Reporter

Just heard some old curmegeon say this on ESPNRadio: "I am a reporter. I am not a journalist. What is a journalist? Someone who makes journals?"

Good point--and I hope no one tells him about bloggers. This weekend I'm hoping to do more, um, reporting from the races, and I'll have plenty to report since this is the double stacked weekend. I have supercross in Indy and then Sunday morning I fly to Florida for the opening GNCC. It's always good to go to Florida at this time of year. We race ATVs on Sunday and bikes on "Super Tuesday," and then I get a few extra days of Daytona hi-jinks in before heading to Georgia for GNCC number 2. This is one of the most fun weeks of the year, not as good as Loretta's, but pretty darned good. We may get some riding in, we may get to visit Matthes over at Tim Ferry's house (TF15 now has a broken tailbone. Maybe Steve can help him....okay, that's enough). I know on Wednesday night it will be on in Daytona. I'll also visit my old man friend Tim in St. Pete. Should be good.

But I'm keeping my eyes on the prize. Reporting. I have a new trick up my sleeve to fix the crappy post-race interviews we do on the Supercross Live! shows. It's top secret, and hence I will share it only here for you "bloggers" or even "blog readers."

I'm going to write stuff down. Sounds crazy I know but I'm going to do it. I am going to write a few questions for each top riders before the race, and if they happen to make the top three and get on our show I'll have stuff ready for them. Then, I will take notes DURING the race and maybe generate a question or two from that. I'm a damned genius.

For example, I learn stuff from watching the supercross TV show every week (too bad the announcers don't seem to notice the same stuff). For example, in San Diego Chad Reed went inside on a step-on-step off to pass Millsaps for the lead on lap one. Millsaps later moved over and blocked that move on the second lap, so Reed had to adjust and try a different corner to make the pass later. He passed Davi on the start straight. When Millsaps got the lead later in the race (after Reed fell) Millsaps again blocked the move, so then Reed had to make a move in the sand. It was cool, but by the time I saw all of it closely enough on TV, our webcast was over. Unfortunately, it's hard to pick up on all of this stuff from about 200 feet away in the press box, but I watched those guys very closely in Atlanta, and I picked up on more such Reed and Millsaps work there. In the heat race, Millsaps kept taking a stupid inside line heading onto the start straight, and then stumbled big time in the sandy first turn. He was faster everywhere else, but those two corners made all the difference.

In the main, Millsaps fixed all that and was able to shadow Reed. This led Reed to an adjustment, trying to charge into the Wall/Stop Jump . He crashed.

This type of adjustment is the stuff riders don't tell you about until you pull it out of them. In San Diego, I only saw it the next day on TV and then I never wrote it down to ask Millsaps about it at the next race. In Atlanta, I didn't write it down during the race so I didn't ask him again. I'm going to write stuff down now and we'll see if it makes me a better reporter.

But once I get to Florida I'll just be hanging with buddies and all semblance of professional reporting will go out the window.