Finally

Sorry, it was a busy week trying to cover a GNCC I didn't go to so I am only able to get to my stuff from Hangtown now.

And by the way, as far as GNCC is concerned, we finally have a battle on our hands as a gang of Anzacs (a Kiwi and two Aussies) swept the podium at the Kentucky race and David Knight crashed back to fifth. And Knight was getting heavy pressure when he crashed, so it's not like they got lucky.

Anyway, the 450 thumper has once again proven to be the great equalizer. A bunch of privateers are trying to become "this year's Gavin Gracyk" and they're turning heads. Tops of that list right now is Steve Boniface, who turned in two good rides at Glen Helen and then two even better rides at Hangtown. Boniface looked super fast and smooth in practice on Saturday and backed it up with two good starts and two inspired rides in the motos. French guy fought for every inch of the track, battled the injured Townley and Short, and ended up 5th overall. He basically has no ride and no support and is just hoping to get something somewhere. This weekend he'll be in France to try a GP and see if anything sticks there. The big difference between Boniface and Gracyk '07 is that Boniface is a known commodity. Gracyk's potential upside was the great unknown last year, but Boniface has been around and had his chances.

Sean Hamblin has, too. But like Boniface, he's got motivation again and he's riding as well as ever. His results don't show the true story, as Hamblin moved from midpack into the top ten in moto one only to stall and lose a half lap restarting. He got 15th. In moto two , he had bike problems on the starting line, did a quick fix, rode a few laps and had to pull into the pits, and then came out on fire and charged all the way back to 18th. If you can get top 20 with a pit stop, you're going fast. If Hamblin has two more good weekends and Josh Hill has two more bad ones, you're going to see fans picketing in front of the Yamaha semi to get Hamblin on a works bike.

Jeff Alessi is flying the privateer colors strong now, too. I was super nervous putting him on my fantasy team last weekend. Tony Alessi told me Jeff would be fast, but that's as reliable as source as going to Hillary's campaign chief to ask about her chances (he said last week she would win it all). Jeff came through in the first moto for seventh and would have done the same in moto two until his shoulder popped out. But he popped it back in to help salvage 15th place for the Weigandt Warriors team. I thanked Jeff for that when I saw him at the airport on Monday.

So what's the deal with Josh Hill? He's done with Ryno now because Ryno picked up Broc Hepler, and Hilly didn't want to share a trainer with another 450 guy. Since that all happened, Hepler got hurt, leaving Ryno with no one, and then Hill suddenly started busting the belt out of his pants again and mooning everyone during the motos. Is it possible to get that out of shape that quickly? Hylton from Parts Unlimited told me Thor got the wrong size pants for Hill, and Hill told me his belt broke. That makes sense, except for the fact that Hill pants were also coming down in just about every moto last year. I don't think motocross pants are capable of containing what must be the longest lower back in the sport today. Maybe they can just make a Thor onesie?

Anyway, I think Hill will get better. He rode better in Hangtown and sometimes the younger riders just need a few races to figure out the pressure and the pace and stuff when they move to the big class. A few years ago, Davi Millsaps moved up and sucked at Hangtown, and then battled Chad Reed for a podium the next weekend at High Point. I think Hill's breakthrough moto is coming.

Ivan Tedesco is coming around, too. IT goes fast because he rides aggressive, and I think it takes him awhile to get comfortable doing that. Last year he missed the first few outdoor rounds with a concussion, and when he returned at Budd's Creek, he was a shell of himself. A month later at Unadilla, he finally looked aggressive again. Same thing in supercross, he looked timid in the first few races this year and then suddenly found his aggression in San Francisco. Then he got hurt. He looked timid at Glen Helen, and considerably less so at Hangtown. I'm pumped for IT, he deserves a few good rides.

Ben Townley is hurt, but that guy has come back from way worse to go fast again. Even the knee injury that took him out of nearly the entire 2006 season wasn't the worst he's had to deal with, BT told me that when he first came to America to ride for KTM, he crashed testing for supercross and said he nearly died. He recovered and won a World Championship. Some guys know how to deal with pain and block out the fear once they're recovered. Ben's one of those guys.

A lot of riders in the Lites class left Glen Helen believing they could run with the "big five" of RV, Stroupe, Dungey, Metcalfe and Lawrence. Unfortunately, a bunch of them had the chance to prove they could at Hangtown, and they didn't. Trey Canard is obviously capable of getting in there, but I think it will be mid season before we see anyone else consistently finishing in front of those main five riders.

Jake Weimer had the most inconsistent supercross season ever, and rectified things by finishing seventh in the first three 0utdoor motos of the year. But he dropped to a dissapointing 10th in the fourth moto of the year. You know what that 7-10 made him overall? Seventh.

Are you coming to Texas (or just staying there and coming to the race?) We'll crank up the Racer X Motocross Show Presented by Toyota live in the Toyota Zone on Vendor's row at 11 a.m. on Saturday. Come on by and get yourself on camera. Toyota hooked me up with a sweet 1983 Corolla with 372,000 miles on the ticker so please show them some love. Car has vinyl seats and the brand people tell me it was garage kept with one owner. Must have been a smoking owner.

24 motos of advertising

Not much more to say than this: Stewart and Villopoto are doing what everyone is afraid of. They're establishing dominance early. Could this be 2004? When Stewart destroyed the 125s every week and Carmichael did the same in the 250s, basically making the whole season into a big ad for 2005? So many elements are similar, from the rider in the main class (Carmichael then, Stewart now) possibly switching teams, to the rider in the smaller class (Stewart then, Villopoto now) matching the lap times of his future rival despite using a smaller bike. The racing for the win was boring today, I'll be honest. But 2004 was even worse, because Carmichael won every moto and Stewart won 23 out of 24 of his. The sport survived, and we will this year, too.

And I know, it's early in the season, but right now this is starting to seem like destiny.

Hangtown Practice 2

The track is running in reverse this year, and I'm not sure if the riders actually like it this way. There were a few odd transitions yesterday, such as where the track hooked back onto the first turn. There was an odd little jump to get the riders over the berm on the outside of the first turn. But the AMA picked up on that and removed the jump, and now the section flows much better. My colleague Steve Cox would like to take credit for this because he told the AMA the section would be better without the jump. However, Cox thinks removing the jump will open up passing opportunities. I say he hasn't won, then, until someone makes a pass in that section.

The fine tuning of the track after yesterday's practice has led to faster lap times. Way faster. Lites riders were a good 4-5 seconds faster than they were yesterday, and then James Stewart came out and went so fast that I think he actually went faster than the speed of time, and we're now operating on Eastern Standard Time. James has actually won the first moto now, two hours before it starts.

Okay, he was four seconds a lap faster than everyone else. But that is a time zone in motocross terms.

Everyone else is closely matched on times, Mike Alessi, Ferry, Millsaps. Except a podium battle between that gang, while Andrew Short and Ivan Tedesco look a hare off of that pace, and Ben Townley should basically wear a suit of ice packs after taking yet another big header in practice yesterday. If you're counting at home, Townley now has a bad shoulder and ankle, and he sliced his elbow open pretty bad during the week. Dude.

In the Lites, this is another chance for the field to either A) prevent Ryan Villopoto from walking away and building confidence or B) piss off Ryan Villopoto by running with him again and then really making him work hard and kill everyone for the rest of the summer. At some point last year, Townley had gotten into RV's head a bit, and RV responded by digging deeper and getting stronger. So it's a dangerous game to play with him out there--beating him now may only make it worse later.

Still, you're looking at six big faves in the Lites, RV, Stroupe, Metty, J-Law and Canard, and a bunch of riders desperate to hook onto that.

Tune into our webcast at 12:30 Pacific (unless Stewart really did ruin our time zone). We'll have interviews with a ton of big names on our pre show, including Millsaps and Short, as well as surprise speedsters from like week like Ryan Sipes and Matt Lemoine.

www.Live.motocross.com Be ready.

Practice at Hangtown

First, I'm updating this from the NPG/AMA Media Tent! High speed internet from the motocross track! Better yet, while I'm typing this I'm watching the live lap times from the GNCC over at www.gnccracing.com High speed internet from the motocross and the GNCC on the same day!

Anyway I am desperate to step up my performance in the MotoXDream.com fantasy leagues this year, because I almost lost my Racer X Office Championship to Billy Ursic in Supercross (I only won on a ridiculous technicality in the rules where we had one throw away score, so I sandbagged and skipped the Seattle race so I would have all the big hitters available for Vegas for a massive one week score and championship).

So I have been snooping for dark horse top ten picks. Cody Cooper paid off last weekend. This week I have the suddenly fast Steve Boniface, and then Tony Alessi told me Jeff Alessi was faster than Mike riding this week. Now, I know the A number one rule of motocross journalism is to ALWAYS take Tony Alessi hype with a grain of salt. But there was Jeff, running top five in the second moto in Glen Helen. There was Jeff, top ten lap times all weekend here.

Jeff. Don't crash. Please.

The man, the myth, the media

GNCC this weekend in Kentucky, AMA/Toyota Motocross this weekend at Hangtown. I'm in Vegas for a layover so you can guess which one I was assigned to.

The second round of a series can work two ways. You either have a wild first round which essentially proves nothing--i.e supercross this year, when Stewart crashed in the first turn and Reedy won, hence not proving who the faster man was. Or you could have the Glen Helen scenario, where Stewart checks out from everyone. At that point, all the questions are answered. Do you honestly expect #800 to find 30 seconds of speed by the end of the moto? Or anyone else to find 45?

Time to enjoy this James Stewart ride, just like he seems to be enjoying it. I can tell you he's loving life right now. Back in 2003 and 2004, I covered the 125 class at the Nationals for Cycle News. James was unbeatable back in those days, and he had so much fun with it that he'd often make up stories just to give us cool stuff to write about. At one race he ran into another rider on accident, and when he was asked about it at the post-race press conference, he blamed his bike:
"That's my bike, it's like that car in the movie Christina. It just goes where it wants and hunts people down."

James ran the Christina theme for the rest of the press conference. The next week, he was on to something new. But he never failed to hand over a money quote and make the crowd laugh.

Last weekend at the press conference, I asked him if he felt 100 percent. He just stared back, as if to say "wasn't that obvious?" Everyone laughed. When he's on, he does it all, and I think we might get all of it this year.

Sound Off

In order for me to put up a post without doing much work, I now present this link to a story about building a new motocross track in Washington State. It's not easy to do nowadays.

Glen Helen

This guy looks happy to be here.

Apologies for not posting here over the weekend, but I sold out on the blog to work with the Racer X Motocross Show and the Racer X Webcast for the first time this year. So instead of in-depth analysis, you got my super-outdated post from Friday about rain and MotoBowl. Worse yet, one of the members of my bowling team actually read that post, and took offense to what I wrote. I was supposed to be making fun of myself and my very light level of stardom, but once again I’ve made someone mad.

So let’s keep that theme going with my rundown on Glen Helen. Maybe I will offend again. And thanks for Carl Stone for the photos.

Working with David Bailey was incredible. I’ve said it before, but the 1994 Nationals on ESPN featured Dave Despain and Bailey in the booth, and that was the best moto broadcast team ever. Alas, that summer was the only time they ever worked together. A good 14 years later I got my shot to be Despain, which is kind of like Suzuki telling Mike Alessi “This is Carmichael’s bike so go out and beat Stewart now, okay?” Anyway, I tried and DB was awesome as always. Motocross presents a lot of intangibles. You can break down football with X’s and O’s, but motocross requires an explanation of invisible elements like what’s going on inside a rider’s head during a moto. Bailey usually nails it, and he did again this time.

James Stewart looked better than I’ve ever seen him look outdoors. Without Carmichael there it’s hard to judge if he really is better than last year, but it sure looked that way. Plus, James now knows he can win races and fans over like he did before tangling with the GOAT. For years people have been hoping to see the old 125 class James come back. That James loved the spotlight and seemed to have fun every second of the day. But when you’re used to nothing but positives in your life, like winning every race and getting every cheer, getting beat by RC and booed by fans takes a toll. Those days are over, and I hope James gets his love of the game back, because the whole sport needs it.

Poor Mike Alessi tried hard to stop him. I wouldn’t have expected Mike to have gapped Ferry and the Honda boys by 20 seconds or so, but the boy has been putting in the work. Is he even close to Stewart? Nope, but he presents a difficult combo to beat in case Stewart does have trouble again. You know that Mike will get the holeshot and be consistent all year—which means he will gather a lot of points. The rest of the factory guys had mixed days. Davi Millsaps showed some heart riding through a few problems to a 3-3. I know Ferry was bummed with his 4-4. Townley actually rode better than I thought he would. He looked really deliberate in practice on Saturday and Sunday, and I thought maybe he was still struggling to mentally overcome his recent injuries. But when the races started, he rode well enough to have gotten on the podium if not for some bad luck. Michael Byrne was better than I thought he would be after coming back from such major knee surgery (his injury was even worse than Stewart’s).

Behind the factory guys comes the “hoping to be this year’s Gavin Gracyk” pack. One of them was Sean Hamblin, who was actually “this year’s Gavin Gracyk” before Gavin Gracyk. Hamblin rode brilliantly to 7^th overall. And Sean was just as strong late in the moto as he was in the beginning. He’s working hard and with a few more rides like this, he may actually have some confidence. He hasn’t had that for a long time. When he gets it you’ll know, because then he’ll actually get some starts. Sean is one of those guys who doesn’t get starts when he doesn’t expect to do well. Kind of like David Vuillemin completely losing his starting ability at about the same time he lost some speed. And the exact opposite of Alessi, who would rather get the start and get run over in the whoops than start 10^th and finish 10^th.

Check out all of the sponsor logos on Hamblin's jersey.

Steve Boniface and Juss Laansoo are both only set to ride the first few rounds of the season, and then the travel budget will wear out and their season will end. The hope is to perform well enough at Glen Helen and Hangtown to get a ride from a team after that. Boniface rode well with an 11-12, but the Juss wasn’t as fortunate with a 17-29. Juss should be better at Hangtown, but I don’t know if he’ll be better enough.

Jeff Alessi was solid, too. That kid crashes hard so darned often, I’m amazed that he always gets back out there. Then again, I don’t think the Alessi clan knows any other way but to race. Jeff would probably keep racing even if, as they said in Rocky IV, “His body says stop but his spirit cries never.” Although the spirit crying never could be his dad or his brother. Love or hate the Alessis, but never doubt their desire (and I’m still convinced Mike will be a fan favorite by the end of the year).

Anyway, Jeff was fifth for a long time in moto two until he finally wore down. He told me he didn’t get winded, but his lats (side muscles under your shoulders) always get tired at Glen Helen. Those aching lats cost him a few positions late in the moto.

Another dark horse? California’s Jared Browne, who would have gone something like 16-13 if his bike hadn’t quit on the last lap of he first moto. Instead he went 26-13.

And the dark horse who wasn’t a dark horse was Kiwi Cody Cooper, who everyone seemed to know would be fast. Cooper apparently has been going faster than Townley and Ivan Tedesco while training back in Florida. Brake troubles cost him in moto one, but he came back for sixth in moto two. That’s bad news for the rest of the guys hoping to become “This Year’s Gavin Gracyk,” because if Coops keeps it up, Roger D and the Suzuki guys will start hooking him up.

Cody "Air Time Super Sky Trooper" Cooper

Chad Reed showed up just to watch the races. Chad held court a bit on Sunday afternoon, and he told me (and the rest of the pack of onlookers who hung on his every word) that last summer he was looking to party and have fun (sorry, Jeff Ward) but this year he’s kind of done with that, and now he’s bored already. So he jumped on a plane at 6 a.m. on Sunday just to watch. Why not just race? He probably would have if the whole L&M racing troubles didn’t take place. Anway, Chad is in awesome form right now and he’s not afraid to talk trash. Again, if done right, he could be a legend, but I don’t think people will take his comments well so I’m not repeating anything.

Austin Austin Austin! Be it the bike or the rider, for some reason Austin Stroupe seemed like a he would get his first outdoor win before Trey Canard. Stroupe delivered. Canard was good, too, but just a shade off even in the second moto when he had a better start. But the ceiling is high on both of these kids. Give either an extra shot of confidence and they may really start putting it together. I still think RV is the man in this class, but it will be a dangerous game for him until he goes on a win streak and breaks the spirit of everyone else. Right now he just doesn't have the invincibility cloak. I think everyone in the industry owes Brett Mettcalfe an apology. Was anyone talking about this guy before the nationals began? Well, he’s right where he honestly should be, which is at the front of the pack. If Brett can just avoid being in the wrong place at the wrong time, like unfortunately usually happens to him, he will have a great season and could get a win.

Lemoine led a strong charge for the newly named Division 7/Star Racing team

Team Division 7/Star Racing Yamaha needs some props after snagging four top-ten moto scores from Matt Lemoine, Broc Tickle and Jake Moss. Wil Hahn looked good, too, and the bikes looked fast. Team Owner Bobby Reagan liked my jokes at the supercross banquet, as well, so I would have given the team credit even if they sucked.

Everyone wants to talk horsepower in the Lites class, although David Bailey wisely pointed out that getting in and out of the corner before Mount St. Helen is just as critical as actually having a fast bike. Still, when you see Jason Lawrence get a holeshot and win a moto while the next best on his team is Tyler Bowers with an 18-18, you have to wonder if Jason is overachieving.

J-Law wearing a damn chest protector?! Is he really taking this seriously?

As far as those supercross banquet jokes go, I didn’t even write about it here on the blog because I left that show too confused to really interpret anything. All I know is that people weren’t laughing. Now that I’ve seen everyone again, I have gotten a rash of, “Man, I thought it was hilarious but everyone around me wasn’t laughing for some reason.” So really, I still don’t know what to think.