Ask Ping!
Friday, January 7, 2011 | 11:15 AM
ODI dates back to the 1980’s as the leader in grip manufacturing. Focusing primarily on the bmx and mountain bike industries through the 90’s and early 2000’s, ODI re-entered the motocross scene when they developed the patented lock-on grip system that eliminates wire and glue. Continuing to advance the way riders hold on to their bikes, ODI has worked closely with the teams they support such as Troy Lee Designs to create the product that is now being used by some of the top teams in the industry.
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David,
I assume that there is always an ambulance and medical personnel at the factory test tracks, but what about riders' personal tracks? For instance, did Jake Weimer have to wait for an ambulance to show up at Ryan Villopoto's track after he crashed?
Fred Ferguson
Old school Morphine.
You would be putting the ass in assume if you thought the test tracks had medics on hand. None of them do. In fact, most of the race team personnel don’t even know the address to the test tracks should they need medical assistance. How do I know? Because just over a year ago when Christian Craig turned his spine into a crunchy pretzel at the KTM track, I didn’t know where to tell the fire department to respond to. I literally had to pin it to the track exit off Interstate 15 and wait for them there. And I can tell you that the response time for the relatively remote location of those tracks is longer than it should be. How much fun do you think you would be having if you had to wait twenty minutes for someone to show up when you couldn’t feel your legs or your foot was facing the wrong way? Jake definitely had to wait for an ambulance to make it out and my guess is he waited ten to fifteen minutes for it. Not cool. I’ve instructed all my riding buddies to find a baseball-sized rock and give me one good rap to the head with it should I ever find myself in that position again. There’s nothing like some old-school anesthesia [unconscious by blow to the head with retrograde amnesia] to take the edge off. Maybe instead of the incurring the costs of a medical staff the teams should just stack up a few good clubbing rocks and keep them by the front gate?
PING
Hey Ping,
It is me, Endo, again. I know this has been discussed before but why don't one of these SX guys man up and kiss one of the Monster/Rockstar/Muscle Milk/Jagermeister/Lucas Oil girls? It is not like NASCAR where the winner may be old enough to be their dad or grandpa. These guys are their age or younger and mostly single. Are the most intimidating doubles on the podium and not on the track? I don't expect a full mating session, but they should at least give them a peck on the cheek and a smack on the rear fender. I know the married guys like Kevin Windham have retreated to the mirrored shade thing (See Windham, Short, Reed, etc., we all know what that is about). Windham's potential child support would be enough to keep him very much in love with Mrs. K-Dub. I'm sure he does not want to live in a mobile home in the middle of his test track or start going Greyhound to the races. But, really, one of you young guys…kiss one of these girls! Don't be scared! This goes to the heart of our society's problem. The young kids see the big, bad SX winner stand on stage by these hot girls and literally act like they are not even there. Then they flip over to Teen Nick and see some sophomore boy crying because he doesn’t know how to ask another boy to go to the prom with him. Sick! I have banned Nick networks from my home. Anyway, get the word out: there should be a bonus paid to the first one with the guts to do it! That is all for now.
Endo
Stanton mans up
You could have stopped writing after “give them a slap on the rear fender” and I would have printed this letter. That is some classic Archie Bunker stuff right there. While a few would say your comments are completely off-color and politically incorrect, I couldn’t possibly think they were any more awesome. They were perhaps a little crass and likely to instigate a sexual harassment lawsuit, but awesome. Sadly, kids today are unable to have a casual conversation with another person because instead of talking to other kids they text, email, tweet or Facebook them. Howzabout a phone call or just walking up and saying “Hi?” That stuff doesn’t happen anymore. I remember old videos where RJ or the Dogger would grab Ms. Camel Supercross and damn near get to second base with her right there on the podium. I’ll bet $20 that whichever riders land on the podium this weekend doesn’t even make eye contact with the trophy girl or the new Ms. Supercross. Any takers?
P.S. Given your distaste for the Nick Network you might want to stay away from Disneyland. I took my girls there recently and spent half the day trying to explain, “Why those two boys were holding hands.” I haven’t seen guys groping each other like that since I watched my high school state wrestling championships. Gross.
PING
Hello David,
Do MX/SX racers have some sort of degenerative disease that forces them to overuse the word PUMPED? Enough already. Mr. Carmichael's skills, determination and work ethic are worthy of being emulated. His overuse of the P-word in every interview seems to be the one thing every racer has copied. The current #1 for example, likeable enough, seems to be the new pied piper of the P-word. I would sooner gouge my ears with a rusty screwdriver than have to listen to another of his interviews. Plastic, fake, phony, corporate drone are all words I would to describe his persona.
I feel certain that you could use your influence within the industry to stamp out the P-word. You have the platform, vocabulary, and communication skills necessary to make this happen, so DO IT!
Perhaps you could make an instructional tape letting these guys in on the little secret that the fans see right through their interview rhetoric and that keeping it real without stepping over the line is a valuable skill also worthy of emulation (a-la #14), in order to develop a long term fan base that won't shift allegiance when the results eventually begin to slip.
All the best.
Rickey's Gonepleasequittalkinglikehim
Yeah, we know
I’ve already fought this battle. It’s like some Pavlovian response where as soon as a microphone comes out the first word that bubbles to the surface for these guys is pumped or super-pumped. I’d like to hook some electrodes up to their nipples as soon as they pull off the track and let one lucky fan from the stands be able to deliver some electricity every time the word “pumped” is dropped. There’s nothing like a little Edison medicine to break old habits. We could turn this whole thing around in a hurry is my guess. It probably won’t happen though so you might want to head to the shed and find a rusty old screwdriver.
PING
Got a question for Ping? E-mail him at [email protected].
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Endo couldn't be more right. Grant did it with Wilkerson and that worked out didn't it?....well besides the getting married & having a kid part.
Haha. Good stuff. These days it's all about sexual harassment lawsuits and PC behavior. While it'd be the greatest thing to happen on an SX podium, I could see their sponsers immediately booting them off the team. Just do what Millsaps did and marry one.
Great questions and even better answers! Hey webmaster, if you monitor the comments, would you please contact me? There is no more "contact us" on the new site? I had some trouble logging in on my user name, so I created another...
Nobody "handled" the trophy girls like Hurricane Hannah! My guess it was them who got "pumped."
Hey David, go to Bob Hannah's website and see if the pic of him going for the trophy girls .... uh, parts ..... is still on there. I thought the 12" tall wood podium in the picture was a scream, too.
I dont see anything wrong with the kiss on the cheek part. What the heck. I dont know about the slap on the rear fender part though. The girl herself might take offense to that and give him a slap himself. But that and the vanilla podium speeches could use a change. Its like a robot on the podium sometimes.
Edison Medicine...that's good stuff
Current podium speechs- YAWN and then some. Beyond boring. Stupifyingly boring. Insanely boring. Mortifyingly boring. I would be thrilled to never hear another rider utter the words "Yeah, I'm super pumped. My blah blah blah got me out from and my blah blah blah tires hooked up.."
Rickeys Gone -- Great letter ! And lest we forget, it's not just pumped, it's "SUPER pumped!!" Maybe some kid waiting in the wings will evolve it to "super duper pumped" in a few years. never heard it called the 'P-word' before, that's classic!
About 40 years ago my dad raced Sprint Cars. My mom was the Trophy Girl. My Dad won a lot of races...and here I am...I'm 40.
The silver lining to 'super pumped' is that it replaced 'psyched' and 'stoked'. If Nick Wey ever started winning, things would change in a hurry. Maybe Roczen will start a new, termporarily non-annoying catch phrase. Uberpumped?
In a fantasy world where Wey actually won, all I know is he'd say something hilarious that none of the other drone's could top.
The gay PDA at Disneyland IS out of control. Last time I was there it crossed my mind that an overly affectionate gay couple was just trying to bait Disneyland employees into ejecting them from the park: Discrimination lawsuit = easy pay day
edgy column.... this is where the reader comments should go haywire. The riders could start a charity fund with any podium speeches using pumped. The winners can deduct a couple of bucks from the earnings each time it is used during the stadium interviews, all for a good cause like the local toastmasters club.
Freeman, absolutely correct. It's all they want really. Anything to get attention and to get money. This whole politically correct thing is total bullshit. I thought RV took a small step last year when he brought the mandingo pickles on the podium. I wish Wey would win one.
Endo is so right and i am thinking deano or hanny will be the only ones to man up. i myself am feeling sorry for the trophy girls having to stand at armpit level when the trophy's are raised after the top 3 have almost got to have the b.o. of a french hiking in the alps. peeeyew! haha!
I would love to see some ass slapping one the podium. i doubt the girls would mind........
PING, YOUR COLUMN ROCKS!
Dungey = robot on the podium.. i hope he doesn't see it as often this time around... spare us. one of "the BIG (insert number)" please step up!
shane is the man.. I second! much respect to the dunge but if he wasnt american i would dare call him typical! or boring.. or .. let me stop
I'm pretty sure it says somewhere in those Monster Girls contract that if the winner is over 18 years old they able, but not limited to, a slap on the rear fender. Ping - Hold a top 10 rider's meeting during intermission and convey to the possible podium bounds that we don't want to hear about how super uber pumped they are that their Dunlops hooked up and how the reason they won is because their energy drink powered bike is what got them the holeshot. It obviously has nothing to do with the fact they practiced a lot of starts or felt comfortable on the track. Uh Dungey is missing some robotic uh software uh his Makita Suzuki team uh have been working hard uh and I hope uh he doesn't get on the podium uh untill hook id on fonix workids for him.
About the whole girls up on the podium...a kiss on the cheek I don't think is wrong being a girl myself. But getting slapped on the fender by a rider on national television and in front of so many fans is just wrong.
Jay Springsteen on the podium @ any 80's Dirt Track National. Trophy girls were either super "pumped" or scared to death. Classic.
David, Speaking of 'pumped' and all 'that' conjures up, What's with the overuse of the "In It to Win It" cliche? When are these guys (Dungey, Reed, others pre & post race; Carmichael, McGrath, Fro in the booth) going to stop referring to the title of a forgettable 2007 film about 'Cheerleading Camp Nationals' (how do I even know that?) every time they're asked about how they will do as the SX season progresses? Do they get ANY constructive criticism from anyone, or are people standing around kissin' their A$$E$ all day long? If you're gonna be that cliche (especially as an announcer), at least do it well. These guys should really watch & listen to some old footage of Sports announcer greats; guys like Jack Buck, Keith Jackson, Jim McKay, Al Michaels, even Bob Costas today. And where's the Little Professor lately? Does SPEED.TV hate him or something? Ralph Shaheen is probably an okay guy but between him, Fro & RC, these guys couldn't carry David Bailey's lunch! DB is easily the best Moto-announcer in any booth, ever, period. Matter-of-fact, the two of you would make a good analyst/color team for Supercross (& outdoors too) when you're not busy saving lives. Okay enough smoke up yours... Let us know what that 'energy-balancing-bracelet' RV2 busted you about goes for on eBay... That was a nice moment with #2, Ping; save it for your reel. Oh yeah, and go Pin it. Kevin G., Valencia, CA