Barbie Racing
At one point or another, we’ve all probably grabbed a Barbie Jeep from a daughter or niece and causally rode it down the hill, holding up our hands in the air, feeling the breeze run through our hair. That’s child’s play compared to these guys in Alabama. For a cold hard first prize of $200, these dudes race Barbie cars down a hill. The best part, it features some of the best crashes you’ll ever see.
Man, You Gotta Love Soccer
I’m not a soccer fan because I want to watch 90 minute games that typically feature one goal. Nope, I love soccer because of the absolutely, bat-s*** crazy politics that surround it. FIFA, anyone? (Who, by the way, had their own share of problems this week.) The latest comes to us from the country of Mauritanian. (Yes, that is a country.) According to a publication called Gazzetta World, the president, Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, was in attendance of a game between FC Tevragh-Zeina and ACS Ksar. Apparently, like many people watching a 1-1 soccer game, he grew bored. Instead of changing the channel or leaving (like the rest of us common folk) he said f-that and took the game to a penalty shootout. With nearly an entire half still left to play!
“The bizarre decision has sparked outrage throughout the country with thousands calling for an explanation, however, the league’s footballing federation has denied any claims of Abdel Aziz’s involvement, after an initial period of silence.”
Per For the Win, "Federation president Ahmed Ould Abderrahmane said that “organizational issues in accordance with the presidents and the coaches of the two teams” were to blame for the game ending so abruptly."
Soccer, everyone.
Amazon Drone Delivery...
...Is probably coming sooner or later. For quite some time, Amazon has been touting the ability to delivery packages to customers in under 30 minutes of less using drones. On Sunday, they reveled their latest technology—the Amazon Prime Air. It weighs 55 pounds and can carry up to five pounds worth of cargo, per NY Daily News. Amazon says they can fly under 400 feet. From the NY Daily News:
The FAA approved Amazon to research the potential of drone delivery technology in March after the company revealed plans to do so two years ago.
"We are testing many different vehicle designs and delivery mechanisms to discover how best to deliver packages in a variety of environments," Amazon said in a statement. "We have more than a dozen prototypes that we’ve developed in our research and development labs. The look and characteristics of the vehicles will evolve over time."
Gronk To Monster
New England Patriots all world tight end Rob Gronkowski has agreed to a deal with energy drink giant Monster Energy, in what may be the most perfect match in sponsorship history. If you don’t follow “Gronk”, he's the kind of guy who doesn’t mind showing you how much fun he has off the field. Oh, and he’s probably the best tight end in the history of football. (Check out this E60 profile ESPN did for more on Gronkowski.)
“Rob is a unique and aspirational athlete of this generation and this sponsorship continues our tradition of identifying and working with the greatest athletes with the right personalities to represent our brand," says Mitch Covington, VP of Sports Marketing at Monster Energy Company (Mitch Covington, by the way, is the father of MX2 Grand Prix racer Thomas Covington. Motocross is always connected at Monster). “While football is a mainstream sport, which doesn`t usually fit within our traditional marketing strategy, Gronk is an exceptional athlete who does. This sponsorship does not signal any change in our action and motorsports strategies.
Terms of the deal were not reported, but you can imagine the type of dough it took to secure Gronk. With what seems to be a match made in heaven, we (I) decided to take a look at some other perfect sponsor matches. (Some of these may not exist.)
Ryan Dungey and Wheaties
This one actually does exist.
Chad Reed and Outback
We hear Reedy is still trying to lock down a team for next year. Just saying…
Peick and Gold's Gym
Do we really have to explain this one?
Broc Tickle and Blue Buffalo
It just seems right. Sorry, Larry.
Justin Bogle and Beats by Dre
Oops…We mean, Justin Lucas.
Joey Savatgy and AmishMingle.COM
We had some more, but we'll leave those to your imagination.
Motorcycle Jet Ski
Finally!!!! From the same people that brought you quadski, triski and other great stuff, we have biski—a motorcycle jet ski. Let that sink if for a bit. Gibbs Sports Amphibians Inc are the people that produce this amazing stuff and according to their site, the top land speed for the biski is 80mph and 37mph on water. It's the answer to the question you might not have asked!
Worst Drivers
No doubt, within the past year, you’ve found yourself posting a seething Facebook update about how (insert state) has the WORST DRIVERS EVER(!!!) after someone cut you off. It happens...to everyone. The cool thing is, we now know who has the worst drivers in the country, thanks to a study done by carinsurancecomparison.com. Congrats, Montana, you win (or lose, I guess). According to the site, each state is ranked by the following:
- Fatalities Rate per 100 Million Vehicle Miles Traveled
- Failure to Obey (Percentage of Fatal Crashes that involved Traffic Signals,
- Not Wearing Seat Belts, and Driving with an Invalid Driver’s License
- Drunk Driving (Percentage of Fatal Crashes that Involved Alcohol)
- Speeding (Percentage of Driving Fatalities that were Speed-Related)
- Careless Driving (Pedestrian & Bicyclist Fatalities per 100,000 Population)
The worst ten states are as follows (counting down from 10-1): Mississippi, Delaware, North Dakota and Hawaii (tie), Arizona, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, South Carolina and Montana.
Check out more here.
10 Best Bikes
Let’s get away from the negative, it is the holiday season after all, and look at the positive—like Esquire’s “10 Best Motorcycles of 2016” list. The list revolves around street bikes, so sadly the 2016 Kawasaki, Suzuki, Honda, Yamaha, KTM or Husqvarna 250 or 450F were not listed. Some of the bikes on the list include: Ducati Scrambler Sixty2, 2016 Kawasaki Z800 and the 2016 Triumph Bonneville Street Twin. What is your favorite bike heading into next year?
Check out the full list here.
Tony Hawk Is a Legend
Yeah, he may be approaching 50, but Tony Hawk is still one of the baddest dudes ever to ride a skateboard. Hawk, the first to ever land the 900 on live television at the X Games in 1999, is back at it, recently becoming the first person to ever skateboard a "horizontal loop".
Funny side story: This past summer, I ran into Hawk at the Starbucks in my hotel lobby at the X Games. I was way to nervous to introduce myself, so I instead took a creepy, stalker photo and sent to my three brothers and told them I was having breakfast with him. They totally bought it.
Driverless Racing Series
Have you been the guy, or gal, that’s been preaching for years about how driverless cars will one day take over your beloved NASCAR or Formula One series? How the regulations and technology are taking the driver out of the race? Did people just laugh and laugh and laugh? This week, you get your revenge. The FIA Formula E Championship announced it will field a global support series beginning in the 2016-17 race season that will feature electric, driverless cars. Yes, you did read that correctly. The series has partnered with Kinetic, and the series will field 10 teams and visit the same circuits has Formula E. The series will be called ROBORACE. Jalopnik brought up a very good point:
What’s most curious to me about the idea—more than the “racing without drivers” thing—is how the competitive aspects will be communicated to fans. If the ROBORACE is meant to be a support series for Formula E, it’ll be interesting to see how the series helps fans follow along when strategy depends on algorithm inputs and things behind the scenes—it certainly won’t be the straightforward, “He or she is faster in these corners” or, “This team plans to make these adjustments the next round of pit stops” all of the time.
We shall see, as more details are expected early next year.
$500 Car Competes in Rally
Apparently this story is a few years old, so if you’ve heard about it, feel free to skip it. But, recently Jalponik re-published this amazing feat of a guy, a $500 car he bought on Craigslist and a World Rally Championship race.
Bill Caswell found a loophole in the FIA rules that let him enter the 1991 BMW 318i that he found on Craigslist for $500 bones. So he went to the WRC Mexico and competed against the likes of Ken Block and former F1 driver Kimi Raikkonen and their $400,000-plus rally cars. What follows is an amazing story. I suggest you read the entire piece here, but check out a small snippet below:
Mooched a welder and welded the shock tower back into the car last night and it held. But on the first stage the shock mount blew through. Then the aux fan fried and kept melting fuses and it was hot. On the third stage we missed a jump call (our notes were in Portuguese or something) and hit it at like 80 mph or so and exploded into the air. The launch felt like hitting a brick wall and broke a motor mount arm clean in half.
But the jump was amazing. Later I had a minor off but regained the road. Some kids threw boulders in the road on a transit and I punctured my gas tank losing nearly a half tank in 24 km on the next stage. Best part, the officials pointed out our leak and showed a handful of gas to us when we asked how big it was — I knew we were screwed, but they said we could start the stage so we did. I patched it with just stuff in the trunk — RTV and balls of duct tape — twenty feet after the stage finish, on the side of the road, with the officials watching. Didn't have time at service to fix it so five stages tomorrow with RTV patch. Barely finished the rest of the day. I have a 10 minute service in the morning when we pull the car from parc ferme but we need to put on fresh tires.
I ran into the Rally Mexico organizers in the bar. Petter Solberg is in there doing shots. Having entirely too much fun. Only three real stages tomorrow anyway. But apparently the ex-WRC car in my class or the Evo broke on the final stage which means I am back into third place.
Best part: he finished third in the Rally America class.
MotoGP Changes
It’s hard to imagine a better MotoGP year than the 2015 season which went down to the last race and brought more drama than an episode of the Kardashians. Yet, here we are, looking forward to 2016, and due to new rule changes, a year that may be even better. For one, the lowly Open Class is gone. Two, Michelin takes over as tire supplier and there are “unified electronics,” which means the teams have to use the same thing when it comes to engine and traction controls and such. Finally, concessions will still be made for underperforming teams and new factories. Most expect these changes to create more level playing field, etc. Lane Splitter had a very detailed preview of all the changes, which you can check out here. We only wish someone could do such a deep dive into works motocross bikes, as this story packs quite a bit of text (it's been uncovered that Honda's MotoGP bikes are so high tech that the computers can actually gauge and predict tire wear and adjust traction control accordingly on every single lap). Read a snip below.
The other huge change for 2016 is the move to a unified software with the bikes’ electronics. This is via a single hardware supplier: Italian company Magneti Marelli.
Dorna and IRTA (the International Road Racing Teams Association) have been ironing this plan out over the last few years, with Honda most famously dragging their feet through the process, kicking and screaming that they will no longer have much reason for MotoGP if they can’t have proprietary electronics software. This is, they claim, because it is an important link for them with their production bikes.
Crash Stats
Until recently, I had no clue Dorna (who runs MotoGP) released crash statistics from every season, which include the rider that crashed the most, which corner caused the most crashes, average crash rate, injuries and more. Motor Sport has a very cool analysis of all the 2015 stats. Here are a few:
- Marc Marquez crashed thirteen times compared to just three for Jorge Lorenzo and two for Valentino Rossi.
- Silverstone (79 crashes) and Le Mans (78) saw the most crashes in the series throughout all three classes.
- Red Bull KTM Moto3 rider Karel Hanika crashed the most, hitting the ground on twenty-four occasions or 1.3 times a weekend.
Check out more here. This would be cool to have for supercross or motocross, but may be tough to track.
Fire Tornado Is the Best
Ad Blockers
No matter your thoughts on them, they are becoming a huge problem. Yahoo recently tested a feature that would lock out anyone of their email service (on Yahoo) that used an ad blocker. And, predictably, people got super pissed. Mashable has more:
A Yahoo spokesperson said in a statement provided to Mashable on Friday that the blocking is only being tested on a portion of Yahoo email users.
"At Yahoo, we are continually developing and testing new product experiences," Yahoo said. "This is a test we're running for a small number of Yahoo Mail users in the U.S."
Predictably, people were not happy with the perceived strong-arming of their email accounts, and some even threatened on Twitter to leave Yahoo for good if the lockout continued.
Check out more here.
50-Year-old Kills Push-ups
Be honest with me here: How many push-up can you do consecutively? 10? 20? 50? 100? Guess what? You’re still about two-thousand away from the world record of 2,220 done in 60 minutes by Carlton Williams. And, the dude is 50!!! I will now leave work and head to the gym with my head held very low.