My ad guy Mike Keller and I were out running a few errands today and we happened to end up in the Long Beach area. While we were there we decided to stop by and see our pals over at Fasst Co. In case you’re not familiar with Fasst Co.’s Flexx bars, they are badass. We all run them on staff and they are the sh*t.

Fasst President Cole Townsend and his VP Chris Tidwell also happen to be some pretty badass dudes. They are so into their product, it’s ridiculous. And for good reason—the bars are really a great product. They take pride in the fact that their stuff is American-made, it’s super high quality, and it flat-out works. They even make bars for shopping carts! Kidding of course…but now that I’ve seen their retrofit cart, I don’t know if I could ever shop with a stocker again…

For more info, go to www.fasstco.com. In the meantime, check out the pics from today. And if you need a set of bars, call them up and tell them Doogie sent you.

So I’d like to thank them for all the shirts and their help in keeping me clothed during my trip out here for the next few weeks!

Check out my post below to see some behind the scenes pics from their shop.

Today I headed over to Two Brothers Racing to check out their facility. For those of you that may not be familiar with Two Brothers, they make a wide variety of exhaust systems for street bikes, dirt bikes and of course ATV and side-by-side applications. I met up with their Marketing consultant Angela Whitten and her husband Jeff Whitten, who is Two Brother’s Vice President. I also got a cool tour of the place from Joel Albrecht, the R&D Manager at Two Bros.

Two Brothers has been supporting both our print magazine and our website pretty heavily since we started. I just wanted to take the time to tell our readers to make sure they share some web love and go check out their site as well at www.twobros.com.

In the meantime, check out the pics from their facility! The place is pretty amazing - the front lobby has some pretty cool graffiti all over the walls and there is something cool waiting around almost every corner. You’ll see what I mean!

I know I’ve been slackin’ on my blog. I actually got to California a little over a week ago, but I’ve been wide-open since my plane landed.

The first weekend I got here I went up to Northern California with Brant Russell from Yoshimura. To be totally honest, we were both just looking for an excuse to head north up the 395 to do a little fly-fishing in Bishop. From there we headed up all the way up to Reno, NV looking for some secret fishing spots.

If you’ve never been up to that area - it’s absolutely stunning. We’re working on a cool story idea to try and pull off in the area. I’ll hit you all up with details soon!

Hey everyone -

I had a couple pics I wanted to share with you all today. Quad Magazine contributor Lance Schwartz drove from his house in central PA roughly the four hours to my house in South Jersey for a shoot with our Honda 700XX.

We’re going to do a follow-up test on the 700XX in an upcoming issue. To give you a little back story… When we went out to the Honda intro for the 700XX, it was held at Dumont dunes. The assembled media got to ride it in the nearby rocky desert as well as the dunes. If you didn’t read our review on the machine, in a nutshell, I wasn’t a huge fan of the machine. I felt it had a few issues and quirks—all of which were magnified in the soft sand in the dunes.

Honda was obviously bummed about our review (and pretty much all the other mags seemed to pan it as well - some more brutally than others).

Anyway, after I got back I told Honda that I really wanted to test the machine back east where I thought it might do a little better. I thought it would be better suited out here. I even wrote that at the end of my review…I would reserve total judgment until we got a test unit back here.

Right now Lance is going to put in a few weeks aboard the machine. I don’t want him to write one word until he has spent a ton of seat time aboard the machine in a number of different riding environments. I have to admit that I was surprised to actually give a Honda product a negative review - I think that for the most part their machines are stellar. I’m just not a big 700XX fan I guess. But - that’s why Lance is spending more time on it (as well as a few of our other testers so we can get a fair breakdown from multiple people).

We’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, enjoy the pics! And drop me a line if you’re a 700XX owner - I’d love to hear your stories as well.

Doogie

So I just got home from the Pleasure Valley Raceway GNC in Johnstown PA and I wanted to put together a real quick blog… One of my favorite people behind the scenes at the races is Yoshimura’s Ryan Cox. No matter how busy he is or how stressed he may be - the dude is always super friendly to me whenever I walk into their pits.

Today is Ryan’s birthday, and in honor of the event, the team all gathered around at the end of the race and surprised him with a cake. Even Ryan’s old partner in crime - Yamaha mechanic, Paul Turner - stopped by to take part in the festivities.

[ Side note - I have to say that I'm also partly writing this because my Managing Editor Cassandra knows how fond I am of eating cake (and pies and candy and maybe even ice cream). I am proud to say that throughout the race day I only ate two small apples and had one super thin grilled chicken cutlet. I did however stop at BK on the way home to slam down a quick cheeseburger with a strawberry shake and ate an entire big bag of Lifesavers. Hey - at least I tried to pretend during the race that I eat well!]

Anyway, I just wanted to wish Ryan a happy birthday - I hope you have a great year!

I have a poster shoot set up tomorrow morning with the lovely Miss Suzi Lorraine. It’s funny - we’ve actually used Suzi in the magazine before. Since I was thinking of using her again as a poster model, I started to worry that maybe using her again might not be a good idea - we haven’t re-used a model yet. But then I started going back to see how long ago it was since we had used her. I figured a few issues had certainly passed, but I wasn’t exactly sure just how many months it had really been.

Turns out it’s been over 2 years since I shot Suzi for her poster! When I shot the poster it ran in our February 2006 issue - which was issue #4. We’re currently working on issue #27.

So I’m guessing enough time has gone by for us to revisit Suzi again.

With that said, do you have any favorite past models that you’re just dying to see in the magazine again? Anyone else out there that we should revisit one more time?

Drop me a line in the comments section - the girl with the most votes will get the nod and we’ll see if she’s ready to reprise her role as a Quad Magazine poster girl.

My friend Stephanie McIntyre sent me this cool picture today. Anyone close to the racing scene knows Stephanie - she works for Racer Productions and is the new Series Administrator for the GNC series. She simply wrote - “BTW, I thought you might like this!”

Well at first I thought she was just sending me a cool podium shot (which is a very cool shot by the way). Then I looked again a little closer and noticed the awesome banner placement in the background!

Thanks Steph! 

I was so mad tonight, I wanted to punch my own balls off…

Here’s the deal. I called my buddy Kevin earlier today and asked him if he could help me with a quick photoshoot after dinner. I had to shoot about 10 different mud tires, so I had to set up the background, all the lights, clean up the tires, etc… Believe it or not, there’s quite a lot involved in setting up a studio to shoot products. 

To make a long story short, things were humming along nicely - we had all the tires clean and in place. I just drank an ice tea…I was feeling good…

Anyway, I had my brand new Nikon D3 sitting on one of my camera boxes. For some reason, I picked up the camera by the top, not even thinking twice. Well, the dangling camera strap must have snagged on the box and WHAM!!! … the camera slammed to the ground from about a foot or two high and it made a sickening sound as it smacked the ground.

You know that scene in the movie “A Christmas Story” when little Ralphie knocks over all the lugnuts?

Oh FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDDDDDGGGGGGEEEEEEEEE.

Yeah. That’s what I screamed.

I quickly scooped up my cherished D3 and cradled it like a wounded child. It looked back at me with a “dude, what the hell?” kind of look… My 50mm lens was torn up and the outer focusing ring was smashed and cracked. There were also some very minor scratches on the camera body itself (minor as in Enrico would laugh at me if he saw it…then would continue using his own D3 to hammer out some dents in some nearby sheet metal or something).

I felt sick. Not because the camera cost $5000 (hey, thanks TransWorld - and I really, really hope my boss isn’t reading this). It also had nothing to do with the fact that it was a bonehead move and I was mad because my buddy was sitting there watching the stupidity all go down… Unfortunately it’s because I am a super anal-retentive gear freak and I can’t stand it when my cameras are even the slightest bit dirty. I shoot in some of the muddiest, grimiest, dirtiest conditions imaginable…yet my  gear is borderline mint condition at all times. I spend hours cleaning my stuff after most photoshoots.

So now, my D3 is forever going to be tainted. I’ll always wonder if that one crash has done something to it internally… Will it fail me when I need it most during a shoot? Will it let me down like I let it down?

It better not. I’m shooting a hot poster model this Friday, so it better hold out until then!

Hey everyone - I hope you all had a nice 4th of July weekend! We had a badass fireworks display last Thursday night, and then, as if on cue, it started raining the rest of the weekend. It’s Monday and it’s still crappy out!

So with all this lousy weather, I was stuck inside quite a bit this weekend. I figured I’d make the best of it and try to be a little more productive (there’s only so much I can take of lying around on the sofa all weekend playing Mario Kart). I decided to go through and organize a bunch of my old photos. It was then that I figured it might be cool for me to start posting some of my favorites over the past few years. Then I realized that maybe I should make this a regular fixture here on my blog. So…with that said, here’s my first “Photo of the week”.

This pic is one of my all-time favorites that I shot. I’m not a big “shoot in the pits” kinda guy. When I go to a race, 99% of my attention is focused on shooting the two pro motos. I took this shot at Budd’s Creek - I think it was either 2002 or 2003. The first pro moto was about to start and I was making my way towards the starting line. As I was walking through the pits I walked past Jeremiah Jones’ trailer. As I casually looked over, there was JJ, deep in thought. I can’t say exactly what was going through his mind as I didn’t dare bother him - I didn’t want to say a word. He looked like he was concentrating intensely and was only focused on the race. I quickly snapped off one shot because it was so rare to capture a moment like this.

For the life of me, I don’t remember how JJ did in this race - if he won or not. The only thing I remember from this day at all is grabbing this shot as it quickly became my favorite from not only that race, but the rest of the season as well. JJ has been one of my favorite racers and I can’t tell you how nice it is to see him at the races today. He’s one of the most decent people I know. If you’re at a race, make sure you stop by the Suzuki semi and say hi. 

Anyway, I’ll do my best to keep this “Photo of the week” thing going. Hope you enjoy it!