Weekend Ketchup – Rattray in Monte Carlo, Suzuki pull plug and James Stewart athlete of the ye

Posted by Ray | 8 December 2008 | Comment

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Rattray to Pro Circuit
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So it is now official Tyla Rattray to the USA in 2009, what a shame it couldn’t get sorted here whatever the issue was – I’m sure Tyla knows what he’s doing and MOTO wishes him good luck Stateside, at least Tommy has a buddy to hang with – checkout the video from Monte Carlo.

[u][b]No more youth support from Suzuki in USA
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As of December 1, 2008 American Suzuki will no longer support an amateur motocross support team.

“As of December 1, 2008 American Suzuki will no longer support an amateur motocross support team,” wrote Gress. “Thank you for all of your generous support over the years. Together we were able to produce a powerful and respected program.”

The bottom line reason for shutting down the program is the bottom line itself. The economy has hurt Suzuki’s sales enough to cause deep budget cuts for both personnel and programs like amateur motocross support.

[u][b]James Stewart – Speed athlete of the year
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While his 2008 season started out on a low note, James Stewart brought the year to a tremendous close, capped by his perfect summer in the 2008 AMA Toyota Motocross Championship. Riding a Monster Energy Kawasaki, Stewart won all 12 rounds of the series, as well as all 24 motos. As a result, he was named AMA SPEED Athlete of the Year for the first time in his illustrious career.

“This is one of my highest honors,” Stewart said after being honoured at the AMA Award Banquet at Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum in Birmingham, Alabama. “After seven years, I finally did something good enough to win this.”

The fun side of James
Rick James Stewart

“The (motocross) season didn’t start for me in May,” explained Stewart. “It started when I got hurt two weeks into (the Supercross season). It had been three years in a row that I haven’t finished the outdoor season, and I was sitting in the hospital thinking, again, that my year was done before it even started.”

The 22-year-old Stewart, who hails from Haines City, Florida, returned to the track on Memorial Day weekend just four months removed from corrective knee surgery. After posting a pair of convincing moto victories at round one in Glen Helen, Stewart proved he was better than ever and set sail on arguably the most dominant season in AMA Toyota Motocross Championship history. Only one other athlete in motocross history has managed to do what Stewart did. In both 2002 and 2004, Ricky Carmichael managed 24-0 moto finishes in claiming the AMA Toyota Motocross Championship.

Stewart wasn’t done when the outdoor season ended. He also stepped up to represent Team USA at the 2008 FIM Motocross of Nations in England, where he and teammates Ryan Villopoto and Tim Ferry claimed a fourth straight win for Team USA against the rest of the world’s motocross racing nations. Then he returned to win the Rockstar Energy U.S. Open of Supercross in Las Vegas, winning every race there. He finally capped off his season with a dominant win in his first-ever Paris-Bercy Supercross in France.

With the honour, Stewart becomes the third consecutive AMA Toyota Motocross Champion to win the coveted award, joining Carmichael (2006) and Villopoto (2007). Additionally, with his AMA Toyota Motocross Championship, Stewart became the first rider in AMA history to win championships in each class under AMA Pro Racing: AMA Motocross Lites, AMA Motocross, AMA Supercross Lites West, AMA Supercross Lites East, and AMA Supercross.

[u][b]IMPRESSIVE INCREASE ON THE USAGE OF THE YOUTHSTREAM WEBSITES
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As the 2008 racing season will come to an end with this weekend’s FIM Awards in Monte Carlo Youthstream announces an important increase in the usage of the Motocross and SuperMoto websites www.MotocrossMX1.com and www.SuperMotoS1.com which proves a much growing interest in the series.

Giuseppe Luongo, President of Youthstream, said: “Motocross has seen incredible developments over the last few years and we have close to a billion TV viewers and over 2.5 million who watch our races via Internet. These figures increase by 20% yearly but next year we will see a significant increase due to live-streaming for free with Freecaster.tv.”

Dr. Wolfgang Srb, FIM/CMS President, continued: “These figures are simply amazing and show clearly the importance of Internet for the Motocross and SuperMoto fans. Youthstream does a fantastic job not only in the promotion of the FIM World Championships but also in terms of a comprehensive information for the fans all over the world.”

From January to November 2008 the page requests increased dramatically to over 35.5 million pages which is an absolute record being three times as much as in 2007. With more than 2.5 million visitors this season saw another increase in users of the 20%.

The peak of the season was the Red Bull Motocross of Nations at Donington Park on September 28th when over 103.000 visitors consumed more than 2.2 million pages in one single day.

As April recorded already an increase of the 45% in the page requests Youthstream invested into a bigger dedicated web server which has supported such a significant increase throughout the year. The renewal of the websites also proved a good move to increase the users’ interest.

The data confirm once again the major importance of Internet as an attractive mean of communication which leads into a growing promotion and development of Motocross, SuperMoto, Snowcross and all the Championships promoted by Youthstream.

This fact supports again the relationship between Youthstream and the online broadcaster Freecaster.tv which will air the 2009 FIM MX1/MX2/MX3 and Women’s World Championships, the 2009 SuperMoto World Championship and the 2009 FIM Snowcross World Championship races exclusively, LIVE and free on www.freecaster.tv.