Bomber Shorts in junction with the Core Saver. The Pro Bomber shorts have a continuation of the back protector that meet up fairly closely. It Provides fantastic tail bone protection. That said, I still think SixSixOne should increase the back protector length
• While there is a kidney belt, some improvements could be made in this area. For road racing I don't think it's much of an issue, but for cross use, such as off-road, snowmobiles and motocross, it would be a nice addition.
  
• Venting: I don't get it, there are these nice vents on the front of the Core Saver, but you just cover them up with the strap for the kidney belt? This doesn't seem to have any ill effect, just a "duh" kind of comment...

Review Low Down

• Highly recommend the Core Save to any street rider and the Core Saver + Pro Bomber Shorts to any racer.
• Won't win you sexiest racer if you get caught wearing just the shorts.

This past weekend brough fantasic weather to the Summit Point Motorsports Park\r\nin West Virginia. The holiday weekend race was 4 days long with 2 days\r\nof track practice and 2 days of racing. Unfortunently for team EmpireGP\r\nwe showed up a bit too late for the absolutly jammed packed weekend and\r\nended up getting a less than ideal pit spot in the paddock. On the plus\r\nside though, our area was much more relaxed.
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Testing on Saturday went well but resulted in some so-so lap\r\ntimes maxing out in the upper 1:21's. However the bike was performing\r\nwell and I wasn't feeling the need to destroy the machine before the\r\nweekend really kicked off. With a sold out event I was entered into 5\r\nraces: the GTU ,GTO, Unlimted GP (trophy dash), Middeweight GP and\r\nmiddleweight Superbike.

more details and pictures after the jump

This past Saturday Colin Edwards, one of the few Americans in the MotoGP circuit had an amazing save when he lowsided in T1 during qualifing. He actualy crashes, but stays commited and re-rights the bike. Absolutly amazing and lucky...

Last night my girlfriend and I jumped on the ZX10 to see the one and only local theater showing of the movie: 199 Lives.\r\nThe movie is really more like an extended version of Nitro Circus with\r\nmore commentary and story line. It did a fantastic job of telling a\r\nstory about a kid who has persevered through a lot, from injuries\r\n(100's) to night terrors. Melissa, who knew nothing about him, said\r\nthat it \"did a great job of telling her his story and [the movie]\r\nreally showed a lot of emotion\".

Even though I thought I knew a\r\nlot about PT already being a huge fan of the young phenom myself, I\r\nlearned even more. Lots of the footage was stuff I had seen in the\r\npast, but I still say it was worth the $20 bucks for a night out. My\r\nonly big complaint was some of the footage quality. I'm sure most\r\npeople will see this on their home TV in which case it will look\r\nfantastic, but on a movie theater screen it was definetly pushing the\r\nlimit of acceptabe for a full prive movie entry.
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\r\n\"If you take Evel Knievel's life and multiply it by 10, you'll get Travis Pastrana's\" -La Times
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Read more to view the trailer