Thanks to a very generous donation from Volvo Cars of North America and Volvo of Stamford, I will be joining Team LIVESTRONG for the NYC Half-Marathon on March 21. Volvo and Volvo of Stamford have donated $2,000 to LIVESTRONG to help raise awareness and fight cancer.

You can also donate to my running effort at the NYC Half-Marathon by going to my LIVESTRONG Fundraising Page and making any sort of donation, even if it’s only $1; every donation helps.

I’ve already posted about this on Twitter, but wanted to add it to my site. Here is my lap of qualifying that put us 5th on the starting grid for the Fresh From Florida 200 at Daytona International Speedway during the first race of the 2010 Grand-Am Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge season.

The video is brought to you by Redline Coffee. Remember, you can use the code “RILEYRACING” for a 15% discount on any order, and use the code “RILEYRACINGCLUB” to get 2 free half-pound bags of any coffee.

Sunday, November 1, marked the beginning of Movember 2009. What is Movember? Here’s a quick description from their site:

Movember is an annual, month-long celebration of the moustache, highlighting men’s health issues – specifically prostate and testicular cancer.

The idea for Movember was sparked in 2003 over a few beers in Melbourne, Australia.  The guys behind it joked about 80s fashion and decided it was time to bring the moustache back.  In order to justify their Mos (Australian slang for moustache), they used their new looks to raise money for prostate cancer research… never dreaming that facial hair would ultimately lead to a global movement that would get men talking about a taboo subject – their health.

A Mo Bro starts Movember – the month formerly known as November – clean shaven, and grows a moustache all month long, garnering support from friends and family in the form of donations.  What’s more, a Mo Bro is a walking billboard for the cause as his new look opens the door for him to talk about cancers affecting men – making the moustache a symbol, much like the pink ribbon is for breast cancer.  Each Movember culminates in a Gala Partè in major cities around the globe where Mo Bros dress up to match their Mo, channeling the likes of Tom Selleck, Ghandi and Ron Burgandy, vying for the ultimate accolade:  Man of Movember.

While growing a Mo is left to the guys, Mo Sistas (women who support their guys) form an important part of Movember by recruiting Mo Bros, helping to raise funds and attending the highly anticipated Gala Partés.

This Movember, the money raised in the U.S. will be split between the Prostate Cancer Foundation and the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

The Prostate Cancer Foundation will use the money raised by Movember to fund research to find better treatments and a cure for prostate cancer.  

The Lance Armstrong Foundation will use the money raised by Movember to fund:
•    the LIVESTRONG Young Adult Alliance program which has the goal of improving survival rates and quality of life for young adults with cancer between the ages of 15 and 40. 
•    research initiatives to further understand the biology of adolescent and young adult cancers.

To date, Movember has raised $47 million globally making it the world’s largest charity event for men. Significantly, awareness of men’s health issues has improved with Movember helping to spread important health messages directly to millions of Mo Bros & Sistas around the world. 

We challenge you to join us in changing the face of men’s health.

Join my Movember team here: Riley Racing Movember Team

After all the complaining Jarno Trulli has already done from his crash into Adrian Sutil at Interlagos 2 weeks ago, he still continues to cry foul. Not only does he continue to defend his viewpoint, but he even has pictures to show to Sutil to prove he is right! Sutil left plenty of room for Trulli. He needs to stop complaining. Move on.

[F1-Live and Autosport]

This past weekend brought championship success yet again to Valentino Rossi and Sebastien Loeb. Two great champions; Rossi on two wheels, Loeb on four. I figure that next year, they should take a wheel away from each competitor. Rossi will only have one wheel, and Loeb only three. How else is the competition going to have a chance?

Congrats to the champions, yet again.

[MotoGP.com and Wikipedia]

I finally got a Google Wave invite and can be found at jamesoncriley@googlewave.com. If anyone else has an account, feel free to send me a request. Otherwise, just leave your Wave account in the comments.

A while ago, my father discovered YouTube, and decided that he would start searching for possible sightings of him at either Woodstock (the original) or some of the Watkins Glen Formula 1 Grand Prix from the ’70s. Sure enough, he found, well, himself. There he was, at the 1971 Watkins Glen Grand Prix at 21 years of age. Unforunately, the YouTube video disappeared, and we couldn’t find the video anywhere…

So just the other day, I did a search on Google for the video……..and found it! My father Chris Riley (boss of Riley Racing) can be found at film time :13 at the far right, just behind Jody Sheckter. He’s got dark long hair, a mustache, and a white shirt.

This past Sunday, my brother (AJ Riley / @ajriley) and I went skydiving at Skydive The Ranch in Gardiner, NY. I had watched a YouTube video of skydiving earlier in the week, and made the quick decision that we were going to do it that Sunday. It was a great experience, and I’m sure that I’ll be back doing it again very soon.

Skydive The Ranch from Jameson Riley on Vimeo.

Luca Badoer has been given the chance of a lifetime to race for Scuderia Ferrari in Formula 1, and he’s slower than the 19 year old rookie from Toro Rosso, Alguersuari. Not only is this embarrassing to Badoer and his abilities, but it is an even greater mistake by Ferrari and Di Montezemolo. Why didn’t Ferrari learn from other teams’ mistakes of using a test driver to replace a racing driver in a Grand Prix weekend? Most recently, De la Rosa got a chance in the McLaren and while still running a decent pace for the event weekend, a regular test driver just cannot be expected to jump into a Formula 1 car and be competing for a win, or even points, during a Grand Prix event.

Marc Gene has just recently won the 24 hrs of Le Mans with Peugeot, so why not use Gene to replace the injured Massa? Many speculate that Ferrari wanted to payback their loyal test driver, but at what cost? This is a Championship winning outfit, why would you put a driver in a car just for loyalty? Why wasn’t Ferrari loyal to Schumacher when they kicked him out of the team to make room for Raikkonen? These are questions that will likely remain unanswered.

Ferrari will obviously wait to see what sort of race results Badoer can provide before replacing him for GP events, but Ferrari needs to make sure they get a driver who has been racing recently, and can at least lap faster than 20th place.