“Husband, wife pro motorcycle racers Josh Hayes and Melissa Paris share ... - Atlantic City Press” plus 4 more

Husband, wife pro motorcycle racers Josh Hayes and Melissa Paris share ... - Atlantic City Press
Labor Day brings us plenty of racing action - Sentinel
Football's just not cricket for England's accident-prone stars - Times Online
Chris Carr Checks In from Bonneville - Cycle News
Paralyzed teen racer traveling to Portugal for stem cell therapy - Grand Rapids Press

Husband, wife pro motorcycle racers Josh Hayes and Melissa Paris share ... - Atlantic City Press

Posted: 04 Sep 2009 09:40 PM PDT

Inside: Link to video of Staff Writer Jason Mazda's 135 mph motorcycle ride around Thunderbolt Raceway in Millville

MILLVILLE - His wife had just broken her leg in a nasty motorcycle accident, but Josh Hayes wasn't too worried.

It was Aug. 16 in Alton, Va., and Melissa Paris had gotten caught in a wreck during an American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) Daytona Sportbike race.

Hayes went to see Paris in the track's medical center. Once he found out it was just a broken leg - commonplace in their profession - he got on his own bike and won an AMA American Superbike race.

"It was tough and it wasn't," Hayes, 34, said between qualifying sessions Friday at New Jersey Motorsports Park. "I knew she was hurt, but a broken leg is kind of part of this sport. I knew she was OK."

Paris said the worst part was not the immense pain but rather how bad she felt about stressing out her husband, who had won the first race of a doubleheader the previous day.

"Yeah, it hurt, but it's not like I was dying," said Paris, 26. "But I knew Josh would be worried sick, and I didn't want to affect his race because he was riding so well. When he came to see me in the medical center, I was trying really hard to put on a brave face and be like, 'I'm OK.' "

Paris was OK. Three weeks after the injury, she was making her way around NJMP on crutches to support the husband whom she met, of all places, at a racetrack.

It was 2005, and Paris was a San Diego State student who had started racing motorcycles less than two years earlier. Hayes was already an accomplished rider, so Paris knew a little bit about him but not much.

They met one weekend when they were both racing in Willow Springs, Calif., and Hayes asked her out.

"I told him no the first time," Paris said. "I just figured he'd be a pro racer, a little bit of a jerk. But I didn't have any money for dinner, so I just gave in. And it was good. We just hit it off."

Hayes stayed in California for a few weeks getting to know Paris. But eventually he had to return to his native Mississippi.

"I came home and spent a couple weeks away from her, and I thought, 'Man, this stinks,' so I asked her to marry me," he said.

It was something Hayes never thought he would do. He had been determined not to get involved with another rider.

But they make it work by avoiding too much talk about racing when away from the track.

"I didn't want to live motorcycles every day away from the track," Hayes said. "But I'm pretty fortunate that she's a smart girl, and we do get to talk about other things and kind of have other things on the plate."

Paris could easily turn to Hayes, a 14-year pro, for riding tips. While Paris has an average finish of 30th in her first Daytona Sportbike season, Hayes is third in the American Superbike standings after 18 races, just four points out of second place. He's coming off a two wins at Virginia International Raceway on Aug. 15-16 and has five for the season.

But they leave the advice to Hayes' friends in the sport.

"I used to be a pro motorcycle racer, but now I'm her husband," Hayes said. "Fortunately, being as deep into the sport as I am, I know a lot of really good people that have stepped in to really help Melissa. Anybody could teach Melissa to race a motorcycle well, but she can only have one husband, and that's me."

Still, Paris says it's helped them both to have such a close look at different perspectives.

"It reminded him how hard he worked to get where he is," Paris said. "For me, it was like, I see the steps he took to get where he was. So I think it was good for both of us."

Their careers finally intersected this March when Hayes and Paris both raced in the Daytona 200, which includes several classes of bikes.

"It was tough," Hayes said. "We were kind of worried about it. We tried to cover every scenario and have an idea of how it would go, but you can't plan for everything, and we tried not to think about worst-case scenarios."

They ended up only racing near each other once, and everything was going smoothly until late in the race.

Paris was jockeying for position with a few laps remaining when she looked over and saw that her husband had just wrecked.

"It was absolutely gutting to see him laying on the side of the racetrack when he crashed," she said. "But I knew he was OK."

While Hayes left the track - he wasn't hurt - his wife focused on the last few laps and finished 21st, a great result in her first major race.

"It's such a weird feeling," she said. "I finished 21st, and I was pretty happy, but at the same time I was just, like, heartbroken because he should have won that race."

Hayes wasn't sure what would have happened if they were in a side-by-side racing situation together.

"It's tough to say, because you look at brothers, and they race against each other really hard because you feel comfortable around them," Hayes said. "She's a competitor. She would want me to race her the hardest that I could."

Paris says Hayes can plan on it once she works her way up to the American Superbike level.

"I think when the time comes, we'll have no problem rubbing elbows with each other," she said. "I know he'll do everything in his power to keep me from getting in front of him."

For now, though, she prefers rooting for her husband. Having his races to watch makes it more bearable for Paris to hobble around the garages this weekend.

"She's really bummed," Hayes said. "It's tough for her to be here and see her bike going around the racetrack, and she's not the one on it."

But she doesn't plan to be out of action for long. While the American Superbike season ends this weekend, Daytona Sportbike has another race next weekend in Ohio. Paris hopes to be back on the bike less than a month after breaking her leg.

"She's tough, man," Hayes said.

When Paris returns, Hayes will be there watching her, as always. They plan to have kids someday, but for now they're enjoying traveling the country as pro racers.

"How many people do you know that have a job where they get to hang out with their husband all day?" Paris said. "I wouldn't have it any other way."

E-mail Jason Mazda:

JMazda@pressofac.com

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Labor Day brings us plenty of racing action - Sentinel

Posted: 04 Sep 2009 09:26 PM PDT

Labor Day brings us plenty of racing action

Craig Rutherford, Sentinel correspondent

Hello again race fans. The Labor Day weekend is upon us and there's a lot of racing going on.

Port Royal Speedway opens up the 155th annual Juniata County Fair this evening with a 100-lap enduro race. General admission is $5. Monday, the 59th annual Labor Day Classic will be presented. Sprint cars, late models, and pro stocks make up the show. Racing starts at 1 p.m.

Todd Shaffer is the defending Labor Day champion and feels good about his teams chances for fair week. Shaffer won last Saturday night's sprint car feature and said himself, Chad Layton and Greg Hodnett have a chance to defend the home turf against the invaders.

Bedford hosts the Three States Flyers Series Monday night for the Labor Day 55. Racing starts at 7. The Three States cars will run a 35 lap-feature that pays $3,000 to win and $300 to start. The top 20 money winners will also run a $2,000-to-win, 20-lap feature as well.

Selinsgrove Speedway hosts its late model open tonight. The event pays $3,000 to the winner. Race time is 7.

Brian Montieth leads Alan Krimes by 10 points entering tonight's final point race for sprint cars at Lincoln Speedway. Krimes is win less this season. Montieth has won seven times and is the defending track champion.

Doug Esh took a wild ride at Lincoln Speedway last Saturday night. Esh fractured the L-5 vertebrae during a turn two flip. The mishap took place in the first twin 20 lap feature. Cards reach Esh at 1016 Woodridge Blvd., Lancaster, PA 17601.

Mary Ann Keiffer is doing better after her terrible motorcycle accident. Her spirits are strong and she still has a long way to go. She is now in a rehab nursing facility in Bedford. Cards reach her at 108 Cross St., Bedford, PA 15522.

Todd Shaffer won for the fifth time last weekend at Port Royal. Shaffer became the season's leading feature winner. He is also the 2009 track champion. That's two in a row at Port Royal for Shaffer. He is ready for fair week, where he won two out of three races last season. This team is tough right now and I wouldn't count him out.

Congratulations go out to McClure driver Tim Wilson for winning last weeks Butch Renninger Memorial race at Port Royal. It was Wilson's first win of the season. I was happy for him and felt bad for Todd Snook at the same time. Snook could have won the race and he may have felt like he left a win get away.

Scotty Haus is the Port Royal late model champion. Terry Naugle won the pro stock class and Jason Zook took enduro honors. Teresa Kepner is the powder puff champ. Congratulations to all.

I want to thank those of you that said kind things about last week's column concerning Butch Renninger and his family members. I heard from a lot of you. It's easy for me to write about Renninger because it comes from my heart. He was a one-of-a-kind person that touched a lot of lives, including my son and I. He will never be forgotten.

The Labor Day weekend nostalgia program in Darlington, N.C., is upon us and Port Royal regular Eric Zembower is there driving a restored race car. I'll have more details next week. This is the second time this season Zembower has run on a NASCAR track. He drove Bob Reisser's restored dirt champ car in festivities at New Hampshire International Speedway.

Richard Petty has announced his teams will stay with Chrysler Corp. for 2010. Petty was approached by Toyota when Chrysler filed for bankruptcy.

The holiday weekend is upon us. Please drive safely. I'll be back next week with more news and opinions.

Craig Rutherford writes about motorsports for The Sentinel. He is associated with Port Royal Speedway.

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Football's just not cricket for England's accident-prone stars - Times Online

Posted: 04 Sep 2009 05:37 PM PDT

Joe Denly is the third England cricketer in five weeks to be injured playing football. At any rate, he's the third as long as you count Matt Prior, who suffered a back spasm that, some say, had nothing to do with football and could well have happened while he was climbing the stairs to the pavilion or even while he was stretching after getting out of his car.

Ian Bell, though, was certainly a victim of football, damaging an ankle in the run-up to the Edgbaston Test in July. And on Thursday, Denly twisted a knee after a "clumsy" challenge by Owais Shah during the kickabout that members of the squad like to use for aerobic exercise in the outfield.

So no wonder leading voices in the game, including Jonathan Agnew on Radio 5 Live, are crying out to the England camp to stop this football madness. It's carnage out there. They're dropping like flies. Soon there won't be anyone left to represent the country. And what's football got to do with cricket anyway?

Now, the more no-nonsense among us might argue that the problem could be solved at a stroke if there was someone on the backroom staff to say: "Just run it off, son." But we must not forget that these are cricketers. Physical contact is alien to them in the course of their professional business. Except, of course, physical contact with the ball off a shorter length. Or, occasionally, physical contact with Mitchell Johnson, down the wicket, in a bit of chest-to-chest after a particularly meretricious bouncer.

Cricketers, accordingly, are delicate creatures and should be protected. I don't suppose synchronised swimming teams warm up with a quick kickabout in the car park. Same should go for cricketers.

The challenge, then, is to come up with a game to replace football in the England warm-up that doesn't put the players in permanent peril of hideous injury, yet which doesn't lose the all-important opportunity to bond as a team that Andrew Strauss is said to find in football. And naturally, in this context, one's mind turns automatically to the ever-popular playground classic, "it". Or, if you really wanted to up the team-bonding aspect, "kiss-chase".

Imagine the thrill of trying to make it back to "homey" (the kitbags) with Ryan Sidebottom steaming after you from the pavilion end. Yet the downside, admittedly, is the risk of overexcitement. It might be hard to get the players to settle down quickly afterwards, especially if it was a windy day.

In which case, how about a game of quoits? There's a limit to the amount of damage even a cricketer can suffer from a gently lobbed coil of soft rubber, even on a damp Old Trafford outfield that isn't doing much.

It's worth considering, as is French cricket. Again, hours of aerobic but non-threatening fun are available from this underrated variant on the full-size, stump-centred game. Has to be played with a tennis ball, of course. French cricket with a cricket ball is just asking for trouble of a shin-related nature. And one hand, one bounce applies, obviously.

Did you know, by the way, that the French never play and, in most cases, have never heard of French cricket? You do now.

So, kiss-chase, quoits and French cricket. There's got to be something there for our Ashes-winning heroes, hasn't there? Or, if it's hard to choose, five minutes of each. Hey presto, the team are warmed up, properly bonded and, most important of all, available to play.

Failing those, though, how about rugby union? The handy thing about rugby union being, of course, that all the injuries are fake.

Stealing Berlino is a bear necessity for London 2012

Backlashes: they're almost inevitable, aren't they? It's never a matter of if. It's only ever a matter of when. Any mascot who puts his furry head above the parapet knows this.

So it was that Berlino the Bear - hymned to the skies for his performance at the World Athletics Championships in Germany and widely acknowledged, in awed tones, among aficionados of the padded animal game as "the fifth Banana Split" - found himself hearing from the boo boys.

Even before his guest appearance at the Aviva British Grand Prix on Monday, there were cynical mutterings that the ursine athlete-grappler was all very well in the sunshine of Berlin, but that he wouldn't fancy it up North on a typical August Bank Holiday (horizontal rain, wind direct from the Urals, possibility of ice storms, etc).

And true, after some welcome grip-and-grin with Spikes, the UK Athletics mascot, the velour-coated German quietly withdrew as the rain fell and was absent from the main events. Coverage on the BBC website described it as "a shocker from the bear in Gateshead. He'll have to raise his game." "He's gone missing," Steve Cram told TV viewers with a mocking tone it pained us to hear.

On the contrary, Berlino appreciated that he was a guest and behaved accordingly. He was, after all, on Spikes's turf. It would hardly have become the visitor to go piggybacking Jessica Ennis or rolling in the sandpit with Phillips Idowu. As such, he demonstrated humility, tact and an informed awareness of his environment that is, let's face it, rare among the fluffy-suited community.

Which is why we launch our campaign today to have Berlino made a naturalised Londoner so that he can qualify for the 2012 Olympics. Surely it's only a matter of paperwork and, if the will is there at government level (as it has been for senior figures' nannies), the application can easily be fast-tracked.

Some will say that London 2012 should have its own mascot. We say, wake up to economic reality - as far as we can make out, the Olympic Stadium will be doing well if it ends up with a full complement of door hinges. Here is a mascot with a proven track record. Let's steal him. Over to you, Lord Coe.

Why yawning at 200mph can be a dangerous pursuit

An extraordinary admission from the world of motorcycle racing. Seizing on a rare lapse by Valentino Rossi, his Fiat Yamaha team-mate, Jorge Lorenzo was able to win the MotoGP race in Indianapolis last weekend and, musing on his failure to string these kind of performances together more often, he said: "It has been difficult to keep my concentration for 20 laps because I was a little bit bored."

Well, that's perfectly understandable, isn't it? You're on a screaming 800cc motorbike, racing many other screaming 800cc motorbikes at speeds well in excess of 200mph and tipping into corners so far that you brush the tarmac with the tip of your helmet, all the while realising that the consequences of getting it even slightly wrong, or just being plain unlucky, include getting wedged head-first up the white-hot exhaust pipe of the bike in front of you and/or leaving the circuit in a number of very small pieces and having to be put back together with a Meccano spanner. No wonder boredom is an ever-present threat for the jobbing rider. Frankly, it's a wonder any of them stay awake.

Next week: Rubens Barrichello confesses that, without Heart FM at high volume and a family-size pack of Mars Planets on the dashboard of his Brawn GP Formula One car, he'd be nodding off by turn four of lap 12.

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Chris Carr Checks In from Bonneville - Cycle News

Posted: 04 Sep 2009 04:32 PM PDT

BUB Lucky Seven BUB Motorcycle Speed Trials wrapped up yesterday in West Wendover, Utah at the Bonneville Salt Flats. Racers saw some pretty decent salt conditions this year at the motorcycle-only week, and the "liner wars" nearly flared up again as Chris Carr and Denis Manning's BUB "Lucky Number Seven" streamliner began nipping at the all-time two-wheel land speed record this week. Though they didn't quite crack 360 mph (the current record is 360.9 mph set by Rocky Robsinson in the Top 1 Oil ACK Attack), Carr came dangerously close and holds the top-time of the meet which is a first for him.

We caught up with Carr yesterday as he checked in with us at the conclusion of BUB Speed Trials, and talked about this year's week of two-wheeled action on the salt.

CN: How did your runs go this week?
Chirs Carr: I did one run today and I did one yesterday. I did a 351 yesterday which was my shakedown run. They were great runs. Before yesterday I hadn't ridden in 14 months on the motorcycle and we went 351 off the trailer and backed it up with a 355 today. We aren't in position to chase the record just yet. It's obviously not an easy thing to accomplish. So we've got some work to do. But we're encouraged that the record will fall.

How was the bike running?
I experienced some handling issues with the BUB Lucky 7. The bike was wanting to go left the entire run. We did have some cross winds from the right. And that's what we attributed a lot of the wanting-to-go-left to. But I also had somewhat of a wobble on the front end of the motorcycle. It wasn't a wobble where you felt like you had to shut off, but that made it a little bit more difficult to steer, but I didn't fight it very much and it was able to go straight with a little bit of a lean. Today, after some chassis adjustments, the bike still did the same thing if not a little bit worse. But I was able to go about three miles an hour faster. But we still had the same issue and then we had our other problems as well. So it's back to the drawing board for a while. Whether it's two weeks, two months or two years, we don't know. But we feel confident that we've gained enough data to learn from. Not only me as a rider, but for the team, as well. We're headed in the right direction.

And I hear you had a small fire onboard during your last run?
Yeah, but there were no major issues. I wasn't in any real danger or anything like that. It did affect my parachute so the slowdown did go approximately a half-mile beyond the 11 (mile marker) into ungroomed salt. I didn't crash the bike or anything like that but we did suffer some fire damage on the decel of the run. But we stopped without wrecking. No damage done to me.

You didn't ruin the paint job, did you?
It bubbled up the tail pretty good. [laughs] The bike still looks almost new, but it's got a lot of fire retardant on it right now. We melted some wiring in there and we had some parachute issues because of the onboard fire. The bike has some stuff that needs to be repaired. Hopefully we'll be ready in a couple weeks for the private meet. (Carr is referring to the Top 1 Oil High-Speed Shootout scheduled for later this month.)

Is there anything new or different with the "Number Seven" this year?
We have new tires that we didn't have before. And that may have contributed to the handling issues. But it's just a matter of downloading data and really inspecting the bike to see what's going on. I was able to ride through it yesterday and today. I went through it high 351 yesterday and then we went a low 355 today, but the issues are similar. And we had made changes. So I don't know that it's setup or if it's chassis... but we're encouraged.

Tell me about the new tires you're running.
They are Goodyears. They're made specifically for land-speed racing. They held their air and they didn't chunk. In fact, after two runs, they still had the nipples on them. So the tires are solid.

To set a new record, don't you have to break the existing one by at least one percent?
That used to be the case years ago, but the FIM, you just have to beat the record. Because timing equipment today is more sophisticated and much more accurate whereas 20 years ago it wasn't the case. So they had the one percent rule in place just for margin of error. Nowadays, the margin of error is much narrower. So the one percent rule has been abolished at least as long as FIM is concerned. That's my understanding.

Back in 2006 when the 350 mark fell, everyone was already talking about the 400 mph mark. How far off do you think that is?
I think reaching that 400 mph mark is a little bit more elusive than anyone – including myself – was anticipating. From my personal standpoint, my outrun in '06 was fairly easy, considering. And I just experienced in the last two days some very difficult 351/355 runs. So 400's a ways off. That's going to take some time. It's going to take some real good fine tuning. It's going to take some really good engineering, and it's going to take a lot of courage to be very honest with you. Yes, ultimately I'd like to see the 400 mile mark drop and I hope to be the one to do it, but I'm not in a hurry to do it.

It seems like land speed racing is like trail blazing. No one knows what happens on two wheels when you get near 400 mph.
We're of the mind that we want to creep toward the 400 mph mark. And we'll learn along the way what's going to do that. You don't just try to jump from 350 to 400. I mean I ran 350 pretty easy three years ago, but 355 today was tougher than 354 was three years ago for whatever reason. Part of that attributed to conditions of the race track. Part of that's attributed to the winds that were out there today that were non-existent when I went high 354 in 2006. But there are changes that we've made to the motorcycle since then and we are a little better. We have more power. Our aerodynamic package is better. But the course conditions weren't quite as good. So we have to weigh all that out. We're going to have to creep to 400. We're not going to jump to it.
The thing I've told to a lot of people is that we're not in a hurry to go fast. And that's kind of a hard thing for some people to grasp. But at the speeds we're going, the smallest mistakes are very, very drastic in repercussions and we're hoping that we're keeping our mistakes at the very minimum at the moment. We're going to try and take our time to go the speed that we need to go to hold on to the land speed record.

Check out www.worldsfastestmotorcycle.tv for a day-by-day recap. Also, go to www.landracing.com for a complete listing of the times run at this year's BUB Motorcycle Speed Trials.

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Paralyzed teen racer traveling to Portugal for stem cell therapy - Grand Rapids Press

Posted: 04 Sep 2009 04:18 PM PDT

by Elizabeth Shaw | The Flint Journal

VIENNA TWP., Michigan -- Racing at speeds upwards of 120 mph, nothing holds Michael Johnson back.

Paralyzed from the waist down in a 2005 motorcycle crash, the Vienna Township teen, 16, uses his hands to propel himself around the track in his specially equipped go-kart -- winning one state and one national title in races as far away as Quebec and Florida.

This week, the Frankenmuth High School junior is racing toward another goal: He's flying to Portugal to undergo an experimental stem cell transplant he hopes will repair his spinal cord and enable him to walk again for the first time since he was 12 years old.

That's a victory worth any cost, said his parents, Tim and Kathi Johnson, who are paying $50,000 out of pocket for the surgery in addition to travel costs and intensive postoperative rehabilitation therapy for at least a year.

"It's an absolutely huge deal for us. Just about all the people we've talked to have gotten at least some feeling back in the lower part of their body or regained bowel and bladder control," said his dad, Tim Johnson, 50. "He's told us if he can just get that back, he won't care if he can't walk again. He's still racing and doing the things he really loves. But that one thing would make it so much easier to live his life."

The Portuguese medical team, headed by Dr. Carlos Lima, a neuropathologist, will harvest stem cells from Michael's nose and transplant them at the spinal cord break, in hopes they will regrow the lost neural connections.

The family knows full well there are no guarantees.

"The reality is you have a pretty debilitating injury with not a lot of immediate avenues that promise recovery. At this time, the best people can do is make the most educated decision you can make about the procedures available and what's right for you," said Erica Nader, president of Walk the Line, a Southfield clinic that uses a physician-directed activity-based training program for patients with spinal cord injuries, including Michael.

In 2003, Nader was the first patient in the U.S. to undergo the experimental stem cell treatment. She became paralyzed from the shoulders down in a 2001 car accident.

"I have my abdominal and back muscles now, most of my arm muscles , 30-50 percent of my hand function and some leg function. I feel like it was worthwhile for me, but I can't say that's all from the surgery," said Nader, 31. "I've used a whole host of supportive therapies, too: acupuncture, intensive exercise therapy, massage. With the help of all that I'm continuing to see some improvements."

Still, the odds are good for Michael, she said.

"The science is moving forward all the time. Eight years ago, they sent a psychiatrist to my room when I started talking about recovery. It's only recently it seems like it's on the frontier of really happening," she said. "Michael is also in a unique position where he's at a younger age when your body will respond to any kind of treatment better."

Most of all, he's a determined young man used to winning whatever he sets out to do, said his father.

In 2005, Michael already held 14 national championships and was dreaming of a professional career following in the footsteps of his dad, a former American Motorcyclist Association pro rider.

During a race in Sarnia, Ontario, he was making his move into the lead when he lost control of his 250cc bike and crashed through a railing, barely 20 feet from where his dad stood watching.

"The first thing he said to me was 'I can't feel my legs.' The next words out of his mouth were 'Don't make me quit racing.' He was more worried about that than his injuries," said Johnson, owner of Universal Coating in Genesee Township.

Michael was still recovering at Children's Hospital of Michigan in Detroit, fighting his way through the surgeries and setbacks of spinal cord injuries, when he announced he had no plans to quit racing: He'd simply become the first paralyzed IndyCar champion.

Next year, he's moving up into Star Mazda auto racing, the next step toward that goal.

"Racing was my life before, and it still is now. Once you've got it in your blood, you'll never get it out," Michael said. "I knew I wasn't going to stop. I just had to find another way to do it."

But racing might have to take a back seat for a while. Once he returns from Portugal, he'll have to be home-schooled for a year so he can spend three days a week at Walk the Line.

"All of it would change my life, just to get anything back," Michael said. "I know it's going to take a lot of work. I don't mind at all. I'm used to working hard for what I want."