Sport News And Update

Archive for November, 2009

The HD GoPro Motorsport Hero is a top end digital mounted on-board digital camera. Used for mounting onto cars, ATVs, helmets, motorcycles, planes, snowmobiles, jet skis or really anything that travels too fast to let you use a normal camera.

For those who enjoy motorsports, you’ll know that there are many moments where you pull off a cool bit of steering, or get some air going quickly over a bump, that make you feel like James Bond. Now we all like to be reminded of how James Bond we can be, and so to capture those moments on film would be a great thing to be able to do.

At the same time it’s great to be able to capture the exhilarating feeling of roaring past fauna or dirt tracks and then share that experience with those who don’t share your passion. Another point worth bearing in mind is that when you’re actually driving or riding it can be difficult to know exactly what’s happening. The world all rushes by so quickly and it’s dependent on such split second decisions that you often won’t really register on a conscious level what’s been going on. Again a camera mount can help you to appreciate your own performance and to check out some of the scenery and details you might have missed.

Finally if you’re getting ready for a race then you need to be training and honing your performance. Timing lap times will only do so much however – whereas the ability to look back at what you did and critique your own performance will give you a significant competitive edge. Seeing the lines you took round corners, your reaction times and your vehicle’s performance all from an outside perspective can help you to do it better next time.

This is precisely what the HD Go Pro Motor Sport Hero specialises in. Allowing you to record up to 2.5 hours on a single charge (longer than any track most likely unless you really do need to improve your driving) and with an SD storage card for unlimited storage (the more you need the more SD cards you carry – one 32GB SD card could get you 9 hours). Of course the resolution is also top-notch, both spatial and temporal with quality up to 1080p recorded at 30fps or 720p at 60fps which makes the HD Go Pro Hero currently the highest performance camera on the market.

At the same time the sound is also perfectly honed to pick up the quiet details over the roar of your engine, and there are countless settings to choose from. If you want still photos you can set the camera up to shoot 5MP photos every 2-60 seconds for some stunning high-def images.

Then of course there’s the durability. Protected from bashes and crashes thanks to a removable polycarbonate housing, waterproof up to 180′ (60 meters) and with many replacement parts easily and cheaply available online; this thing will be able to survive and capture your worst moments as well as your best.

Saville won the Booker Prize in 1976. In such a vast novel it is inevitable that the pace will occasionally quicken and slacken, but a book like this can be read over weeks, almost dipped into as the passing phases of Colin’s life unfold. David Story was born in Wakefield, and so was I. It could be argued that his most famous and perhaps still most successful work is “This Sporting Life”, a portrait of a Rugby League player who achieves local fame and then notoriety as his life and career blossom and then fall apart. It was filmed in the early 1960s, with Richard Harris playing the starring role. Along with about 28000 others, I was in Wakefield Trinity’s Belle Vue ground soon after midday to make sure that I got a standing place by the railings next to the pitch to see Trinity play Wigan in a cup-tie. I was only ten and needed to be early because, had I been further back amongst the crowd, I would have seen nothing. Wakefield beat Wigan 5-4, with Fred Smith scoring the only try of the game at my end. They went on to win at Wembley that year, beating Huddersfield in the game where Neil Fox used a drop goal strategy not seen before or since.

But before that cup-tie against Wigan, the packed Trinity ground became a film set. We were all unpaid extras as Richard Harris and members of the Trinity second team filmed some actions Sequences for “This Sporting Life”. I show no disrespect for Richard Harris by recalling that the sequence required a whole string of takes, necessitated by the fact that the star kept dropping the ball! I have seen the film several times, but I have not yet managed to spot my short-trousered legs behind the sticks at the Belle Vue end. They are there, somewhere.

I digress at length from my intended review because Colin, the central character of Saville, could easily have been me, or perhaps my older brother. Like Colin we were brought up in a small Yorkshire mining village. Also like Colin we went to a grammar school and experienced similar tensions and contradictions as a result of social class differences. And again like Colin we both became, as a result of that education, something previous generations of our permanent-feeling community had never aspired to, perhaps never knew existed. Unlike Colin, we did not aspire to become writers, except of course for me, who eventually tried to become one! It was the education that changed everything and this aspect of Saville is beautifully portrayed, right down to the visit to the old Kingswell’s shop in Wakefield to buy the ludicrously expensive school uniform, a source of pride for the miner’s family, but also a pointer indicating how lives will inevitably diverge.

Saville also deals with how social mores were changing in the new second half of the twentieth century. Colin’s parents simply could not relate to how his life was developing, perhaps finding hardest to stomach the individuality that he developed and was determined to express. It was a quality you could not pursue when, as poor people, your lives were always inter-dependent. The communal nature of their poverty made this a desire they could not comprehend and occasionally his pursuit of his own ends was seen by them – perhaps quite rightly – as errant selfishness. Of course, we now live in an age where the individual is the norm, the indivisible unit of society and, perhaps, where an idea of community is mere nostalgia.

Above all else David Storey’s Saville evokes a time and a place. It also evokes a language, a dialect that preserves the use of thee, thy, thou and thine and, although occasionally laboured, the book’s specialised vocabulary and syntax create the sound of a Yorkshire twang.

Saville has no vast themes, no overtly historical settings against which the characters enact their lives. Rather it concentrates on a social and economic setting which was quite peculiar to these mining communities in Yorkshire. But this is the book’s real strength. What we have is a social document, as powerful and yet as specific as some of its nineteenth century equivalents. Now, after the closure of the pits, though the villages remain, these communities have disappeared to be replaced by settings that perhaps offer less chance of social mobility or self-respect than in Saville’s time. This provides and irony that my own novel set in these same places might bring into focus. But in Saville’s time, the idea that the pits would close never entered anyone’s head, a fact which makes Colin’s transformation through the book remarkable, credible and yet ultimately sad, since we now see it as effectively driven by necessity, not choice.

This tournament shall include teams of England, France, Wales, Ireland, Scotland and Italy. Ever since 5 teams became six in the year 2000, only 3 teams which are England, France, and Wales have great chances of winning. The other three teams have realistically very little chance of winning. Wales will be looking to defend their title.
Teams which will win all their matches will also collect the grand slam along with the prestigious Six Nation’s Rugby Trophy.

The tournament will begin on Saturday with first match between England vs. Italy on the 7th February 2009 and Ireland vs. France on the same day. The match scheduling is as follows:

England vs. Italy Sat 7th
Ireland vs. France sat 7th
Scotland vs. Wales Sun 8th
France vs. England 14th
Wales vs. England 14th
Italy vs. Ireland 15th
France vs. Wales 27th
Scotland vs. Italy 28th
Ireland vs. England  28th
Italy vs. Wales 14th Mar
Scotland vs. Italy Sat 14th Mar
England vs. France Sun 15th Mar
Italy vs. France Sat 21st Mar
England vs. Scotland Sat 21st Mar
Wales vs. Ireland Sat 21st Mar

Detailed Overview of the Teams

Wales: There is no argument that Wales are the clear favorites with none of their rival having improved their performance recently; their retaining the Championship is easy. With arguably the worlds best finisher in Williams, coupled with a strong team across the board, it would take a very good side to match the Dragons over 5 games. The match in France shall be the biggest threat to another Grand Slam title.

England & Martin Johnson are in desperate need of a positive campaign after being hammered in the November Internationals. Much will rest on the shoulders of Andy Goode, the fly-half recalled for his first game in over 2 years in the absence of both Danny Cipriani & Toby Flood.

They do have 3 home games this time around but must travel both to Wales & Ireland; they haven’t won in either country since they last won the tournament in 2003.

France:  They can win or lose to anyone on their day and that will never change. The home loss to England last year hurt Les Bleus, however, and they will be looking for revenge at Twickenham on day 4 match. With the pressure on coach Marc Livrement after consecutive defeats to South Africa & Australia, the notorious Parisian crowd may also work against the French if they do not try to take early leads in their home game

Ireland: They haven’t won this competition since 1985 and there is no reason to believe that the Shamrock is any better than their rivals this time. They do have one of the best fixture lists, with home games against England.

Get set for the excitemen and try ScoresPro.com for Rugby Livescore or Rugby Results

Victory Motorcycles consistently beat out the Harley Davidson brand of bikes in quality and serviceability. The new American motorcycle made waves since it appeared on the market years ago, and now diehard Harley riders are turning to Polaris’ Victory cruiser bike line to hit the road with style and piece of mind.

Hardly any Victory bike leaves the shop without new pipes or other specialty Victory parts and accessories added on.

Exhaust pipes more than any other product seem to grace the rear end of Victory motorcycles so riders can be the baddest and loudest bikers on the road.

Bikers love to customize their motorcycles as they take them to various rallies and cruise nights for that award winning one-of-a-kind look.

And for a company like Victory, their brand quality is reflected in their parts as well. Of course, even the worst bike cannot be improved with the best parts.

Buyers should consider researching the bike that best matches their riding style and determine what parts they need, and what parts are about as useful and kitsch as tassels on the ends of bicycle handlebars.

Chrome always makes a motorcycle stand out well. Sometimes even going for specialty all-black parts can really give a cruiser that dark and imposing look.

Online retailers like Full Throttle Motorsports sell these parts and some of the coolest custom cruisers Victory has made, including the limited edition Arlen Ness designed motorcycles.

Arlen, and his son, Corey Ness, made names for themselves as some of the top crafters of motorcycles today, and could be considered the Ed “Big Daddy” Roth team of modern day chopper bikes.

Even Victory motorcycles, with their leading overall quality record according to JD Power and Associates, typically need repairs and maintenance.

Thousands of Victory replacement parts can be purchased and ordered through Full Throttle Motorsports’ online shopping catalog. Orders over $100 even receive free shipping.

Full Throttle Motorsports, Michigan’s leading powersports dealer even sells parts and vehicles for many other types of motorsport brands, including: Yamaha, Suzuki, Polaris, Scwhinn, Piaggio, Vespa, Vectrix, Victory, Ranger, Aprilia, Big Bear Choppers, Big Dog Motorcycles, and may order parts for off-brand vehicles.

Motorcycle repair experts always advise properly winterizing motorcycles if the local climate reaches freezing temperatures. Some suggest storing a motorcycle with a full tank of fuel so that moisture does not seep in the tank during the winter months.

When getting a bike ready after the long winter months, be sure to check for cracks in any liquid reservoirs on the bike and make sure tires have not lost inflation.

Some motorcycle race tracks change their safety requirement rules from time to time. It is important to check with racetracks to make sure ones bike has all of the most recent safety equipment, in order to ride at any race day event.

Of course helmets and protective leathers are practically a requirement for any kind of riding condition.

The first race of the season doesn’t begin until March but with the implementation of the new rules, which was designed to decrease a team’s operational costs as evidenced by Honda’s recent decision to put its team up for sale due to the prevailing ills in the economy worldwide, it is estimated that the teams shall be saving a lot of money.

These rules were agreed upon by Federation International Automobile chairperson Max Mosely and the rest of the team representives during a meeting in December of 2008. I didn’t pay attention to what these changes are the first time it was talked about. But after seeing all the cars for this season, it made me browse through the net in search of these new rules. I also noticed that some races were scrapped and others were included.

So below are the changes viewers will notice once Formula One race season starts on March 27

- Though there are still 17 races in the calendar, the Canadian and French Grand Prix have been dropped. Abu Dhabi is the new race venue.

- Force India shall be using Mercedes engines in their cars this season. The team used Ferrari engines before. But they signed a technical partnership agreement with McLaren Mercedes hence the transfer.

- Martin Whitmarsh, McLaren’s chief operating officer replaces Ron Dennis as McLaren Formula 1 racing team’s top guy. The two men have been working as a tandem even before Dennis decided to quit McLaren to preside over other projects of the McLaren Group. Dennis will still be watching the races but not as often as before.

- Sebastian Vettel, the Scuderia Toro Rosso Ferrari driver who won the race at Monza has switched teams and joined Red Bull Racing as a replacement for the now retired David Coulthard.

- The biggest change that the organizers is enforcing is the rule of eliminating all areodynamic features of the car’s bodywork and wings. The cars also have a wider front wing and a narrower and higher rear wing. The purpose is to give the driver more chances to overtake during a race by increasing mechanical grip while decreasing downforce created by the leading car’s aerodynamics.

- Slick tires make its comeback with groove tires replaced.

- KERS or Kinetic Energy Recovery System may be used optionally in the cars for this season. What a KERS unit does is it stores kinetic energy produced by the heat given off during braking and stores it. The driver can then use the stored energy with a flick of a switch to give the car extra power.  The rules though limit the unit to releasing a maximum of 80 horsepower for seven seconds each lap. It should not add up the rpm, which is at 18,000 but may provide the driver the added power when trying to pass a driver or when defending one’s position.

- Other rule changes include the ban on testing during the season. All in-season testing shall be performed during the open Friday practice sessions on race day weekends.

- Drivers must use the same engines for three consecutive race weekends, with each driver in a team having eight. To improve an engine’s durability, rev limit were reduced to 18,000 from the previous 19,000.

With these changes, each driver is in a level playing field, with their championship hopes resting on the fact that all of the teams have to adjust and adjust fast to these new rules.

See the live Formula One race results at ScoresPro.com