Congrats to ARMA’s own Brand Dosch for a heated tie with New Zealand’s George Bolter in the Best line category. Brandon stomped an insane double whip across a transfer line that nobody else even attempted and George Bolter bought the house down with his inverted 360 transfer out of the curved shark fin, another insane line.

Keep it up Dosch!!! ARMA World Domination!!!

Mika Kallio posted a time of 1’42.8s on the final day of testing at Jerez, to finish seventh fastest and just 0.6s adrift of his Marc VDS teammate.

Redding and his crew worked to further refine the set-up on their Kalex Moto2 machine during the opening day of testing, with the work paying dividends on day two, as the 19-year-old British rider bettered by half a second the outright lap record set by Stefan Bradl during qualifying for the 2011 Spanish Grand Prix.

Redding had a minor crash at the right-hand turn five towards the end of the third and final day after losing the front while pushing for another fast lap, but declared himself happy with both his pace and consistency during the three days at Jerez.

Kallio and his crew spent the three days at Jerez working to improve the Finnish rider’s feeling with the Kalex Moto2 machine they’ll campaign this season. Their hard work paid off today, with Kallio posting his best lap of the test during a race simulation run in which every lap was within a few tenths of his fastest time.

The Marc VDS Racing Team will return to Jerez in one month’s time for the third and final official pre-season test.

Scott Redding #45: Best Lap – 1’42.2
“It was difficult to get a feel for the level of grip on day one, and it wasn’t much better on day two and three to be honest. But I was able to get plenty of laps in, 236 in total, and I’m pretty pleased with the fact that I was consistently quick on the last two days. The bike continues to improve and we’re certainly getting a lot more from the tyres than we did last season, so it’s all good. Now we’ve got a break of more than a month before we return to Jerez for the last test. That’s going to drag a bit!”

Mika Kallio #36: Best Lap – 1’42.8
“Everything has gone really well here, and we can be satisfied with the work we’ve done. I have a really good feeling with the bike and we’re at a good level now with the lap times. We’ve tried many things on the bike, altering the balance and changing suspension settings, and we’ve improved a lot. I enjoy riding the Kalex and that’s important too. During today’s race simulation I was able to lap very consistently and I actually set my fastest time of the three days during this long run, which I’m happy about. Overall it’s been another good test.”

Michael Bartholemy: Team Manager
‘Today marks the end of another successful three-day test for the Marc VDS Racing Team, with both riders achieving their aims and Scott once again topping the timesheet. More important than fast lap times is the fact that both riders are able to lap consistently within two or three tenths of their fastest lap, which is something we were missing last season. The tyre situation is also much improved compared to last year, with both riders able to maintain their lap times right to the end of their race simulation runs. It’s early days yet, with the first race still over six weeks away, but we are definitely heading in the right direction.”

David’s competition success is impressive, but what makes him interesting is his intelligence and eloquence. Here’s your first chance to sit down and get to know this budding star.

1. Dude your like the tallest dude competing in pipe! Your built more like a football player, than a skier. What made you decide to ski instead of playing a stick and ball sport?

Hah well the tall thing didn’t really happen for me until later on in life. Up until I was fifteen I was still under 5’3”, with a pretty stringy build. So when I started growing I just kept on top of my strength game in the weight room and never had to deal with the awkward lanky tallness that some kids who grow quickly have to deal with. Now I see my size and weight as more of an advantage than anything.

On a side note I still do play a lot of stick and ball sports. I played football and baseball in high school, and now I play on a couple mens league teams in the summer. It’s a fun way to train and it helps me get my competition fix during the off months.

2. Growing up in Reno put you ridiculously close to Lake Tahoe. Who are some of the local ski celebs that have influenced your riding the most and how did they inspire you?

I grew up on the Alpine Meadows Freestyle Team with Clay Beck. That put me in close quarters with cool people like CR Johnson, Sean Field, and Shannon Bahrke . The people Clay invested time into were always people who just loved skiing and were passionate about it. It was pretty inspiring and gave me a love and appreciation for skiing that few people understand.

David Wise – Photo by Freeskier

3. Your a member of the first US Freeskiing Team. It’s like you are a member of the first ever Top Gun Class. What did it mean to you when you first heard you made the cut?

Wow Top Gun? Hah I haven’t heard anyone put it like that before. It truly is a great feeling to be recognized by your country for something that you are passionate about. Having a team and getting the sport into the Olympics is something that we have been working towards for a long time so I feel honored to be a part of the first wave.

4. You have a choice to make between shredding a perfectly groomed pipe by yourself or shredding nipple deep pow with your friends; what do you choose? Why is it better than the other?

Well this year I have been lucky enough to have plenty of access to perfectly groomed pipes so I’d have to go with the nipple deep pow. Skiing is all about balance, if you get too much of one thing or the other you will get bored or even burn out. Plus nothing really nurtures the soul like just SKIING with good people.

5. Your a father and a husband now, Congrats! How do you juggle your life as a pro skier and being a family man?

Well I’d have to give the credit for that one to my wife Lexi. She is as passionate about being a mom and wife as I am about skiing. Having a woman backing you that is as hard working and loving as Lexi really makes being a good husband and father an easy job. It is difficult when I spend months on the road, but that just makes the time that I do get to spend at home all that much more special.

6. Looking forward to the Olympics, what will you be doing to prepare?

Well, in getting to this point I feel like I’ve developed a pretty good system of balanced training. Staying strong in the gym, keeping my air awareness sharp on the trampoline, and tempering my skills on skis, oh and just having fun and embracing the opportunities I have in life every single day.

7. Winning X Games has been a long time goal of yours. Now that you have won it, does it feel like you imagined?

When I realized that I had won the X Games I went into a daze of excitement, it was a truly unreal feeling. One thing I think it is important to remember is that you should still be the same person whether you are winning or not. So yeah winning the X Games was amazing; now I get to move forward and try to stay true to who I was before I ever won anything.

8. This year you started competing in Slope style again? What about that discipline makes it so different from pipe? Do you think that anyone can dominate both disciplines in the same year?

Jumping and being in the air was always what drew me to freeskiing in the first place, so it is fun to get back into slope and big air contests once in a while even if halfpipe is where I excel. Compared to slopestyle, halfpipe has an extremely small margin for error when it comes to popping to hard or too soft. Other than that I think that the way that the human body flips and twists is the same. In fact, my most technical pipe tricks are all things that I have brought over from jumping.

With the level of both sports being as high as it is I think it would be very difficult to dominate at both. We haven’t seen it yet. I’m not saying it can’t be done, just super difficult.

9. If you had the chance to take a quadchair lift ridewith 3 famous people, who would be on that chair?

Haha before I was married I would have said Mandy Moore, Jessica Alba, and Zoe Deschanel, but lets go with Billy Kid, Will Smith, and Robin Williams.

10. Your a ravenous reader and academic. What books or activities are you into right now?

I’ve been getting into the classics lately: The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, right now I’m reading A Tale of Two Cities again, and I think next I am going to read the original Dracula to see where all this vampire craze comes from.

Original post can be found here at BNQT.com

Check out the video posted on Pink Bike (below), the biggest mtn bike web site around. This is a good start to the new comp season.

Thanks again for all your support.

Chad

Wise took the lead in his first run and held onto it until the end. In that winning run, Wise started with a switch double 1080, into right 9, left 9, alley oop flatspin 5 tail to end with a double cork 12. With Defending Dew Cup champ Rolland and 16-year-old pipe phemon Yater-Wallace set to drop in after him, he wasn’t leaving things up to chance and decided to go for his first-ever 14 on his second and final run.

“My first run was good, it was really a solid run for me, so I kind of felt like I had to add a little bit of something to it,” Wise said. “The 14 was the first thing that came to mind, so dropping in I was like, ‘OK, I’ll go for that 14 at the end. I know it’s there. It’s just one extra rotation. I can get it.’ “

He wasn’t able to land it, but he was so close to bringing it around. This is a great season for the 21-year-old from Reno, who’s coming off a win in pipe at X Games.

“I’m on a hot streak for sure,” Wise said. “It’s fun to be out here enjoying the sport. Landing runs. I’ve been around in the scene for a long time and did a lot of finals where I just didn’t quite get the run the way I wanted to. So just being able to land runs and just enjoy doing what I do has been awesome. And that’s honestly what’s made the difference for me.”

Results:

1 David Wise 94.50
2 Kevin Rolland  93.00
3 Torin Yater-Wallace  92.75
4 Simon Dumont  91.75
5 Thomas Krief  90.75
6 AJ Kemppainen  86.25
7 Mike Riddle  83.75
8 Tucker Perkins  78.00
9 Josiah Wells  76.75
10 Gus Kenworthy  75.00
11 Matt Margetts 40.00
12 Benoit Valentin  29.75

Original post on Allisports.com

With David Wise fresh of his recent X-Games Superpipe Gold kick and Alexis Godbout’s 3rd place finish in Ski Slopestyle at the first stop in Breckenridge you can expect a great show from all of the ARMA athletes. We hope to see you there!

For more info and a complete schedule look below…

Thursday, February 9th

9:00 AM – 4:00 PM FESTIVAL VILLAGE OPEN

Friday, February 10th

9:00 AM – 4:00 PM FESTIVAL VILLAGE OPEN
10:00 AM – 11:30 AM Women’s Snowboard Slopestyle Semi-Final
11:00 AM – 12:00 PM Women’s Freeski Superpipe Semi-Final
11:30 AM – 1:50 PM Men’s Snowboard Slopestyle Semi-Final
12:00 PM – 1:30 PM Men’s Freeski Superpipe Semi-Final
3:30 PM – 4:30 PM Gatorade Free Flow Tour – Men’s Freeski Slopestyle Final
4:30 PM – 5:30 PM Women’s Snowboard Superpipe Semi-Final
5:30 PM – 7:30 PM Men’s Snowboard Superpipe Semi-Final
8:00 PM – 11:00 PM Concert

Saturday, February 11th

9:00 AM – 4:00 PM FESTIVAL VILLAGE OPEN
9:00 AM – 10:15 AM Women’s Freeski Slopestyle Semi-Final
10:15 AM – 12:30 PM Men’s Freeski Slopestyle Semi-Final
11:00 AM – 11:40 PM Women’s Snowboward Superpipe Final
12:00 PM – 1:30 PM Men’s Snowboard Superpipe Final
2:15 PM – 3:15 PM Gatorade Free Flow Tour – Women’s Snowboard Slopestyle Final
3:30 PM – 4:30 PM Gatorade Free Flow Tour – Men’s Snowboard Slopestyle Final
5:00 PM – 5:40 PM Women’s Freeski Superpipe Final
6:00 PM – 7:00 PM Men’s Freeski Superpipe Final

Sunday, February 12th

9:00 AM – 4:00 PM FESTIVAL VILLAGE OPEN
9:00 AM – 9:40 AM Women’s Snowboard Slopestyle Final
10:00 AM – 11:00 AM Men’s Snowboard Slopestyle Final
12:00 PM – 12:40 PM Women’s Freeski Slopestyle Final
1:00 PM – 2:30 PM Men’s Freeski Slopestyle Final
2:30 PM – 3:30 PM Gatorade Free Flow Tour – Women’s Snowboard Superpipe Final
4:00 PM – 5:00 PM Gatorade Free Flow Tour – Men’s Snowboard Superpipe Final
5:30 PM – 6:30 PM Gatorade Free Flow Tour – Men’s Freeski Superpipe Final

After starting off the year with the biggest victory of his career at today’s 50th running of the Rolex 24 At Daytona, Michael Shank could be close to pulling off another major score by signing 2003 Champ Car champion Paul Tracy to drive for his new MSR Indy team in 2012, according to the 43-year-old Canadian.

“My plan right now is to do a final season of IndyCar racing,” said Tracy after completing a twilight stint at Daytona. “I’m trying to do a deal with Michael Shank to start an IndyCar team with himself and AJ Allmendinger.”

Shank, who formally announced the his new IndyCar team in October with partners Allmendinger and businessman Brian Bailey, has been speaking with a number of drivers, but with Tracy, who has driven multiple times for Shank in the GRAND-AM Rolex Series, the Ohio-based team owner would have a known quantity to help establish his new open-wheel program.

“We have a car,” Tracy continued. “We have a sponsor lined up. We need to put together an engine program this week and tie up a couple of other lose ends of some other contractual stuff, and if we can do that, then we’ll get the car put together and try to get to Sebring to test.”

Shank announced he would be using Lotus engines last year, but with Tracy’s longstanding ties to Honda Canada, defecting to the Honda Performance Development-built 2.2-liter single-turbo V6 engines would provide an instant boost in competitiveness and sponsorship dollars.

Although a few details still need to be sorted before PT and MSR can cement a deal, Tracy is already starting to think about how he’d like to see his farewell tour to take place.

“It would be my final year of IndyCar racing,” he said. “Then after that, I’d like to do more sports car racing. This season will be my 22nd year [of Indy car racing] and it will be the last year for that. If we can out together a program for me and be my final farewell year and do a lot of stuff with fans and do a lot like we’ve done the last few year with Make A Wish and helping some kids out and raising some money for disabled kids. That’d what I’d like to do.”

Tracy has been mentioned as a candidate with the established Honda-powered Rahal Letterman Lanigan team, and, more recently, Honda’s Dale Coyne Racing, but Tracy says people shouldn’t be surprised he has his sights set on Shank—a newcomer—to close his open-wheel career.

“The attraction of going with Mike is really just his desire,” Tracy explained. “We’ve known each other a long time. I’ve known him since he had a Formula 2000 team. His desire—the people that he has in [team]—I know he’s going to give me everything he has. It’s not going to be ‘Oh, we’ll take your money and give you a half-assed effort.’ I don’t want that; I don’t want my career to end like that. I know that he’s gonna give 110 percent and he’s putting it all on the line. That’s what really drew me in to push for this deal.”

MSR Indy was also in the running for one of the two $1.2 million IndyCar TEAM contracts that went unused by the departed Newman/Haas Racing, but it’s believed the contracts went to two other entrants on Thursday. A third TEAM contract is said to up for grabs next week which, if awarded to MSR Indy, could play a pivotal role in closing the financial gap needed to secure a full-time program for Shank and Tracy.

Next round will be run in San Diego Saturday next, stay tuned and follow us on Facebook and on Twitter !!!